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what is being done in the world of science to offset the imposing "antibiotic apocalypse?" | [Here is an article you may want to read](_URL_0_) I'll post a little of the article so my comment doesn't get deleted.
Scientists have come across a potential game-changer in the fight against drug-resistant superbugs - a new class of antibiotic that is resistant to resistance. Not only does the new compound - which comes from soil bacteria - kill deadly superbugs like MRSA, but also - because of the way it destroys their cell wall - the pathogens will find it very difficult to mutate into resistant strains | [
"Antibiotic resistance is another major concern, leading to the reemergence of diseases such as tuberculosis. The World Health Organization, for its World Health Day 2011 campaign, is calling for intensified global commitment to safeguard antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines for future generations.\n",
"World Antibiotic Awareness Week has been held every November since 2015. For 2017, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are together calling for responsible use of antibiotics in humans and animals to reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistance.\n",
"Another reason behind the lack of new antibiotic production is the diminishing amount of return on investment for antibiotics and thus the lack resources put into research and development by private pharmaceutical companies. The World Health Organization has recognized the danger of antibiotic resistance bacteria and has created a list of \"priority pathogens\" that are of the utmost concern. In doing so the hope is to stimulate R&D that can create a new generation of antibiotics. In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) aims to support the work of the industry to produce new antibiotics.\n",
"In 2013 researchers from Aberdeen University announced that they were starting a hunt for undiscovered chemicals in organisms that have evolved in deep sea trenches, hoping to find \"the next generation\" of antibiotics, anticipating an \"antibiotic apocalypse\" with a dearth of new infection-fighting drugs. The EU-funded research will start in the Atacama Trench and then move on to search trenches off New Zealand and Antarctica.\n",
"The increasing interconnectedness of the world and the fact that new classes of antibiotics have not been developed and approved for more than 25 years highlight the extent to which antimicrobial resistance is a global health challenge. A global action plan to tackle the growing problem of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines was endorsed at the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly in May 2015. One of the key objectives of the plan is to improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance through effective communication, education and training. This global action plan developed by the World Health Organization was created to combat the issue of antimicrobial resistance and was guided by the advice of countries and key stakeholders. The WHO's global action plan is composed of five key objectives that can be targeted through different means, and represents countries coming together to solve a major problem that can have future health consequences.\n",
"Often in the vanguard on intellectual thoughts about medicine, public health, human nature, and psychiatry, in 1955 Martí-Ibáñez wrote his concerns about the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, \"\"Antibiotic therapy, if indiscriminately used, may turn out to be a medicinal flood that temporarily cleans and heals, but ultimately destroys life itself.\"\", a prediction of the dire consequences that humans are just beginning to face today due to ill-advised uses of antibiotics in dairy and meat production as well as medical practices. In the 1930s he participated in the enactment of legislation liberating women and his views on human sexuality are quoted regularly.\n",
"There has not been a new drug approval from a new class of antibiotics since 1987. While six antibiotics have been approved over the last year, they are all adaptations of existing antibiotic classes. None of the recently approved novel antibiotics represent entirely new classes. Novel antibiotics are crucial as antibiotic resistance poses a global health risk. The World Health Organization, warning of a \"post-antibiotic era\" has stated that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a \"problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine\".\n"
] |
What animal has the worst common cause of death? | Manatees getting hit by propellors and bleeding out. Usually they get hit multiple time in their life, and are killed by particularly brutal hits. | [
"In 1993, 25 schools throughout New England, United States participated in a roadkill study involving 1,923 animal deaths. By category, the fatalities were: 81% mammals, 15% bird, 3% reptiles and amphibians, 1% indiscernible. Extrapolating these data nationwide, Merritt Clifton (editor of \"Animal People Newspaper\") estimated that the following animals are being killed by motor vehicles in the United States annually: 41 million squirrels, 26 million cats, 22 million rats, 19 million opossums, 15 million raccoons, 6 million dogs, and 350,000 deer. This study may not have considered differences in observability between taxa (e.g. dead raccoons are easier to see than dead frogs), and has not been published in peer-reviewed scientific literature.\n",
"By the end of March, veterinary organizations reported more than 100 pet deaths amongst nearly 500 cases of kidney failure, and experts expected the death toll to number in the thousands, with one online database already self-reporting as many as 3,600 deaths as of 11 April. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received reports of approximately 8500 animal deaths, including at least 1950 cats and 2200 dogs who have died after eating contaminated food, but have only confirmed 14 cases, in part because there is no centralized government database of animal sickness or death in the United States as there are with humans (such as the Centers for Disease Control). For this reason, many sources speculate the full extent of the pet deaths and sicknesses caused by the contamination may never be known. In October, the results of the \"AAVLD survey of pet food-induced nephrotoxicity in North America, April to June 2007,\" were reported, indicating 347 of 486 cases voluntarily reported by 6 June 2007 had met the diagnostic criteria, with most of the cases reported from the United States, but also including cases of 20 dogs and 7 cats reported from Canada.The cases involved 235 cats and 112 dogs, with 61 percent of the cats and 74 percent of the dogs having died. Dr. Barbara Powers, AAVLD president and director of the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said the survey probably found only a percentage of the actual cases. She also said the mortality rate is not likely to be representative of all cases, because survey respondents had more information to submit for animals that had died. A number of dogs were also reported affected in Australia, with four in Melbourne and a few more in Sydney. No legal action or repercussions have as yet occurred regarding these cases. Dr. Powers elaborated further: “But there absolutely could be more deaths from the tainted pet food... This survey didn’t catch all the deaths that happened. In order to be counted in our survey, you had to meet certain criteria... If someone had a pet that died and they buried it in their back[yard], they weren’t eligible for our survey. We had to have confirmed exposure to the recalled pet food, proof of toxicity, and clinical signs of renal failure. So this is only a percentage of the deaths that are out there. There’s no way to guess how many pets were affected.”\n",
"By the end of March, veterinary organizations reported more than 100 pet deaths among nearly 500 cases of kidney failure, with one online database self-reporting as many as 3,600 deaths as of 11 April. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received reports of several thousand cats and dogs who have died after eating contaminated food, but have only confirmed 14 cases, in part because there is no centralized government database of animal sickness or death in the United States, as there are with humans (such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). As a result, many sources speculate the actual number of affected pets may never be known, and experts are concerned that the actual death toll could potentially reach into the thousands.\n",
"Three cases of ABLV in humans have been confirmed, all of them fatal. The first occurred in November 1996, when an animal caregiver was scratched by a yellow-bellied sheath-tailed bat. Onset of a rabies-like illness occurred 4–5 weeks following the incident, with death 20 days later. ABLV was identified from brain tissue by polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry.\n",
"One other genus in the Hexathelidae family has been reported to cause severe symptoms in humans. Severe bites have been attributed to members of the genus \"Macrothele\" in Taiwan, but no fatalities. In other mammals, such as rodents, for example, the effects of funnel web spider venom are much less severe.\n",
"BULLET::::- Initially, there were a number of animal deaths from disease, toxic exposure, maternal killings, and park vehicles. The United States Department of Agriculture investigation found no violations of the Animal Welfare Act for the 29 deaths that happened September 1997 – April 1998.\n",
"BULLET::::- Initially, there were a number of animal deaths from disease, toxic exposure, maternal killings, and park vehicles. The United States Department of Agriculture investigation found no violations of the Animal Welfare Act for the 29 deaths that happened September 1997 – April 1998.\n"
] |
the current global warming is very concerning, but there was global warming about 1000 years ago called the "medieval warm period" - how many other such warming periods have there been and why is the current one so different? | The medieval warm period was not as extreme, and came on much more gradually. The current one has been sudden and steady, and we have a clear cause for it: increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We've increased the atmosphere's carbon dioxide content by 1/3, for example - that's a huge effect on a planetary scale. The rise almost exactly mirrors the growth of human industry, and even tapers off briefly at the collapse of the Soviet Union and its industrial capacity.
