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e49op3
|
How did belief in Greek Mythology die out and what replaced them ?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e49op3/how_did_belief_in_greek_mythology_die_out_and/
|
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"The basic answer for the broader definition of Greek Myth/Religion is Christianity, but I think that broad definition isn't necessarily what most people think of when they say \"Greek Mythology\" today. The storybook version of 12 Olympian gods and series of concrete stories about each of them never existed. There were always competing or contradicting versions, and that didn't bother the ancient Greeks. In fact, many of the most popular stories are best preserved in their Roman forms by the *Metamorphoses* of Ovid.\n\n\nIt's hard for us to wrap our heads around in a world so dominated by religions like Christianity and Islam that try to define one absolute correct for of the religion, but the ancient Greeks were much more concerned with proper ceremony and practice in the present than which stories and character traits went with which gods. They also had no problem with gods from outside of their pantheon. Some gods only cared about Greece/the Greeks, others were called by different names in other cultures. If they couldn't find an analogue for one of their gods, they were more than happy to believe in a new foreign god and worship with the local traditions when they travelled. That brings me to the really radical change in \"Greek mythology.\"\n\n\nAfter the conquests of Alexander his successors carved out kingdoms from Afghanistan to Greece and made plays for power in Sicily and Italy. As Greek/Macedonian culture spread across that huge range, it was in direct contact with more outside influences than ever before. Some foreign, especially Egyptian, gods became some of the most popular and new traditions and stories seeped in. These were gods like Isis, Serapis, and Cybele.\n\n\nfter Greece was conquered by Rome (a culture that borrowed heavily from Greece, but almost never copied Greek tradition exactly) that process continued to incorporate new religious traditions from across the Roman Empire into the Greeks' traditions. Much like some of the new gods during the Hellenistic period, a few new gods of the Roman period also surpassed the traditional Olympian pantheon in some places. So already by the second century CE you have many foreign cults that coexist with the classical myths, but were also surpassing them in some contexts. It was already a very different environment in Greece than it was in 300 BCE.\n\nSome of the more famous examples include Mithra and Elagabalus. Both were Near Eastern deities picked up by the Roman armies as they marched across the region. Mithra seems to be the more popular one in Greece, but veneration of Elagabalus was found all over the Empire. We don't know much about either. They seem to have existed somewhere between traditional polytheistic religion and henotheism where one god is worshipped and many are acknowledged. Both were linked to the ancient Greek god Helios, but like I said, we don't know much in the way of details about what was really believed.\n\n\nSo finally, I get to the thing that really killed it off. It was just another little Near Eastern tradition that was circulating around the empire, competing for popularity with things like Mithra. The difference is twofold: this one was vehemently monotheistic and caught the attention of enough of the imperial elite, including the emperors. Of course, it's Christianity. \n\n\nThere had been some on and off persecution by the authorities because associations with Juaism and refusal to venerate the imperial cult (ie the deified dead emperors) were both viewed as treasonous. However, by the time Constantine gave official tolerance to Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313, some estimates suggest that Christians accounted for almost 2/3 of some major cities. It had reached Greece and Anatolia very early on and had a strong foothold there to begin with. \n\n\nClose to death, Constantine converted officially, and all of his successors were raised Christian. Aside from a brief hiccup where Julian the Apostate tried to turn back the clock with an official canonical form of Greco-Roman paganism, it was a steady uphill climb for Christianity. Each successive Roman emperor tended to enact policy that supported Christianity over traditional paganism. Churches and Christian communities were given state funding over pagan temples, pagans were blocked out of official offices, and emperor Gratian went on a spree of confiscating pagan temple revenues, removed an altar to pagan Victory in the Senate house, and became the first emperor since Augustus not to accept the office of Pontifex Maximus, high priest of traditional Roman religion. \n\n\nIn 318 Gratian and his co-emperors, most notably Theodosius I, issued a decree stating that all of his subjects should follow Nicene Christianity, effectively making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and establishing an official Christian dogma for that state religion. Theodosius permitted, but did not outright endorse, the destruction of many prominent pagan temples. He ended any remaining legal and official support for pagan institutions.\n\n\nBeginning in 381, Theodosius engaged in official condemnation and persecution of non-Christian, non-Orthodox beliefs and practices that remained the standard policy for the Roman empire for the rest of its history, right through the Byzantine period. Despite heavy persecution, some pagan beliefs and practices probably survived for a few more centuries in rural or isolated areas, but by 400 or so, it was functionally gone in population centers.\n\n\nThe classical myths hadn't been the sole feature of Greek religion for more than 700 years by the time it was truly gone. In fact, they hadn't even been the most popular option for a few centuries, but ultimately Christianity's strict monotheism ended and replaced belief in classical Greek myths."
]
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rtnj8
|
When I am all alone, and there is no noise in the room, and it is all still and quiet, there is a sound in my ears/head that is similar to a ringing of the ears, but it's not quite the same. What causes that?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rtnj8/when_i_am_all_alone_and_there_is_no_noise_in_the/
|
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"[Tinnitus](_URL_0_): \"the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound\". \n\nCauses are varied, so check the ~~Zelda~~ link for more on that. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus"
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||
6ela6e
|
How was Garibaldi able to conquer Southern Italy with only 1000 or so volunteers?
|
Larger question, when I look up the history of Southern Italy on wikipedia it seems to be a history of countless foreign rulers. I almost read nothing about actual Southern Italians.
Were there a lot of genocides? Am I right to think that that the Norman, Arab, Byzantine, German, French, and Spanish governments wiped out the local people? Were the local people involved in rule?
Why was it so easy for Garibaldi to march through the area? I heard there were many peasants who were 'tricked' into rebelling? Any experts here who can elaborate?
Also heard the British military openly helped Garibaldi because the Bourbon dynasty was pro-Russia
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ela6e/how_was_garibaldi_able_to_conquer_southern_italy/
|
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"You're asking a lot of questions, which is understandable; Wikipedia is not a complete source of information by any stretch of the imagination. Let's begin in the beginning. \n\nAfter the eighth century, Southern Italy was contested three ways between Arabs, the Byzantine Empire, and \"Lombards,\" who were originally Germanic warriors that intermarried and replaced the old Roman \"Senatorial Class.\"\n\nWhen Charlemagne conquered Italy from the Lombard King called Desiderius, a rump state survived in Southern Italy; Seeing Charlemagne and his army at the gates of his chief city, Salerno, Duke Arechi of Benevento, a powerful and fiercely loyal vassal of the deposed King of Italy (he had married Desiderius' daughter) came to an agreement with Charlemagne. He sent his son Grimolado as a hostage to Charlemagne's court, and in exchange secured the right to continue ruling as Duke in Southern Italy; Arechi was even recognized the rank of Prince. Although culturally active, the Principality of Benevento would be marred by instability, and by the mid 9th century had split three ways: the Duchy of Benevento and the Duchy of Salerno (whose rulers both claimed the title of \"Prince\") as well as the independent Republic of Amalfi.\n\nCalabria and Puglia, on the other hand, remained Byzantine Military Provinces (called *Thema*) up to the Norman conquest. A vestige of Justinian's reconquest of Italy in the sixth century, they were ruled by an ethnically Greek *Katepano* (Commander) appointed from Constantinople. Because of southern Italy's strong ties to the Greek world, as well as the Byzantine practice of settling soldiers with land, the general picture of this part of Southern Italy is functionally Graco-Latin, leaning more towards Greek at the top of the social ladder, while the bottom would be more Latin.\n\nSicily, on the other hand, was predominantly under the Abbasid Caliphate by the ninth century. However, when Robert Guiscard (a Norman mercenary employed at the time by the Duke of Salerno) established a foothold in Messina, he revived an old Byzantine title, *Strategos*, for the governor he appointed; the same title that had been used by the Byzantine military governor (who was based in the same city, no less) when Sicily was originally attacked by Abbasids. Curiously, in the County, and later Kingdom, of Sicily the governor of Messina and its surroundings would continue to be called with the Italianized title \"Strategoto\", derived from the analogous Greek word, meaning that once the Arab-dominated ruling class was removed a Greek substrate must have been present.\n\nGenerally, the early history of Sicily saw Greeks, Lombards, and Arabs fighting with each other in every concievable combination. In 1042, Duke Guaimario of Salerno approved the Norman mercenary William Hauteville's plan to seize Sicily from the Arabs, and in return would be made Count of Puglia (should he be able to conquer that from the Byzantines as well). William (helped by his brother) went above and beyond, and used Puglia as a trampoline to take Calabria, becoming the most powerful person in southern Italy in the process. When in 1052 when Prince Guaimario was murdered, the Hautevilles took advantage of the unrest in Salerno to take the city, completing their conquest of mainland Southern Italy on their way to take Sicily.\n\nWilliam's brother Robert (nicknamed, \"Guiscard\") managed to impose himself as Count of Sicily. His rule was characterized by the unique coexistence of ethnic Arabs, Greeks, and Normans. There were some limitations on this coexistence, but no real \"genocide\" as you asked about in your question: in the Norman County (later Kingdom) of Sicily, Greeks and Arab landholders were relegated as \"Villeins\" (the lowest rank of landholder) and were taxed more heavily than Roman Catholics, a conscious decision which encouraged immigration by Northern Italian Lombards, Britons, Normans, and Provençals, and which rapidly diluted the existing Arab-Greek culture.\n\nNorman Sicily has been defined as a society based on \"Unequal Coexistence.\" Although privileged positions were given to Norman, Provencal, Lombard, and Greek immigrants (more or less in that order) tensions between Christians and Muslims would only come to the breaking point in the late twelfth century. Tensions between Sicilian Greeks and the new \"Latins\" on the other hand, were easily overcome by professing adherence to the Church of Rome, only recently (in 1054) irreparably separated from the Church of the East, in Constantinople. Indeed, Greek Christians (who had in great part welcomed the Normans) played a key role in mediating between the upper class of Latin lords and the subject populations of Muslim serfs (according to Johns J., *The Monreale Survey: Indigenes and invaders in medieval west Sicily*). It's interesting to note how within a generation of the Norman conquest, parish censuses show how serfs whose parents have Arabic names take Greek names; a testament to the dominant \"Greek Christian\" culture in spite of the new Norman ruling class and the almost entirely Arab administrative bureaucracy, and more importantly, the key role of Greek Churchmen in converting the Muslim population to Christianity.\n\nJohn Julius Norwich, in his *The Normans in Sicily* puts it this way: “Norman and Lombard, Greek and Saracen, Italian and Jew – Sicily had proved that for as long as they enjoyed an enlightened and impartial government, they could happily coexist; they could not coalesce.” Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Sicily could be expected to be fluent in Arabic, and some Muslims could be expected to be native Greek speakers. However, as with Arabic, Greek language and culture was also rapidly replaced in favor of Latin language and culture in Sicily and indeed all of Southern Italy. If you'd like to learn more, John Julius Norwich wrote a very extensive history of Sicily in two works, one chronicling the Norman Conquest and another on the actual history of the kingdom. Both works have recently been published together as a single work.\n"
]
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34h6t0
|
- if hiv can take up to 6 months to show up on a blood test, how do they know donated blood is safe?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34h6t0/eli5_if_hiv_can_take_up_to_6_months_to_show_up_on/
|
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"They generally eliminate high risk classes from donating blood. There are a lot of reports that confirm that HIV transmits faster from certain ways over others. They make sure to ask people questions about their lifestyle to figure out whether they represent one of those high risk classes.\n\nFor example my wife is a veterinarian and over half of her class is unable to donate blood because they handled monkeys.\n\n[In the 80s around 2,000 Canadians were infected from tainted blood when HIV was first becoming a thing](_URL_0_). Today all of the mechanisms that are in place are based on old failed policies."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/news/canadas-tainted-blood-scandal"
]
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||
1uqoy9
|
AMA - 20th Century American Popular Culture
|
Welcome to this AMA which today features five panelists willing and eager to answer your questions on 20th Century American Popular Culture.
Our panelists are:
* /u/Bufus [American Comic Books](#flair-art): I do historical research using comic books as primary sources and have written my thesis on the relationship between comic books of the postwar era and larger questions of gender and sexuality in American society.
* /u/randommusician [American Popular Music](#flair-art): a History degree with a B.A. in Music and well-versed in American popular music. **/u/randommusician will be joining us a little later.**
* /u/BonSequitur [Cinema: Classic Hollywood, Latin America, Pre-war Western Europe](#flair-art): has spent way too much time reading and posting to this subreddit about the history of cinema, including but not limited to the development of Hollywood cinema up until the 1970s. He approaches this from the film studies and criticism end, and so he's more interested in broad historical and aesthetic trends than specific people or events. **/u/BonSequitur will be joining us a little later.**
* /u/Yearsnowlost [New York City](#flair-northamerica): I am a New York City tour guide and writer who adores learning, talking and writing about city history every day. NYC has been a multicultural hub throughout most of its history, bringing many different people together in close proximity. As a lens through which to view American pop culture, New York City is significant, as its residents and transplants have influenced our modern world in profound ways and through art, music, poetry, literature, film and countless other mediums.
* /u/American_Graffiti [History of Childhood and Youth](#flair-northamerica): I am a PhD Candidate in American History, focusing on the history of childhood and youth in the 20th Century United States. While not a "specialist" in the history of pop culture, I should be able to answer most questions on youth and children's culture in the 20th Century US, and many broader questions about the history of American pop culture more generally - particularly if they deal with the post-WWII era.
Let's have your questions!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uqoy9/ama_20th_century_american_popular_culture/
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"How did mainstream American music transition from a \"Sinatra\" sort of genre to these different sort of post ww2 genres such as Elvis, the Beatles, etc. Were there any reasons or contributing factors, or was it just a regular progression of music that occured? Sorry if I'm being too broad, just interested in the general changes in music during that era.",
"What would an average American caucasian midwestern nuclear family do on weekends in the late 1950s?",
"Thank you so much for arranging this very interesting panel!\n\nMy question is the following: When did the cinema become a common sight in the towns and cities of the United States? Was it something that was targeted for a specific audience or was it like today where everyone ranging from teenage couples to families can find something to watch (and be entertained by)?",
"This one is for /u/American_Graffiti: What sort of children's literature was popular in the mid-20th century? Was it common for parents to read to their children or was it something they were encouraged to do on their own?",
"Two questions:\n1) What were the initial reactions from Europeans when Ragtime started emerging?\n\n2) In the 1960's the phrase \"Generation Gap\" entered mainstream society. In pre-1960's America, were there any generation gaps?",
"This one is most likely for /u/randommusician: bringing forward one of my [favorite unanswered questions on music](_URL_0_) from a while back, what were race relations like between early rock and roll musicians in 50s-60s America? ",
"What's up with anglophilia (love of English stuff) in the 60s and 80s? Was there one thing in particular that sparked it? ",
"Oh man, this is exactly what I came here to post about.\n\n/u/Bufus: In looking at the history of Cold War era comic books I have run into some scholarship that points to the use of Comic books to establish an understanding of emerging nuclear power after World War II. My question then is, if this was in fact the case, what were reactions in the industry like to nuclear accidents like Three-Mile Island or Chernobyl? I know it says above that your focus in gender in comics but I figured I'd ask.\n\nSome sources I've run into already Ferenc Morton Szasz' *Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World* and a couple articles published in the Journal of Popular Culture.\n\nEDIT: One more question. What was the portrayal of Communism like in the same era of American/Western comic books? This is what I was originally researching but I've been running into far more materials on Nuclear Power.\n\n",
"Could I have an overview of how football gained ground over baseball during the 20th century, as well as the rise of football in American culture?",
"Why wasn't football (soccer) very popular in the US during that era, given that in the 20th century, a large number of immigrants from nations that love soccer, such as Italy, Germany or Mexico arrived? When the USA was announced as the host of the FIFA World Cup, did the sport expect a surge in its popularity?",
"For /u/Bufus :-\n\nHow did you go about reconstructing readers' responses to themes of gender and sexuality in comic books? How can we understand which elements were understood as escapist and which were embraced as models of social order?\n",
"/u/yearsnotlost: How has the introduction of the automobile affected the growth and development of New York City? Has the city undergone a really major overhaul to better accomodate automobile traffic?",
"Are there any notable double entendres (like \"that's what she said\") of the 50's?",
"Okay, I think I've got a decent question that can apply to a few of you fine, fine panelists.\n\nIn your opinion, did your chosen field of media (music, cinema, comic books, etc.) advance or push boundaries of gender and sexuality? How so? Or, conversely, did your media follow slavishly along with established gender roles? Were there outliers? What were the reactions to these boundary-pushing examples?\n\nThank you all, so much, for doing this AMA!",
"For /u/american_graffiti: how did the automobile become an essential part of the \"coming-of-age\" experience? How has it's role in that experience changed over time?",
"What, if any, aspects of Brazilian culture were incorporated or influential in American popular culture? If there was none, there were any that were erroneously attributed to Brazil?"
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2n0chc
|
How do you think someone in a coma would react to psychedelics?
|
[I'm reposting from r/Psychonaught](_URL_0_). I want real biological answers so don't give me the hippy bullshit. As a science/math major, I am deeply wondering why this hasn't been attempted yet or if it's even possible? I know there are problems with consent. I know there could be negative effects. But as a last resort, if it meant it could *possibly* bring someone out of a coma, why not try it? What are your thoughts?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2n0chc/how_do_you_think_someone_in_a_coma_would_react_to/
|
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"[This question was asked a few years ago](_URL_1_) and didn't get much of an answer. I don't know if you'll be able to get much more than that, but good luck to you.\n\nI had a look on Google Scholar for you for any reports linking use of psychoactive or psychedelic drugs with [locked-in syndrome](_URL_2_), [persistent vegetative states](_URL_3_) or [minimally conscious states](_URL_0_). I couldn't find anything, but these aren't my areas of research.",
"Comas simply are not well enough understood. There needs to be a scientific basis for thinking that the use of LSD will bring someone out of a coma before anyone will fund it. Research grade psychodelics are not cheap, and no researcher is going to risk their career over a potentially dangerous treatment without a solid scientific basis to fall back on.",
"I do know that what you have inquired about has been experimented with. I remember in my schooling this subject being discussed, and if my recollection is accurate, there had been some promising results, but insufficient research has been performed to prove its efficacy.\n\nResearch of this nature is controversial and faces many obstacles of a practical nature, as well as significant public perception issues.\n\nEDIT: I have contacted a colleague to request information regarding these matters, as he has mentioned the subject some years ago. I doubt they will be in English, but I could provide a translated synopsis.",
"The classic reaction of psychedelics is done under the conditions of relatively healthy brains. \n\nIf theres something wrong with the brain, it's going to change how these reactions will work, or even work at all depending upon the circumstances of the person in subject. \n\nThere really is no simple way to answer this question without having a lot more information, information which, honestly may simply not be obtainable giving current medical technology and science. \n\nTo give an analogy, it's like being told a car has been in a wreck, will this fuel additive increase it's gas mileage? We don't know how wrecked the car is, or any details of it. It could just be a fender bender, or the engine block could be completely destroyed. "
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimally_conscious_state",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/m8ool/what_effect_might_hallucinogens_have_on_a/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state"
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|
1utz1o
|
When is a species no longer considered invasive?
|
I found [this](_URL_0_) thread in a search, but was wondering if anyone could go into more detail.
Follow up question: Would wild horses still be considered an invasive species in North America?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1utz1o/when_is_a_species_no_longer_considered_invasive/
|
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"There is no 'right' answer! You can either take the stance of 'it would never have got here without human help, therefore it is invasive' or 'it has adapted to the environment, therefore it is now native'. Which of these you take depends on personal viewpoint as much as anything else.\n\nHumans also have a tendency to ignore 'invasiveness' when it comes to beneficials. Many crops that are grown are most likely invasives in the sense that they wouldn't have arrived there without human assistance.",
"I don't like the first answer to that question in the link you posted. Invasions happen all the time. In fact, it's why biogeography is such a fun field to get into.\n\nSpecies expand outwards and encroach on other ranges ALL the time. However, the truth is that the definition gets tenuous. I'll be the one to start a firestorm by defining it in very neutral terms:\n\nA species is an invader if it enters and occupies a niche or habitat it was absent from or never occupied previously. I welcome all debate into this as I know some fellow ecologists will probably double take on that. It's the best I can think of anyway.\n\nSo, species ranges are not set in stone and you'll see them in spots on their documented periphery where you never did before. Thus, if you consider Locality A and locality B, Species 1 from Locality A enters Locality B, finds it suitable to live in, and settles. Species 1 is therefore an invader. Species 2 is found in Locality B, but doesn't invade Locality A and stays in B. Thus, for this example, we can decide that Species 1 is an invader in B and a native in A while species 2 is a native to B.\n\nA species can not occupy a niche or habitat if it is not equipped to utilize resources or compete with species occupying them already. No species enters into a habitat without stiff competition from what's there. Thus, the most common invasive species we find today are those who are not only successful in their home niche, but were evolutionarily flexible enough to be able to expand outwards if given just the bare minimum conditions. Thus, this example is a natural invasion and happens all the time, just the scale is small and the effects are not as dangerous as landscape and global transportation of organisms by humans. For a good example of invasive dynamics at small scales, look up Huffaker's famous experiment with mites and oranges. Thus, we define the spatial scale at which a species is native and invasive in the wild.\n\nOn to human caused invasions, the effects can be devestating because we transport species across landscapes and natural barriers like mountains, saltwater, deserts, and tundras. For example, carps are established quite comfortably in the United States, even though they are native to China. And it is due to human trafficking that they are found pretty much world wide. Black basses like Largemouth bass and small mouth are so popular around the world for sport fishing, that they've been imported as far as Japan. Red-swamp crayfish are so delicious and economically easy to grow that they are found in Africa... where there are no native crayfish! \n\nWhen is a species no longer considered invasive? At the appropriate scale. No species is invasive at the global scale, since we all occupy the planet, but it can be at all landscape, ecosystem, community, and population scales. Yes, even within species can be invaders if you think about two genepools and one of them comes to intermingle with the other to make one big genepool. A cool concept actually.\n\nAlso, a species is no longer considered invasive *in effects* if you consider the inclusion of that species into the natural processes of the ecosystem. If the ecosystem is sustainable even with the new invader, then you might want to think that the invader is now an important energy component to that system. Humans are the best example. We cut down forests, harvest the oceans. But the ecosystem adapts after so many species leave for other habitats or die off, and the species left behind work with humans to maintain the energy dynamics of the system for everyone's survival. We understand that more than ever.\n\n"
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sss94/how_long_does_it_take_an_invasive_species_to/"
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5igz5z
|
how'd the yahoo "hacking" happen?
|
Mainly just the title, shellshocking? What's that? And I saw on a couple of sites that only some details of accounts had been revealed, name and date of birth, but it says that "the internal servers were compromised" am I just reading dodgy sources? why wouldn't they take stuff like credit card details?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5igz5z/eli5_howd_the_yahoo_hacking_happen/
|
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"text": [
"According to [the post from Yahoo](_URL_0_) \n > For potentially affected accounts, the stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. Payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system the company believes was affected.\n\nUnfortunately the post does not make it clear if the hashed passwords were salted. If they were not salted it would be very easy for an attacker to find many users that had used common passwords, especially with around a billion to work with. Thankfully there was no credit card information stolen, but with all of the information that was stolen put together and the the likelihood that people will reuse passwords and usernames across multiple sites it could be very dangerous.\n\nAlso, [Shellshock](_URL_1_), a security issue with Bash, the command language default on Unix operating systems. Essentially it allowed an unprivileged user to gain privileged access to a system, essentially allowing them to do whatever they wanted."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/154479236569/important-security-information-for-yahoo-users",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellshock_(software_bug)"
]
] |
|
8fn7e4
|
Are there any known examples of jump discontinuities occurring in the natural world, (not related to manmade systems)?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/8fn7e4/are_there_any_known_examples_of_jump/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dy4wkn0",
"dy4zgma"
],
"score": [
3,
8
],
"text": [
"Definitely. One example of a natural jump discontinuity would be the [triple point of water](_URL_0_) - plot \"number of phases in equilibrium for water\" as a function of temperature and pressure, and you'll find that most of the parameter space is one, a 1-dimensional curve along which the value is 2, and a single point at which the value is 3.",
"Phase transitions, shock waves, electric/magnetic fields at boundaries where there is a surface charge/current density, just to name a few."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point#Triple_point_of_water"
],
[]
] |
||
nzejf
|
Why don't we and other animals have eyes in the backs of our heads? Wouldn't having a 360 vision be a massive benefit?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/nzejf/why_dont_we_and_other_animals_have_eyes_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3d5bp5",
"c3d5hku",
"c3d5ln8",
"c3d6dwn",
"c3d6p3z",
"c3d7fzl",
"c3d8adn"
],
"score": [
31,
8,
43,
10,
5,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"It would also have a massive cost.\n\nThe entire visual perceptual pathway, from the retina to V1 to MT (where motion detection happens), takes up a large amount of space in our cranium. To add a second set of eyes, facing an entirely different direction, would require the duplication of the existing \"forward\"-facing visual pathway as well as some cerebral structure to somehow process and meaingfully interpret both.\n\nThe initial cost of developing a secondary visual perceptive field is too high, particularly when the cost of developing an auditory system that can do essentially the same job is very low.",
"Some animals do have nearly 360 degree vision. Prey Animals with flight often have large visual ranges, to see things which might attack them. Raptors have forward facing eyes so they can see distance between themselves and their prey. Similar differences exist in horses, gazelles, many fish, and sheep, animals with long history as prey. ",
"Many \"prey animals\" have upwards of 270 degree vision with eyes on the sides of their heads. Deer, rabbets, chickens.\n\nWe have binocular vision to prey better. Most predators have binocular vision. Owls, tigers, men.\n\nMany insects have nearly 360, and most are prey to anything bigger.\n\nSize matters more. \n\nAs animals go, humans are pretty big.",
"Yes, as would flight. An important thing to consider is cost versus benefit. Devoting more energy and brain capacity towards extra eyes would overall decrease the fitness (contribution to the next generation) of a human (i mean really, who wants to fuck something with more than two eyes anyway?).\n\nAn excellent example illustrating the cost vs. benefit is that in certain caves, animals which burrowed and colonized completely dark areas over time lost their ability of sight. Although sight wasn't directly detrimental to their fitness, the energy expenditure necessary to have sight because too great.",
"On top of the cost arguments mentioned here, it's worth remembering that evolution doesn't optimize; if prey animals could hunt sufficiently with two eyes and there was sufficient pressure for 4, they it may just never happened.",
"Evolution doesn't necessarily result in every possible beneficial trait actually occurring. This is because evolution isn't \"goal\" oriented. It doesn't move towards a specific outcome, instead it just tends to select the most beneficial genetic variant that is present in a population. So even if 360 degree vision would be a massive benefit, we still may never develop it. \n\nI think this may be what HARGHHH was saying above, but I wasn't sure.",
"Generally, increased field of vision comes at the cost of depth perception, color sensing and high detail vision. Our visual system allows us all of these things, which are important for hunting and living in trees as described in more detail below."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2qdrs2
|
Why were there so few German-American organized crime groups?
|
Of all the major waves of immigrants to the U.S., the germans seem to have produced the fewest gangs/organized crime groups. I'm sure part of this is because a german immigrant was less likely to settle in a dense ethnic enclave within a major city than say an Italian, but there were quite a few predominantly german neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, etc. So what's the deal?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2qdrs2/why_were_there_so_few_germanamerican_organized/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cn5d150"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"It's hard to say something didn't happen, but we can say why other groups did turn to organized crime. Ethnic groups who were blocked from traditional employment often attempt to break out and make it by turning to crime. We can see this in the heavily discriminated against groups of the Italians, Irish, Jews, and Black organized crime, but not in the generally accepted Germans."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1b8d87
|
Would it be possible for a human to stand on an asteroid or comet as it speeds through space?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1b8d87/would_it_be_possible_for_a_human_to_stand_on_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c94lfu9",
"c94li3c"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"If the asteroid in question had enough mass for it's gravity to hold you down, yes. ",
"Yes. Why wouldn't it be? \n\nIf your velocity relative to the asteroid or comet is 0, you wouldn't fly off of it or something."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3bih4k
|
why do we find the natural human odor to be so offensive? are there other animals who are put off by the smell of their own species?
|
It's summer. I can't be in the same room with people who don't shower every day and use deodorant. Why do people in their natural state smell so bad?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bih4k/eli5_why_do_we_find_the_natural_human_odor_to_be/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csme7fs"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Well, that's not \"natural human odor\" you're smelling. What you're smelling are actually mostly the chemical byproducts of bacteria eating all the oils and things in your sweat.\n\nThese bacterial byproducts are actually some of the same chemicals that make some cheese smelly and even some of the same ones that make rotting flesh smell the way it does."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
nywdq
|
Any good book on history of education?
|
Any tip appreciated. Thanks!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/nywdq/any_good_book_on_history_of_education/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3d24q8"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Hi, a while ago I commented on a similar question. [You could have a look here](_URL_0_), perhaps it could be useful to you as well?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://nl.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/mvxt4/education_through_the_ages/c34a1xd"
]
] |
|
1wtx2f
|
Why are salts of hydrochloric acid and organic bases called "hydrochlorides" instead of "chlorides"?
|
From [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) I know that producing the hydrochloride salt is often used in medications ("HCl") to make organic compounds water soluble for rapid absorption into the body, and have a longer shelf life.
From school I know acid + base = salt + water, but that doesn't match the wiki equation. What's going on?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1wtx2f/why_are_salts_of_hydrochloric_acid_and_organic/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf5dy1h",
"cf5eodg"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"Acid-base reactions don't necessarily result in water being produced, that is only true for the simplest case of Arrhenius theory in which the acid always provides a proton and the base a hydroxyl group. A more general theory of acid base reactions is [Bronsted theory](_URL_0_), which still defines an acid as a group that can release a proton, but a base is any species that can accept a proton.\n\nTake the example of pyridine mentioned in the Wiki article. What is happening is that when you react pyridine with hydrochloric acid, since the amine moiety (the nitrogen atom) is basic, it will become protonated (the hydrogen will tack on) to create C5H5N-H^+ and then the chlorine anion will serve as the counterion to maintain charge neutrality, so that in the end you will have the salt C5H5N-H^+ Cl^- .",
"The hydrogen is actually incorporated into the structure of the drug in these reactions. The type of reaction you learned in school follow the general scheme:\n\nH+ + OH- -- > H2O\n\nThere are counter ions like Na+ or Cl- as well, but I'm just illustrating the acid/base interaction.\n\nThe preparation of these drugs follows this general scheme:\n\nH+ + Cl- + Drug -- > DrugH+ + Cl-\n\nHere they hydrogen ion becomes a part of the drug structure (usually by a dative bond with a nitrogen atom in the drug) which gives it an overall positive charge. The positively charged drug and the negatively charged chloride ion then form an ionic bond. This ionic character is what allows the drug to be more water soluble as a hydrochloride salt."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloride"
] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%B8nsted%E2%80%93Lowry_acid%E2%80%93base_theory"
],
[]
] |
|
5jw3g3
|
security codes on credit cards
|
Was it useful at some point? Because it seems that the contemporary method of keylogging to get credit card information a 3 digit code would be just as vulnerable as the 16 digit ID preceding it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jw3g3/eli5_security_codes_on_credit_cards/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbjgops"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It makes it harder to use stolen credit card data for online purchases without the physical card. The 3 digit code is not stored on the cards magnetic strip, it's only printed on the card itself, so if the card's data is surreptitiously stolen using a card skimmer, they don't get the code, and theoretically it should be impossible to use the card for online purchases (assuming the online store in question requires the code)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
5rr4dv
|
I've heard there was hand-to-hand fighting in Stalingrad. Is this true? If so, why weren't guns sufficient?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rr4dv/ive_heard_there_was_handtohand_fighting_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dd9nb2i"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"Hand-to-hand can be something of a misnomer, in that it is often used as an example of hyperbole to indicate the ferocity of urban combat, and is not necessarily literal.\n\nThat being said, urban warfare gets up close and personal, and Stalingrad is in the running for most brutal urban combat of all time, and there are examples of journals from both sides where the authors specifically mention and describe hand-to-hand fighting in close quarters. \n\nEdit: I will note that the primary source letters and journals with which I'm familiar were translated into English, and were exclusively from the Soviet perspective. I'm not sure hand-to-hand is a figure of speech in Russian the way it is in English."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fd1y5y
|
Was Greek civilization derived from Egypt
|
Architecture mathematics even philosophy are derived from Egypt and near east, so what is original from Greece?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fd1y5y/was_greek_civilization_derived_from_egypt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fjgnynv"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Civilisation is one of those loose terms that, the more we think about it, the harder it is to define. I'm assuming you mean the general sense of identity/values/aesthetics/social structures and so on that we consider to be 'Greek.' The answer really isn't simple.\n\nFirstly, to say there was a single Greek civilisation is a bit over simplistic. When most people think of Greece they think of Athenians, with their forums and philosophers, but Athens was not all of Greece nor was it often the most important. Sparta is the obvious counterpoint, but there's also Corinth, Thebes, and hundreds of other city-states with their own social structures and values. The point being that ancient Greeks were unified by a shared language (although divided by dialect) and a general region, but were not some unified cultural group by a long shot.\n\nOkay, so let's just take a general Athenian-esque sense of Ancient Greece. Did it draw from Egypt and the Near-East? Yes, absolutely. Herodotus thanks Egypt for teaching Greece things like geometry and mathematics. Did Greece take everything? No, of course not. Its language, Athenian democracy, Greek hoplite warfare, literary/oratory works like those of Homer, or great architectural achievements like the Parthenon. Egyptians and Babylonians didn't make those. Greeks did. \n\nThere's also the fact that 'philosophy' is a very broad term. French post-modernism, Chinese Confucianism, and European renaissance humanism are all philosophises of their own but are very distinct things. Humans seem to be hard-wired to question their own existence and societies. The Egyptians were among the first, but it's by no means uniquely theirs. 'Architecture' is a similarly diverse thing. Peru's Machu Pichu is a feat of architecture just like Rome's Colosseum or Beijing's Forbidden Palace, but each one is a unique reflection of their societies and time periods using different material and methods. The same is true for Greek architecture as opposed to Egyptian or Babylonian - the Pyramids are not the Parthenon. \n\nCultures are not discrete nor do they exist in a vacuum. Each one builds on what came before and redefines it for its own needs. Cultural transmission is not a case of X culture meeting Y and taking all of Y's ideas. Y's ideas might take root in culture X, but culture X's unique perspectives and uses can and almost always will produce an entirely new thing Z. Think of how tea is a cornerstone of British culture despite originally being Indian, or how rice has integrated itself into Persian cuisine despite only making it to the region in the 13th century or so. Just because something comes from somewhere else, that doesn't mean a culture can't make it their own. The premise that if one culture found something first then it's forever theirs is just not appropriate. By that logic, everything is African since the basic tenants of society like language and fire was first utilised by the earliest humans spreading from the continent.\n\nI know this answer has been more broad reaching that just Greece of Egypt, but I think taking a step back and addressing the basic assumptions implicit in the question are important.\n\nAs for some basic things that were original? I mentioned a few, but we can list more. Greek mythology, perhaps the first histories as we'd understand them from those like Herodotus or Thucydides, democracy, the Greek language and its derivatives, theatre, winches and cranes, etc etc. Of course, these ideas have changed over time. Modern democracy is not the same as ancient Athenian democracy, but that's the whole point - humanity builds on what came before and what came from elsewhere. We always have and we always will."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
61a8pg
|
how can a baseball player throw 95 mph baseball when a boxer's top punching speed is around 25 mph?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61a8pg/eli5_how_can_a_baseball_player_throw_95_mph/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfcwkia"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because the speed of a pitch comes from the whip of the arm accelerating the ball. The punch is just arm movement. The two are not connected when it comes to speed. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
38qqgi
|
when and why will the current tech boom end? what are the implications for the overall economy?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38qqgi/eli5when_and_why_will_the_current_tech_boom_end/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crx3ngw",
"crx46bd"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"\"Tech\" is a very big field with many sub genres if you like. The 70-90s boom was the personal computer, 00s-10s was the the internet era and to a certain extent it's still going. The next few years will see lots of wearables, IoT and all things 3D printing related. We expect to see interesting developments and changes in how computing as a whole is done.\nIt's also important to realise that tech is in everything and spills out to almost every other field from medicine to aviation.\nI don't see the popularity of tech going down anytime soon as it has become a fundamental tool for facilitating almost everything in modern society",
"Technology is always changing and evolving. It will always be changing and evolving. The tech boom will never end, just adapt to suit the user needs"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
da3enz
|
How long did it take to Christianise the people of Denmark and other parts of the Viking world (Norway, Sweden, Iceland etc)?
|
I've been reading a lot of Orderic Vitalis's "Ecclesiastical History" lately, and he suggests that whilst Danish kings and nobles may have been Christians from the time of Harald Bluetooth in the mid-10th century, Christianisation didn't properly get underway until the reign of King Cnut IV (reigned 1075 - 1086). For example, he claims that the Danish armies that invaded England under Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut from 991 - 1016 and under Sweyn II in aid of the Yorkshire rebels against William the Conqueror in 1069 were mostly pagan, and that English Christianity went into almost terminal decline during the period of Danish rule over all England (1016 - 1042). Obviously Orderic has his problems as a source - firstly, he wants to give as favourable a portrayal of the Anglo-Saxons as possible and secondly, as a cultured half-Englishman half-Norman living in Northern France, one of the great epicentres of 11th and 12th century cultural and intellectual dynamism and religious reform along, it would have been easy for him to look at Denmark as a peripheral barely civilised backwater. Still, I've heard that Christianisation took a long time in many places (i.e. pagan burial rituals continuing to be practiced in rural Lithuania centuries after the conversion of Grand Duke Jogaila in 1386) and some historians and sociologists have argued that Northern Europe was not truly Christianised until the Reformation (Jean Delumeau) or indeed never at all (Rodney Stark).
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/da3enz/how_long_did_it_take_to_christianise_the_people/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f1nj6yw"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"It depends on the region; The Jelling Stone in Denmark announcing the establishment of Christianity as the religion by Harald was still significant even if it didn't mean the whole country was converted yet. As did the Icelandic þing decision of 1000 and Saint Olaf's supposed completion of christening of Norway a few decades later. The Swedes were supposedly still largely pagan according to Adam of Bremen in his own day (1070s) and the last concrete mention of pagan resistance there would be the martyring of Saint Botvid by a pagan in 1120. Adam of Bremen also claims fringe areas of Denmark - Bornholm and Blekinge as not having been converted properly until their bishop missioned there in the 1060s. However, Adam has a bias in wanting to hold forth the importance and relevance of the missionary work done in the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg-Bremen that he represented and there's a commonly-held interpretation that he neglected or minimized the contributions made by Anglo-Saxon and Irish missionaries. Adam was not a first-hand witness to conditions in Scandinavia either (and Orderic even less so). \n\nArchaeology actually pushes the dates back a bit. Christian burials first turn up in Bornholm already in the late 900s. The excavation of Kata Farm and other sites in Sweden now show that at least the elites in Götaland were converting in that same late-900s time frame as the core areas of Denmark, and the same goes for Østfold and Rogaland in Norway. Whereas areas like Trøndelag, Agder, northern Norway and the inner parts of eastern Norway converted later, as did Svealand in Sweden. Evidence shows rapid changes towards Christian burial practices in the 11th century in Norway. Even in Sveland's Uppland, historians tend to side with an earlier date than a later one; it was probably mostly Christian by the 1080s. Adam's claim that Emund the Old (circa 1050s) neglected Christianity could be interpreted as Adam's judgement on Emund's tolerance of paganism. It's been suggested the traditional date of 1120 for Botvid's martyring may be a bit late too.\n\nOf course by Christian burial practices we primarily mean east-west oriented graves and the abandoning of cremation. Needless to say, that doesn't necessarily mean the buried were completely Christian. (Burials in churchyards was also a thing that would come later) But Scandinavia was likely almost completely converted by 1100, and in that century Christian institutions were strengthened considerably and what holdouts may have existed would have the thumb-screws tightened by the fact that things like inheritance rights became contingent on conversion. Although law codes we have from the 13th century, like Gulathingsloven, ban pagan activities, there's no concrete evidence of such activities still happening in that period. (one might compare to Magnus Erikssons Country Law of 1340 which finally banned thralldom in Sweden but entered into force something like 70 years after the last mention of anyone owning a thrall)\n\n\nAs I said in [a post yesterday](_URL_0_), the nationalists/romantics of the 19th century really wanted to believe paganism had survived longer than it actually likely did, because they'd adopted the view that pre-Christian beliefs were a core part of national identity. (and that crowd is still around although not so represented in academia anymore) But we don't know that any actual Viking Age Scandinavians felt that way. If it was such a core part of their identity, one would perhaps expect more resistance than we know of. On the contrary, it's been argued (e.g. in _Skiftet_) that resistance to conversion may have been primarily rooted in opposition to the associated political and social changes, not the faith itself.\n\nThe Baltic States and Finland were converted later (and the Scandinavians played no small part in those Baltic Crusades), and those were much more isolated parts of Europe. Scandinavia had frequent cultural contacts with the continental and southern Europe for a millennium before the Viking Age ended. As for Delumeau, his ideas that most European weren't 'really' Christians (not just the north) doesn't have that much support. Although it's based in the correct observation that the average masses did not view nor practice Christianity the same way as the priests and educated classes, judging that this means that these people weren't Christian is anachronistic because it's based on later standards. These people regarded themselves as good Christians and by the standards of their time, _were_. It (and associated \"two-tier\" models like Muchembled's) have also been criticized since the start for being overly simplistic and creating a false dichotomy because there was in fact significant interplay between the 'low' and 'high' religious traditions. E.g. the medieval canonization of saints was often little more than an official sanction of a popular veneration that'd started spontaneously. \n\nAnyway, Denmark was mainly Christian well before Canute IV, in fact most of Scandinavia probably was by that point. Anyway, this is a pretty brief post, but to mention some sources and further reading: \n\nNora Berend (ed), _Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia_, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900–1200, Cambridge University Press, 2007 \n\nAnders Winroth, _The conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, merchants, and missionaries in the remaking of Northern Europe_, Yale University Press, 2014\n\nSten Tesch (ed), _Skiftet - Vikingatida sed och Kristen tro_, Artos & Norma, 2017"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d9ipla/did_old_pagan_gods_appear_in_later_folklore/f1l2dbl/"
]
] |
|
37xrsi
|
why do games nowadays get sold at normal price unfinished? is it just for money, or is the gaming industry creating such massive games they can't release all the content at once?
|
I saw this post about how when you bought a game, it was like buying a whole meal. Nowadays, it seems like you pay for each ingredient separately for an entire game.
Link to what Im talking about: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37xrsi/eli5_why_do_games_nowadays_get_sold_at_normal/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crqnz0x",
"crqo2q7"
],
"score": [
8,
5
],
"text": [
"I'm 33 years old and was heavily involved in gaming when I was a teenager. I'm not the most OG guy around, but I remember a \"back in the day\" story or two.\n\nYou are remembering with rose colored glasses what \"then\" was like. Back then games were routinely released with game killing bugs. While we did not see the DLC for content that should of been there by default, we saw a lot more of the \"this game cannot currently be played, wait for the 2.0 patch\". \n\nIn addition, expansions were often after thought content. So you'd pay nearly full price for 2 new weapons (and one of them uses the model of an old weapon) and a handful of new levels. $40 please.",
"For years, costs have been going up. It already costs over 50 million USD to make a typical AAA game, and some experts are expecting that number to pass 100 million in the next few years. Customers expect better and better fidelity every year, and that means developers are struggling to hire even more of the best artists, programmers, designers, and so on.\n\nFor years, profit margins have been getting smaller, or even disappearing. People complain that games used to cost only $50, compared to maybe $60 today. Problem is, that hasn't kept up with inflation -- if it had, that same game would cost more than $90, today. The market price for a big title has actually gone down over the years, all while development and marketing costs have skyrocketed.\n\nMeanwhile, in mobile markets and some online games, players are balking at spending even $1 to buy a game. Developers and publishers are expected to give away their work for free, on the off chance that someone *might* spend some money on it down the road. Some businesses have done very well at that, but many more haven't.\n\nRetailers and publishers are really pushing pre-orders, which leads to a lot of those special deals you're seeing. It's bad enough that some games are judged commercially *solely* by the number of pre-orders they get.\n\nI'm not exactly happy with the current state of the industry, but the market forces driving those decisions are hard to ignore."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/o5ojiDy"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1t5zxs
|
How does a bit in a computer turn on or off (1 / 0) without something to do it manually?
|
This is most relevant with solid memory (RAM, flashdrives). How can you turn a switch on or off without touching it? Or is it more complicated than just a switch?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1t5zxs/how_does_a_bit_in_a_computer_turn_on_or_off_1_0/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce4trth",
"ce4uyyd"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"It's all capacitors and transistors which are in effect electronic switches. [Here's a description of how DRAM operates](_URL_1_).\n\nIf that explanation is too complex/in-depth, you can look at [how a latch operates](_URL_0_). This is different in principle than DRAM (memory) but it's an electronic circuit that can store one bit of information.\n\n",
"To add a little context to it computer memory used to be wires and magnets as in [this picture](_URL_0_). So imagine on the left the wires are 1, 2, 3, 4, etc and at the bottom the wires are a, b, c, d, etc. If you run current through wires 1 and a the memory location 1a would be on, or 1. \n\nAs /u/ramk13 noted today it is done with capacitors and transistors but the idea is basically the same, just a lot smaller and faster.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_\\(electronics\\)#SR_NOR_latch",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random-access_memory#Operation_principle"
],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Magnetic_core.jpg"
]
] |
|
ebnmfl
|
Did Sweden out of fear cooperate/facilitate the invasion and conquest of Norway by Nazi Germany?
|
[deleted]
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ebnmfl/did_sweden_out_of_fear_cooperatefacilitate_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fb77yi5"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"There's a lot of myths about this and I've [previous debunked](_URL_0_) some of them, for more reading. So, to try to keep this short:\n\n**Invasion of Norway**\n\nSweden most certainly did not aid the _invasion and conquest_ of Norway. Sweden was no more aware of the impending invasion than Norway was, so they couldn't if they wanted to (which they did not). \n\nWhat happened here was that _after_ the invasion and occupation of Norway was completed, the Nazi government demanded that unarmed German troops who needed medical care and others on leave, would be allowed to pass from Norway through Sweden on train to and from Germany. This \"transiting\" was a violation of neutrality; although a smoewhat slight one; the former transiting was explicitly permitted under the Hague Convention, the latter was not. In a few cases, trains with sealed boxcars that the Swedes could reasonably assume had arms did pass through Sweden, and the most flagrant violation was the 'Midsummer crisis' when the Swedish government acquiesced to allow some armed German troops to pass through Sweden from Norway to Finland, for the purpose of defending Finland against the Soviets.\n\nSo Germany made no use of Sweden whatsoever to 'take control' over Norway. It had some use of Sweden in maintaining the occupation. But in the greater scheme of things it's not so clear how great the impact really was. It's not likely it would've strained Germany so much to ferry the troops over to occupied Denmark instead. The main issue was likely the safety of their troops; such ferries being potential targets for allied air raids. \n\nThe main reason the transiting is well known is not because of its great significance to the war effort, but because it was intensely unpopular in Sweden at the time as it was a violation of neutrality that helped a country most Swedes hated in an occupation they hated. It remains a well-known fact if not one of the most well known facts in Sweden, together with the Swedish iron trade with Germany. Probably _too_ well known (as historians have pointed out), the public perception of Swedes is that Sweden helped Germany much more than they actually did. \n\nYour post here certainly raises the bar to new heights of absurdity. though.\n\n**Trade**\n\nGermany had been Sweden's largest trading partner since well before a unified Germany even existed. International law does not ban neutral parties from trading with belligerents though, and when the war broke out, Sweden made a War Trade Agreement with Germany and the Allies in December 1939 that set quotas for trade with Germany in strategic goods such as iron ore and ball-bearings, which were set _below pre-war levels_. Trade in other commodities did go up; Sweden had no choice in that; the Gulf of Finland was mined (and Sweden was hostile to the Soviets anyway after the outbreak of the Winter war) and so was Skagerrak. Germany only allowed a few ships to pass each month, and those were allocated for the most desperately needed goods. Sweden did try to secretly aid the allies here by charging the British less for Swedish ball-bearings (on which they were critically dependent for aircraft engines) than the Germans. Which is actually a violation of neutrality. Ball bearing exports to Germany ceased completely in 1944, and generally exports to Germany were ramped down as the war progressed and Sweden's negotiating position improved. \n\nThe Swedish economy did **not** benefit from the war. It's not just false but completely absurd to even believe the GDP would increase by 20% in a time when the country was suffering severe shortages of all import goods but particularly fossil fuels, on which it was dependent for heating, steel production and vehicles. A significant portion of vehicles had to be converted to run on wood gas. Rationing was in effect for sugar, coffee, salt, meat, and other consumer goods. Sweden had received thousands of refugees from neighboring countries; such as the 70,000 'war children' from Finland, which demanded resources. Sweden's conscript-based armed forces were at full mobilization; over a million men out of a 6-million population were drafted into service. Resources were poured into arms production. \n\nI don't see how it is reasonable to believe that Sweden's GDP grew by a whopping 20% in that time period. It most certainly did not; Sweden's economy suffered from the war. In year 2000 SEK values, the GDP per capita was 56.6k SEK in 1939, _dropped_ over 10% to 50.0k by 1941, and recovered to 53.8k by 1945. ([numbers from _URL_1_](http://www._URL_1_/htmldatatest2/index.html)) \n\n > they(Sweden)committed the great crime of appeasement ?\n\nDid Sweden commit a 'great crime'? You're taking the two most well known actions of Sweden during the war - transiting and the iron ore trade - and trying to reduce the entirety of what happened to that. Which is to ignore entirely the actions the Swedish government took _against_ the Germans, who they in fact were against. Those are not as well known because unlike the transiting, they were _not_ known at the time. They were highly secret for fear of provoking a German invasion. Sweden's most egregious violation of neutrality was in fact in Norway's favor; starting in 1943, the government secretly trained over 15,000 Norwegians as 'police' to form an army unit of the exile government, which later participated in the liberation of Finnmark Fylke. This was so secret, even the Swedish military leadership wasn't briefed on it until 1944. It is a more severe violation of neutrality than the transiting of unarmed German troops, and a voluntary one at that and not one that Sweden was coerced into.\n\nLikewise, while the Swedish public were well aware of the German troops moving to and from Norway on trains, they were wholly unaware that the Swedish government had allowed the OSS and Norwegian government-in-exile to transit thousands of Norwegian resistance fighters who'd fled to Sweden over to Britain. And more generally the government was aware of the Norwegian Resistance was active on Swedish territory. It wasn't known until decades later that the Swedes broke the German codes during the war and shared some of that information with the Allies. And there are many other things. \n\nBut basically you're taking a point of Swedish wartime self-criticism here and casting it as the defining event of Swedish-Norwegian post-war relations, and it certainly was not. Casting it as Sweden enriching itself at Norway's expense by helping the Nazis is a _huge_ distortion of history."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/buqf3b/did_sweden_facilitatehelp_the_germans_in_the/epgw0u5/",
"historia.se",
"http://www.historia.se/htmldatatest2/index.html"
]
] |
|
1q7l87
|
need some physics help to explain why or how this works? (xpost from r/lifehacks)
|
Hello ELI5, need some help getting some science stuff down. This was a recent life hacks post, started a small controversy about why/why not it works (see comments). I'm not interested in if its a good hack or not, but mainly just the idea as to whether the flower pots actually do help generate more heat and faster. Thanks!