We have reliable climate records dating back tens of thousands of years from e.g. ice cores, and we are pretty sure this warming isn't like the others. | [
"In a perspective commenting on MBH99, Wallace Smith Broecker argued that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global. He attributed recent warming to a roughly 1500-year cycle which he suggested related to episodic changes in the Atlantic's conveyor circulation.\n",
"The Holocene climatic optimum (HCO) was a period of warming in which the global climate became warmer. However, the warming was probably not uniform across the world. This period of warmth ended about 5,500 years ago with the descent into the Neoglacial and concomitant Neopluvial. At that time, the climate was not unlike today's, but there was a slightly warmer period from the 10th–14th centuries known as the Medieval Warm Period. This was followed by the Little Ice Age, from the 13th or 14th century to the mid-19th century.\n",
"Notable periods of climate change in recorded history include the Medieval warm period and the little ice age. In the case of the Norse, the Medieval warm period was associated with the Norse age of exploration and Arctic colonization, and the later colder periods led to the decline of those colonies.\n",
"After this relatively short cool interlude the climate ameliorated again and reached between 800 and 1200 almost the values of the Roman Warm Period (used temperature proxies are sediments in the North Atlantic). This warming happened during the High Middle Ages wherefore this event is known as \"Medieval Global Warming\" or the Medieval Warm Period. This warmer climate peaked around 850 AD and 1050 AD, and raised the tree line in Scandinavia and in Russia by 100 to 140 meters; it enabled the Vikings to settle in Iceland and Greenland. During this period the Crusades took place and the Byzantine Empire was eventually pushed back by the rise of the Ottoman Empire.\n",
"The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that was likely related to other warming events in other regions during that time, including China and other areas, lasting from to . Other regions were colder, such as the tropical Pacific. Averaged global mean temperatures have been calculated to be similar to early-mid 20th century warming. Possible causes of the Medieval Warm Period include increased solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, and changes to ocean circulation.\n",
"A literature review by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, published in the relatively obscure journal \"Climate Research\" on 31 January 2003, used data from previous papers to argue that the Medieval Warm Period had been warmer than the 20th century, and that recent warming was not unusual. In March they published an extended paper in \"Energy & Environment\", with additional authors. The Bush administration's Council on Environmental Quality chief of staff Philip Cooney inserted references to the papers in the draft first Environmental Protection Agency \"Report on the Environment\", and removed all references to reconstructions showing world temperatures rising over the last 1,000 years. In the Soon and Baliunas controversy, two scientists cited in the papers said that their work was misrepresented, and the \"Climate Research\" paper was criticised by many other scientists, including several of the journal's editors. On 8 July \"Eos\" featured a detailed rebuttal of both papers by 13 scientists including Mann and Jones, presenting strong evidence that Soon and Baliunas had used improper statistical methods. Responding to the controversy, the publisher of \"Climate Research\" upgraded Hans von Storch from editor to editor in chief, but von Storch decided that the Soon and Baliunas paper was seriously flawed and should not have been published as it was. He proposed a new editorial system, and though the publisher of \"Climate Research\" agreed that the paper should not have been published uncorrected, he rejected von Storch's proposals to improve the editorial process, and von Storch with three other board members resigned. Senator James M. Inhofe stated his belief that \"manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people\", and a hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works which he convened on 29 July 2003 heard the news of the resignations.\n",
"The Medieval Warm Period from 950–1250 occurred mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, causing warmer summers in many areas; the high temperatures would only be surpassed by the global warming of the 20th/21st centuries. It has been hypothesized that the warmer temperatures allowed the Norse to colonize Greenland, due to ice-free waters. Outside of Europe there is evidence of warming conditions, including higher temperatures in China and major North American droughts which adversely affected numerous cultures.\n"
] |
what decides whether something will release alpha, beta, or gamma radiation? | Type of radiation is determined by the material that emits it. Gamma radiation is electomagnetic radiation, like radio waves, microwave, x-rays, gamma rays... they are typically formed when a charge (electron) is accelerated or decelerated or moved in a circular path (which is an acceleration btw). It can also be formed when an electron jumps between shells in an atom (different energy states).
Alpha radiation is essentially helium atom cores. They typically form as a result of a radioactive decay. Similar thing for beta except they are electrons.
| [
"Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or 'decays' into a different atomic nucleus, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atomic number that is reduced by two. An alpha particle is identical to the nucleus of a helium-4 atom, which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It has a charge of and a mass of . For example, uranium-238 decays to form thorium-234. Alpha particles have a charge , but as a nuclear equation describes a nuclear reaction without considering the electrons – a convention that does not imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms – the charge is not usually shown.\n",
"As the atom came to be better understood, the nature of radioactivity became clearer. Some larger atomic nuclei are unstable, and so decay (release matter or energy) after a random interval. The three forms of radiation that Becquerel and the Curies discovered are also more fully understood. Alpha decay is when a nucleus releases an alpha particle, which is two protons and two neutrons, equivalent to a helium nucleus. Beta decay is the release of a beta particle, a high-energy electron. Gamma decay releases gamma rays, which unlike alpha and beta radiation are not matter but electromagnetic radiation of very high frequency, and therefore energy. This type of radiation is the most dangerous and most difficult to block. All three types of radiation occur naturally in certain elements.\n",
"In gamma decay, a nucleus decays from an excited state into a lower energy state, by emitting a gamma ray. The element is not changed to another element in the process (no nuclear transmutation is involved).\n",
"1. α (alpha) radiation—the emission of an alpha particle (which contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons) from an atomic nucleus. When this occurs, the atom's atomic mass will decrease by 4 units and atomic number will decrease by 2.\n",
"The best-known source of alpha particles is alpha decay of heavier ( 106 u atomic weight) atoms. When an atom emits an alpha particle in alpha decay, the atom's mass number decreases by four due to the loss of the four nucleons in the alpha particle. The atomic number of the atom goes down by exactly two, as a result of the loss of two protons – the atom becomes a new element. Examples of this sort of nuclear transmutation are when uranium becomes thorium, or radium becomes radon gas, due to alpha decay.\n",
"Gamma (γ) radiation consists of photons with a wavelength less than 3x10 meters (greater than 10 Hz and 41.4 keV). Gamma radiation emission is a nuclear process that occurs to rid an unstable nucleus of excess energy after most nuclear reactions. Both alpha and beta particles have an electric charge and mass, and thus are quite likely to interact with other atoms in their path. Gamma radiation, however, is composed of photons, which have neither mass nor electric charge and, as a result, penetrates much further through matter than either alpha or beta radiation.\n",
"In 1901, Rutherford and Frederick Soddy showed that alpha and beta radioactivity involves the transmutation of atoms into atoms of other chemical elements. In 1913, after the products of more radioactive decays were known, Soddy and Kazimierz Fajans independently proposed their radioactive displacement law, which states that beta (i.e., ) emission from one element produces another element one place to the right in the periodic table, while alpha emission produces an element two places to the left.\n"
] |
What would be the effects of a normal diet that was entirely liquids? | People survive quite well on liquid diets for long periods of time. Google might turn up more information if you search for [tube feeding](_URL_0_). For people who can't tolerate solid food for any reason, a tube can be placed through the nose or through an incision into the stomach, and fluid given through that tube can meet all nutritional needs.
The lack of solid matter may cause loose stools and discomfort, but that can usually be dealt with by making sure the feeding solution contains enough fiber. | [
"A liquid diet is a diet that mostly consists of liquids, or soft foods that melt at room temperature (such as ice cream). A liquid diet usually helps provide sufficient hydration, helps maintain electrolyte balance, and is often prescribed for people when solid food diets are not recommended, such as for people who suffer with gastrointestinal illness or damage, or before or after certain types of medical tests or surgeries involving the mouth or the digestive tract.\n",
"A clear liquid diet, sometimes called a \"surgical liquid diet\" because of its perioperative uses, consists of a diet containing exclusively transparent liquid foods that do not contain any solid particulates. This includes vegetable broth, bouillon (excepting any particulate dregs), clear fruit juices such as filtered apple juice, clear fruit ices or popsicles, clear gelatin desserts, and certain carbonated drinks such as ginger-ale and seltzer water. It excludes all drinks containing milk, but may accept tea or coffee. Typically, this diet contains about 500 calories per day, which is too little food energy for long-term use. \n",
"BULLET::::- Liquid diet: A diet in which only liquids are consumed. May be administered by clinicians for medical reasons, such as after a gastric bypass or to prevent death through starvation from a hunger strike.\n",
"Ruminant animals are those that have a rumen. A rumen is a multichambered stomach found almost exclusively among some artiodactyl mammals, such cattle, deer, and camels, enabling them to eat cellulose-enhanced tough plants and grains that monogastric (i.e., \"single-chambered stomached\") animals, such as humans, dogs, and cats, cannot digest.\n",
"A full or strained liquid diet consists of both clear and opaque liquid foods with a smooth consistency. People who follow this diet may also take liquid vitamin supplements. Some individuals who are told to follow a full-liquid diet are additionally permitted certain components of a mechanical soft diet, such as strained meats, sour cream, cottage cheese, ricotta, yogurt, mashed vegetables or fruits, etc.\n",
"Using fish oil as an example of a food or dietary supplement susceptible to rancidification over various periods of storage, two reviews found effects only on flavor and odor, with no evidence as of 2015 that rancidity causes harm if a spoiled product is consumed.\n",
"A liquid diet is not recommended outside of hospital or medical supervision. Negative side effects include fatigue, nausea, dizziness, hair loss and dry skin which are said to disappear when the person resumes eating.\n"
] |
How do we know which way up a planet is? | All planets in the Solar System orbit in almost the same plane, and their axes of rotation are almost perpendicular to such plane. (Only exception is Uranus). So you can define East as the direction the planet is rotating, and North as 90° left of the East.