[original vid](_URL_1_)
[/r/lifehacks post](_URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q7l87/eli5need_some_physics_help_to_explain_why_or_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cda1e3k"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
" > ...mainly just the idea as to whether the flower pots actually do help generate more heat and faster.\n\nDefinitely not. The flower pots are only insulating the heat given off by the candles, so it won't dissipate as fast (the same way a thermos works, essentially). Since the room is so small, and his desk is right next to the \"heater\", it could make a difference."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://ww.reddit.com/r/lifehacks/comments/1q4v6k/heat_a_room_for_pennies_a_day/",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brHqBcZqNzE"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1woj0j
|
why is it that when you quit smoking you get sick and cough so much.
|
It happened to me when i quit smoking and I heard from some of my ex smoking friends.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1woj0j/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_you_quit_smoking_you_get/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cf3y0n9",
"cf3y25c",
"cf3zw18"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Nicotine is a physically addictive drug meaning that your body developed a physical dependence on the drug being in your system.\n\nWithout the nicotine your body starts to go through withdrawal symptoms until your nicotine dependence is gone.",
"Basically... it's your body's withdrawal symptom reacting to it's extreme addiction to nicotine after not receiving what it thinks it needs. Which is why it's hard for so many people to go cold turkey and need to be weaned off using patches or gum, making your body \"need\" a little less each day. Going cold turkey with smoking is no different than any hardcore drug that your body is addicted to and has an adverse reaction when it's deprived of said addiction. \n\nWhy I'll never understand smoking above anything else. ",
"Your respiratory system is lined with small hairs called cilia. These hairs have the job of moving particulates up you lung so you can get rid of them. Tobacco smoke acts kind of like an anesthetic to these cilia. Once the effects of the tobacco wear off the cilia kick back in and voile coughing spell."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
mtr5w
|
If the sun suddenly disappeared from the center of the solar system, how long would it take the Earth to freeze and for life on Earth to die off? Minutes? Days? Weeks?
|
I'm assuming the planets would all go off in straight lines according to their velocity as well. Would there be any major interplanetary interactions or would everything just sort of expand away from where the sun used to be?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mtr5w/if_the_sun_suddenly_disappeared_from_the_center/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c33s1g7",
"c33v31r",
"c33s1g7",
"c33v31r"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"There would be no gravitational interaction with the Sun, for the planets to orbi, so they would continue in a straight line in the velocity direction of when the gravitation interaction stopped, they would no longer be \"falling\" towards the Sun. Though if any of the planet's got close enough to eachother they could create their own system - such as an Earth > Jupiter system as opposed to an Earth > Sun system. Hopefully we would avoid crashing through material from the asteroid belt. \n \nAs far as what would happen to life: \n_URL_2_ \n_URL_0_ \n_URL_1_",
"Everything would be fine for about 8 and a half minutes because it would take that long for the light to stop reaching earth. In fact, as strange as it may seem, the Sun's gravity would keep earth in orbit for 8.5 minutes after the sun disappears. The changes in effects of gravity can't travel faster than the speed of light. I think surface life would start to die within days, living for a short time on the heat stored in the earth's crust. The life around the sulfur vents in the bottom of the ocean I think would keep going for decades until the core lost its heat. If I'm not mistaken, the earths core gets its heat because the changes in the suns gravitational effects causes the molten iron to churn and create heat from the friction.",
"There would be no gravitational interaction with the Sun, for the planets to orbi, so they would continue in a straight line in the velocity direction of when the gravitation interaction stopped, they would no longer be \"falling\" towards the Sun. Though if any of the planet's got close enough to eachother they could create their own system - such as an Earth > Jupiter system as opposed to an Earth > Sun system. Hopefully we would avoid crashing through material from the asteroid belt. \n \nAs far as what would happen to life: \n_URL_2_ \n_URL_0_ \n_URL_1_",
"Everything would be fine for about 8 and a half minutes because it would take that long for the light to stop reaching earth. In fact, as strange as it may seem, the Sun's gravity would keep earth in orbit for 8.5 minutes after the sun disappears. The changes in effects of gravity can't travel faster than the speed of light. I think surface life would start to die within days, living for a short time on the heat stored in the earth's crust. The life around the sulfur vents in the bottom of the ocean I think would keep going for decades until the core lost its heat. If I'm not mistaken, the earths core gets its heat because the changes in the suns gravitational effects causes the molten iron to churn and create heat from the friction."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hbbv5/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_would/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/go6g5/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_how_long/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/luaz0/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_how_long/"
],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hbbv5/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_would/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/go6g5/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_how_long/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/luaz0/if_the_sun_were_to_suddenly_disappear_how_long/"
],
[]
] |
|
qyu3n
|
Why is it that I can see both Venus and Jupiter in the night sky at the same time?
|
I'm guessing it's through some angle, but for whatever reason I can't seem to wrap my head around it. Venus is orbiting the Sun at a shorter distance than we are, and Jupiter is orbiting much farther away. So when we are facing out to space during the night, why is it we can see both?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qyu3n/why_is_it_that_i_can_see_both_venus_and_jupiter/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c41jdep",
"c41jh3b",
"c41kbx7"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You may enjoy [this.](_URL_0_)",
"Imagine being on the surface of Earth and looking in the direction of [Venus and Jupiter]( _URL_0_). Also, this gives you a good idea why we can currently see them for just a few hours around sunset right now (in the US at least).",
"Draw a line from the Earth through Venus and notice that Jupiter is very close as well. [Hopefully this picture explains it all!](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.solarsystemscope.com/"
],
[
"http://www.theplanetstoday.com/"
],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/VtxP8.png"
]
] |
|
6njlvs
|
how is the price of a book determined?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6njlvs/eli5_how_is_the_price_of_a_book_determined/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dk9y34x"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Supply and demand. Books with small publishers and high demand are expensive. Famous authors are expensive. Books that are considered up-and-coming stars are given better jackets and priced higher than new books that the publisher has deemed serviceable but not amazing. However, new books cost more than old books because there is more demand for them. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
53ua2z
|
Why are face transplants so rough?
|
This might seem like kind of a brash question, I don't mean it to be. It seems like with all the advances in plastic surgery, facial transplants should be more convincing than they currently are. What are the reasons it's so difficult to make a convincing facial transplant?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/53ua2z/why_are_face_transplants_so_rough/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7wqnc8",
"d7wxgfg"
],
"score": [
8,
5
],
"text": [
"There are so many nerve endings. Not like with most plastic surgery, where it's one area of the face that is fixed. This is an *entire face*. \n\nI would assume there's a lot of tissue damage/tissue death involved as well. It's just a really difficult task.",
"Hi, I'm new to /r/askscience.\nCan we continue asking relevant questions? \nFor instance, what if someone responds to the OP saying \"What could make the job easier? Do you know of any current methods used to partially deal with the issues?\" Or \"are partial skin grafts...\"\nAnd so on... \nI figure someone can help. \nPlease, don't ban. Lol. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2ffh5o
|
How effective were ironclad warships?
|
Were ironclads effective against wooden ships? If so, by how much?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ffh5o/how_effective_were_ironclad_warships/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck8x6t2",
"ck8zmaa"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"As /u/Superplaner pointed out, the lack of many notable clashes in the short span where Ironclad Battleships were the Queen of the Seas makes judging their effectiveness a little hard to manage. One of the few we have is the Battle of Hampton Roads, and all the evidence points to the Union Fleet's Dahlgren guns being especially ineffective for the purpose of armor penetration, while other guns available at the time might very well have torn the CSS Virginia to pieces.\n\nI got into a friendly debate on just this matter only last week in another thread, and while I don't think we reached a truly satisfactory conclusion to it, [the chain may at least highlight some of the issues](_URL_0_). \n\nAs you can see, it was mainly centered around the states of the Royal Navy and American Navy in the mid to late 1860s, so is not terribly applicable for later developments seen in the 1880s and 1890s, when breech-loaders in turrets became the norm. One of the most notable incidents we have of wood v. iron is the Battle of Hampton Roads, and all the evidence points to the Union Fleet's Dahlgren guns being especially ineffective for the purpose of armor penetration, while other guns available at the time might very well have torn the CSS Virginia to pieces. As I quoted in the linked thread, this section from a British publication in 1869 entitled \"Our Iron-clad Ships\" has this to say on the merits of American guns vis-a-vis British:\n\n > The Americans, as is well known, have followed a different system in the development of their naval guns, preferring to have a heavy projectile of large size with a comparatively low velocity, instead of an elongated projectile of less weight moving at a high velocity. The American system has been well termed the 'racking' or \"battering\" system, in opposition to our own method, which is known as the \"punching\" system. In carrying out their plan, the Americans have adopted guns of 9, 11, 13, 15, and even 20-inch calibre, and guns of 25-inch calibre and upwards are said to be contemplated. These large guns are almost without exception of cast iron, and nearly all are smooth-bores throwing cast-iron spherical shot. [...] Great differences of opinion prevail with respect to the comparative merits of our own and American guns. [...] Captain Noble shows that the American 15-inch gun, charged with 50 lbs. of our powder, and throwing a spherical steel shot weighing 484 lbs., would fail to penetrate the Lord Warden's side at any range' while our 9-inch 12-ton gun, with a 43-lb. charge, would send its 250-lb. shot through her at a range of 1000 yards. He also states that the 15-inch gun would not penetrate the 'Warrior' beyond a distance of 500 yards, while our 7-inch 6-ton guns (weighing about one-third as much as the 15-inch gun) would do the same with a charge of 22 lbs. of powder and a 115-lb. shot ; and the 12-ton gun would penetrate up to 2000 yards. It must be remembered that, instead of the steel shot hero supposed to be used with the 15-inch gun, cast-iron shot are really employed by the Americans; and this tends to increased superiority in our guns as respects penetrating power. There can be little or no doubt that the American guns have greater battering power; the real question at issue is, as before stated, the relative merits of penetration, and racking or battering.",
"For the American Civil War part.\n\nI think the battle at Hampton Roads made it clear that wooden ships would not stand an Ironclad. Keep always in mind the different scenarios, it is very difficult to generalize because what happened in the American Civil War would not necessary apply to the scenarios that British and French would encounter, for instance intensive river warfare in the American Civil War as opposed to open seas operations for British and French; still clear that wood could not stand iron.\n\nThe debate provided by Georgy_K_Zhukov is in fact quite interesting an often forgotten. I will add few things on top of him however. At Hampton Roads the CSS Virginia had installed both smooth bore and rifled artillery while the USS Monitor used just 2 smooth bore cannons in its single revolving turret. Accounts says that the USS Monitor salvos would many times bounce off Virginia plated hull although it managed to inflict other damage. However we know that USS Monitor gunners loaded the guns with a powder charge almost half the power of the recommended one in fear of explosions, noise and recoil in such a confined space (and the turret so new technology too still to be proved). Later tests seem to have shown that have the gunners used the right load of powder the solid shot would have pierced the Virginia protection given the close range at which the engagement took place, at that range the Dahlgren pieces must have delivered a very powerful punch.\n\nIn the last part of the war a naval engagement at the English Channel off the French coast brought together the USS Kearsarge (with both smooth bores and rifled cannons) and the CSS Alabama. Although not an ironclad the USS vessel had an armor clad in its midsections, all experts seem to agree that this provided a decisive advantage over the CSS vessel ending in its destruction.\n\nSources.\n\n- Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack by James Nelson\n\n- Blue & Gray at Sea: Naval Memoirs of the Civil War by Brian M Thomsen and Brian Thomsen\n\n- _URL_0_\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ebm7b/was_the_union_navy_stronger_than_the_royal_navy/cjy13uq"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cherbourg_(1864)"
]
] |
|
2mdtnf
|
At roughly what time in history did European weapons become technologically superior to those found in the rest of the world?
|
Edit: Also, what military innovations during that time made Europe superior?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mdtnf/at_roughly_what_time_in_history_did_european/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm3rg19",
"cm3rurb"
],
"score": [
4,
9
],
"text": [
"Why were the comments deleted? ",
"So, apparently the people who answered you removed all their comments. So I'll try and give you some basic guidelines, but this is pretty far from my expertise:\n\n1) First of all, the level of technology did and still does vary drastically across the world.\n\nAn important thing to realise is that technology is not just knowledge, it's also the infrastructure to use that knowledge. People like the steppe nomads wouldn't have much advanced technology, because the climate they lived in and the way of life that climate required did not support the development of the complex chains of trade and industry necessary to create more advanced technology. Not because they'd be too dumb or culturally backward to learn it if necessary. *(EDIT: or maybe it's more complicated than that, see /u/siqr below)*\n\nAlso, while I'll leave the why to actual experts, size matters. Eurasia+North Africa was one continuously connected cultural sphere, and because of its size it was generally technologically ahead of the unconnected Americas.\n\n2) Second, technology is not one behemoth. Different people could excel in different things. When it came to shipbuilding I believe the Europeans were ahead of the rest of the world from around the 16th century. But part of this was simply that only the Europeans were interested in building large complex ocean-going vessels. For example the Japanese build a Western-style ship under Jesuit guidance, and [sailed to Mexico in 1614](_URL_0_). But never had any interest in trading with and exploring the world like the Europeans did.\n\n3) This also moves to the heart of your question. In general, this question is difficult to answer because for a long time what was one of the centres of technology in the Eurasian sphere, East-Asia, was simply not interested in developing the same technologies Europe did. If you're talking general scientific knowledge, then assuming there weren't any highly developed scientific communities I'm not aware of, Europe began pulling ahead from the start of the Renaissance, and you could probably jot down 1600 as a year when Europe's scientific knowledge is the best. The reason I'm picking it is because around then we have the invention of the microscope and telescope, which are the easiest examples I could think of where Western inventions are reaching new horizons in human knowledge.\n\n4) But if you want a clear and simple answer regarding European military superiority: The moment when Europe gained a truly vast and insurmountable lead over the rest of the world is the Industrial Revolution. It is no coincidence that the [Opium Wars](_URL_1_), the first time China was humiliated by a Western power, happened in 1839. Before the industrial revolution, even though the Europeans were ahead in certain respects, they were not so far ahead that China could not kick them out of their own country if they pleased.\n\nAfterwards, European powers could do essentially what they want, as it was virtually impossible for an unindustrialised nation to withstand an industrialised one."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_Bautista_(ship\\)",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War"
]
] |
|
2bdgtw
|
what are the major differences between aerobic and anaerobic exercise?
|
What are the benefits of each?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bdgtw/eli5_what_are_the_major_differences_between/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj48old"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Aerobic exercises are often classified as cardio and endurance work outs. They focus on doing light exercises for long periods of time to help the blood flow and help muscle groups learn to work for extended periods of time. This is what's most often recommended for people who are working out just to lose weight, because it consumes lots of calories. Aerobic exercises literally mean \"pertaining to the freedom of oxygen\" meaning that you are getting enough oxygen through your system to keep going for long periods of time.\n\nThe most simple aerobic exercise is jogging/running, not sprinting, not dashes, but taking the dog for a walk or going for a jog around the block. Other ones include steppers, light swimming and cycling. These are designed to get your heart racing, and leave you breathing heavy, but not cause you to pant, heave or feel dizzy.\n\nAnaerobic exercise means \"pertaining to the lack of oxygen\" these are shorter, more intense work outs designed to build muscle, speed and strength. The lack of oxygen to your body causes lactic acid build up, which is what causes \"the burn\". If you are trying to do a power workout and don't feel it, you may need to step it up, but in contrast, if you are running and feel it, take a breather.\n\nSome widely done anaerobic workouts are push-ups, sprints, bench press, etc. Which are done in sets which are subdivided into reps. Sets should not exceed a minute or two, with a break in between.\n\n\nIn all, it depends on what you want to do. If you just want to trim some fat, throw on the running shoes and start running, but if you want to build muscle you grab some weights and start pumping."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
k9zbq
|
please explain me why some people believe the world trade center catastrophy was a conspiracy act
|
**EDIT:** Thank you very much for the answers! I'm going to read them all after I get home from university.
Again, thanks everyone for explaining
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k9zbq/please_explain_me_why_some_people_believe_the/
|
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"There are conspiracy theories on every subject imaginable (the most ridiculous within the past 30 days would probably be [this](_URL_1_) ), so it shouldn't be particularly surprising that there are conspiracy theories about 9/11. My experience arguing with \"truthers\" is that they generally don't understand the physics of what happened that day.\n\nFor instance, a common argument tends to be that the fires within the towers could not have been hot enough to melt steel; however, you don't need to completely melt a chunk of metal in order to compromise its strength. Another argument is that traces of thermite were found in the rubble of the towers; however, thermite isn't a particularly exotic material, since it is composed of aluminum powder and rust.\n\nIf I had more time, I'd go into a lot more detail, but the [Loose Change Viewer Guide](_URL_0_) debunks much of Loose Change, which is the bible of conspiracies for a lot of truthers.\n\n",
"I don't want to get into a huge flame war, so I'm not going to try and explain myself. I'll instead leave you [this link](_URL_0_).",
"Because people in the US (including myself) aren't used to seeing buildings turned into piles of debris. That *shouldn't* happen.\n",
"The human mind is very good at finding patterns. It was necessary for survival, being able to pick out someone in a dense forest or hear someone sneaking up on you over background noise.\n\nBut sometimes it works too well, and people see patterns that aren't really there, like when you see a ducky and a bunny rabbit in the clouds.\n\nSome people refuse to believe the patterns they see aren't real. They pick out the 2 or 3 facts that support their view, and ignore the 100 that don't. The fall in love with their idea, and refuse to let it go, and when challenged, it becomes less about the truth and more about being right. And the more they fight, the harder it is to admit they are wrong, so they just keep on fighting, no matter what.\n\nThis is why people believe things that are not true.",
"Because if 9/11 was not committed by our Govt. It would be one of the first times our country did not attack us to get us involved with a conflict we have no reasoning to get involved with. Is the Gulf of Tonkin incident a conspiracy theory to you? Or was FDR ignoring the reports of an oncoming fleet of Japanese war planes heading for the U.S. that would get us involved in WWII a conspiracy to you? What about our actions in Panama? All of these were sited as \"Conspiracy\" when they were mentioned in the times they took place. Now we know the truth. The fact that there are so many questionable events on that day causes overally rational people to question things. Jesus building 7 is enough to make you wonder. Some people don't believe everything their Govt. tells them. Time will tell. ",
"LIHOP theory - our government Let It Happen On Purpose",
"No one here actually explained anything about why people believe its a conspiracy act. I, myself, **do not** believe any of this, but this is what is said. Whether any of it is true, I do not know.\n\n1. There have been only 6 times in history that a steel building has fallen due to fires. 4 of them happened the WTC buildings. 2 were poorly constructed buildings.\n2. Building 7 was located across the street from the twin towers, and also fell due to controllable fires apparently. It was hit with debris from the towers collapsing. Going back to #1 this is hard to believe given that no plane hit this building. Would a fire get spread when a building falls and rubble hits another building? WTC 7 is also said to have been the control center where all the planning was done and was taken down to destroy the evidence. Some of the floors were government controlled.\n3. If you watch the videos, you can see people standing in the holes left by the plane. If people were there, the fire must not have been that strong. Combine that with #1 and #2.\n4. The designer of the towers said specifically that both buildings were designed to withstand 2 planes hitting them.\n5. The head of security at the WTC buildings was the younger brother of George W. Bush, whose 2 year contract ended on the day of the attacks. Also someone claimed a multimillion dollar insurance policy afterwards.\n6. Some people looked at the moment the buildings were collapsing and noticed small explosions that looked like controlled demolition .\n7. The Pentagon was said to have been hit by the same type of plane, a 767, yet there is no lawn damage in front of the building at all. Also some windows right next to the damaged portion of the building are in tact. Also the hole in the pentagon is smaller the width of the wings of a 767.\n8. A passport was found for Mohammed Atta, one of the attackers outside the rubble of the collapsed towers. A paper passport from inside the plane, that exploded with enough fire and heat to bring down a building survived after the towers collapsed.\n9. The steel after the towers collapsed was quickly destroyed. People would have liked it to have been saved so it could have been studied to find the cause of the collapse.\n\nI'm sure there are more, but thats is all I can remember off the top of my head.\n\n",
"There is nothing really special about 9/11 with regard to conspiracy theories.\n\nConspiracy theories exploit a general weakness in the human mind for seeking patterns and explanations for things in excess of a corresponding regard for the validity of such explanations. This is especially true of events that have had a large emotional impact on people, such as the various events of 9/11/01.\n\nAs people start to question the theory, people who feel the need to perpetuate it, start devising elaborate explanations for all the missing pieces and holes in the theory. A lot of energy and effort can go into this. Very often these explanations will be shown to be false, but rather than resetting their bearings and rethinking their original theory some of the conspiracy theorists will typically double down, by simply discarding any explanation that was unconvincing and replacing them with different explanations. They keep iterating this process doing it over and over again until they get theories that are not easily or obviously rejected/debunked on first examination.\n\nConspiracy theorists hold their theory constant, and just keep varying the explanations to find the one most convincing and most consistent with their theory. The key problem with this is that they don't proceed from an objective intent to test their theory -- anything which contradicts their theory is discarded, it is not taken as evidence against their theory.\n\nFor people who don't normally buy into conspiracy theories or dismiss the early versions of them, they are usually not as motivated to continue to test the conspiracy theory and so don't build up counter claims or critical tests to debunk them -- after all, they were never convinced by them in the first place. So over time this imbalance of effort creates an *artificial appearance* of robust support for the conspiracy theory while counter-claims don't seem as credible. This leads to the theory becoming very attractive to people who don't realize this is happening.\n\nThe key fallacy that most conspiracy theories embrace is a failure to fairly consider alternative explanations for their observations. So for example, one of the key claims of the 9/11 \"truthers\" is that the towers collapsed in a way that is \"consistent with a controlled demolition\". They literally ignore and are hoping their audience also ignores the fact that the \"official story\" (i.e.: burning + melting + pancake collapse theory) might also happen to appear consistent with a controlled demolition (as might *any* critical structural building collapse). This very simple possibility is never addressed by \"truthers\". By ignoring this, they are hoping their audience ignores it and therefore makes their own argument look much stronger than it is.\n\nYou have to have a somewhat logical mind, or be familiar with core scientific principles in order to catch problems with conspiracy theories that are constructed this way. And you have to put an effort into following the threads in the first place. Failing that, popular conspiracy theories (including crop circles, JFK assassination, Saddam's so called WMDs, the idea that the scientific community censor creationist papers and are fooling people with \"evolution\" etc) grow a life of their own with adherents that accumulate because they don't know better, or have an emotional investment in the theory.",
"I'm surprised no one has brought up [operation northwoods]( _URL_0_). A proposed series of false flag terrorist attacks on the U.S. in the mid 1960's that would be blamed on Cuba giving the government an excuse to invade Cuba. \n\nI'm still on the fence when it comes to my opinion on whether or not 9/11 was an inside job. But the evidence is pretty compelling. ",
"Even the official explanation is a story of conspiracy.\n\nNo one disputes that the attacks of sept. 11th were the result of a conspiracy.\n\nA better request would be, \"Please explain to me why the sept. 11th attacks could only have happened with the cooperation of the US Government\"",
"There are conspiracy theories on every subject imaginable (the most ridiculous within the past 30 days would probably be [this](_URL_1_) ), so it shouldn't be particularly surprising that there are conspiracy theories about 9/11. My experience arguing with \"truthers\" is that they generally don't understand the physics of what happened that day.\n\nFor instance, a common argument tends to be that the fires within the towers could not have been hot enough to melt steel; however, you don't need to completely melt a chunk of metal in order to compromise its strength. Another argument is that traces of thermite were found in the rubble of the towers; however, thermite isn't a particularly exotic material, since it is composed of aluminum powder and rust.\n\nIf I had more time, I'd go into a lot more detail, but the [Loose Change Viewer Guide](_URL_0_) debunks much of Loose Change, which is the bible of conspiracies for a lot of truthers.\n\n",
"I don't want to get into a huge flame war, so I'm not going to try and explain myself. I'll instead leave you [this link](_URL_0_).",
"Because people in the US (including myself) aren't used to seeing buildings turned into piles of debris. That *shouldn't* happen.\n",
"The human mind is very good at finding patterns. It was necessary for survival, being able to pick out someone in a dense forest or hear someone sneaking up on you over background noise.\n\nBut sometimes it works too well, and people see patterns that aren't really there, like when you see a ducky and a bunny rabbit in the clouds.\n\nSome people refuse to believe the patterns they see aren't real. They pick out the 2 or 3 facts that support their view, and ignore the 100 that don't. The fall in love with their idea, and refuse to let it go, and when challenged, it becomes less about the truth and more about being right. And the more they fight, the harder it is to admit they are wrong, so they just keep on fighting, no matter what.\n\nThis is why people believe things that are not true.",
"Because if 9/11 was not committed by our Govt. It would be one of the first times our country did not attack us to get us involved with a conflict we have no reasoning to get involved with. Is the Gulf of Tonkin incident a conspiracy theory to you? Or was FDR ignoring the reports of an oncoming fleet of Japanese war planes heading for the U.S. that would get us involved in WWII a conspiracy to you? What about our actions in Panama? All of these were sited as \"Conspiracy\" when they were mentioned in the times they took place. Now we know the truth. The fact that there are so many questionable events on that day causes overally rational people to question things. Jesus building 7 is enough to make you wonder. Some people don't believe everything their Govt. tells them. Time will tell. ",
"LIHOP theory - our government Let It Happen On Purpose",
"No one here actually explained anything about why people believe its a conspiracy act. I, myself, **do not** believe any of this, but this is what is said. Whether any of it is true, I do not know.\n\n1. There have been only 6 times in history that a steel building has fallen due to fires. 4 of them happened the WTC buildings. 2 were poorly constructed buildings.\n2. Building 7 was located across the street from the twin towers, and also fell due to controllable fires apparently. It was hit with debris from the towers collapsing. Going back to #1 this is hard to believe given that no plane hit this building. Would a fire get spread when a building falls and rubble hits another building? WTC 7 is also said to have been the control center where all the planning was done and was taken down to destroy the evidence. Some of the floors were government controlled.\n3. If you watch the videos, you can see people standing in the holes left by the plane. If people were there, the fire must not have been that strong. Combine that with #1 and #2.\n4. The designer of the towers said specifically that both buildings were designed to withstand 2 planes hitting them.\n5. The head of security at the WTC buildings was the younger brother of George W. Bush, whose 2 year contract ended on the day of the attacks. Also someone claimed a multimillion dollar insurance policy afterwards.\n6. Some people looked at the moment the buildings were collapsing and noticed small explosions that looked like controlled demolition .\n7. The Pentagon was said to have been hit by the same type of plane, a 767, yet there is no lawn damage in front of the building at all. Also some windows right next to the damaged portion of the building are in tact. Also the hole in the pentagon is smaller the width of the wings of a 767.\n8. A passport was found for Mohammed Atta, one of the attackers outside the rubble of the collapsed towers. A paper passport from inside the plane, that exploded with enough fire and heat to bring down a building survived after the towers collapsed.\n9. The steel after the towers collapsed was quickly destroyed. People would have liked it to have been saved so it could have been studied to find the cause of the collapse.\n\nI'm sure there are more, but thats is all I can remember off the top of my head.\n\n",
"There is nothing really special about 9/11 with regard to conspiracy theories.\n\nConspiracy theories exploit a general weakness in the human mind for seeking patterns and explanations for things in excess of a corresponding regard for the validity of such explanations. This is especially true of events that have had a large emotional impact on people, such as the various events of 9/11/01.\n\nAs people start to question the theory, people who feel the need to perpetuate it, start devising elaborate explanations for all the missing pieces and holes in the theory. A lot of energy and effort can go into this. Very often these explanations will be shown to be false, but rather than resetting their bearings and rethinking their original theory some of the conspiracy theorists will typically double down, by simply discarding any explanation that was unconvincing and replacing them with different explanations. They keep iterating this process doing it over and over again until they get theories that are not easily or obviously rejected/debunked on first examination.\n\nConspiracy theorists hold their theory constant, and just keep varying the explanations to find the one most convincing and most consistent with their theory. The key problem with this is that they don't proceed from an objective intent to test their theory -- anything which contradicts their theory is discarded, it is not taken as evidence against their theory.\n\nFor people who don't normally buy into conspiracy theories or dismiss the early versions of them, they are usually not as motivated to continue to test the conspiracy theory and so don't build up counter claims or critical tests to debunk them -- after all, they were never convinced by them in the first place. So over time this imbalance of effort creates an *artificial appearance* of robust support for the conspiracy theory while counter-claims don't seem as credible. This leads to the theory becoming very attractive to people who don't realize this is happening.\n\nThe key fallacy that most conspiracy theories embrace is a failure to fairly consider alternative explanations for their observations. So for example, one of the key claims of the 9/11 \"truthers\" is that the towers collapsed in a way that is \"consistent with a controlled demolition\". They literally ignore and are hoping their audience also ignores the fact that the \"official story\" (i.e.: burning + melting + pancake collapse theory) might also happen to appear consistent with a controlled demolition (as might *any* critical structural building collapse). This very simple possibility is never addressed by \"truthers\". By ignoring this, they are hoping their audience ignores it and therefore makes their own argument look much stronger than it is.\n\nYou have to have a somewhat logical mind, or be familiar with core scientific principles in order to catch problems with conspiracy theories that are constructed this way. And you have to put an effort into following the threads in the first place. Failing that, popular conspiracy theories (including crop circles, JFK assassination, Saddam's so called WMDs, the idea that the scientific community censor creationist papers and are fooling people with \"evolution\" etc) grow a life of their own with adherents that accumulate because they don't know better, or have an emotional investment in the theory.",
"I'm surprised no one has brought up [operation northwoods]( _URL_0_). A proposed series of false flag terrorist attacks on the U.S. in the mid 1960's that would be blamed on Cuba giving the government an excuse to invade Cuba. \n\nI'm still on the fence when it comes to my opinion on whether or not 9/11 was an inside job. But the evidence is pretty compelling. ",
"Even the official explanation is a story of conspiracy.\n\nNo one disputes that the attacks of sept. 11th were the result of a conspiracy.\n\nA better request would be, \"Please explain to me why the sept. 11th attacks could only have happened with the cooperation of the US Government\""
]
}
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[] |
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"http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/jx0ef/the_earthquake_on_the_east_coast_was_not_caused/"
],
[
"http://www.rememberbuilding7.org/"
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"http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/jx0ef/the_earthquake_on_the_east_coast_was_not_caused/"
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|
uoy08
|
My uncles were born identical twins, yet their personalities seem to contrast each other. Is this a known thing?
|
A couple of my uncles are identical twins. They're around fifty years old now, and time has treated them differently, so they're easy to tell apart now. They were apparently indistinguishable to nearly everybody until they hit puberty. There are a couple of things that have always intrigued me though.