We also have reference frames and coordinate systems: cartesian or spherical, centered on the Sun or centered on a planet, inertial or rotating. See [this recent thread](_URL_0_).
| [
"Still another method is to first determine the geographic center of the country and from there measure the shortest distance to every other point. All U.S. territory is spread across less than 180° of longitude, so from any spot in the U.S. it is more direct to reach the easternmost point, Point Udall, U.S. Virgin Islands, by traveling east than by traveling west. Likewise, there is not a single point in U.S. territory from which heading east is a shorter route to the westernmost point, Point Udall, Guam, than heading west would be, even accounting for circumpolar routes. The two different Point Udalls are named for two brothers from the Udall family of Arizona; Mo Udall (Guam) and Stewart Udall (Virgin Islands), sons of Chief Justice Levi Stewart Udall of the Arizona Supreme Court, both served as U.S. Congressman.\n",
"If a planet's orbit is nearly perpendicular to the line of vision (i.e. \"i\" close to 90°), a planet can be detected through the transit method. The inclination will then be known, and the inclination combined with \"M\" sin\"i\" from radial-velocity observations will give the planet's true mass.\n",
"Only the first planet is known transit the star; this means that the planet's orbit appear to cross in front of their star as viewed from the Earth's perspective. Its inclination relative to Earth's line of sight, or how far above or below the plane of sight it is, vary by less than one degree. This allows direct measurements of the planet's periods and relative diameters (compared to the host star) by monitoring the planet's transit of the star.\n",
"In geology, the structure of the interior of a planet is often illustrated using a diagram of a cross section of the planet that passes through the planet's center, as in the cross section of Earth at right.\n",
"BULLET::::- The \"inclination\" of a planet tells how far above or below an established reference plane its orbit lies. In the Solar System, the reference plane is the plane of Earth's orbit, called the ecliptic. For extrasolar planets, the plane, known as the \"sky plane\" or \"plane of the sky\", is the plane perpendicular to the observer's line of sight from Earth. The eight planets of the Solar System all lie very close to the ecliptic; comets and Kuiper belt objects like Pluto are at far more extreme angles to it. The points at which a planet crosses above and below its reference plane are called its ascending and descending nodes. The longitude of the ascending node is the angle between the reference plane's 0 longitude and the planet's ascending node. The argument of periapsis (or perihelion in the Solar System) is the angle between a planet's ascending node and its closest approach to its star.\n",
"A limitation of the radial velocity method used to discover the planet is that only a lower limit on the mass can be obtained. Further astrometric observations with the Hubble Space Telescope on the outer planet 55 Cancri d suggest that planet is inclined at 53° to the plane of the sky; but innermost b and e are inclined at 85°. Planet c's inclination is unknown.\n",
"In geography, the location of any point on the Earth can be identified using a \"geographic coordinate system\". This system specifies the latitude and longitude of any location in terms of angles subtended at the centre of the Earth, using the equator and (usually) the Greenwich meridian as references.\n"
] |
Is it true that a third of the knights in the battle of Agincourt were over 50? | Well life expectancy is a very skewed statistic, because infant mortality deflates it substantially. The upper-classes could expect to live to the beginning of what we'd call "old-age" (about 60s, 70 and above was more of a gamble) if they weren't taken ill or killed in battle. It's possible- there would be plenty of old knights over the age of 50 to take part- but it seems unlikely. Maybe your source meant a third of knights in England were over 50 at the time of Agincourt? | [
"This story does not stand up well under scrutiny. Walter would have been around seventy years old at the time of the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, and rather old to be taking up the sword instead of his accustomed musical instrument. He is not listed among the knights created by Edward IV before or after the battle. Bluemantle Pursuivant reported in 1975 that \"I find no trace of Sir Walter in the official records of the College of Arms\", and that \"the arms in Burke's \"Commoners\" are wrong\". \n",
"In Book IV, there are only two knights that have ever successfully held against Lancelot: Sir Tristan and Gareth. This was always under conditions where one or both parties were unknown by the other, for these knights loved each other \"passingly well\". Gareth was knighted by Lancelot himself when he took upon him the adventure on behalf of Lynette. However, in Book VIII: \"The Death of Arthur\", the unarmed Gareth and his brother Gaheris are killed accidentally by Lancelot during the rescue of Guinevere. This leads to the final tragedy of Arthur's Round Table; Gawain refuses to allow King Arthur to accept Lancelot's sincere apology for the deaths of his two brothers. Lancelot genuinely mourns the death of Gareth, whom he loved closely like a son or younger brother. King Arthur is forced by Gawain and Mordred's insistence to go to war against Lancelot. Mordred's grief is largely faked, driven by his desire to become king. This leads to the splitting of the Round Table, Mordred's treachery in trying to seize Guinevere and the throne, Gawain's death from an old unhealed wound, and finally, Arthur and Mordred slaying each other at the Battle of Camlann. \n",
"The litany of injuries that Knights had suffered through his career began to catch up with him, and from 1979 to 1981, he played in only 26 out of a possible 66 games. Amid rumours of retirement, Knights rebounded to play impressive football in his final years. In 1983, he booted six goals in the Qualifying Final to guide Hawthorn to a thrilling four-point win against Fitzroy, and was again among the best players on the field as the Hawks crushed in the Grand Final. \n",
"The knights at the Round Table discuss the mysterious Sir Provençal the Gaul (Gaulois). He is in fact their own comrade Perceval the Welshman (Gallois), who is not capable of giving his own name without making a mistake.\n",
"In 1297 Marmaduke achieved some fame at the Battle of Stirling Bridge by a heroic escape. Over 100 English knights had been trapped, together with several thousand infantry, on the far side of the river, and were being slaughtered by the Scots. Thweng managed to fight his way back across the bridge and he thus became the only knight of all those on the far side of the river to survive the battle. Following the rout, Thweng with William FitzWarin were appointed castellans of Stirling Castle by the English leader John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey. The castle was quickly starved into submission, and Thweng and FitzWarin were taken prisoner to Dumbarton Castle. He was summoned to Parliament in 1307, thus becoming Baron Thweng.\n",
"The brother of the two knights slain by Lancelot was Gawain. He had been a knight to King Arthur for years and was one of Arthur's most trusted allies. Gawain's anger for Lancelot was deep and insatiable. Nothing would end his anger except the death of Lancelot. Arthur, who now controlled many fewer knights than before, could not risk losing his greatest ally, so, Arthur and his remaining troops camped around the stronghold where Lancelot now lived in France. Guinevere had long since been returned to Camelot after Lancelot vowed to all that no affair had ever taken place. Guinevere was safe because of Lancelot's lie, but Gawain's anger was still demanded that Lancelot die. The siege lasted weeks. During the siege, Arthur received a note that said that Mordred had told the people that Arthur had died in battle and that Mordred was now King. The note also said that Mordred had vowed to take Guinevere as his wife.\n",
"The Knights became the first British team to reach the finals of the Continental Cup in January 2001, where they narrowly missed taking the title at their first attempt. Their run included a surprise 4-1 win over Anschutz stablemates the Munich Barons, and only a 1-0 loss to eventual champions Zurich Lions denied them further glory. Their silver medal was considered a major success for a British side. \n"
] |
why do fireworks look so bad on film/video, yet look good irl? | Fireworks can look great on video if you have a good enough camera. Cheap cameras, like the ones in our phones, can't handle low light conditions very well and have a hard time focusing on the rapid flashes coming from a firework. The camera is constantly trying to auto focus but can't, resulting in a blurry image. | [
"Novelty fireworks typically produce a much weaker explosion and sound. In some countries and areas where fireworks are illegal to use, they still allow these small, low grade fireworks to be used. A few examples include:\n",
"Availability and use of consumer fireworks are hotly debated topics. Critics and safety advocates point to the numerous injuries and accidental fires that are attributed to fireworks as justification for banning or at least severely restricting access to fireworks. Complaints about excessive noise created by fireworks and the large amounts of debris and fallout left over after shooting are also used to support this position. There are numerous incidents of consumer fireworks being used in a manner that is supposedly disrespectful of the communities and neighborhoods where the users live.\n",
"Fireworks was created specifically for web production. Since not every user may be in possession of a fast Internet connection, it is at the best interest of the web developers to optimize the size of their digital contents. In terms of image compression, Fireworks has a better compression rate than Photoshop with JPEG, PNG and GIF images.\n",
"A common misconception about professional fireworks displays is that skyrockets are used to propel the pyrotechnic effects into the air. In reality, skyrockets are more widely used as a consumer item. Professional fireworks displays utilize mortars to fire aerial shells into the air, not rockets.\n",
"Improper use of fireworks may be dangerous, both to the person operating them (risks of burns and wounds) and to bystanders; in addition, they may start fires after landing on flammable material. For this reason, the use of fireworks is generally legally restricted. Display fireworks are restricted by law for use by professionals; consumer items, available to the public, are smaller versions containing limited amounts of explosive material to reduce potential danger.\n",
"The pollution of fireworks on the environment is becoming more and more apparent. Fireworks cause the most serious pollution in the environment in the shortest time. Although fireworks are not one of the most common sources of pollution in the atmosphere, they are one of the major causes of air pollutants ozone, sulphur, dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as aerosols. Fireworks contain a mass of tiny metal particles. These metals are burned to produce color for fireworks: copper for blue, strontium or lithium for red, and barium compounds for bright green or white. When fireworks are set off in the air, a large number of incomplete decomposition or degradation of metal particles, dangerous toxins, harmful chemicals remain in the air for a long time, resulting in air pollution.\n",
"The \"Los Angeles Times\" said the film was \"as appetizing as a piece of stale pre-fab pizza... lengthy and boring... never were so many fireworks set off in such a dud of a movie.\". The \"Chicago Tribune\" called it a \"tedious and terrible mess... a disastrous dud.\"\n"
] |
how 2 wifi routers on the same channel can interoperate without completely jamming each other's signal? | It's FM, and you know what happens to FM signals when 2 people try the repeater at the same time, with equal power. It's unreadable. Yes, the wifi points would jam each other too.
They can interoperate only because packets are short bursts and can be error corrected. They don't route the other networks traffic as it does not match their own essid. If you tried to operate demanding content on either, it would be a different story entirely. But just small amount of network traffic, you may only have a 20% duty cycle, so you can see with the ability to detect errors and resend, the only big challenge is to detect major packet collisions where headers are missing and you dont know who to send it back to.
This problem actually exists in networking without 2 access points as well. You would just need 2 users to feasibly create collisions. Well, that's where spread spectrum comes into play. That is above my level of understanding, but I believe it is correct to say the transmitters carrier frequency basically changes within the channel, seemingly at random and very often, and this change helps prevent collisions, but doesn't entirely eliminate them. Hence it does hurt performance but doesn't kill communication entirely. | [
"In the case of WiMAX, Uplink Collaborative MIMO is spatial multiplexing with two different devices, each with one antenna. These transmitting devices are collaborating in the sense that both devices must be synchronized in time and frequency so that the intentional overlapping occurs under controlled circumstances. The two streams of data will then interfere with each other. As long as the signal quality is sufficiently good and the receiver at the base station has at least two antennas, the two data streams can be separated again. This technique is sometimes also termed Virtual Spatial Multiplexing.\n",
"Every node in the network is made up by two or more radio interfaces, so that is possible receiving the signal and replaying it to one or more node on a different radio frequency, in order to decrease interferences and increase throughput.\n",
"A connection has two channels, one per direction. Each channel consists of two wires carrying strobe and data. The strobe line changes state whenever the data line starts a new bit with the same value as the previous bit. This scheme makes the links self-clocking, able to adapt automatically to different speeds.\n",
"The nature of a single-frequency network (SFN) is such that the transmitters in a network must broadcast the same signal at the same time. To achieve synchronization, the broadcaster must counter any differences in propagation time incurred by the different methods and distances involved in carrying the signal from the multiplexer to the different transmitters. This is done by applying a delay to the incoming signal at the transmitter based on a timestamp generated at the multiplexer, created taking into account the maximum likely propagation time, with a generous added margin for safety. Delays in the audio encoder and the receiver due to digital processing (e.g. deinterleaving) add to the overall delay perceived by the listener. The signal is delayed, usually by around 1 to 4 seconds and can be considerably longer for DAB+. This has disadvantages:\n",
"Crossband operation is sometimes used by amateur radio operators. Rather than taking it in turns to transmit on the same frequency, both operators can transmit at the same time but on different bands, each one listening to the frequency that the other is using to transmit. A variation on this procedure includes establishing contact on one frequency and then changing to a pair of other frequencies to exchange messages.\n",
"In a departure from both 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and faster use all four cable pairs for simultaneous transmission in both directions through the use of telephone hybrid-like signal handling. For this reason, there are no dedicated transmit and receive pairs. From 1000BASE-T onwards the physical medium attachment (PMA) sublayer provides identification of each pair and usually continues to work even over cable where the pairs are unusually swapped or crossed.\n",
"BULLET::::- Routers: Routers and switches must be positioned such that no single piece of network hardware controls all network access to a given host. In particular, it is not uncommon to see multiple Internet uplinks all converge on a single edge router. In such a configuration, the loss of that single router disconnects the Internet uplink, despite the fact that multiple ISPs are otherwise in use.\n"
] |
how do you steer a gunship? or a clipper? or large sailship in general? | On most boats, the rudder is, in fact, the principle steering device.