One is left handed, one is right. One is introverted, one is not. One is "book smart" and the other is more at home with tools than books. They still have similar interests to this day though, and they have a certain bond.
It was always the family theory that they are "one person split in two before birth". Of course they are their own people, but as identical twins, they are very different. Are the traits I listed coincidental, or is it possible the theory has any credence?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/uoy08/my_uncles_were_born_identical_twins_yet_their/
|
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"text": [
"If they're identical (monozygotic) twins then technically they were the same ball of cells at some point. Monoamniotic/monochorionic monozygotic twins split at around day 10ish post-fertilization (just past the blastocyst stage), but most other twins split prior to that. Depending on when you define the start of life, that may or may not qualify for 'one person split in two.' \n\nBut in all seriousness, there's no mechanism for different personality traits to be apportioned out to each twin. It's just the interplay of various nature/nurture effects."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
5hwxb1
|
if older cartoons and animated movies were drawn by hand, how did they get the coloring so even and clean, unlike paintings for example?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hwxb1/eli5_if_older_cartoons_and_animated_movies_were/
|
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"It all depends on the medium used. For example, paintings often use canvas (usually with a rough surface for better paint adherence) and acrylic or oils, which tends to be thick and don't evenly mix throughout all the layers an artist applies.\n\nFor early animators, however, the medium used in earlier animations was often black and colored ink or watercolor, which tends to blend much more evenly, and are able to be applied more evenly across the layers the animators apply. The surface was usually paper or transparent slides in order to create multiple layers, a method that Disney introduced for the first time ever in Snow White",
"You mean how they stay perfectly inside the lines? It's because the sheets the animation is drawn on are transparent. They draw the lines on one side, then paint on the backside, so even if they're off slightly, filmed from the front, the color is perfectly inside the lines.\n\nIf you mean how uniform the colors are... You can make paintings like that too if you want, but painters often go for more nuance, shading, gradients, textures, etc. So they don't paint it as flat, uniform spans of color.",
"To add to what everyone else has listed here as far as frames go they painted far less background frames and body frames. You've noticed the background loop I'm sure. You'll also see that most cartoon characters have some form of break at their neck, sometimes its a tie, or a collar or something along those lines. That allowed to them to use the same body frames but just paint new head frames ."
]
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|
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[] |
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[],
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||
b67wqp
|
why does tea taste sweeter after it cools down?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b67wqp/eli5_why_does_tea_taste_sweeter_after_it_cools/
|
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"text": [
"You generally tastes less when drinking really hot things or really cold things, partially due to how fast you tend to move it to parts of your mouth that are less sensitive, and others are signals being mixed with how hot/cold/pain you are feeling."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4ell91
|
What would happen if two faults on opposite sides of a tectonic plate shifted simultaneously?
|
I was reading [this post in AskReddit](_URL_2_) and wondered what would happen if the [Cascadia subduction zone](_URL_1_) and the [New Madrid seismic zone](_URL_0_) had events occur simultaneously? I don't know that these faults are exactly on opposite sides of plates, but hypothetically, if an earthquake happened in both of the areas at the same time.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4ell91/what_would_happen_if_two_faults_on_opposite_sides/
|
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"First, the Cascadia subduction zone is on the western edge of the North American plate, but the New Madrid seismic zone is an intra-continental feature, i.e. it is in the middle of the North American plate. The eastern edge of the North American plate is the [Mid-Atlantic Ridge](_URL_1_). \n\nGoing with the spirit of the question though, the short answer is nothing different than if the two earthquakes happened at different times. We can look at a [simulated scenario for a magnitude 9 event on the Cascadia subduction zone](_URL_0_) and see that the area that experiences shaking, while certainly large on a societal scale, is small compared to the entire plate. This is because seismic waves dissipate as they travel outward. An earthquake releases a set amount of energy (this amount of energy is what the magnitude is measuring) that is released as seismic waves. As those waves expand out, roughly as a half sphere from the earthquake location on a fault plane, the amount of energy gets spread out so the intensity of shaking decreases. Thus, by the time you're a few 100 km's away, let along on the other side of a plate, the earthquake waves are detectable by a seismometer, but certainly not felt. So, if you had two simultaneous earthquakes on either side of the North American plate, the only effect might be the weird behavior of a seismometer that happened to be positioned such that the arrival time of both earthquakes were exactly the same.\n\nObviously from a societal perspective, two large events simultaneoulsy in the same country would have lots of effects in terms of resource deployment, etc, but I think you were more asking about the geology aspects of things."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/nmsz/",
"http://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/crust/cascadia.php",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4ekced/what_catastrophe_is_waiting_to_happen/"
] |
[
[
"http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake/Casc9.0_expanded_se/download/intensity.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_Ridge"
]
] |
|
3p28b7
|
canadian's election are really close. can you explain what we should know? (young guy that knows nothing and want to make the best decision)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p28b7/eli5_canadians_election_are_really_close_can_you/
|
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"As a fellow first Time voter, I have the dilemma of listening to the politicians speak agreeing with somethings they say, then they say something else and I think \"and YOU want to lead this country\". I am told to vote for the person I cringe the least at. Like the good ole saying \"politicians are like diapers, full of shit and should be changed regularly\". ",
"Read through the party platforms and websites to see which party you most agree with. \nPersonally I won't vote conservative, because they have blocked research scientist from speaking about publicly funded research results without political approval. \nThey also closed many research libraries, getting rid of decades wortn of research data, including climate data, and made stats-can useless for econimic planning. (Can you tell I don't like them?)\n\n",
"Please don't ask Redditors for help on this one. Go to [Vote Compass](_URL_0_) and answer the questions honestly. It will help show you the party(ies) which best represent your political beliefs."
]
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||
8rbt5l
|
why can't we build a car that generates its power from the wheels turn like a windmill
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8rbt5l/eli5_why_cant_we_build_a_car_that_generates_its/
|
{
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"text": [
"Because energy transfer isn't perfect, and the energy you'd expend getting the wheels to turn is WAYYY more than the energy you'd get back trying to use the spinning wheels to turn a generator. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4rufmx
|
In medieval Europe how often would you encounter people who carry either a sword or bow?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4rufmx/in_medieval_europe_how_often_would_you_encounter/
|
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"text": [
"Medieval Europe is a vast area and time. People you could meet in England in the 1100s would be different than France in the 1250s, and Italy in the 1300s. Can you narrow it down a bit?",
"In European medieval cities (with the exception of a few German and Italian ones) it was illegal to be armed unless you were either just entering the city, leaving it, or if you were a city official or a knight. And when I say knight I mean an actual knight, someone who has been knighted, not just any old guy in armour on a horse that we tend to all call knights today. So if you were visiting a city and staying in an inn it was often the responsibility of the inn keeper to look after your weapons for you. Just like today they didn't want it to be a bloodbath in public areas whenever a fight broke out so people were limited to only certain types of daggers for eating and so on. \n\nThis is a record of a law that was passed in 1393 dealing with arms in the city of London. [Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II: volume 5: 1392-1396](_URL_0_)\n\n > To the mayor and sheriffs of London. Order to cause proclamation to be made, forbidding any man of whatsoever estate or condition to make unlawful assemblies in the city or suburbs of London, to go armed, girt with a sword or arrayed with unwonted harness, carry with him such arms, swords or harness, or do aught whereby the peace may be broken or the statutes concerning the bearing of arms contrary to the peace, or any of the people be disturbed or put in fear, under pain of losing his arms etc. and of imprisonment at the king's will, except lords, great men, knights and esquires of good estate, other men upon entering or leaving the city, and the king's officers and ministers appointed to keep the peace; and order after such proclamation to arrest all whom they shall find acting contrary to the same with the exceptions aforesaid, their followers, the arms, swords etc. found with them, and to keep them in custody in prison until further order, causing their arms etc. to be appraised and answer to be made to the king for them, and certifying in chancery from time to time the names of those arrested and the price and value of their arms etc. and so behaving that henceforward no more mischief be there done by their default; as it has now newly come to the king's ears that there are evildoers and breakers of the peace, some armed, some girt about the midst with swords, and some arrayed as aforesaid, who lurk in divers places within the city and suburbs and run to and fro committing batteries, mayhems, robberies, manslaughters etc., and hindering and disturbing the ministers and officers of the city from the exercise of their offices, in contempt of the king and breach of the peace, to the disturbance and terror of the people and contrary to the said statutes, which the king will not and ought not to endure.\n\nLaws like this were quite often reissued so its clear people breaking these laws was a bit of problem. \n\nIf you're asking about how common swords were then it depends on the time you're looking at. Before the 12th Century swords were more rare among the normal population. But in the 13th Century the blast furnace made making sword blades much easier and they therefore became much more affordable. Swords would also often outlive their owners so as time went on in the medieval era you had an ever growing number of old second hand swords in addition to the new ones being made. So by the 14/15th Century basically anyone who wanted a sword could get one. The price of swords of course would vary greatly. In wills from the time we can see that they valued an old rusty sword at about 2 pence. And to give you an idea of this value an English foot archer fighting in the 100 years war would have earned 3 pence a day. On the other end of the spectrum in about 1412 Henry V had 12 swords made to be diplomatic gifts and each one of these swords was valued at 2,000 pounds and at this time there were 240 pennies to a pound. So that English foot archer would have to work every day for about 438 years to afford that. \n\nAs for bows you would only really see people with them who intended to use them for hunting or practice. Bows are big and cumbersome, they're a pain to just go about your daily business with. And that thing they all do in movies where they sling them across their back isn't really possible since it is extremely uncomfortable and annoying, if you've ever tried it with a bow you'll know this. The reason why swords were so popular as a weapon in daily life was because they were so easy to wear. Their effectiveness as a battlefield weapon wasn't the best and their capabilities are vastly over-exaggerated in movies. But their ability to function as a reliable self defence weapon without being a burden is what sets them apart. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE57662"
]
] |
||
b8dxyd
|
why are illicit drugs cut with dangerous chemicals?
|
I often see articles on drugs being cut with dangerous chemicals. Like mdma tablets containing paint thinner.
Why is this the case? Why not just use something like flour if you are trying to save money on production
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b8dxyd/eli5_why_are_illicit_drugs_cut_with_dangerous/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ejxxh6t"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"When you're making drugs \"at home' (ie - not a professional lab), you tend to cut corners and not buy everything from the most reputable chemical suppliers. Maybe you need a strong acid, why not grab battery acid or concrete cleaner? A strong base means you use lye-based drain cleaner. A solvent has you use gasoline.\n\nSince there's no real standards or testing, these things get left in there. You then have anti-drug propaganda giving it the scariest possible description when they say what it is."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
12ihbi
|
Why does the temperature drop just before sunrise?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12ihbi/why_does_the_temperature_drop_just_before_sunrise/
|
{
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"c6vbg3t",
"c6vcxq7",
"c6ve23w"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
2
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"text": [
"I'm not sure what you mean. Excluding outside factors like cold fronts, the temperature doesn't suddenly drop just before sunrise.\n\nJust before sunrise is the coldest part of the day because cooling takes place throughout the night while the sun is not up (again, excluding fronts), but there's no sudden drop just before dawn.",
"The earth radiates heat back into the atmosphere during the night. As the earth loses heat, the ground temperature drops until the sun rises and begins warming again.\n\nEdit: Forgot to mention that this means its coldest before dawn, not that there is a sudden drop.",
"[Here is a figure](_URL_0_) that shows generally what the heating from the sun is. During the day, the heating is basically sinusoidal, due to incident thermal radiation, but at night, cooling occurs exponentially, basically following Newton's law of cooling. You can see that the temperature reaches its lowest point just before dawn. Naturally, the surface has no \"knowledge\" that the sun is coming up soon, if the sun never rose, it would continue to get colder. This is true on any planetary body. Of course, it is GREATLY affected by clouds, humidity, atmosphere, latitude, etc. so it's not nearly so clear on Earth. However, during the winter when a lot of atmospheric moisture has condensed out and you get those crystal clear nights good for star viewing, it gets super cold at night because the earth can radiate into space without the blanketing effect of clouds, you will see something closer to this pattern."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/dKRWR.jpg"
]
] |
||
5cienk
|
How Do I find out who is buried on my parents' old property when some of the graves are marked only with stones?
|
My parents are in Eastern NC so the area's been inhabited for a VERY long time. There is a small family cemetery on site, but only 3 of the graves are marked with headstones. However, there are a few large round rocks near the cemetery, and ONLY in that area. My dad says they were ballast rocks for ships and thinks they mark the graves of slaves but we don't want to dig them up.
Can anybody tell me what kind of burial slaves were typically given? Were the graves usually marked? Or might it be something else entirely? I don't have a picture right now but it isn't hard to imagine, really. I think each rock is 6 - 10" in length and they are all very smooth.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5cienk/how_do_i_find_out_who_is_buried_on_my_parents_old/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d9wpsas"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Not asking you to dox yourself at all, but depending on the county it might be worth contacting the county historical society and/or the local newspaper, to see if they have archives going back to the early era of when the area was settled. If I remember correctly, UNC in Chapel Hill has a newspaper archive, and some of the older newspapers in the state have microfilm going back farther than you would think and from predecessor papers as well. (I worked at the Wilmington *Morning Star/Star-News* for awhile out of college and our archives were back to the 1860s.) If you can get an idea of which family owned the land, you may be able to research tax bills or something similar to see what (and who) they owned. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1atygi
|
Was there ever a more global language than English?
|
Unless I'm extremely mistaken, English is the world's current Lingua Franca. From my history classes I'm aware that there were previous ones, such as Latin and French, but they were all active when cultures were much more isolated. Has there ever been a language as universally accepted as English?
The reason I ask is because I was personally curious if English might become the language spoken ad infinitum (with an evolution, of course.)
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1atygi/was_there_ever_a_more_global_language_than_english/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c90ub9o"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"English is widely spoken throughout the world, but isn't nearly as dominant as you might think. It's second to Mandarin in terms of total speakers, and Spanish (a very global language), Arabic, and Russian aren't very far behind. A solid tip in the economy that lasted a few generations could totally upset our perception that English is the language of business in favor of, say, Mandarin. We have never had a more communicative, networked planet, and no other language has enjoyed this advantage. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6g1wth
|
What are the origins of playing cards?
|
Additionally, where does the Ace come from? The Jack?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6g1wth/what_are_the_origins_of_playing_cards/
|
{
"a_id": [
"din361y",
"dinhv7r"
],
"score": [
61,
26
],
"text": [
"Follow-up question:\nHow did certain cards in various games gather their names, such as the left and right \"bauers\" of Euchre or the \"vixer\" and \"old lady\" of Solo?\n\nIf I understand correctly, the games I gave as example are historically of German origin, which could have a role in the naming of the specific cards. In fact, \"Bauer\" means farmer in German, but how did the cards get these names?",
"This might possibly already get answered with the original question, but Id like to put it out there as a follow up just in case:\n\nDepending on how far back this goes, were card games more common among wealthier or poorer class people? Or for everyone like it is now? It seems like Poker (for example) nowadays is portrayed in a \"classier\" way(betting money, got the cigars and scotch going and all that as a cliche), but it being such a simple, inexpensive activity, cards seem like something the more lower class would play to have fun and pass the time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1xl4ih
|
what happens to fines paid to government?
|
For example:
I was reading about the [Libor Scandal](_URL_0_) and it said...
"On 19 December 2012, UBS agreed to pay regulators $1.5 billion ($1.2 billion to the US Department of Justice --- ) for its role in the scandal."
...
Who gets the money in these cases? Does it just fund future investigations? Does this money go to a general fund used in discretionary spending? Is the answer the same for Local/State/National levels?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xl4ih/eli5what_happens_to_fines_paid_to_government/
|
{
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"cfcc70y",
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"text": [
"I'm sure there are a million and two different stories if you followed any of the money, but generally speaking it counts as revenue for that level of government. Like taxes and bond sales and then it gets allocated in some budget limited only by the administration's imagination and spent/wasted/buried in the backyard. Any court-appointed settlement could also come with its own strings attached, like \"this money can only be spent on a national hairstyle museum.\"",
"Broadly speaking, it's treated as income. In that respect, you can think of it like cutting Uncle Sam a check; it's no different than paying taxes.\n\nIt might help to think of the government^1 as a big corporation: there's a highly visible point person, a 538-person board of directors, and a whole bunch of subsidiary corporations. They're all owned by the same company, they all answer to the same CEO, but they all do different things and keep track of their own business — including what they make and what they spend.\n\nEach individual government agency has its own budget; each agency is responsible for keeping tabs on how much money comes in and how much comes out. Fines are generally paid to their relevant agencies — the DOJ would impose criminal and civil penalties, while regulatory agencies like the SEC might also impose their own fines.^2 Those incomes are accounted for in each agency's budget as a separate line item.^3 As for what the agency does with it then? Well, it's kind of up to them; after all, they're the ones who \"made\" the money. Usually, though, the money will stay within the agency in order to fund its operations.^4\n\nSome specific fines are earmarked for special purposes: criminal fines and penalties are earmarked to go towards the [Crime Victims Fund](_URL_1_), a rather large^5 fund used to compensate victims of crimes.^6 The decision of what to do with the money is really on an agency level, but usually it will go to agency operations.^8\n\nLastly, it's worth noting that all of these supplemental sources of income are just that: supplemental. Taxes, in their various forms, make up about 91% of all federal revenue, with the bulk of that coming from income and payroll taxes. ([Here](_URL_4_) are some pretty graphs for that!)\n******\n^1 This is all for federal information. I presume state-level budget management is much the same. State agencies rarely levy massive fines like the DOJ does, but of course state budgets are proportionally smaller.\n\n^2 Many agencies have the power to assess fines for violations of their rules, and I would speculate that most rule violators would rather pay a fine than take it to court and *then* pay a fine. DOJ and SEC are just the poster children for throwing down billion-dollar bills.\n\n^3 Literally! You know how much the government loves paperwork, so you can bet your tax return it's all out there... somewhere. They key is finding it. [Here](_URL_3_) is a set of high-level budget spreadsheets which contain some examples of literal line items for different incomes.\n\nIf you take a look at the [Receipts](_URL_0_) document, you can see how the various agencies track their money. In that document, you can see that rows 149–46 represent receipts for the DOJ — and since the DOJ doesn't tax people, all of their money comes from fines and fees. 140 and 143–46 represent fee income, while 139 and 141–42 represent fines. \nVarious other agencies also have more interesting fees. Line 187 represents assets the Treasury seized from Iraqis — and you'll note that, farther over to the right, that only happened in FY 2003 and 2004. Big settlements might have their own line items; line 195 is the EPA's income from the Exxon Valdez settlement fund.\n\n^4 The exception, of course, being the IRS. They're in the business of making money for everyone else to spend it.\n\n^5 In the [above-linked spreadsheet](_URL_0_), you can see this line item on 142. According to [Wikipedia](_URL_1_), the CVF is currently sitting on about $4B.\n\n^6 More information about the CVF, including their specific financial breakdown, is available [online](_URL_2_). I should note here that, as a general rule, victims of crime can also usually file a civil lawsuit for compensation; the CVF is designed as a gap-filler to provide compensation when the criminal^7 cannot.\n\n^7 Well. Since the civil burden of proof is preponderance, but the criminal standard is of course beyond a reasonable doubt, you can win a civil lawsuit even if a person was not convicted of the crime... but that's a bit beyond the scope of this explanation.\n\n^8 Agencies can't rely on fines for any significant part of their operating budget, of course; they're irregular incomes. Nevertheless, it's reasonable for an agency to expect a range of income based on those fines and to budget around that. Billion-dollar windfalls are just that: windfalls."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/receipts.xls",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_Victims_Fund",
"http://ojp.gov/ovc/pubs/crimevictimsfundfs/intro.html",
"http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Supplemental",
"http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm"
]
] |
|
3omehk
|
I read that caffeine in coffee has a half life of about 4 hours. It's this true? If so, why dies it only decay at this rate after the coffee is brewed?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3omehk/i_read_that_caffeine_in_coffee_has_a_half_life_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvzt9t0"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"4-5 hours. The half life is only in regards to the metabolic half life inside the body. A lot of enzymes break down caffeine into other compounds and this process takes time. Some is also expelled through the urine. \n\nNatural degrading of compounds does not happen in the same way. It is a totally different process and it usually takes way longer depending on the enviroment. A dry coffee bean will not lose its caffeine so easily. A wet one however would be subject to bacterial processes. Or one in a very hot place could destroy the caffeine gradually though heat. Or pure caffeine in sunlight could slowly break down the molecular bounds. Some compounds can resist enviromental hazards better than others and some break down quite quickly if they are not kept in an ideal enviroment. Caffeine is on that side of compounds that can take a beating."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1j0cmu
|
How can Orcas jump so high?
|
I remember seeing Free Willy and thinking it was absurd how high Willy jumped, but then I saw [this picture](_URL_0_) and I'm quite perplexed. That's way higher than a great white shark can jump, and they are powerful swimmers and much lighter to boot.
So how does an Orca pull it off?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1j0cmu/how_can_orcas_jump_so_high/
|
{
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"cb9th81",
"cb9uq7g"
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text": [
"It's all about velocity, the faster you can approach the surface of the water, the higher you can jump. However it's not an issue of being better swimmers in general, sharks are neutral buoyancy, orcas are positive buoyancy. This means orcas store energy as they dive, and this gets converted into velocity as they ascend. It makes sense from a survival perspective, sharks don't have to surface to breathe, but if orcas were neutral buoyancy and overestimated their dive endurance, they'd drown. Similarly, but less extreme, if sharks were positive buoyancy, they'd have to waste energy to maintain their depth.",
"For some context, the minimum speed required to jump 15 feet is about 20 miles an hour."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/a/KlE5f"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
15wcnt
|
how do the rsa securids work?
|
I saw [this post](_URL_0_) and decided to read up on what these devices do. Apprently, I'm having comprehension problems today because the Wikipedia page went right over my head.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15wcnt/how_do_the_rsa_securids_work/
|
{
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"c7qeux4",
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"text": [
"Normally, when you log into a server your user credentials are stored in some kind of database. This may be a *nix based system, or in Windows this will typically be Active Directory (AD).\n\nTo overly simplify things, the database would just have a list of username:password, you enter your username and the correct password for that username - voila! You get in!\n\nThe RSA SecurIDs add a 2nd level of protection, otherwise known as 2-phase authentication. There is additional software installed on the authentication server (i.e.: the server where that username:password database is stored) which adds a 3rd item you have to enter in order to get logged in successfully.\n\nEach keyfob (the grey keychain thing shown in that post) has a unique serial number written on the back. If you'll notice one of the top comments said \"DO NOT POST THE BACK OF IT!!\"\n\nThat unique serial number is stored on the authentication server, and matched against your username. There is an algorithm used to generate a code on the keyfob, which is the same one used inside the server side software. With the same algorithm on each side, the authentication software knows what code should be displayed on your keyfob at any given time.\n\nTo add **another** layer of security, you typically have to provide a personal pin on TOP of what's displayed on the keyfob. This is typically a 4-6 digit number that you choose yourself. So now your pin is something like 1234 + whatever is on the keyfob\n\nSo... when you go to log in you can only get in with YOUR pin, with what is listed on YOUR keyfob, with YOUR username, and YOUR password.",
"Let's say that I own a house. I'm going to go on vacation and I trust you to come into my home and take care of my cats. Now I could just give you a key to my home and then we wouldn't have to worry about much else.\n\nBut If you accidentally lose the key, and someone apprehends it, they have access to my house! AND MY CATS D:\n\nSo I decided to up my security at home. A simple explanation would be that I installed a deadbolt and gave you a second special key. Let's look at a little bit more accurate description.\n\nI have my normal door key and also a pin pad. You can enter my house if you have the key, as well as the secret code on the pinpad.\n\nHere's where the fun starts.\n\nIf i just told you \"the pin is 12345\" (that's the combination to my luggage!) then anyone could just extract that information from your head (a la inception style) and would have the same problem as me giving you the key.\n\nSo I give you a mathematical equation. I tell you that y = x^2 + 2x + 3 (irreverent equation, just to get a point across) where x is the current date and time (ex: 1/3/2013 10:45 would be formatted like 1320131045) and we'd plug that into the equation we agreed on. The value I get at the end would be the number that you put into the pinpad.\n\nThe great thing is that the key is never set on one value, the pin changes every minute. \n\nThe RSA SecurID works in the same way by being connected to a server and agreeing upon an equation and several other things. It uses AES-128 to generate the key (iirc) so it's secure. Every minute (or whatever interval is set) it generates a new value, and at the same time, so does the server. Because they're following the same guidelines, the values will be the same on both ends.\n\nIt's a two-factor authentication method so if anyone gets your password, they would still need that unique securID",
"Imagine you had two matched devices that generated a series of numbers, 1 every minute, based on a secret formula. You give me one, and keep one for yourself. Later on, I text you, but you aren't sure that it is me, so you ask for the number on my device. If it matches yours, you can be pretty sure it is really me.\n\nThat's basically what is going on. The secret formula is designed so that every device can have its once unique version, and that is it is very, very hard to figure out the formula from just the numbers. One device is your key fob, and the other is a program running on the computer you are trying to connect to. This way, even if someone gets your password, they still need the device to log in."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/15w688/my_securid_code_was_all_zeros/"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
b3zf68
|
why are the french riots with the yellow vest protestors not being reported at all in u.s. media?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b3zf68/eli5_why_are_the_french_riots_with_the_yellow/
|
{
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"ej38nwj",
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"text": [
"A combination of the fact that many people in the US don't care about foreign affairs to begin with and don't understand the reason for the Yellow Vest protests / riots and are therefore not interested, and that even if people did understand what the protests were about, they've been going on for so long that the media would have a hard time marketing it as clickable material.\n\nThe conspiracy part of me thinks it's because France is a NATO ally and revered democratic nation and the media doesn't want to glorify mass protests against a publicly elected government. ",
"They were when they started.\n\nNow it's old news, and not terribly interesting to anyone in the US. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
765op1
|
during the war of the currents, tesla and edison battled over superiority between alternating current (ac) and direct current (dc). why is alternating current regarded as more superior than direct current?
|
I know that the main difference between alternating current and direct current is that direct current flows from one direction while alternating current goes back and forth in the same circuit.