The sails on sailing vessels generally do not "steer" the boat. However, they must be re-positioned when the boat changes direction or when the wind direction changes, to maximize the thrust provided by the sails, using the available wind.
For non-sail vessels, there is often still a rudder, although steerable propellers or thrusters are often also used. Google "Azipod" and start reading, for more info. | [
"A steerer can also use the steering oar to adjust the position of the boat by cranking. When a steerer cranks the steering oar, the stern of the boat moves either to the left or right, spinning the boat. This is typically executed to turn the boat around at practice or to ensure a boat is lined up straight and pointing directly down a racecourse.\n",
"There is also the barrel type rudder, where the ship's screw is enclosed and can be swiveled to steer the vessel. Designers claim that this type of rudder on a smaller vessel will answer the helm faster.\n",
"The ships had both bow and stern doors leading onto the main vehicle deck, making them roll-on/roll-off, combined with ramps that led to upper and lower vehicle decks. Thanks to their shallow draught, they could beach themselves and use the bow doors for speedy unloading of troops and equipment. The ships also had helicopter decks on both the upper vehicle deck and behind the superstructure.\n",
"BULLET::::- Halyards (sometimes haulyards), are used to raise sails and control luff tension. In large yachts the halyard returns to the deck but in small racing dinghies the head of the sail is attached by a short line to the head of the mast while the boat is lying on its gunwale.\n",
"It is steered with 2 quarter rudders, which are fixed to a set of heavy crossbeams in a way to enable a quick emergency release. The helmsmen stood on the outboard galleries. There is a cramped cabin for the captain below the poop deck. The vessel has 2 to 3 masts, both were tripod with the rear legs fixed to heavy tabernacles by means of a horizontal spar round which they can revolve. If the foreleg comes adrift from the hook that holds it in place, the mast can be lowered easily. The sails are tanja and made with \"karoro\" matting. With European influence in the latter centuries, western-styled sails can also be used. In the past, Makassarese sailor may sail them as far as New Guinea and Singapore.\n",
"It is possible to arrange a Highfield lever to work two backstays or shrouds by mounting the lever transversely so that it is thrown from side to side rather than fore and aft, tensioning the rigging on one side of the boat as it relaxes the other.\n",
"The ship's steering gear consists of a steering unit and twin semi-balanced underhung rudders. There is an emergency steering station in the superstructure in the event of damage to the bridge and they can also be operated by hand from the steering gear compartment. To improve the ship's performance in a seaway, they are fitted with a B+V Simplex Compact stabiliser system.\n"
] |
What was the anti masonic party and what happened to them? | They were a political party formed in the wake of public outcry over an incident where some Masons in NY state were accused of kidnapping and possibly killing at fellow Mason (named Morgan) who had published an expose on the initiations.
This was in the 1820s.
The Anti-Masonic party was the most successful third-party in US history, coming in second in a Presidential election!
However, after the failure to win their bid for the highest office, the party began to unravel. The damage to Freemasonry being done, the party found that it was too divided to last.
Freemasonry would not fully recover until later in the century during a period that lead to what's now called the Golden Age of Fraternalism, and spawned countless fraternities modeled on Freemasonry and also saw Freemasonry itself return to and in many ways surpass its former strength.
That period lasted until the early part of the 20th century, and the decline that followed (esp. during the depression) didn't rebound until after World War II. | [
"The Anti-Masonic Party, also known as the Anti-Masonic Movement, was the first third party in the United States. It strongly opposed Freemasonry as a single-issue party and later aspired to become a major party by expanding its platform to take positions on other issues. After emerging as a political force in the late 1820s, most of the Anti-Masonic Party's members joined the Whig Party in the 1830s and the party disappeared after 1838. \n",
"The Anti-Masonic Party was formed in Upstate New York in February 1828. Anti-Masons were opponents of Freemasonry, believing that it was a corrupt and elitist secret society which was ruling much of the country in defiance of republican principles. Many people regarded the Masonic organization and its adherents involved in government as corrupt.\n",
"After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party had begun to disintegrate. Its leaders began to move one by one to the Whig party. Party leaders met in September 1837 in Washington, D.C., and agreed to maintain the party. The third Anti-Masonic Party National Convention was held in Philadelphia on November 13-14, 1838. By this time, the party had been almost entirely supplanted by the Whigs. The delegates unanimously voted to nominate William Henry Harrison for president (who the party had supported for president the previous election along with Francis Granger for Vice President) and Daniel Webster for Vice President. However, when the Whig National Convention nominated Harrison with John Tyler as his running mate, the Anti-Masonic Party did not make an alternate nomination and ceased to function and was fully absorbed into the Whigs by 1840.\n",
"Freemasonry in the United States faced political pressure following the 1826 kidnapping of William Morgan by Freemasons and his subsequent disappearance. Reports of the \"Morgan Affair\", together with opposition to Jacksonian democracy (Andrew Jackson was a prominent Mason), helped fuel an Anti-Masonic movement. The short-lived Anti-Masonic Party was formed, which fielded candidates for the presidential elections of 1828 and 1832.\n",
"The Anti-Masonic Party held a third national nominating convention at Temperance Hall in Philadelphia on November 13–14, 1838. By this time, the party had been almost entirely supplanted by the Whigs. The Anti-Masons unanimously nominated William Henry Harrison for president and Daniel Webster for vice president in the 1840 election. When the Whig National Convention nominated Harrison with John Tyler as his running mate, the Anti-Masonic Party did not make an alternate nomination and ceased to function, with most adherents being fully absorbed into the Whigs by 1840.\n",
"The Anti-Masonic movement gave rise to or expanded the use of many innovations which became accepted practice among other parties, including nominating conventions and party newspapers. In addition, the Anti-Masons aided in the rise of the Whig Party as the major alternative to the Democrats, with conventions, newspapers and Anti-Masonic positions on issues including internal improvements and tariffs being adopted by the Whigs.\n",
"After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party began to disintegrate. Some of its members began moving to the Whig Party, which had a broader issue base than the Anti-Masons. The Whigs were also regarded as a better alternative to the Democrats.\n"
] |
Did the US ever try to convert Filipinos to Protestantism during their colonisation of the country? | After the US colonized the Philippines the Catholic Church was disestablished, and was no longer the official religion. When that happened there was a large influx of Protestant missionaries of all denominations to the Philippines. Today, Protestants make up around 10% of the total population in the Philippines, with about 9 million people. While Protestantism was introduced to the Philippines during the period of US colonialism, it wasn't necessarily due to a push from the US government. It really was due more to missionaries acting opportunistically after the disestablishment of the Catholic Church. | [
"During the early part of the United States governance in the Philippines, there was a concerted effort to convert Filipinos into Protestants. As Filipinos began to migrate to the United States, Filipino Roman Catholics were often not embraced by their American Catholic brethren, nor were they sympathetic to a Filipino-ized Catholicism, in the early 20th century. This led to creation of ethnic-specific parishes; one such parish was St. Columban's Church in Los Angeles. In 1997, the Filipino oratory was dedicated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, owing to increased diversity within the congregations of American Catholic parishes. The first-ever American Church for Filipinos, San Lorenzo Ruiz Church in New York City, is named after the first saint from the Philippines, San Lorenzo Ruiz. This was officially designated as a church for Filipinos in July 2005, the first in the United States, and the second in the world, after a church in Rome.\n",
"The Catholic Filipinos make up the great majority (over 70%) of the Southern Philippine population. They are relatively newcomers to the area; the first wave of Christian migrants came in the seventeenth century when the Spaniards sought to populate Zamboanga, Jolo, Dapitan and other areas by encouraging people from Luzon and the Visayas to settle there. In the nineteenth century Spanish policy found considerable success in encouraging migrations to Iligan and Cotabato.\n",
"Protestantism arrived in the Philippines with the take-over of the islands by Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Nowadays, they comprise about 10%–15% of the population with an annual growth rate of 10% since 1910 and constitute the largest Christian grouping after Roman Catholicism. In 1898, Spain lost the Philippines to the United States. After a bitter fight for independence against its new occupiers, Filipinos surrendered and were again colonized. The arrival of Protestant American missionaries soon followed. Protestant church organizations established in the Philippines during the 20th century include the following:\n",
"In the aftermath of the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine–American War which immediately followed, the Protestant denomination, first introduced by the new American colonial masters and aided by the newly arrived American teachers, the Thomasites, was gaining a foothold among Filipinos because of the then strong anti-Spanish Friar sentiment existing at that time. Due to the then very small number of Catholic educational institutions in the country, the then American Archbishop of Manila Jeremiah James Harty, himself an alumnus of a De La Salle Christian Brothers school in St. Louis, Missouri, would appeal to the Superior-General of the Christian Brothers in 1905 for the establishment of a De La Salle school in the Philippines. While there was a growing pressure for a De La Salle school, Archbishop Harty's request was rejected, because of the Christian Brothers' lack of funds. Nonetheless, Harty continued to appeal to Pope Pius X for the establishment of additional Catholic schools in the country.\n",
"The coming of the Americans in the early 20th century when the Philippines was ceded by Spain to the United States through the 1898 Treaty of Paris brought with them the Protestant religion and Iloilo is one of the first places where they came and started a mission in the Philippines. During the American occupation, the Philippine islands were divided to different Protestant missions and Western Visayas came to the jurisdiction of the Baptists. Baptist missionaries came although other Protestant sects came also especially the Presbyterians and they established numerous institutions. The Presbyterians established the Iloilo Mission Hospital in 1901, the first Protestant and American founded hospital in the country while the Baptists established the Jaro Evangelical Church, the first Baptist church in the islands, and the Central Philippine University in 1905, which was founded by William Valentine through a grant given by the American industrialist, oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller as the \"first university in the City of Jaro\" and also the first Baptist founded and second American university in Asia.\n",
"Prior when the Philippines was ceded to the United States administration by Spain through the Treaty of Paris (1898), the Americans brought their faith, the Protestantism. A comity agreement with Protestant American churches and sects was created to divide the Philippine islands for missionary works and to avoid future conflicts with different churches. Western Visayas came to the jurisdictions of the Baptists (Northern Baptist).\n",
"The United States colonization of the Philippine islands, with Iloilo as one of the firsts American colonial outposts in which they brought their faith the Protestantism, paved the way in founding of numerous institutions that mark Iloilo's significance and important contribution in the history of American colonial era in the country includes the John D. Rockefeller funded Central Philippine University, the first Baptist and second American and Protestant university in the Philippines and in Asia; Iloilo Mission Hospital, the first Protestant and American hospital in the Philippines; Jaro Evangelical Church, the first Baptist and second Protestant church in the Philippines; Jaro Adventist Center, the first organized Adventist church in the Philippines; and Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches, the first organized Baptist churches union in the Philippines.\n"
] |
what's the difference b/w high quality and low quality meats? | Meat from an animal that received high-quality feed is more chemically varied, and has more flavor. This is particularly noticeable in mild-tasting meat like chicken.