But what difference does it make? Why does this make alternating current superior than direct current?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/765op1/eli5_during_the_war_of_the_currents_tesla_and/
|
{
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"text": [
"It is not really superior. Automobiles use direct current.\n\nThe one really important difference up to now is that transformers can be used to step up and down the voltage with alternating current.\n\nAt the power plant the voltage is stepped up tremendously to be carried on high overhead wires. High voltage means low current. Low current means more power transmitted over same size wires with less loss due to resistance.\n\nThe voltage is stepped down before use in residential and most commercial buildings. Only alternating current can do this using transformers. \n\nThere may also be advantages in industry where triple phase alternating current can be made available.\n\nDirect current is actually less dangerous if people connect across the voltage.",
"Power needs to be transmitted at high voltages to minimize losses in the system. You don't use high voltage so it needs to be \"stepped down.\" AC can be stepped down easily and efficiently with a transformer circuit. Before semiconductors, there was no efficient way to step down DC. Or at least nowhere near as efficient as a transformer with AC. \n\nBecause AC has fewer losses when it was stepped down, it was cheaper for power companies to adopt AC generators and transmit that instead of DC. \n\nThere were additional problems, for example it was easier to convert AC to DC for applications than convert DC to AC reliably. \n\nSo that's why we use AC in our power grids. \n\nThat said, things aren't the same today as they were a century ago. High voltage DC has fewer losses in the wire than AC, and modern electronics has made efficient DC/DC and DC/AC conversion possible. Over new and long distance transmission, DC is used today instead of AC. ",
"The reason is because of long transmission lines. The transmission lines themselves also have resistance, i.e. some of the power that is being sent through them is lost to resistance.\n\nHowever, the higher the voltage is you send through, the less power you lose this way. BUT very high voltage is dangerous and you want much lower voltages to actually use the electricity.\n\nWith AC it's rather easy to change the voltage through a transformer.\n\nWith DC it's not so easy to adapt the voltage.\n\nAnd that is why the electricity grid is AC.",
"Misnomer there - War of the Currents was Edison and **Westinghouse**, not Tesla and Edison. Tesla did not get into the AC biz until after the \"War' was already on and his poly-phase motor did not hit the market until after \"War\" was over. He had no roll in the War of the Currents. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs other have said, AC's main advantage was it could be converted to a higher voltage using a transformer to allow it to be transmitted much longer distances in the same diameter wire. The cost of wire (copper) was everything back then so if you did not have to buy big thick conductors you could undercut the other guy (Edison) who did. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
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|
34kgn7
|
Are there any measurable differences between two hydrogen atoms?
|
Excluding isotopes.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/34kgn7/are_there_any_measurable_differences_between_two/
|
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"text": [
"No. :)\n\nThat's a quite significant feature of quantum mechanics. They are completely indistinguishable. And this is a relevant feature when doing calculations in thermodynamics (more precisely in statistical mechanics). ",
"Nope. A hydrogen atom is one electron and one proton. All protons are identical, and all electrons are identical, so we expect all hydrogen atoms are identical.",
"There are several areas where there can be differences.\n\nOne hydrogen atom can have a different speed or direction from another hydrogen atom.\n\nHydrogen atoms have a spin which can be up or down. NMR uses this to investigate the properties of materials.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nYou can have various spin isomers of H2 due to this.\n\nThe hydrogen can have varying numbers of electrons attached or interacting with it. This affects the NMR, and we can tell what environment a hydrogen atom is in using NMR.\n\nThe electrons and protons within hydrogen materials can be vibrating, rotating, and twisting and bending in space. We study this with UV-Vis spectroscopy and rotational vibrational spectroscopy.\n\nIt's relatively easy to interconvert hydrogen from one of these to another though.",
"I don't think the question is about whether two hydrogen (or whatever) atoms can be in different states from each other. The question is if you teleport the complete state of one atom to another, would there be inherent properties of underlying particles that would distinguish the original from the copy\n\nIt seems like the answer would be no, two atoms of the same element are exactly identical and exchangeable."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_isomers_of_hydrogen"
],
[]
] |
|
2y5804
|
a breakdown of the marvel universe leading up to avengers: age of ultron.
|
Comic geek friends of mine are very excited about the upcoming new movie. I have a basic knowledge of each character and their personal world, but I never read the comics and am ignorant to how they are connected and the roles they play. Can anyone give me a cliff notes version?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y5804/eli5_a_breakdown_of_the_marvel_universe_leading/
|
{
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"text": [
"They were once all separate heroes but they were eventually all recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D., a US government agency dedicated to detecting and neutralizing threats, both on earth and elsewhere.\n\nIt is a lot to go into so I agree with homeboi in saying check out /r/marvel or /r/marvelstudios "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
an4bli
|
Is CBD oil effective at treating anxiety/depression?
|
I noticed CBD oil is available without prescription. The pamphlet has a disclaimer saying they can only call it a food supplement and not a medicine for treating/curing ailments. This suggests that they have no evidence of their claims and it is unregulated because it is harmless. It seems like it might be another homeopathy type "cure". I know that there is cannibas oils that are effective but it seems to me that some of them might not be. Can anyone please clarify if CBD is legit or if only the controlled versions are effective?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/an4bli/is_cbd_oil_effective_at_treating_anxietydepression/
|
{
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"text": [
"It is not a homeopathy type cure because there is actual science to support it's use, although there has not been a lot of research into the area until fairly recently. A systematic review (including studies up to 2015) found that:\n\n & #x200B;\n\n*Existing preclinical evidence strongly supports CBD as a treatment for generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder when administered acutely; however, few studies have investigated chronic CBD dosing. \\[...\\] Overall, current evidence indicates CBD has considerable potential as a treatment for multiple anxiety disorders, with need for further study of chronic and therapeutic effects in relevant clinical populations.* \n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThere are a couple of things that you should look into / be aware of: \n\n1) As you mentioned, it's not regulated, which means (much like \"nutraceuticals\") that you don't necessarily know what you're getting (dosage / concentration, what it was derived from, etc.).\n\n2) It may or may not be legal in your jurisdiction. ",
"Neuroscience PhD here. \n\nIt might be useful for anxiety, but the evidence is nowhere near as clear as people are making it out to be in this thread. More importantly, the side effects and long term effects of chronic is are completely un-studied. \n\nIf anxiety is inhibiting your ability to live the way you would like, please see a doctor. I promise that the century of research on the treatment of anxiety will serve you better than trying CBD oil.",
"In the past six years or so, CBD has made headlines around the world as a potential treatment for anxiety disorders, ranging from mild to severe. Studies suggest that CBD counteracts many of THC’s adverse effects. Numerous animal studies and human studies indicate that [CBD hemp oil](_URL_1_) has powerful anti-anxiety properties. CBD oil is safe, non-toxic and may be beneficial to treat a number of anxiety-related disorders, including:\n\n* Panic disorder\n* Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)\n* Social phobia\n* Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)\n* Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)\n* Mild to moderate depression\n\nEven the [National Institute on Drug Abuse](_URL_0_) – no fan of cannabis – says that CBD has been shown to reduce stress and alleviate depression. Study subjects were observed as having lower behavioral signs of anxiety. Their physiological symptoms of anxiety, like increased heart rate, also improved."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/"
],
[],
[
"https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/legislative-activities/testimony-to-congress/2016/biology-potential-therapeutic-effects-cannabidiol",
"https://hemp2wellness.co.uk/"
]
] |
|
65kcsz
|
How did hunting wild animals in Africa change after the introduction of firearms?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/65kcsz/how_did_hunting_wild_animals_in_africa_change/
|
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"text": [
"Well, first I should note that there was quite a bit of variation. Firearms were being traded to the states of West Africa in the early 1600s, but in interior Central Africa they were still fairly rare and recent introductions in the 1830s. By the same token, use of firearms for hunting varied in different societies.\n\nI'll also note that although the question specifically asks about hunting, firearms were also sought for use in warfare, and many African kings/chiefs were quick to appreciate the military applications. Furthermore, the practice of hunting and specialized hunting fraternities have been seen as having application as training for warfare, even before the introduction of firearms.^1\n\n Though many scholars will point out that the firearms that Europeans traded to Africans in the 18th and 19th centuries were either worn out, outmoded, or otherwise of low quality. \n\nIn the Grassfields area along the modern day Cameroon-Nigeria border, flintlock muskets known as Dane guns were traded from the port at Calabar, and were used in warfare and ceremonial functions into the 20th century. Quoting Jan-Pierre Warnier-^2\n\n > According to many informants, guns were seldom used in hunting. Instead, traps nets and spears were used. They only exception may have been that of the leopard- the noblest and most valued game. Many oral accounts report leopard-hunting with guns. However, the actual tactics used in such hunts is not clear. It might be the leopard, once sighted, was lured into attacking a group of gunmen. But even this way of hunting would have been highly dangerous because of the risk of misfiring, though the discharge of an 11 or 12 gauge smoothbore at close range must have been quite effective at stopping a leopard in full _URL_0_ may be that hunters were willing to run high risks to win the rewards associated with the killing of a leopard. Often, it was the gift of a wife by the chief- an invaluable reward in a society where titled men monopolized the women and forced many junior men to remain bachelors for life.\nIn Central and Eastern Africa (DRC, Tanzania, Zambia), the introduction of firearms was intimately tied to trade in Slaves and trade in Ivory.\n\nThough on the other hand, Warnier also mentions that percussion guns began to be introduced to the region between WWI and WWII, and that flintlock owners had local blacksmiths turn their guns into percussion guns, making them much more reliable and better hunting weapons.\n\nAmong societies in Central Africa like the Luba or the Lozi, access to firearms was a symbol of elite status. Guns were procured by long-distance trade, either from Angola through Ovimbundu traders, or from the Swahili coast through Swahili or Nyamwezi trade caravans. The early-mid 19th century saw an expansion of trading networks from the coast deep to the interior of the continent. As I noted above, in 1830 firearms would have been a recent introduction among the Lozi or the Lunda, and there were initially few, and a chief's prestige would be reflected in the number of firearms or even cannons they could display.\n\nAt the same time, firearms were deeply connected to the trades in ivory and the trade in slaves. In this era, Nyamwezi and Swahili trader-adventurers like Mirambo, Msiri and Tippu Tip were establishing what I would call \"warlord states\" in eastern and southern DRC and in central Tanzania, relying on musket armed followers to enforce their usurpation, but also to collect ivory for trade to the coast, or else enforce tribute from local hunters.\n\nThis intrusion of Big Men in mid-nineteenth century Central Africa also had profound effects on societies outside of these warlord states. To quote David Gordon-^3\n\n > Ivory became the symbol of the new ruling class, the most prestigious and valued trading item. Warlord chiefs demanded all or a significant portion of ivory from the hunt or employed their own hunters to procure tusks. Indeed, the definition of chieftancy revolved around the ability to impos claims for tribute in ivory....\n\n > Guns were used to procure both slaves and ivory. But it was especially with the ascendance of the ivory trade that guns became a necessary factor of production. Guns were increasingly used to hunt elephants. The hunting of elephants had previously been undertaken by brave men organized in guilds with specialized techniques that included trapping, poisons, and specially manufactured spears. But this changed in the second half of the century. Renowned Chikunda and Bisa elephant hunters gained access to or began to manufacture primitive guns and abandoned their old hunting techniques. they had little choice if they were to compete with the gun-wielding followers of coastal caravans. When, for example, Tippu Tip's followers encountered herds of elephants, they could slaughter 'countless numbers' of elephants.\n\n > But the use of guns to kill elephants was only one aspect of the connection between guns and ivory. The export of ivory became linked to a violent regional trade in slaves. Although exhausted and famished slaves were not effective porters for ivory, the slave and ivory trades developed together as predominantly male ivory hunters desired slaves, often women, as worker and as concubines. The Lunda-Chokwe in the west of the region, for example, purchased female slaves from the Ovimbundu caravans that reached the interior and previously supplied slaves for the Atlantic trade. In exchange they sold ivory destined for the international markets. Farther north, the Kuba ppurchased slaves for ivory. Chikunda hunters in the east also purchased slave women to expand their lineages.\n\nAs guns flowed into the region, the earliest European explorers often remarked about how guns quickly depleted the local game population. For instance, Emil Holub visited the Lozi in 1875 and witnessed a royal hunt where he says perhaps 10,000 shots were fired. By 1886, the next Lozi king Lubosi Lewanika forbade the use of guns during the annual royal hunt.^4\n\nSimilarly, while living among the Kololo 1853, David Livingstone wrote in his private diary that their recent adoption of firearms to hunt elephants would mean \"very soon, none will appear in this part of the country. They retire before the gun sooner tan any other animal\". ^5 His prediction was borne out, since the ivory trade in that region of Malawi was exhausted soon after.\n\nIncidentally, with greater European presence in the colonial era, some hunting safari expeditions were seized upon by missionaries as opportunities for evangelization. These hunting expeditions could take a crude form of humanitarian relief, as food providing expeditions in time of local famine. In such circumstances, missionaries could present a successful hunt as a homily on God's gracious provision of food in time of need.\n\nIn other circumstances, missionaries armed with the latest firearms could be called upon to use them for the protection of their mission station or local communities against man-killing predators.^6\n\nIn Southern Africa, Griqua and Khoikhoi groups introduced firearms to the highveld in the 1820s and 1830s. Many Tswana and other Ngoni chiefs were quick to appreciate the military application of firearms, reasoning that through the getting of firearms, they would become militarily superior to their neighbors and equal to Griqua and whites. The Tswana were also quick to appreciate the effectiveness of firearms for hunting, which made up an essential part of Tswana food strategy until the 20th century. \n\nAs in Central Africa, the ivory trade was deeply tied to the trade in firearms. But, in the specific context of Southern Africa, firearms could come from British or Boer traders. By the 1870s, firearms had so proliferated among the Xhosa, the Sotho and the Tswana that Cape Colony officers fighting in the Ninth Cape-Xhosa war (1877-79) and the Sotho Gun War (1880-81) would complain that their foes had superior rifles than their own troops. Additionally, the Gun War was fought over Cape Colony efforts to disarm the Sotho, ending in a de-facto Sotho victory. \n\nSimilar settler unease would lead Cape Colony officials to demand Tswana disarmament in 1895. However, Tswana chiefs supported by London Missionary Society missionaries resisted these demands, arguing that firearms had become 'vital to their customary economic activity of hunting'.^7\n\nAll of that was a long-walk to say that firearms became a vital part of Tswana hunting strategy and led to a loss of traditional hunting techniques within 60 years of their introduction in Southern Africa.\n\n---\nSources!\n\n1) \"The Shirts that Mande Hunters Wore\" by Patrick Mcnaughton in *African Arts* Vol 15, no 3 (May 1982) pp54-91\n\n2) *The Cameroon Grassfields Civilization* by Jean-Paul Warnier. pp 65\n\n3) \"Wearing Cloth, Wielding Guns: Consumption, Trade and Politics in the South Central African Interior during the Ninteenth Century\" by David M Gordon in *the Objects of Life in Central Africa* pp 30\n\n4) *The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Technology and Politics* by Giacomo Macola pp53-72\n\n5)\"Reassessing the Significance of Firearms in Central Africa: the case of North-Western Zambia to the 1920s\" by Giacomo Macola in *Journal of African History* vol 51 no 3 pp 311\n\n6) \"Fishers of Men and Hunters of Lion:British Big Game Hunting in Colonial Africa\" by Jason Bruner in *A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire* pp 60 \n\n7) \"Firearms in South Central Africa\" by Anthony Atmore, J. M. Chirenje and S.I. Mudenge in *Journal of African History* Vol 12 no 4 pp 550"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"charge.It"
]
] |
||
78zg82
|
what is this warm feeling that starts from the top of my face and goes down towards my body.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78zg82/eli5_what_is_this_warm_feeling_that_starts_from/
|
{
"a_id": [
"doxw593"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Are you an alcoholic by any chance?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6f4fep
|
Why do some stars produce four lines that protrude from the star whenever a photograph is taken from them?
|
[Picture](_URL_0_)
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6f4fep/why_do_some_stars_produce_four_lines_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"diffb9t"
],
"score": [
18
],
"text": [
"This is actually because the telescope that images the star has a secondary mirror that is held in place with four support beams, and that causes an interference pattern that looks like what you're describing. [See here](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://skycenter.arizona.edu/sites/skycenter.arizona.edu/files/n6888.jpg"
] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike"
]
] |
|
as2lsq
|
how is it possible that the world collective debt is bigger than world collective wealth? can't we just annul all of the debt that shouldn't be there and go on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/as2lsq/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_the_world_collective/
|
{
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"text": [
"I think that debt IS wealth. If you got rid of the debt, it would remove all the wealth, because the wealth is made up of receivables. That’s one reason why you wouldn’t get a lot of support for this idea from the wealthy. ",
"Theoretically that would be great. \n\nBut doing that would reset the entire foundation of economics and we'd have to rebuild our entire infrastructure. ",
"Who doesn’t get paid? Because that’s the question. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1ayw89
|
How long does it actually take to form a 'habit'? (Or, is there any truth to the '21 days to form a habit' axiom?)
|
Neuroscientists of ask science, this question is for you. I have always heard anecdotes of how it takes somewhere between 19-28 to "form" a repetitive habit. I was just wondering if there was any scientific basis behind those sayings, or if they were complete fabrications.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ayw89/how_long_does_it_actually_take_to_form_a_habit_or/
|
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"Habit formation for eating, drinking, and exercise behaviors [has been shown to vary greatly](_URL_0_), taking anywhere from 18 to 254 days. Moreover, in this study, it tended to follow an asymptotic curve, and \"the median time to reach 95% of asymptote was 66 days.\"\n\nWhile this isn't neuroscience, the study nonetheless suggests that the time it takes to form a habit does not follow some axiom or absolute rule. \n\nEDIT: Incidentally, the source of the 21 day thing is *Psycho-cybernetics* by Maltz (1960).",
"Habit formation is a great example of the brain learning and then efficiently giving out resources for a behavior. Something that is done by habit is the result of making a conscious, voluntary action into an automatic one, which is intimately tied to motivation. \n\nThis process in the brain can be attributed significantly to the [basal ganglia](_URL_0_). This structure integrates signals related to reward and motivation with the movement and cognitive capabilities of the brain by forming many [connective loops with the cortex](_URL_2_). It has been suggested that habit formation is the result of the basal ganglia taking control of driving sequences of movements. \n\nOne potentially direct way of getting at your question has been looked at when training rats in a [t-maze](_URL_1_). In this experiment, rats are given an audio cue when travelling down the straight arm of the maze which tells them which way to turn at the end. If you record what cells in the basal ganglia are doing during this task, they start out being active at the turn, and end up being active at the start and end of the task. In addition to this, the number of responsive cells peaks during learning, and then goes down with more training. This may be evidence showing that the basal ganglia is taking over initiation of the whole movement sequence, and that it figures out the minimum amount of resources to dedicate to this function. This was a continual process, but the rats reached peak performance in the task in general with 5 sessions of 40 runs per day, and basal ganglia responses continued to change over the course of 7 more sessions.\n\nA bit more than the 19-28 repetitions you suggest, but it's sure to be highly variable depending on the task!",
"Nope, I would say there is no truth to that axiom. Think about drug addiction. Biologically, drugs are simply very strong reinforcers of behavior.\n\nTheories of operant conditioning say that if a behavior is followed by a reward (e.g. dopamine release), that behavior will be reinforced and will be more likely to occur again. Habit formation occurs when a behavior is repetitively reinforced. So, how long it takes to form a habit depends on how strong the reinforcer is. Another answer already posted [this picture of loops](_URL_1_), showing direction of this information through the basal ganglia. When a behavior is reinforced the first few times, before it has become a habit, it is referred to as a goal-directed behavior, or a motivated behavior. These are mediated mainly by the nucleus accumbens (NAc), in the ventral striatum. The NAc has both emotional and motor components, and dopamine release here leads to stimulus-response learning. As it begins to become a habit, it begins to be transitioned from more limbic/emotional, to more motor loops. Neuroanatomically, this is characterized as a shift between dependence on the ventral striatum/NAc, to a dependence on the dorsal striatum.\n\n\nThe dorsal striatum mediates habit behaviors. With a very strong reinforcer, like cocaine, this shift from ventral-dorsal dependence [has been shown after 15 days](_URL_0_) in rats. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.674/abstract"
],
[
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"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/images_article/484042a-f1.2.jpg",
"http://c431376.r76.cf2.rackcdn.com/9748/fnsys-05-00066-HTML/image_m/fnsys-05-00066-g002.jpg"
],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167212",
"http://www.gophoto.it/view.php?i=http://c431376.r76.cf2.rackcdn.com/9748/fnsys-05-00066-HTML/image_m/fnsys-05-00066-g002.jpg#.UVJg7xnufEg"
]
] |
|
h7o7w
|
In medicine can 400mg vs. 600mg of some medicine actually mean they are stronger, not just quantity ?
|
Probably a stupid question - seems obvious.
The only reason I ask this is because where I'm from you can buy 400mg of a drug, but if you want to buy the 600mg version, you need a prescription. Obviously if instead of going to the doctor and getting a prescription you can just take more pills. Was just wondering if there was any scientific reason for this - or some other reason I'm not aware of.
Not sure if this is relevant, but the drug I'm refer to is ibuprofen.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/h7o7w/in_medicine_can_400mg_vs_600mg_of_some_medicine/
|
{
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"text": [
"The activity of the drug molecule is unchanged.\n\nI think the biggest concern is accidental overdose - doubling up on a 600 mg pill has a bigger impact than doubling up on a 400 mg pill.\n\nOn the flip side of things, I can see 3x 400 mg pills dissolving much faster than 2x 600 mg pill, even though the total amount is identical. However, unless we're talking about time-release formulations, it's unlikely that the solvation of the pill is the rate-limiting step in absorption.",
"The dose level that gives a therapeutic effect and the dose level that may start creating toxicities can be very very close. That's the point of measuring therapeutic drug levels, we like to make sure the dose is actually above therapeutic level, but below toxic levels in drugs where the margin for error between these states can be very small in certain drugs. \n\nIn general, NSAIDs (which is the family ibuprofen belongs to) all have the possibility of having crappy side effects and over a certain dosage level it is important for a doctor to evaluate your situation, eg: other drugs you maybe on, your overall health, any bleeding disorders you might have, liver function, etc.\n\n\nThis is the downside to OTC meds. I'm not pointing fingers at you but in general people tend to think of OTCs as innocuous because, hey, you don't need a prescription! The more is better philosophy is very common. What people need to remember is that OTCs need to be taken seriously. The dosage directions aren't just there to protect the manufacturers from lawsuits, they're also there to keep you healthy. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5ghll7
|
how does an old hospital get sanitized before being turned into another kind of institution?
|
What equipment is used? How does the cleaning process look like?
I recently ate lunch at an institution that aims to help improve peoples' fitness. The building once served as a place for tuberculosis treatment. It has not been renovated heavily - most rooms, walls, etc. is the same - so how did they sanitize that place before re-opening it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ghll7/eli5_how_does_an_old_hospital_get_sanitized/
|
{
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"dasbkto",
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],
"score": [
9,
2
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"text": [
"Would I be correct in understanding that you feel hospitals are DIRTIER than restaurants?\n\nThis seems to be a pretty strange thought, could you explain why you believe there needs to be extra steps taken other than the cleaning they do anyway?",
"It's not. It's just a building. It's not like there are germs all over the surfaces and biological waste in every corner. If anything, hospitals are already cleaner than most buildings. Plus no germs would survive more than a couple of days anyways. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
rv67z
|
Is there ever a case where a noble gas does react
with something?
|
Apologies if this is absurd.
For example, could a helium nucleus (as a product of radiation) form an ionic bond with, say, oxygen? He^2+ combines O^2- to make HeO?
If not in nature, could we produce this in a laboratory?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rv67z/is_there_ever_a_case_where_a_noble_gas_does_react/
|
{
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"c48wyir",
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2
],
"text": [
"Sure. It's more common for the ones with higher atomic number. The outer electrons are shielded by the inner ones, so they're more free to form bonds.\n\nWikipedia has its own article on [noble gas compounds](_URL_0_)",
"The weakest bond in chemistry is the He-He bond and it is only possible at temperatures near absolute zero. the bond length is about 60 angstroms, which is huge for an intramolecular bond. \n_URL_1_\ncompare the strength of a H-H bond (435kJ/mol) to a He-He bond (3.8kJ/mol) \n_URL_2_\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas_compound"
],
[
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/entities/chemical_bonds/he-he_bond/s0/2b/bg/",
"http://www.aip.org/pnu/1993/split/pnu118-2.htm",
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/entities/chemical_bonds/hydrogen_h-h_bond/go/3e/wi/"
]
] |
|
frdy0
|
Why will two pendulum clocks mounted on a common wall synchronise? i.e. How does coupled oscillation work?
|
I'm reading a fairly unscientific book on the healing nature of sleep, and already I've spotted several inaccuracies and generalisations so I've been keeping a skeptical eye on all the claims within it. But the book mentioned the observations of Christian Huygens and how the pendulums of clocks placed close to each other would synchronise, no matter at what interval he started the second clock. I looked it up on wikipedia and came with [coupled oscillation](_URL_0_) but I still don't really understand how it works. How do two inanimate objects synchronise when it would require that at least one of the inanimate objects varies its pendulum swing at least once in order to do so?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/frdy0/why_will_two_pendulum_clocks_mounted_on_a_common/
|
{
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],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The second pendulum will make the wall move slightly, this movement is transmitted to the first pendulum. It's broadly like [two pendulums joined by a spring](_URL_0_) (a coupled oscillator), but with the wall playing the role of an extremely stiff \"spring\". \n\nThe fact that pendulums are \"inanimate\" has *absolutely* no bearing on anything. Also, I don't know how you're linking this subject with \"the healing nature of sleep\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupled_oscillation#Coupled_oscillations"
] |
[
[
"http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/PHY235/Exams/Exams/FinalExam/FinalExam_files/image014.jpg"
]
] |
|
88hvdq
|
Why wasn't Australia conquered and split by European powers as Africa was?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/88hvdq/why_wasnt_australia_conquered_and_split_by/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwkxpru"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You may find this thread useful, particularly the response from /u/agentdcf:\n\n_URL_0_ "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cbwho/if_the_dutch_discovered_australia_why_did_they/cje1bh7/"
]
] |
||
1vjxmo
|
why can't spinal discs be "re-hydrated" later in life?
|
I recently suffered a debilitating injury to my back where multiple discs were herniated and/or bulging. My lower discs in particular we affected. The specialist went on to tell me about how my upper spine had healthy, white "hydrated" discs while my lower spine had discs that were beginning to grey due to "old age" and overuse. When I asked him if there was any way to rehabilitate, re-hydrate or rejuvenate the discs in question he gave me a pretty flat no and moved on. So ELI5, why can't these discs ever be repaired/re-hydrated? Thank you.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vjxmo/eli5_why_cant_spinal_discs_be_rehydrated_later_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceszs6u",
"ceu40e8"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"If your doctor didn't explain why, get a new one. He/she obviously doesn't care",
"Yeah sure you'd have to expect an explanation for treatment. Sadly I csn offer no bearing of expertise on such a matter but it came across in your question that your doctor disregarded your query about why it can't be done. For anybody unaware if why disks can't be rehydrated (most people I imagine) then it's important for their doctor to inform them of why certain treatments aren't possible so as to rule out possible false hope. However, more importantly, I hope somebody can answer your question and that your spine heals in good time."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2euv49
|
how does this .jpg file move like a .gif but when downloaded shows up as a .jpeg
|
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2euv49/eli5_how_does_this_jpg_file_move_like_a_gif_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck35cja"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's lies.\n\nThe filetype isn't determined by the extension - not in this context anyway - it's determined by metadata in the file that says it's a gif.\n\nMy image reader on the desktop chokes trying to read it because it naively trusts file extensions, but the file utility shows clearly it's marked as a GIF in the metadata."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://i.imgur.com/M95MCVT.jpg"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
17csvr
|
Can somebody build up a tolerance to electricity?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/17csvr/can_somebody_build_up_a_tolerance_to_electricity/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c84b3ct"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There is a difference between \"not being in pain from x\" and \"being immune to x.\"\n\nPain tolerance is one thing, but a taser works by using electricity to create physical convulsions. This is direct stimulation of the muscles we're talking about. Adapting to THAT would require evolution to provide us with electrical insulation to sheath our skins/muscles/organs.\n\nJust get a heavy jacket with metallic filaments in it attached to a capacitor. Put that electricity to USE. :-) "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
381u8z
|
difference between nightmares and night terrors
|
Has something to do with REM sleep? I just can't understand that Wiki article.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/381u8z/eli5_difference_between_nightmares_and_night/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crrnrp9",
"crrtmz8"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"The basics are that nightmares you wake up from and remember.\n\nNight Terrors you don't wake up, can call out / yell in your sleep, yet you won't remember that particular dream ( although you can remember the feeling the dream gave you )\n\nSource: Have had both Nightmares and Night Terrors consistently for years. I was explained this concept this simply the first time I asked.",
"A nightmare is a dream with scary elements, whereas in a night terror there is no dream component. Only a fear reaction. It's a weird state of consciousness that one cannot usually be woken up from. Parents are advised to simply wait them out, since trying to console a kid experiencing a night terror usually only makes it worse. They don't recognize you as mom/dad in that situation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4mv8ek
|
how do we know that gravity curves spacetime and is not a force?
|
As I understand it, electromagnetism is a force but gravity changes the shape of spacetime. How do physicists understand this difference?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mv8ek/eli5how_do_we_know_that_gravity_curves_spacetime/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3ylbpj",
"d3ymnbx",
"d3ynkah"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The theory which describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime (Einstein's general theory of relativity) makes a lot of predictions. And many of those predictions [have been verified](_URL_0_), which lends support to the theory.",
"U/robusetceleritus covered it pretty well in the link. The way I've always explained it is as follows:\n\nGravity is classically seen as a force of attracting masses. That means, Gravity operates on massive objects.\n\nWe have also noted that light bends around supermassive objects. Light has no mass; it can't mass. So the big question is, how does light curve due to the force of gravity?\n\nThe answer; it doesn't. Light travels on a geodesic, or the straightest path it possibly can travel on. GR theorizes that the very presence of mass distorts spacetime itself, curving spacetime. This way, a supermassive object will literally bend spacetime until a 'straight line' appears as a 'curved line' from far enough away. Gravity isn't actually causing mass to interact with light, but rather causing mass to interact with *space*, which then 'interacts' with light",
"The difference between gravity and EM is the the force is proportional to the mass rather than the charge. The fact that it is linear is a huge tell tale sign to its nature because the acceleration due to gravity is, therefore, independent of the mass.\n\nThis leads to the equivalence principle: if you were in a system falling under a uniform gravitational field, there would be no *local* experiment that you could do to prove that you were accelerating because everything would be accelerating at exactly the same rate. This is unique to the gravitational force. It is this principle that leads to the idea that the cause of the acceleration is a property of space itself. \n\nOf course, there's a bit more to it but that's the first thing you learn about when you're starting on general relativity."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
1fb82n
|
How similar are modern day version of the Torah when compared to the oldest known versions?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fb82n/how_similar_are_modern_day_version_of_the_torah/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ca8n5by"
],
"score": [
26
],
"text": [
"Let me clarify a few terms: (1) by \"Torah\" I am going to assume you mean the entire Hebrew Bible/Old Testament rather than only the Pentateuch, (2) by \"versions\" I'm assuming you either mean \"manuscripts\" or a more esoteric scholarly concept of \"the earliest attainable text\" - I'll address both, and (3) I don't know which \"modern day version of the Torah\" you're referring to so I'm going to choose for you - the current NRSV translation of the Bible. \n\nThe question you have asked is, of course, subjective. It is hard to quantify degrees of similarity, and what would be \"very similar\" by one person's standard would be \"very different\" to others. I'll just lay out a bunch of data and let you decide. \n\nWhat we have in terms of old manuscripts can be broken down into a variety of ways but I'll keep things simple. The current NRSV translation (and most others) of the Old Testament are based on the *Biblia Hebraica Stuttgardtensia,* (BHS for short) a scholarly reconstruction of the \"earliest attainable text.\" The BHS uses as its base the Leningrad Codex from 1008 CE. The Leningrad Codex is the earliest complete Masoretic Text manuscript of the Old Testament. The Masoretic Text refers to a group of manuscripts produced by a group of Jews called the Masoretes. The masoretic tradition is important for its addition of vowel points to the otherwise only consonantal (abjad) Hebrew script, which provides clarity for numerous otherwise ambiguous readings, and for the reputation of the Masoretes for carefully preserving their text probably beginning in the 600s CE or so. As I mentioned, the Leningrad Codex serves as the base text to which various manuscripts, ancient translations, and textual reconstructions are compared in order to correct the Leningrad Codex to the “earliest attainable text.” Here is [the beginning of Genesis](_URL_0_) in the BHS. The main body text is an exact reproduction of what is in the Leningrad Codex while the bottom of the page contains the various different readings from ancient sources when they are different, among other things.\n\nThat brings us to ancient sources. You might be thinking to yourself, \"wow, 1008 CE is really late for our earliest manuscripts.\" This is why the Dead Sea Scrolls were such a big deal! Dating from ca. 200 BCE - 70 CE, they effectively knocked back our earliest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible by 1,000 years when they were discovered in the 1940s. The Dead Sea Scrolls are 8-900 texts, many of which are books now in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and are the earliest manuscripts we have of them in Hebrew.\n\nI should also mention a couple other relevant means to get at readings more ancient than the Masoretic Text. (1) The Samaritan Pentateuch, preserved by the eponymous Samaritans in Israel, also represents an ancient independent text which scholars compare to the Masoretic Text. (2) Scholars also use ancient versions (that is, translations) of the Old Testament such as the various Greek translations often conflated as “The Septuagint,” ancient Syriac translations, and occasionally translations from Latin or texts quoted from early Church fathers, all of which can be compared to the Hebrew by back-translating or making speculations about the Hebrew text behind their translation.\n\nSo how close are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the other ancient translations and versions to the Masoretic Text? Well, it’s really a mixed bag. Two of the Dead Sea Scrolls which contain Isaiah will serve as a good comparison, 1QIsa^a and 1QIsa^b , the latter being the famous Isaiah Scroll; both found at the same site. The former matches the Masoretic Text practically word for word; the latter, however, contains about 1,000 textual variants from the Masoretic Text version, including entire verses missing or added at several points. Another interesting example is the book of Jeremiah. The Septuagint version, which scholars had long before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was significantly shorter than the Masoretic Text, some 15%. It was presumed that the Hebrew was superior to the Greek in preserving a more original form, but when we found a manuscript of Jeremiah among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QJer^b ), it matched the Septuagint version instead of the Masoretic Text version! This demonstrated that, in fact, the Greek version preserved by the Septuagint was more ancient than the one preserved in the Masoretic Text. There are numerous examples of such differences, and I would highly recommend Eugene Ulrich, “Our Sharper Focus on the Bible and Theology Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls” *Catholic Biblical Quarterly* Jan 2004, Vol. 66 Issue 1 for a superb summary of this and its implications for layfolk.\n\nA question you didn’t ask but which I should propose anyway is, given the differences we can observe in the texts, can we reconstruct anything close to the original, or undo the changes later scribes made to the text? For the New Testament this is a much easier enterprise, but even with the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible the field of textual criticism has accomplished some amazing feats in reaching earlier forms of the text. The original versions are lost forever, there is little doubt about that, but I am continually impressed by the prodigious work in the field of textual criticism to dig further and further back. \n\nEdit: clarification of some jargon."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.uni-due.de/~gev020/images/Gen%2001pic.jpg"
]
] |
||
6eizt0
|
what do doctors do with the empty space after a half brain removing surgery
|
I can't spell the actual name of the surgery (hispherectomy?) but it's that surgery they give to epileptics where they cut out half your brain. What do they do with all that empty space in your head?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eizt0/eli5_what_do_doctors_do_with_the_empty_space/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dians7r"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The procedure is called a hemispherectomy (hemi = half, sphere, ectomy = removal) and they don't do anything with the empty space. It ends up filling up with cerebrospinal fluid. It's not like they are going to put a prosthetic brain in there for cosmetic purposes, haha."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
19wlxx
|
the different types of pencils 2b,b,whatever else there is
|
Follow up question-why in American movies(not from America) do in tests teachers tell you to get a specific pencil out
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19wlxx/eli5_the_different_types_of_pencils_2bbwhatever/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8ryfyp"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Pencil leads come in a variety of hardnesses, obtained by altering the ratio of clay to graphite in the pencil. More clay makes the lead harder, but also means it makes a lighter mark. They are often used for engineering drawings because they produce a sharp, clean line without much variation in the darkness of the line.\n\nPencils with less clay are darker (blacker) & softer. They smudge easier, & can produce a range of darkness. They're often popular with artists because they can produce a variety of marks.\n\nPencils are often graded using the HB system in much of the world. B stands for Black, & H stands for Hard. The higher H numbers have more clay, & are lighter & harder, & the higher B numbers have less clay & are darker & softer. HB is a balance between the two. Sometimes you see F too, which is between HB & H, & is used for fine details in drawings. [Here's a diagram of the various shades.](_URL_0_)\n\nAmerican pencils use a number system, with #1 equal to B, #2 equal to HB, #3 equal to H, & #4 equal to 2H. The tests you hear about are filled out by colouring in bubbles corresponding to answers, & are marked by computers. The pencil used needs to be dark enough for the computer to be able to recognise which bubble was filled out, yet hard enough not to smudge outside the bubble & confuse the computer, so they use a pencil in the middle of the range."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/PencilGradingChart.png"
]
] |
|
1qbk8m
|
LCD screens and Duck Hunt
|
The old Nintendo Zapper light gun does not work with new LCD screen, only the old CRTs. Why is this? Also would some kind of screen (like the silicone kind you put on a touch screen phone) make the game "visible" to the Zapper again?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1qbk8m/lcd_screens_and_duck_hunt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdba9mo"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"As you already know, light guns need a CRT to work. Using a silicon (or any other covering) sadly wouldn't help at all.\n\nWhen a CRT screen draws the image, it draws each pixel at a time - usually starting at the top, working left to right and then down a line until the whole screen is drawn. It then starts again. The whole time taken is called the 'refresh rate' and this is commonly done around 50 times a second*.\n\nThe light gun only 'sees' when a pixel is lit up on the screen that you're aiming at.\n\nThe time difference is calculated between you pulling the trigger. and the 'pixel' you're aiming at is lit up. The computer then calculates how long it has been since the screen was drawn and works out which pixel you were aiming at.\n\nLCD/Plasma and other screens do still draw pixel-by-pixel, but the pixel is never completely off, so there is no single pixel that the light gun can see.\n\nThere's plenty of other alternatives, such as the infrared bulbs and camera that the Nintendo Wii has, but the old Zapper light guns need a CRT screen, sadly.\n\nThis is a slight simplification, but [Wikipedia](_URL_0_)'s is a bit weirdly worded but should fill in any further questions you might have.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_gun#Cathode_ray_timing"
]
] |
|
3nkwok
|
How do you tell how long has a person been dead?
|
I'm wondering in all these court scenes, people can always say at what time did a person die. Can someone please explain to me some of the ways they do that?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3nkwok/how_do_you_tell_how_long_has_a_person_been_dead/
|
{
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"cvozipw",
"cvp00ve",
"cvp0fbf",
"cvp0jlb",
"cvp1cpy"
],
"score": [
7,
6,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"One way is by measuring body temperature. Given someone's weight and the temperature of their surroundings and their current temperature one can extrapolate how long the body has been cooling down from normal body temperature. Hopefully others can step in and explain other methods.",
"Take a measurement of temperature, then wait a bit and measure again. As long as you know the time between the two measurements, the ambient temperature and the starting temperature you can calculate the time of death. This only works before the body reaches room temperature. After that they need other indicators, I know one way is to look at what bugs are eating them for example if there are maggots then you know the body has been there long enough for a fly to come and lay eggs and those eggs to hach. \n\nThere is a research facility I believe in Tennessee that has been studying human body decay in different environments as well. ",
"It depends of the environment in which the body has died and remained.\n\nIn a standard environment (temperature, humidity), the body will lose temperature and go through [different phases](_URL_1_). Obviously, these process will go faster or slower if it's hotter or colder in the environment. These phases are well documented in different environments and can be determined by a [Medical Examiner](_URL_0_).\n\nDepending of these indicators, you can somewhat find the approximative time of death.",
"There is a known process of body decomposition immediatly following death.\n\nCell death, blood coagulation, rigor mortis (before, during, and after), bloating, temperature, presents of parasites, maggots, etc, state of body decay.\n\nThese are adjusted for the environment of course.",
"Time of death analysis will get some good answers.\n\nLong term time of death typically involves forensic entomology, by looking at the state of the body an the life cycle of insects that are on it (blowflies, typically) it's possible to estimate the time of death from tens of hours out to a few months. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_examiner",
"http://dying.about.com/od/thedyingprocess/a/My_Body_Postmortem.htm"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2fhvw8
|
What's the difference between Deep Blue's algorithm and Monte Carlo Tree Search?
|
From what I understand, Deep Blue plays chess by simulating a move, then simulating its opponent's every possible move in response, then simulating every possible of its own moves in response to all of those simulated counter-moves, and so on for several layers. It then selects the best move according to which would have the most immediate "fitness", but also would have the longest branches of fit moves afterward.
I was reading about the Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm, and it sounds essentially the same as Deep Blue's. But I've been told MCTS was only developed in 2006.
What's the major factor that distinguishes these algorithms? I don't see how MCTS does anything differently.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2fhvw8/whats_the_difference_between_deep_blues_algorithm/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck9g19d"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"The difference is in how they decide which move to take. \n\nDeep Blue has a function to tell how good the board is for him. He uses this function to decide which move to take.\n\nOn the other hand, for some games no well working function to rate a board is known (like go). For such one uses the MCTS. Each legal play is done and then the game is finished n-times with both sides taking random moves. The play that has the highest number of wins will be taken.\n\nSo, Monte Carlo Tree Search is purly \"random\" while Deep Blue depends on a rating function."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8dc2tx
|
given the fragmented instant messaging market and the failure to create a standard protocol, why aren't there email clients that make using email more like instant messaging?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dc2tx/eli5given_the_fragmented_instant_messaging_market/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxm2jbc"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Huh? \n\nEmail essentially already is instant messaging, if the user utilizes it in that way. You can get notifications that pop up on your computer that tell you that you just got an email, and it's essentially instance. Your phone can tell you that you just got an email, and it's essentially instant.\n\nI sometimes use email like that with my less Tech Savvy family members. I will have a 10 or 20 email long chain in only a few minutes, because we are just emailing back one or two sentences to each other.\n\nToday, I don't think there is an issue with email clients or technology. It's simply how the users utilize it.\n\nAlso, instant messaging it's probably not as popular as it once was, since the Advent and popularity of phones and texting has taken over from that."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3y3if0
|
Zebras in the middle east?
|
I'm curious about zebras. Horses originated in the American Continent, and zebras seem like they're of the same family, so I began wondering, where have zebras historically lived? Have they always been endemic to Africa (I'm going by the presumption that they're indigenous to Africa)?
Also, have they ever been known to inhabit the Middle Eastern regions? I've read about zebras being hunted in the middle east, but they were written in another language where the literal translation for their word for zebra is "wild (as in not-domesticated) donkey", so that was another thing that's gotten me curious about zebras.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3y3if0/zebras_in_the_middle_east/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyadja5",
"cyag9w6",
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],
"score": [
2,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"[Horses actually originated in the Balkan region, with the oldest fossils found in present day Ukraine.](_URL_1_) Regardless, the common ancestor was likely found on the Supercontinent of [Pangea](_URL_0_), and when the division of the continent occured, the old common ancestor was split into two groups; one isolated in Africa, and one isolated in Eurasia, but only in the Europe portion. From here, these two isolated groups would have evolved into different species. The horses became less exotic due to their woodland and grassland environment, making the brown color become better camo. Zebras were in a land of yellow grass lands and jungle and desert, making the black and white illusion pattern suitable for all terrain",
"There are some zebra-like fossils known from Asia, but it's obviously hard to know if they had stripes!",
"You might be interested in reading Gould's essay *[What, if anything, is a zebra?](_URL_6_)*. Good read, even if probably outdated by now.\n\n**Relation of Horses and Zebras**\nThere are three species of zebras:\n\n1) Mountain Zebra (*[Equus zebra](_URL_1_)*) in SW Africa\n2) Plains Zebra (*[Equus quagga](_URL_5_)*) in southern and eastern Africa\n3) Grévy's Zebra (*[Equus grevyi](_URL_2_)*) in Ethiopia and Kenya\n\nAll three zebras are African, striped members of the genus *Equus*, the same that includes horses (*Equus ferus*), donkeys (*Equus africanus*) and onagers (*Equus hemionus*).\n\nMountain and Plains zebras are very similar and traditionally share a subgenus, *Hippotigris*. Grévy's zebra on the other hand, is larger, more robust, has a noticeably larger and differently shaped skull, thinner and more numerous stripes, and makes different vocalizations than the other zebras. So it is put in its own different subgenus, *Dolichohippus*. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was a matter of discussion if Grévy's was more related to the other zebras, to asses or even horses. [Modern genetics seems to settle this in favor of Grévy's being actually more related to the other zebras.](_URL_3_)\n\n**Have zebras always lived in Africa?**\n\nThat depends of what you mean by \"always\".\n\nThe genus *Equus* originated in North America and crossed over into Eurasia during the Pliocene. This was before it divided in zebra, donkey and horse lineages. The early Eurasian members of the genus *Equus*, the \"stenonin horses\" have a dentition more similar to that of modern zebras than donkeys or horses, and are sometimes referred to as \"zebra-like horses\". However, this is just because the dentition of zebras has changed less from the primitive configuration of these equids than the dentition of horses and donkeys did. There is no way, obviously, to know if these equids were closer to modern zebras in either behavior or appearance.\n\nIf we only consider the relatively modern times, in which modern species are recognizable in the fossil record (so roughly Middle Pleistocene to Holocene), then the three species of zebra have always been confined to south and eastern Africa, while wild African donkeys inhabited north, west and the more desertic parts of eastern Africa, and Asian wild asses or onagers occupied Central Asia and the Middle East. The animal you have read about is probably the westernmost, Syrian subspecies of onager, which is now extinct (*[Equus hemionus hemippus](_URL_7_)*), or the Persian subspecies, which is critically endangered (*[Equus hemionus onager](_URL_0_)*). However, Grévy's zebra was also known as an exotic import in the Mediterranean in Ancient and Medieval times. Baibars, Sultan of Egypt gifted one to King Alfonso X of Castile in 1261. It is described in his *[Crónica](_URL_4_)* as a 'a she-ass that was striped, with one white stripe and another black'.\n\n**Other sources**\n\n- Jonathan Kingdon's *The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals* (1997)\n- Jordi Agustí & Mauricio Antón's *Mammoths, Sabertooths and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe* (2002). *Evolving Eden*\n\n*Evolving Eden: An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna* (2004) by Alan Turner and Mauricio Anton is most likely better, but I will not receive it until a few more days."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/09/13/pangea_politik_archive.jpg",
"http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/mystery-of-the-domestication-of-the-horse-solved"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_onager",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_zebra",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A9vy's_zebra",
"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055950",
"https://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=xRtpAAAAMAAJ&dq=cronica+alfonso+x&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=asna",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_zebra",
"http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/gleazer/462_readings/gould.pdf",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_wild_ass"
]
] |
|
14vppq
|
Is it better for a computer to never turn it off, or to turn it off regularly?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/14vppq/is_it_better_for_a_computer_to_never_turn_it_off/
|
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"Every piece of the board is engineered to last a certain number of cycles, so to some extent it's true.\n\nThat number of cycles is far more than the number a normal user would hit before the hardware becomes obsolete though.",
"The TL;DR on all of the responses is essentially \"If you build a System correctly, it doesn't matter whether you leave it on or off, it will outlive its usefulness long before it stops working\".\n",
"I am really interested in how this affects laptop batteries?",
"Others have covered the hardware point of view but there is a software point of view as well. You want to turn your computer off every now and then to free up memory that may have been left over from programs performing poor garbage collection. ",
"most of the issues with heat related expansion and contraction have been taken care of, chip creep generally no longer is an issue, and most motherboards come with solid state capacitors and modern components\n\nolder motherboards however do not have these features and it is better to keep them running, but typically you are only seeing this on much older boards, such as those with SIMM ram and ISA slots\n\nif you have an older motherboard (socket 775 and 939 or older) when a fail happens it is more often during a cold boot, however, often these parts are old enough that they will be failing soon enough reguardless, \n\nthe older they get the less efficient they get, in particular, the capacitors on the motherboard and the power supplies get worse over time, and typically should be replaced at or around the 5 year mark\n\nso, should you keep your computer on all the time? you don't have to, but keeping it on all the time (or in an different S state like S3) is generaly better from a user wait time standpoint, \n\nTL:DR the risk of a cold boot causing damage is primarily on an older computers and parts that are near failure already",
"I'm actually wondering more about the hard disk. Wouldn't leaving it on all the time cause more wear on its mechanical components and cause it to fail earlier?",
"There's another point that hasn't been mentioned much. A computer that is powered off cannot be hacked into, get exploited with remote vulns, get infected with viruses, have data remotely extracted from it, run malware and botnets, etc. It's one of the few times that is guaranteed.\n\nYou *can't* say for sure what the threats will be in a few years time. But you can say that they will all require the machine to powered up.",
"In extension to this question: When turning the computer off should you just shut down, or shut down and then turn the power off by the wall? (This is assuming a fancy powerful computer with several USB devices in at all times using power) \n\nAlso: I once read that solid state drives have a life span of about 10,000 read/rewrites... What exactly does this mean in practical terms? ",
"Holy Shit, a question i am simi-qualified to answer.\n\nHardware: \nYes, turning it on and off again can cause issues from the expansion and contraction. Example: The HP/Nvidia DV6000 class action lawsuit. The use of poor solder mixed with expansion and contraction caused hairline factors in the solder for the video chip, this effect was more notable seen with more reboot cycles.\n\nHowever: in a perfect world, the hardware is suppose to outlast the usefulness of the device, regardless of heat cycles. As you'll note with the DV6000 case, is that *poor* solder was used. Hardware made to any kind of reasonable standard wouldn't have an issue as quickly, with the goal being the hardware would outlive its usefulness before this became an issue. So this technically correct, (The best kind of correct).\n\nPersonally: i standby my computer when i'm not using it, (so it would cool down). saving power, yet i still get quick access. Really personal preference is going to play more of a role then hardware care unless you own a HP laptop from 2006 or other extreme cases. ",
"Never turning off your PC wears out the power supply significantly faster. Doesn't matter which power supply you buy. The lifetime will be shorter than it would have if it weren't worked constantly. The power supply is super important because if it loses it's ability to regulate the MOBO voltage properly, the small voltage fluctuations can easily damage components like capacitors. And if your PC runs hot, your GPU could become unseated (assuming it's one of those integrated GPUs) or the thermal paste will dry up much faster than normal, reducing it's ability to take the heat away from the chip, which could cause a whole host of other problems. And also, nobody's perfect in maintaining the applications they download and run, and if you don't terminate these properly, your RAM would get cluttered as hell and really slow down your PC. I'm being realistic here. Computers such as servers are strategically built and designed to tackle these problems head on. Unless you are running a server farm, I don't think you'll be able to run your PC all the time and expect the same lifespan. It's much, much better to turn it off regularly.\n\n**EDIT 1:** Also, to even ensure that your PC is running optimally, you need to do routine cleanings. You can't do this if it's on all the time.\n\n**EDIT 2:** If you guys have been following research lately, you'll know about the tin whiskers phenomenon explained [here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_0_). Of course this depends on the types of metals used in your PC, but most solder alloys include Tin, which can cause the tin whiskers phenomenon.\n\n**TL;DR** What your friend said is an old folktale.",
"I've actually heard its cheaper to leave a computer on. The initial jolt when you power it on takes in all the power your power supply can handle, and then tones it down to the necessary levels. That alone is more power than your computer uses in an idle state over the course of several days.\n\nNo idea where I saw/heard it, but either way I've never noticed a significant change in my power bills. ",
"If you're running Windows a restart at least once a day is good practice. This clears out the memory cache, resets registries, and in general gives it a fresh start. Windows gets gunked up the longer you run it without a restart. For power usage putting it into Sleep mode when you're not using it is sufficient.",
"So this is a little bit off topic but ... my dad always used to yell at me to turn off my computer to conserve energy. that leaving it on would seriously hurt his electric bill.. I mean obviously it is using resources but.. If left on all the time.. How much could it possibly cost? I hope this doesn't get buried :/ ",
"I think my computer has been on since December of 2006 maybe 2007",
"I put mine to sleep for few reasons.\n\n1. Everything cuts power except RAM which really uses next to no electricity \n\n2. Wakes up fast (even though I'm on SSD already), but with all your stuff still there if you want to continue doing something\n\n3. The initial boot from off is most stressful for the hard drive and in reality does shorten lifespan. (Just like how starting up a car in cold condition with cold engine oil is most harmful to engine. ...but too bad we can't put our cars to sleep mode) \n\n",
"Leave on all the time, run [Folding At Home](_URL_0_) or another distributed computing project when not it use.\n\n > You can help scientists studying Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and many cancers by simply running a piece of software on your computer or game console.\n\n\n > Join others around the world to form the world's largest distributed supercomputer. ",
"From a software perspective, it's nice to give your OS a fresh boot on occasion. Programs with memory leaks, abandoned background processes, etc. don't always get cleaned up and a fresh boot can help your system get back up to speed."
]
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||
5wt455
|
why are saltwater aquariums so hard to maintain, but the fish can live in the ocean with a lot more variables?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wt455/eli5_why_are_saltwater_aquariums_so_hard_to/
|
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"The oceans are very large. The food or waste from a fish is a super tiny fraction. In only 100 gallons of water, it can build up and cause problems.",
"Because fish have evolved to live in the conditions of the ocean, and these conditions hardly fluctuate. Consider the amount of water and ions used by a single fish. Now consider this amount to the size of the ocean. Even though the ocean has more than one fish (duh) most fish don't change their environmental conditions enough to displace the effect of how big the ocean is and so their local environment keeps very similar conditions all year.\n\nTL;DR: the conditions in the ocean don't change very much but aquarium conditions do, due to the size difference",
"It's largely *because* there are so many variables that are typically present in the ocean, but not in an aquarium. There are a million different chemicals that are present in the ocean in specific concentrations that won't be present in the aquarium, often because we don't know which of them is important or not. Even when they're not directly related to fish health, simply *changing* that environment is stressful. Reefs, mostly, don't change. They haven't changed significantly in tens of thousands of years\\*. Because of that, marine life isn't accustomed to dealing with changes.\n\nThey're also part of hugely complex web of resources - every fish on the reef has a specialized diet. You can replicate that diet, but only to a degree. For instance, most marine angels eat corals, which is undesirable in an aquarium because corals are *expensive*. On the reef, the angel could graze from place to place, eating a few polyps on a colony of thousands and move onto another colony while the first recovers - in an aquarium, there's only so many corals to munch on so they're all going to get munched on all the time. Ok, so don't keep angels with corals. Except that some angels are obligate corallivores - their diet *must* include coral. Tangs, like [blue regal tangs](_URL_1_), eat algae, specifically macroalgae (seaweed), which means you *have* to include seaweed in their diet. Except your angels, even if they don't need coral, still want meaty foods. So you have to feed two different things. Puffer fish have a fused tooth like a beak, which they use to scrape meat out of shells - they eat clams and snails. If their diet does not include clams and snails, their beak doesn't get worn down and, just like a rabbit, it will continue to grow until it hurts them. Every single fish in your aquarium will have a specialized diet, and often we don't know what all is in that diet. Not to mention the rest of the food web, from phytoplankton, zooplankton, diatoms, copepods, amphipods... Some foods may not be available in your tank without feeding *those*, and so on.\n\nAll of that assumes your fish will eat prepared foods *at all*. Except for *basically* most clownfish, seahorses, and a very, *very* small group of other fish, literally every other saltwater fish you see in an aquarium was wild caught. All of them. You may be offering them a high quality food pellet with every nutrient they need to survive, but they may never recognize that as food. It doesn't *look* like food to them, because even if it's made of shrimp and seaweed, it doesn't look like shrimp and seaweed. Some saltwater fish are very picky eaters and will never take to prepared foods, like [seahorses](_URL_0_) (that's my tank!). They will *only* eat live food, or frozen food like thawed mysis shrimp, even if they're captive bred!\n\nThe ocean is also big enough to absorb problems. Consider the [nitrogen cycle](_URL_3_): fish produce ammonia during their metabolic processes, which is broken down by bacteria, then broken down again until it becomes nitrate. In nature, that nitrate is absorbed by plants for the nitrogren, converted back, eat by the fish, converted into ammonia...etc. In your aquarium, you are always adding nitrogen via the food, but it's not *going* anywhere. Once it enters your tank, it stays there until you remove it. In the ocean, that's millions of gallons of water to absorb and spread out the nitrate while the plants absorb it, plus there's tons of plankton also absorbing it, *plus* there's tons of surface area for the nitrogen to evaporate into the air. None of that exists for your aquarium, so nitrate can build up very quickly. The same applies to things that mess with your pH (which has to be very consistent at 8.3 to 8.4) - the pH of the ocean doesn't change\\*, it's too big, but your teeny tiny tank may see pretty big swings in pH, or salinity, or temperature, which the fish are not equipped to deal with. There are so many factors to keep track of in your aquarium and not a whole lot of time to do it before it's changed enough to be stressful for the fish.\n\nThere's also the problem of space: even small reef fish that pick one hole and live there, or one small territory are used to a *lot* of space around them. Nomadic fish like tangs are used to having huge amounts of room to swim through. Being stuck in a small tank can be very stressful, especially if you make the mistake of overcrowding your tank or not having an appropriately sized tank (adult tangs need tanks in the hundreds of gallons to feel comfortable). Along with space, they're used to having features to hide in or hide around, and having big open spaces with no rocks or corals can make them feel unsafe. *They* don't know there aren't any sharks around, so they're looking for a place to hide, just in case, and there aren't any. Which often leaves you with a catch 22: less rock so your fish have more room to swim, but no place to hide, or places to hide but no room to swim. Finding that balance can be difficult.\n\nThere's more I could go into, like compatibility (which fish will eat each other or fight each other), how stressful transportation is, some of the questionable methods used to catch aquarium fish (like using cyanide - yes it's exactly as dangerous as it sounds, for both the fish and the diver), the deplorable conditions some of them are kept in before they make it to your tank...some of the absolutely, hideously deplorable conditions people try to keep them in at home...believe it or not, even saltwater fish are hardier than people give them credit for, you just would not believe how many people do it *wrong*, and how pants-on-head stupidly wrong they do it (\"I just set my 10g up yesterday, the ammonia is reading at 4ppm, the pH is at 7.2, and the salinity is at 1.030...can I get three blue tangs, four clownfish, two angelfish, eight damsels, an eel, and a puffer? Thanks...\"). (Seriously, if you want to set up an aquarium, fresh or salt, awesome! Go to /r/Aquariums and ask questions, or just PM me, aquariums are literally my job; I'm more than happy to help! Do your research, do it right, be patient, and take care of the animals you're bringing into your home.)\n\n*Global climate change is having an effect: see [ocean acidification](_URL_4_). Along with rising temperatures and changes to salinity, the effects are [not good](_URL_2_). Marine life is having a really tough time dealing with the changes going on in their environments for many of the same reasons they have trouble dealing with aquariums. Their ecosystems have evolved a very delicate balance, and they all fit very carefully inside that balance, so when one thing gets out of whack the whole reef suffers."
]
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[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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"http://imgur.com/a/tLSeU",
"https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/dory_characters_0afa6e45.jpeg?region=0,0,1200,778",
"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38127320",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Nitrogen_Cycle.jpg",
"https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F"
]
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||
873t09
|
what is an elementary function?
|
What makes a function an elementary function, and what are the names of functions that aren't elementary?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/873t09/eli5_what_is_an_elementary_function/
|
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"The elementary functions are a set of well known functions such as powers of x, roots of x, exponentials, trigonometric functions and their inverses, and most importantly any combinations of them, for example e^sinx + x^(2).\n\nNon elementary functions are those that can't be written like that. For example if I define the function:\n\nf(x) = 1 if x is rational and f(x) = 0 otherwise\n\nThen f is a non elementary function. This function has a specific name - Dirichlet function - but most non elementary functions don't have a name or an easy way to describe them. ",
"An elementary function is a function which you can write using a finite number of mathematical operations, which include any combination of the arithmetic operations (+,-,*,/), exponentials, logarithms, constant numbers, roots (and nth roots), trig, inverse trig and hyperbolic trig functions.\n\nBasically, if you write an equation/function just using those things mentioned, it's an elementary function. It's important to note infinite sums, limits and integral don't count.\n\nA non-elementary function is a function that cannot be written that way. An example of this is the integral of e^(-x^2). This function is called the error function. No matter what you do, there is no way you can write its anti derivative using a finite number of the aforementioned operations. A few other integrals also turn out the same way (such as the integral of e^(e^x) )"
]
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|
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[] |
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5jvdb4
|
if temperature affects air pressure, would the temperature on a planet with a thinner atmosphere feel different than the same temperature on a planet with a thicker atmosphere?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jvdb4/eli5if_temperature_affects_air_pressure_would_the/
|
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"How temperature feels is subjective because it is a feeling. Factors such as humidity may impact how temperature feels but humidity is related to much more than how thick the atmosphere is and its quite localized. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5twwla
|
where does water pressure come from?
|
In municipal water supply, such as my faucets at my home, where does the water pressure originate. Or, what creates the pressure to allow it to flow to our homes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5twwla/eli5_where_does_water_pressure_come_from/
|
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"In short, pumping stations and water towers.\n\nWater is pumped from it's source, which could be a well, river, lake, etc. It's usually then treated/cleaned, then pumped up to a water tower. Gravity takes it from there.",
"Pressure is created by throttling volume. Pressure and volume have an inverse relationship, meaning as one increases the other decreases. Imagine you taking a garden hose and putting your thumb over the end. You are restricting the volume and in turn increasing the pressure. Same goes for air. ",
"I'll just try to elaborate a bit. There are only 2 common ways to increase the pressure of any fluid (including water). Pressure is equal to the density of the liquid times the height, it doesn't matter how wide or deep the pipe is, the water pressure at the bottom of a 2 inch diameter tube that's 100 feet tall will be the same as a 2000 inch diameter tube that is 100 feet tall. So water is either collected at high elevation (rain collecting) or pumped to a higher elevation (tank at the top of a tower). Pumping is the second method to increase pressure, which is pretty obvious, using electrical power, to turn mechanical parts that apply force to the fluid to increase pressure."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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|
6ovlzj
|
why does an emergency door have a grill / bars inside its window?
|
I'm almost certain that every emergency door have a window and a grill in it. Why does it have those? It doesn't mean like the grill will make the door stronger, right?
Pictures: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ovlzj/eli5_why_does_an_emergency_door_have_a_grill_bars/
|
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" > I'm almost certain that every emergency door have a window and a grill in it.\n\nMany do not, but it is a common feature in such doors to allow some vision of what is past them. You can avoid walking into a fire or smoke hazard with such a feature.\n\n > Why does it have those? It doesn't mean like the grill will make the door stronger, right?\n\nThe grid of wire does not make the door stronger. It does however make the *window* stronger. Wire mesh can keep even shattered glass mostly in place, and keep both debris and intruders from passing through.",
"It is to prevent burglars from smashing the glass, reaching through, and opening the door. This is valuable since these doors are often in obscure locations that would be pretty good for burglary.",
"Wired glass is not stronger. The inclusions in the glass from the wire significantly weaken it.\n\nWhat wired glass does is stay in the frame even if a fire causes huge pressure differences, and it can also withstand being blasted by a fire hose. \n\n"
]
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[] |
[
"https://imgur.com/a/Ecw1I"
] |
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[],
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|
xbu86
|
- the recent hate on nbc
|
I understand that NBC is hosting the olympics, and I've been watching it pretty regularly but haven't noticed anything god awful. Why is everyone so mad at them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xbu86/eli5_the_recent_hate_on_nbc/
|
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"Only speaking from personal experience, but I'm not happy with the lack of online viewing available. \n\nI get my tv through an antenna, and nbc doesn't broadcast in my area. So I am out of luck, and have no (legal) way of watching the games. ",
"From the sounds of it, their coverage has been somewhat uneven, between cuts, camerawork and adverts. \n\nHowever it seems the most notable culmination that has got people riled is the replacement a tribute to victims of a terrorist incident in the UK on the 7th of July in 2005 that took place during the opening ceremony. As the replacement was seen as somewhat trivial in comparison (an interview with Michael Phelps by Ryan Seacrest, if what I'm hearing is correct?), some people are disappointed and offended at NBC's broadcast choices.\n\nFor a contextual comparison, some choose to parallel it with the outcry that might follow a national broadcaster sidelining a 9/11 tribute to cover something trivial instead.",
"The Olympics represent a spirit of inclusiveness, community, and support for ones nation. NBC, which owns the broadcasting rights to the 2012 Olympics within the US, has made a decision to monetize their holdings, or to use their rights for profit. In many countries, the companies that own the broadcasting rights have decided to make viewing as easy as possible for as many people as possible, embracing the qualities that the International Olympic Committee stands for. By requiring that viewers have cable/satellite subscriptions for online viewing, NBC has chosen to leave those of us who don't pay for these services to find other ways to watch.",
"Imagine if, say, during the coverage of 2002 Winter Olympics, the BBC had chosen to cut away from a 9/11 memorial tribute to showcase Ant and Dec interviewing a British athlete.\n\nAlso, Community.",
"Another thing that I hate about NBC's coverage is the media monopoly of universal. After merging with comcast, people with dishes or other cable carriers are SOL for coverage. My mom and I pay about the same amount of money for cable a month. I have comcast, she has dish. The only Olympic channels she can watch are NBC and CNBC. I have almost every channel. ",
"One of the biggest issues is the refusal to show many of the most hyped events live, because they want to save them for US primetime.\n\nFor instance, the Michael Phelps/Ryan Lochte 400 IM, which NBC had hyped mercilessly, was not shown live on tv in the us, and viewers had to watch it on tape delay. In the era of twitter/online news/etc, a large number of people found out the results of the event before they could even watch it on TV.\n\nIn fact, if you did nothing but watch NBC all day, NBC nightly news with Brian Williams, which aired before the olympics coverage reported the event results...",
"With all this said, is there a way to watch the olympics online/without NBC bias? (I don't have any cable but I am moving in 2 days and my new apt will have it)",
"The commentators don't know when to shut the fuck up"
]
}
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9irq21
|
Why can't people with O-Negative blood donate platelets?
|
The Red Cross' website says that almost every blood type (with exception of B-Negative and 0-Negative) can donate platelets. But they don't explain why.
Why can't (or shouldn't?) these two blood types donate platelets? Is it just that the whole blood donation is "more useful" to hospitals?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9irq21/why_cant_people_with_onegative_blood_donate/
|
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"O- is in short supply due to the demand as universal donor.\n\nB- is just an insanely rare blood type, less than 1% in caucasians if I remember right. Important because the only 2 types this type can receive (without risking sensitization to D) is b neg and o neg. \n\nTheres no reason they couldnt donate platelets, but since platelet type is mostly a non issue these days it's much more useful to donate red blood cells. However, platelets are also in demand because of their short date, so I hadn't realized they were refusing those platelet donations though"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
xx7gn
|
If you can't hear thunder (but can see distant bolts of lightning) are you still in danger?
|
I've heard that if you hear thunder, you should stay inside to avoid being struck by lightning.
But is it still possible to be hit if you can't hear thunder?
Tonight I was about to go on a walk around the block with my family and my dog, and as soon as we saw lightning in the distance my family insisted we turn around and go home. It wasn't raining, and we couldn't hear thunder. I still don't think there was a real danger, but I could be wrong. We live in a suburb of Phoenix, where monsoons are common this time of year.
Is there any consensus on this?
Is there a realistic chance of being struck by lightning if you cannot hear the thunder?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xx7gn/if_you_cant_hear_thunder_but_can_see_distant/
|
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"text": [
"The odds of getting hit by lightning are pretty low no matter the conditions, but if you're super scared of things, it is very remotely possible to be struck by a [bolt from the blue](_URL_0_) 15 or 20 miles from a thunderhead.\n\nI've been a lightning watcher all my life (56 y) and so was my dad. Neither of us ever even got close to being struck by it.",
"According [to this](_URL_2_):\n\n > Thunder is rarely heard at points farther than 15 miles from the lightning discharge, but occasionally can be heard up to 25 miles away.\n\nand\n\n > it is not possible to have lightning without thunder. Thunder is a direct result of lightning. However, it IS possible that you could not hear the thunder because it was too far away. Sometimes it is called \"heat lightning\" because it occurs most often in the summer.\n\nAlso, [from here](_URL_1_)\n\n > because light travels much faster than sounds of thunder, it is possible to see lightning from thunderstorms over 100 miles away.\n\nAs for safety, [from here](_URL_0_)\n\n > **There is no safe place outside when thunderstorms are in the area. If you hear thunder, you are likely within striking distance of the storm.**\n\n\nIt is a well practiced measure to wait 30 minutes from the last sound of thunder before it is safe to go outdoors.\n\nEdit- format\n",
"If you hear the thunder, you were most likely not struck by it, and should be safe. If you go temporarily blind and deaf, and/or experience a burning sensation in your body, you were likely struck by the lightning, and were not safe.\n\nOn a serious note... Lightning comes from certain types of cloud activity, and follows the rain down to the ground, making use of better conductors like trees or other tall objects when it can. If you are not significantly shorter than most objects around you, and you stand in the rain, you are at risk. It does not matter how far away the lightning you saw/heard was. It only matters wether the cloud above you is likely to fry your ass. its perfectly possible to be safe from lightning a km away, or unsafe 100km away, if for example you have one thunderous cloud 100km away and a second lightning-prone cloud over your head.\n\nAnecdotal rules like \"you're safe if its this far away\" are at best based on statistics. An abundance of lightning conductors that are better than you (say for example the lightning rods of buildings in a city), or a lack of rain, are your only *certain* signs of safety."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/bolt_blue.htm"
],
[
"http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/overview.htm",
"http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/heat-lightning-a-myth/35089",
"http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/primer/lightning/ltg_basics.html"
],
[]
] |
|
3t10pn
|
Why did some areas of Africa quickly convert to Islam, some convert slowly to Christianity, and others keep worshipping tribal gods?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3t10pn/why_did_some_areas_of_africa_quickly_convert_to/
|
{
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"cx26o9m",
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"text": [
"The answer is that they didn't convert all that quickly at all. Those areas that did convert to Islam did so quite gradually. Much of Northern Africa, as former Roman provinces, were Christian during the Arab conquests, but gradually became more Muslim over time, often thanks in part to economic pressures. Similarly, non-Roman city states in East Africa with deep connections to Muslim areas through trade over the Indian Ocean gradually converted to Islam over centuries. It's no mere accident of history that Islam's spread mirrors trade routes: it was easier to find trust and economic security between trading partners when they shared a religion.\n\nHowever, you are mistaken in saying that Christianity has been slow to spread in Africa. There are hundreds of millions of African Christians thanks to heavy-handed and concerted evangelism efforts. Native religions are much less common. Of course, as with Europe, native beliefs are often incorporated into the way they practice Christianity. Typically, Christianity is more prevalent in areas that never developed strong Muslim communities and received heavy evangelism efforts, while Islam is found spread out along ancient trade routes. This isn't to discount communities like the Christians in Egypt, who have been there since Roman times.",
"In Islam someone simply had to *submit* and they were in. Islam means submission in Arabic and a Muslim is simply a believer. If a person in a newly conquered part of 7th century north Africa thew down their idol and approached the warriors saying \"I am a believer.\" They would have to accept that person into the *community of believers*. \n\nThis is polar opposite to many many religions. The barrier to entry in Islam was so low anybody could get in. Unlike other faiths it was not restricted to one ethnicity or language group. Because all of Islam had to study it in Arabic it forced a kind of integration into greater Arab culture. But because Islam had to gain converts form so many diverse peoples it developed different flavors,if you will, as it spread.\n\nSo in Islam we have a eastern expansion to all the way to Indonesia. And a western expansion all the way to Spain. Then later beginning in the 14th C. the Turkic expansion into the Balkans which follows a similar pattern to the early movement into Christian Egypt. \n\nIn Persia in the 6th century Zoroastrianism was the predominant faith. Zoroastrianism is a religion which warships the supreme god Aurora Mazda, and has very clear good and evil motifs. They took right to Islam and the Ideas proposed in the Abrahamic ideals. The tenements of Zoroastrianism had striking parallels to early Jewish interpretations of the Torah. As an aside, some like Dr. Patricia Crone have theorized a common ancient Sumerian origin for both faiths, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. With the language being similar to Arabic and the cultures similar the transition was very easy.\n\nIn north Africa there were mainly Christian kingdoms in Egypt to Morocco. So in this area we did not see the same level of mass conversion as we did in the east. Here Islam was more reserved for the elite military class. This was due to the non pagan nature of the population. The concept of Dhimmi, or people of the book, led to a surprising level of tolerance in the dar al Islam. The people of the book meaning Jews and Christians were not to be hindered directly simply taxed to practice their faith, way better than dying IMO. The Coptic Christian and ancient Jewish population of Medina and Jerusalem were never forcefully converted due to their almost sacred authority over the Bible. Mohammad actually learned everything he knew about God when he went to Medina and engaged in six years debate with the local rabbi's. Mohammad's life is commonly divided into the pre Medina years when he was living in Mecca, which are markedly more pagan, and after in Medina. \n\nThis practice and treatment of conquered peoples facilitated trade and culture between the tree faiths in a surprising degree. Warriors picked up cultures and the cultures and flavors of those cultures in their form of Islam as it spread east and west. This is drastically different than Christendom which had the inquisition tantamount to a cultural genocide. Not to mention all of North and South America decimated in the name of god, gold, and glory, Deus Aurum Gloria . That is tree continents cultures homogenized by Christ. Shit forgot Australia, thats a fourth. Islam needs to catch up.... The forceful conversion in Christendom arguably caused a historical nightmare that destroyed Shamanic, Druid and pagan cultures around the world forever. (Thank Valhalla for the Icelandic Sagas saving my Norse heritage! Not all are are so lucky.) Christendom is unsurprisingly the least tolerant of the Abrahamic faiths having more people die in the name of Jesus than any other religion. Sadly as we constantly see in history religions of peace perverted to justify war and conquest. \n\nTLDR: But, it really goes down to early Islam being made up of a professional army of very efficient warriors. Horse archers where the Abrams tank of their day. This allowed for the vast expansion early on. As they expanded we see different levels of conversions. Today we have Bulgaria which had Islamic control for 700 years and is now mostly Christian. At the same time we have Indonesian which is the largest Islamic nation on the planet. With approximately the same amount of time under Islam. It comes down to the initial faith of the conquered peoples. Pagans were more readily converted. Where as Christians and Jews were just taxed as people of the book. I would love some feedback. \n\nI thank the beautiful book Osmon's Dream, /r/C_S_T, Dr. Nicoli Antov, and Dr. Patricia Crone for my inspiration."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2l7t57
|
what happens to the human body when it experiences spontaneous decompression? does it just pop?
|
What exactly happens to the human body when it experiences spontaneous decompression?
Like in movies or sci-fi shows, a door leading into he vacuum of space is breached and everyone and everything in the room will get sucked out, except for the hero who grabs on to something for the ride and somehow holds their breath and makes it?!
It's hard to believe if you were violently sucked into space there wouldn't be some very violent physical side effects
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l7t57/eli5_what_happens_to_the_human_body_when_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clsbh4m"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"\"Coward, Lucas and Bergersen were exposed to the effects of explosive decompression and died in the positions indicated by the diagram. Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, violently exploded due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. **All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine, were ejected, as were all of his limbs.** Simultaneously, his remains were expelled through the narrow trunk opening left by the jammed chamber door, less than 60 centimetres (24 in) in diameter. Fragments of his body were found scattered about the rig. One part was even found lying on the rig's derrick, 10 metres (30 ft) directly above the chambers. The deaths of all four divers were most likely instantaneous.\"\n\n[Byford Dolphin Accident](_URL_0_) \n\nThere is a picture of what was left of one of the divers, but I couldn't find it. Essentially, if you read the above, what was left on the stretcher didn't amount to much, \n\n\nEdit: This was an extreme situation obviously. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin"
]
] |
|
lhw81
|
Why can't I cleanly wipe the condensation off my bathroom mirror after a shower?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lhw81/why_cant_i_cleanly_wipe_the_condensation_off_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c2sving",
"c2sving"
],
"score": [
11,
11
],
"text": [
"Condensation is caused by the relatively cool surface of the mirror pulling moisture out of the air. The water vapor in the air essentially loses energy, that is, cools off and phase changes into water, when it encounters this surface. \n\nWhen you wipe it, you get rid of the droplets that have formed on the surface of the mirror. What you haven't addressed is whats causing it in the first place - the cool mirror. So a new layer of droplets quickly forms. If you take a hairdryer on hot and blast the mirror THEN wipe it, it will no longer form condensation. This is known as the female solution. You can also spit on the mirror and wipe it around. The body temperature phlegm should slow/stop the condensation. This is known as the male solution. \n\nSome fancy hotels actually have mirror heaters to avoid this problem altogether. ",
"Condensation is caused by the relatively cool surface of the mirror pulling moisture out of the air. The water vapor in the air essentially loses energy, that is, cools off and phase changes into water, when it encounters this surface. \n\nWhen you wipe it, you get rid of the droplets that have formed on the surface of the mirror. What you haven't addressed is whats causing it in the first place - the cool mirror. So a new layer of droplets quickly forms. If you take a hairdryer on hot and blast the mirror THEN wipe it, it will no longer form condensation. This is known as the female solution. You can also spit on the mirror and wipe it around. The body temperature phlegm should slow/stop the condensation. This is known as the male solution. \n\nSome fancy hotels actually have mirror heaters to avoid this problem altogether. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
bi1cxp
|
During timeperiods with more oxygen in the atmosphere, did fires burn faster/hotter?
|
Couldnt find it on google
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bi1cxp/during_timeperiods_with_more_oxygen_in_the/
|
{
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"text": [
"Yes. And during periods with lower oxygen levels, fires burned more slowly or not at all. Some natural fuels will burn at high oxygen concentrations but not low. [This article](_URL_0_) examines these relationships. Wildfires may actually act to stabilize atmospheric oxygen levels. If the concentration increases, fires will burn faster and consume the excess. If the concentration decreases, fires slow down and consume less oxygen, allowing the concentration to rise again. Check out [this excellent paper(PDF)](_URL_1_) to learn more about this and other relationships between fire and climate, ecology, evolution, etc.",
"Yes. NASA experimented with 100% oxygen in space capsules, as to have to ship up less nitrogen, since sending things in orbit is extremely pricy. [They changed out of this amongst other reasons because a fire started in Apollo 1 which burnt out the entire cabin and overpressurised it within half a minute.](_URL_0_)",
"Absolutely - we actually have a ton of fossil evidence for fires during the Carboniferous era, when both biomass and atmospheric oxygen content were high. If you look at the coal deposits from that time, there's a high percentage of charcoal in it. Some of the evidence actually suggests that wildfires may have been a regular feature of Carboniferous forests.\n\nMeanwhile at the end of the Permian, we had a decrease in atmospheric oxygen which contributed to the \"coal gap\" along with the decreased biomass from the end-Permian extinction.",
"Insects would also be much bigger with higher oxygen levels. I can't remember where I read this, but it's something to do with them not having lungs and 'breathing' through spiracles.\n\nI'll have a look and see what I can dig up.\n\n/edit the original article years ago mentioned spiders being bigger, but I can't find that exact article.\n\nHowever, [I have found](_URL_0_) that some species of spider do use book lungs and spiracles to breathe, so a higher oxygen content should lead to bigger spiders.\n\nI wouldn't like to see a predecessor of a huntsman.",
"As has been said, the answer is yes. An interesting corollary I haven’t seen mentioned yet, though, is that Earth is the only planetary body we know of on which fires are actually possible. Fire is a redox reaction, in which a reduced substrate (wood in the case of a forest fire) is oxidized by the oxygen in the atmosphere. The wild part is that only on Earth do reduced substrates and an oxidized atmosphere occur together, and it’s only because of life that they do here. Photosynthesis is responsible for nearly 100% of the oxygen that exists on Earth, and thus cyanobacteria, plants, and algae are the reason fire can occur on our planet.\n\nOther bodies can be either highly reduced or highly oxidized, but not both. Saturn’s moon Titan, for instance, is covered in oceans of liquid methane. This would be a dangerous occurrence on Earth, but there’s no oxidant available on Titan for the methane to react with, so it will never burn. Mars on the other hand has an oxidized surface, but no reduced substrates that could burn even exposed to oxygen.\n\nThe fact that fire can only occur on Earth because life has produced enough oxygen to change the composition of our entire atmosphere means that wildfires are a very good candidate biosignature if we can detect them on other worlds. We just don’t know of any way for them to occur on lifeless planets."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3012516/",
"https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ead/pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjUtOaI7vDhAhVQcq0KHTalCjAQFjADegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3QXcy76BSRYJO06lp9ikW0&cshid=1556388642646"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#Choice_of_pure_oxygen_atmosphere"
],
[],
[
"https://owlcation.com/stem/How-Spiders-Breathe"
],
[]
] |
|
9cyq38
|
How accurate is the information that Leif Erickson actually discovered North America?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9cyq38/how_accurate_is_the_information_that_leif/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e5e5flu"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Hi, not discouraging others from answering here, but you may be interested in a few earlier posts\n\n* /u/400-Rabbits in [Did Vikings ever make contact with North America before Christopher Columbus?](_URL_2_)\n\n* /u/textandtrowel in [What do we know about Vinland?](_URL_3_)\n\n* /u/A_Crazy_Canadian in [What information about Leif Ericsson can be verified as historically accurate?](_URL_4_)\n\nFor reference, L'Anse aux Meadows is a [Canadian National Historic Site](_URL_0_) and [Unesco World Heritage Site](_URL_1_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows",
"http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/4",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/82685w/did_vikings_ever_make_contact_with_north_america/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3julq1/what_do_we_know_about_vinland/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1z6v5q/what_information_about_leif_ericsson_can_be/"
]
] |
||
uih0q
|
why fat forms where it does
|
I've always wondered what it is about the body that dictates where a person's fat will form. You know how you can have two people who are slightly overweight, and with one person their face doesn't have a whole lot of fat on it, but with another their face does have fat on it?
Or how with some people all their fat goes to their stomach/chest area whereas other people's fat goes to their butt and thighs.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uih0q/eli5_why_fat_forms_where_it_does/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4vom2v"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I'm sorry if the answer is incorrect but my lecturer told me that it has to do with gender. \n\nMale: The stomach.\n\nFemale: Buttocks."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3rwuzk
|
When (and why) did capital punishment start being carried out by lethal injection?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3rwuzk/when_and_why_did_capital_punishment_start_being/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwt15hr"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"The history of lethal injection is an interesting and *horrible* one. Lethal injection was first suggested as a procedure in 1888, by an American doctor, incidentally a year after the abolition of capital punishment in Maine. In some ways, lethal injection has always been a very American thing. At the time, victims were executed through hanging- and hanging is not nice. Whether it involves horrible damage to the neck and asphyxiation, whether it's public or private, hanging is frankly gruesome as hell. And although some society didn't mind- or even supported- that aspect of it, a subset certainly did, and tried to find less gruesome, more 'humane' methods, or at least more humane in their eyes, such as electrocution or, indeed, lethal injection.\n\nHowever, for a variety of reasons, this never went far. Lethal injection is and was expensive- especially compared to hanging. It was not necessarily less gruesome. It leant a more medical air to execution than some people would have liked. It was more personal, as someone would have been actively injecting the victim, which didn't allow the distance and removal from the death that hanging did, even for the hangman. It was an unattractive option for accountants and executioners alike.\n\nBut the medical air of lethal injection certainly appealed to some people. Nazi Germany dabbled with lethal injection as well. It was used in the murder of the severely disabled, including young children and babies, where the victims would be injected with a number of toxic substances, such as phenol. Originally this eugenics program killed infants, before expanding to include older children, teenagers and eventually adults. Parents at first did not understand what was going on- sending severely disabled children to institutions and asylums was the norm for Germany at the time, as parents often didn't have the ability or facilities to safely care for their children, and some also sent their children to asylums out of shame or embarrassment. They were told their children had died of natural diseases- influenza, pneumonia, heart conditions- and that was that. Eventually, some parents and communities realised what was happening, so many children dying, and began to refuse to send their children to institutions. But there was enormous pressure to do so, put on by the Nazi government, with parents threatened with their children being removed from their care, or the father being sent to the Eastern front, which was almost a death sentence at some points in the war. \n\nFrom 1939, Aktion T4, which was the planned, systematic murder of the mentally, intellectually and developmentally disabled, was expanded to adults, first those found in the Polish institutions being overrun by the SS, and then across Germany. The majority were shot or gassed, not killed through lethal injection as the children were.\n\nWhy was lethal injection the chosen method of murder, for children in particular? Lethal injection carried a reputation of being painless (it wasn't) and it made the procedure medical. A doctor, a paediatrician, who had spent his life working with and saving children, might have found it difficult to allow a child to be shot in the head. But it might have rested easier on their consciences if a child died from a Luminol overdose. It would have seemed less like killing, more like euthanasia, being medicalised, sanitary and 'civilised'. Indeed, for these reasons, lethal injection appealed to a number of people, not just in Germany or America, but also in the UK.\n\nIn the late 1940s, the British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment was considering the use of the lethal injection- it not having yet been used. The British Medical Association rejected the suggestion, on the grounds that it was cruel and certainly painful, but also because associating anything medical with death was going to be a big PR mistake. The BME did not want that medical air to be added to capital punishment, and the doctors who would administer the dosage would not have been keen- actively ending lives goes against most people's morals, and even if they support capital punishment, lethal injection confronts the executioner with the reality of the act in a way that hanging, gassing or firing squad doesn't allow, although more modern methods, through lethal injection machines, have removed this problem.\n\nLethal injection was only actually used in a democratic country, openly and legally (eg not Nazi Germany) in 1982, but was first suggested in 1977, a year after capital punishment was once more resumed in the US, and the same year an execution was actually carried out for the first time since the resumption, that of Gary Gilmore, executed by firing squad, in Utah, and ten years after the previous execution in America, in 1967, that of Luis Monge by gassing. In 1972, the use of capital punishment was ruled to be unconstitutional, due to it being considered a cruel and unusual punishment, and although it was reinstated in 1976, there was certainly a need for a method of execution which would *not* be seen as cruel or unusual, and lethal injection- passing away peacefully and painlessly whilst unconscious- was ideal. \n\nThe state medical examiner of Oklahoma, one Jay Chapman, who was also a doctor, suggested lethal injection as a form of execution, believing it would be less painful. His plans were approved by a leading anaesthesiologist, also of Oklahoma, named Stanley Deutsch, and the form of lethal injection was to involve a fast acting barbiturate and induced chemical paralysis. It was soon adopted into the Oklahoma state criminal system, and the supposed relative painlessness and the medicalised, scientific form of execution apparently appealed both to the general public- who could see themselves as supporting a clean, humane procedure, compared to a brutal, violent one such as hanging, electrocution or the gas chamber, which was used in American history, which could be associated with the Holocaust as well as having a reputation for causing suffering- as well as other state governments, being quickly adopted across the US."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
smm23
|
What are the differences in the metabolisms of someone who can't get fat and someone who gains weight easily?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/smm23/what_are_the_differences_in_the_metabolisms_of/
|
{
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"While this doesn't quite answer your question, perhaps it will give you some information that is part of the answer. \n\nHuman microbiota (all the microbes in and on you) work has exploded in the last 10 years. One huge piece of research to come out of this is that [lean people and obese](_URL_0_) people harbor different profiles of bacteria (and different bacterial genes) in their gut. They took identical and non-identical twins, and their mothers, compared who was lean or obese, what microbes they had in their gut, and what the gene content of those microbes was. The idea of looking at twins is then you can control for the gene content of the host. What they found in short is that obese people had less diversity of bacteria (and their genes) in their gut along with a different assortment of bacteria. Some thoughts for why this might be is that the obese profile helps the host get more energy from their food.\n\nHowever, at this point, it's kind of a chicken/egg discussion. We know what an obese microbiota looks like. Do people get inoculated with an obese microbiota and then become obese because of it? This could explain why we see obesity in families. Or is there something that individuals do that shift their microbiota towards that of an obese one, and it \"helps\" them become obese? \n\nI'm going to speculate now based on what I've read, and the people I've talked to about this (I've actually met and had a conversation with the lead author on that paper I linked to). I think this all might actually be a combination of things. Perhaps mom eats in a way that not only encourages weight gain, but also encourages an obese microbiota. She gets stuck in a cycle where her microbiota requires more food, so she eats more, maintaining her obesity. She then inoculates her kids with that profile, while maintaining the necessary external things that support their obese profile and that keeps them obese. And you can look at it from the flip side, lean people doing the things that maintain a lean profile AND inoculating their kids with it AND teaching them the habits that maintain that leanness. I have to wonder if part of the difficulty for some in losing weight isn't totally that it's \"hard\" to lose weight, but that it's hard to shift your microbiota back to that of a lean person.",
"Slightly off-topic to the OP's question, but i have a tangential question;\nDoes anyone know if the amount you defecate has anything to do with weight gain? I realize that's a... strange question, but is a lean person lean because they \"lose\" more food than an obese person or is it unrelated?\nThanks!",
"we do not currently understand what's going on in those fecal transplant cases (microbiota). One thing we do know a bit (of molecular detail) about is leptin.\n\nFor the extra-lay person: leptin is produced by fat cells and is kind of like insulin - just as obese people can develop diabetes they can develop leptin resistance so their brain/body doesn't 'know' that they have enough fat.\n\nFor the interested and less-lay person:\nThis guy discovered leptin was the peptide hormone that was responsible for a genetic line of mice that were always much much larger than 'normal.\nLeptin is released by fat cells (more fat cells = more leptin) and influences how much food animals eat per day. \n_URL_1_\n\nalso: picture of a leptin deficient mouse with a 'normal' littermate\n_URL_0_\n\nleptin has also been shown (Domingos et al 2010 also from Friedman lab) to change the perceived value of sucrose (sugar) using Optogenetics. Basically, optogenetics is where you can activate specific types of neurons with light because you make (in this case) mice that express a receptor (Channel Rhodopsin 2) that responds to a band of wavelengths of light. You then surgically implant a fiber optic cable that you control externally so you can turn the light on and off, which basically turns the cells on and off. Domingos et al used optogenetics to activate DA neurons (dopaminergic neurons) in the midbrain/hypothalamus which most would agree triggers a \"reward\" feeling (similar to endorphins or happiness, etc.) A mouse that has been starved will choose sugar water over water plus this \"reward\" (aka when the mouse licks the water dispenser, they turn on the light, so the neurons that control a good feeling/reward fire, and the mouse likes it) AND the mouse will choose sugar water over the reward + 'artificial' sugar (sucralose- low/no nutritional value). LEPTIN reverses this decision - so hungry animals (starved 24hrs) will significantly choose the reward + fake sugar over high concentrations of real sugar because their body thinks they have enough fat (remember, fat cells release leptin, so adding leptin means the animal's body thinks it has enough calories). \n\nHOWEVER: (I couldn't find a source for this, so don't 100% trust) 10% of the population have leptin problems- there are other parts of this pathway (like ghrelin, or the neurons themselves, reward pathways, depression, etc.) that play into such a complex phenomena as obesity\nfinally: leptin deficient mice:",
"People vary in their response to overfeeding: _URL_0_\n\nIn this twin study, the subjects were overfed by 1000 calories/day, but their weight gain varied from 4.3kg to 13.3kg. The discrepancy appeared to be caused by genetic factors. A person who gained the least weight probably had a large increase in their metabolic rate, fidgeted more, and stored more of the excess energy as lean tissue rather than fat. A person who gained the most weight probably had only small increases in metabolic rate and stored most of the excess energy as fat.\n\nIn the real world, where it's easy to overshoot your daily calorie needs by a few hundred, having certain genetic factors would probably be of value in protecting you against weight gain.\n\n\n",
"Based upon the latest clinical research, differences in metabolism seem largely environmental as opposed to genetic. Genetics are estimated to only account for about 5% of obesity. Once you are overweight however, it really throws your GI hormones out of wack, making it more difficult to keep off the pounds.",
"I haven't seen this mentioned, but [Gary Taubes](_URL_0_) has written about the idea that it's the types of foods consumed that makes a difference. He pulls up a lot of research to indicate that (simply put) processed carbohydrates spike your hormones (mainly insulin) into storing more fat, as opposed to burning it for energy. I *think* he may also have written that some people may be more genetically disposed to doing so according to what they happen to be eating. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677729/"
],
[],
[
"http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/2004/04/16/leptin.jpg",
"http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/faculty/labheads/JeffreyFriedman/"
],
[
"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199005243222101"
],
[],
[
"http://garytaubes.com/"
]
] |
||
7pvdew
|
how does a build up of lactic acid in an athlete's muscles cause them to sometimes thow up
|
I'm an athlete and I train for the 400m. During the 400m you get an insane amount of lactic acid in your muscles and sometimes this can cause you to throw up. Why does this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pvdew/eli5_how_does_a_build_up_of_lactic_acid_in_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dskcgue"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Throwing up is one of a few things the body just defaults to when it senses something is geberally wrong. Better safe than sorry, maybe it's something you ate, let's throw up just to be sure. Makes sense from an evolutionary stand point.\n\nAlso, when so much lactic acid is built up, it'll sometimes end up in your actual stomach. This will irritate the stomach and throwing up gets rid of it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9rroux
|
is paying off a mortgage like paying rent?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rroux/eli5_is_paying_off_a_mortgage_like_paying_rent/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e8j7hi7",
"e8j85fj"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"...Sort of? It is a regular bill which needs to be paid so it seems similar. However a major difference is that the money paid into the mortgage isn't really gone in the same way as rent. You are gaining equity or ownership of the property so when it is sold you get that money back. You can even sell before the mortgage is done and pocket the difference between the mortgage and sale price.",
"It is like rent in that it's a monthly payment for housing, but you also pay toward owning the house outright, and have rights to all gains in home value.\n\nYour monthly mortgage payment includes principal (reduces loan, increases ownership), interest, and escrow funds (setting aside money monthly for annual property tax payments and home owners insurance). \n\nEventually, if you keep paying for 15-30 years, you'll pay off the mortgage entirely and own 100% of the house. You'd then just have to pay the taxes and insurance directly, but no mortgage."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3bwkhy
|
why are veterans held in such high regard in america and why do some veterans walk around in uniform when not on duty?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bwkhy/eli5_why_are_veterans_held_in_such_high_regard_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csq6feh"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because they fought for our country. They risked their lives for us. I think they deserve a little damn respect."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1fn87e
|
How did kingdoms with two simultaneous kings come about and how did it work?
|
Are there any other instances aside from Sparta? And a tangential question, why is Sparta called a city-state if it should more accurately be called a city-kingdom?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fn87e/how_did_kingdoms_with_two_simultaneous_kings_come/
|
{
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"cabwga6",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"On your tangent: \"state\" is just a generic (and somewhat ill-defined) word for a sovereign political entity, it doesn't imply anything about the form of government. Kingdoms are states.",
"[Diarchy](_URL_1_), the rule of a single kingdom by 2 kings (or king equivalents) happens a number of times. \n\nAs you mentioned Sparta, which claims its kings were descended from two twins Eurysthenes and Procles descendants of Hercules. They could veto the others actions. \n\nSweden had a dual monarchy several times, the most recent being Phillip and Inge II around 1110. They were brothers one older and one younger who inherited the throne from their uncle. Inge II outlived his brother and it returned to a single monarchy. \n\nHaving brothers rule, or a father and son rule is not uncommon. The father/son model in particular is used to ensure succession. By promoting the son to king (or emperor) before the father dies it ensure that the transition goes smoothly. Rome did this with the Emperors quite often promoting sons or successors to Caesar (junior emperor) and even Augustus (full emperor) well before the elder ruler died.\n\nThe model of two rulers is also seen in situations where the ruler is not not quite a king. When the Romans expelled the kings they established the office of consul (some time later) to be the temporal power for the state. Fearing one man would be to powerful they elected two men with the power to veto each others actions. \n\nAnother interesting place that's not quite king is the rulers of Andorra. Currently it is jointly ruled by President of France and the Bishop of Urgell. The President inherits his power from the previous Kings of France, who came from the Kings of Navarre, who were the Counts of Foix. Back in 1278 the Counts of Foix and the Bishops of Urgell [agreed](_URL_0_) to jointly rule Andorra.\n\n",
"William and Mary were crowned as coregents of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1689. Mary had the stronger claim to the crown, being a daughter of James II, but did not wish for her husband (and cousin) William to rank lower than her. \n\n\n\n",
"Peter the Great and Ivan V were co-tsars of Russia from 1682-1696. Ivan had the better claim, but had some severe disabilities."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par%C3%A9age_of_Andorra_1278",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarchy"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
ysmzi
|
Could a planet theoretically exist which is much larger than earth but made of less dense materials and therefore still have earth gravity?
|
For simplicity's sake let's ignore how likely it is that such a planet would form, and just think about if it could exist.
To be a little more specific, this imaginary planet:
- Is rocky, not a gas giant
- Is significantly larger than earth, maybe 2x or 3x surface area, but
- is composed of lighter material, perhaps it has hugely less metal in its core
Bonus question: Exactly how big could one of these planets be if you assume that the only requirements are solid ground and 1 G? (at a certain point if you keep taking away heavy things and adding light things you'll just end up with a gas planet)
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ysmzi/could_a_planet_theoretically_exist_which_is_much/
|
{
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"text": [
"Here is an easy way to estimate this sort of stuff without having to use calculator or even pen and paper:\n\nThe surface gravity is proportional to mass and inversely proportional to radius squared. Mass is proportional to r^3 * p where p is density.\n\nThis gives: surface gravity is proportional to radius multiplied by density. So, if you decrease the density two times, the radius has to increase two times to maintain same surface gravity. \n\nMore specifically, for your question: Earth's mean density is 5.52 gram per cubic centimetre. From the radial density profile:\n\n_URL_2_\n\nit appears that the core is too small and it's replacement would not make the dramatic difference you envision (half the radius means 1/8 the volume).\n\nIt is difficult to say anything about the density of a rocky planet made of a very light rock; one has to think of particular material with particular compressibility. The pressure in Earth core is on order of 300 gigapascal:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nCarbon (diamond) seems to have density of about 4.5 grams per cubic centimetre at this kind of pressure: \n\n_URL_1_\n\ngiving us the radius that is 5.52/4.5 = approximately 1.2 times the radius of Earth, with the surface area up to perhaps 1.5 times that of Earth. I am not sure about lighter minerals. I'm trying to look up lithium data. Albeit a planet made of lithium would seem somewhat implausible.\n\nedit: correction. Much of carbon in that planet would be under less pressure. So you might be able to get some 2x Earth surface area with a diamond planet.",
"Check out Uranus and Neptune, they have 14 and 17 times the mass of the earth respectively, yet only a gravity of 0.88 and 1.1 of earths surface gravity.",
"The important thing to remember is that the force of gravity from an object is dependent mainly on two things; the mass of that object, and your distance from its center of gravity.\n\nSo, laying aside your requirement for solid ground for now, the simple answer is yes. We just have to have our hypothetical planet fulfill the following equation:\n\n-9.8m/s^2 (which is the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth) = -(M (the mass of the hypothetical planet) * G (the Gravitational Constant, or 6.674 x 10^-11 (m/kg)^2 ) / r^2\n\nThis simplifies to...\n\n9.8 = 0.00000000006674M / r^2\n\nor \n\nM / r^2 = 146838477674.6\n\nWhat this equation basically says is that, for a planet to have Earth gravity on the surface, its mass in kilograms must be around 150 billion times the square of its radius in meters.\n\nSo, say you wanted a private planet that had Earth gravity. Let's say you wanted the radius to be about 1km- or 1,000m. Let's plug that into the equation:\n\nM / ( 1000^2 ) = 146,838,477,674.6kg\n\nM / 1,000,000 = 146,838,477,674.6kg\n\nM = 146,838,477,674,600kg\n\nSo, for our private planet to sustain 1G at the surface, it'd need to have a mass of 146 trillion kg. Let's see how easy that is to attain.\n\nWe know that the planet has a radius of 1000m, so we can use that to figure out the planet's rough volume, using the equation for the volume of a sphere, which is:\n\nv = 4/3 * pi * r^3\n\nThe end result of that equation is a volume of about 4.189 billion cubic meters.\n\nWe can then take that volume, and plug in the mass we already figured out to find out how dense our microplanet needs to be.\n\nDensity = mass / volume\n\nDensity in this case = 1.468 x 10^14 kg / 4.189 x 10^9 m^3.\n\nDensity = 35,044 kg / m^3\n\nThat's *really dense*. To make it easier to calculate, we'll reduce it down into the simpler form of grams per cubic centimeter.\n\nAt 1,000,000 cubic centimeters per cubic meter, and 1,000 grams per kilogram, the density of our microplanet reduces down to a bit more than 35 grams per cubic centimeter. That's nearly twice as dense as solid gold. We don't even know of an element that can be that dense. The highest our charts go is around 22g/cm^3 .\n\nLet's be a bit more reasonable. Let's say we want a planet the size of the Moon that has Earth gravity on the surface.\n\nThe Moon has a radius of about 1737km, or 1737000m, so let's plug that into our equation:\n\nM / ( 1737000^2 ) = 146,838,477,674.6kg\n\nM / 3,017,169,000,000 = 146,838,477,674.6kg\n\nM = 443,036,502,846,995,207,400,000kg\n\nThat's over 443 thousand billion billion kilograms, but we'll just write it out as 4.43 x 10^23 kg.\n\nWe also need to figure out the volume of the Moon. It ends up being about 2.195 x 10^19 m^3 .\n\nPlug those together, and you get an overall density of 20.18g/cm^3 . still ridiculously high, but we know there are elements that exist that can give us that level of density.\n\nNow, earlier, you asked what the largest solid planet could be. For this, we'll need to rewrite our original equation, and put it in terms of one variable (the radius), and use a defined density. We'll go with diamond, because it's a very light, very durable solid, weighing in at just 3.515g/cm^3 .\n\nHere's our original equation:\n\nM / r^2 = 146838477674.6\n\nNow, we need to bring it all in terms of the radius, r. To do this, we can express the mass as a function of the planet's volume and density.\n\nM = 4/3 * pi * r^3 * density\n\nRefactoring diamond's density, it ends up being 3515 kg/m^3, so we can go ahead and plug that, along with the 4/3 and pi, into the equation.\n\nM = 14723.6 * r^3\n\nSo, we now have M in terms of r, so we can slot that value back into the equation:\n\n14723.6r^3 / r^2 = 146838477674.6\n\nWe can factor out the r^2 from the denominator right off, because we have the r^3 in the numerator. That leaves us with this:\n\n14723.6r = 146838477674.6\n\nThen, we divide:\n\nr = 9,973,001m\n\nSo, our hypothetical diamond planet has a radius of 9,973km- a bit more than half again as great as Earth's.\n\nNow, suppose that we're willing to give up a solid surface, and just have an ocean planet, made entirely of water. Do the math, and we have a planet that's got a radius of 35,000km.\n\nYou can also figure it out for more exotic materials, like aerogels, but I'm not going to go into that here.",
"Wouldn't a less dense material typically be crushed inwards anyway?",
"Keep in mind that density isn't a constant. If it were you could maybe make up for a heavy planet by just being large enough to counteract the force of gravity somewhat. However, that doesn't work. With planet sized masses solid matter in the interior is compressed and density increases. The inner core of Earth is made of Nickel and Iron, but it is compressed by the weight of the Earth so that it's density is higher than that of uncompressed Lead.\n\nPotentially you could have a very Iron poor planet that was made up almost exclusively of silicates, and thus could be physically larger than Earth with lower surface gravity. But there are limits to that game, eventually you're going to end up compressing the inner core enough to raise the overall density."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_core",
"http://www.orau.gov/ssaa2012/presentations/Wednesday%20AM_PM%20HEDLP%20&%20NLUF/Duffy.pdf",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RadialDensityPREM.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
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