High-quality beef typically has more fat mixed throughout (an effect called "marbling") which creates a richer taste and more delicate texture. | [
"Consisting of low-quality rib meat, described as a \"tough, scraggy meat\", if not well cooked, In recent years their high fat content has made them unpopular in many Western countries, although they are widely used as döner meat in Europe. \n",
"Beef quality grades - A quality grade is a composite evaluation of factors that affect palatability of meat (tenderness, juiciness, and flavor). These factors include carcass maturity, firmness, texture, and color of lean, and the amount and distribution of marbling within the lean. Beef carcass quality grading is based on (1) degree of marbling and (2) degree of maturity.\n",
"Berkshire pork, prized for juiciness, flavour, and tenderness, is pink-hued and heavily marbled. Its high fat content makes it suitable for long cooking and high-temperature cooking. The meat also has a slightly higher pH, according to food science professor Kenneth Prusa of Iowa State University. Increased pH makes the meat darker, firmer, and more flavorful. High pH is a greater determinant than fat content in the meat's overall flavor characteristics. The Japanese have bred the Kurobuta branch of the Berkshire breed for increased fineness in the meat and better marbling. Pigs' fat stores many of the characteristics of the food that they eat. Berkshire pigs are usually free-ranging, often supplemented with a diet of corn, nuts, clover, apples, or milk.\n",
"Chuck short ribs tend to be meatier than the other two types of ribs, but they are also tougher due to the more extensive connective tissues (collagen and reticulin) in them. Plate short ribs tend to be fattier than the other two types.\n",
"Beef steak is graded for quality, with higher prices for higher quality. Generally, the higher the quality, the more tender the beef, the less time is needed for cooking, or the better the flavor. For example, beef tenderloin is the most tender and wagyu, such as Kobe beef from Japan, is known for its high quality and commands a high price. Steak can be cooked relatively quickly compared to other cuts of meat, particularly when cooked at very high temperatures, such as by broiling or grilling.\n",
"Grades are determined based on an animal's fat content and body condition. The most common grades, from best to worst, are \"breakers\" (fleshy, body condition 7 or above), \"boners\" (body condition 5 to 7), \"lean\", and \"light\" (thin, body condition 1 to 4). Carcasses rated as lean or light often are sold for less per pound, as less meat is produced from the carcass despite processing costs remaining similar to those of higher grade carcasses.\n",
"Like other types of pig fat, fatback may be rendered to make a high quality lard, and is one source of salt pork. Finely diced or coarsely ground fatback is an important ingredient in sausage making and in some meat dishes.\n"
] |
Why do we always put reactive materials in glass beakers/flasks/graduated cylinders etc.? | In a nutshell, glass is very stable, and will not react easily with most compounds.
The class stays intact, the chemical stays the same, everyone is happy.
However, some reagents are better kept in plastic containers such as polyethylene, or even quartz, because glass is not a magical non-reactive substance either. | [
"Until 2010, no organic strong glass formers were known. Strong glass formers can be shaped in the same way as glass (silicon dioxide) can be. Vitrimers are the first such material discovered, which can behave like viscoelastic fluid at high temperatures. Unlike classical polymer melts, whose flow properties are largely dependent on friction between monomers, vitrimers become aviscoelastic fluid because of exchange reactions at high temperatures as well as monomer friction. These two processes have different activation energies, resulting in a wide range of viscosity variation. Moreover, because the exchange reactions follow Arrhenius' Law, the change of viscosity of vitrimers also follows an Arrhenius relationship with the increase of temperature, differing greatly from conventional organic polymers.\n",
"To make glass from materials with poor glass forming tendencies, novel techniques are used to increase cooling rate, or reduce crystal nucleation triggers. Examples of these techniques include aerodynamic levitation (cooling the melt whilst it floats on a gas stream), splat quenching (pressing the melt between two metal anvils) and roller quenching (pouring the melt through rollers).\n",
"Borosilicate glass, also known as pyrex, can be viewed as a silicate in which some [SiO] units are replaced by [BO] centers, together with additional cations to compensate for the difference in valence states of Si(IV) and B(III). Because this substitution leads to imperfections, the material is slow to crystallise and forms a glass with low coefficient of thermal expansion and is resistant to cracking when heated, unlike soda glass.\n",
"Borosilicate glass is made to withstand thermal shock better than most other glass through a combination of reduced expansion coefficient and greater strength, though fused quartz outperforms it in both these respects. Some glass-ceramic materials (mostly in the lithium aluminosilicate (LAS) system) include a controlled proportion of material with a negative expansion coefficient, so that the overall coefficient can be reduced to almost exactly zero over a reasonably wide range of temperatures.\n",
"Noncrystalline ceramics, being glass, tend to be formed from melts. The glass is shaped when either fully molten, by casting, or when in a state of toffee-like viscosity, by methods such as blowing into a mold. If later heat treatments cause this glass to become partly crystalline, the resulting material is known as a glass-ceramic, widely used as cook-tops and also as a glass composite material for nuclear waste disposal.\n",
"Nowadays, the two types of glass that are used mainly in the laboratory and in the Pasteur pipette are borosilicate glass and soda lime glass. Borosilicate glass is a widely used glass for laboratory apparatus, as it can withstand chemicals and temperatures used in most laboratories. Borosilicate glass is also more economical since the glass can be fabricated easily compared to other types. Soda lime glass, although not as chemically resistant as Borosilicate glass, are suitable as a material for inexpensive apparatus such as the Pasteur pipette.\n",
"Borosilicate glass is created by combining and melting boric oxide, silica sand, soda ash, and alumina. Since borosilicate glass melts at a higher temperature than ordinary silicate glass, some new techniques were required for industrial production. The manufacturing process depends on the product geometry and can be differentiated between different methods like floating, tube drawing, or moulding.\n"
] |
Why do the continents seem to migrate north, leaving a gap between antarctica and the rest of the world? | It's random, mostly.
Plate tectonics is driven by convection currents in the mantle under the crust. Most of the time, people only consider the major continents moving, but [the jigsaw puzzle is slightly more complicated](_URL_0_) than that. Numerous oceanic plates are jostling around too.
During Pangea, Antarctica was wedged between India, Australia, and Eastern Africa. This whole assembly was around [the same latitude as modern day Southern Africa](_URL_1_). You'll see North America and Eurasia are up in the northern hemisphere, which is a good chunk of the land on Earth.
As things started to break up and migrate, Antarctica happened to get shunted south. Australia kinda followed it, these are the two landmasses that have been isolated the longest, but everyone else just sort of drifted north. The Northern Hemisphere is a lot more crowded land wise than the Southern, so it makes sense that the pole is more packed.
This was a bit rambling, but I hope it covered your question. tl;dr It's luck of the geologic draw. | [
"Antarctica continued to become more isolated and finally developed a permanent ice cap. Mountain building in western North America continued, and the Alps started to rise in Europe as the African plate continued to push north into the Eurasian plate, isolating the remnants of Tethys Sea. A brief marine incursion marks the early Oligocene in Europe. There appears to have been a land bridge in the early Oligocene between North America and Europe since the faunas of the two regions are very similar. During the Oligocene, South America was finally detached from Antarctica and drifted north toward North America. It also allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to flow, rapidly cooling the continent.\n",
"Due to plate tectonics, the Americas were gradually moving westward, causing the Atlantic Ocean to expand. The Western Interior Seaway divided North America into eastern and western halves; Appalachia and Laramidia. India maintained a northward course towards Asia. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and Antarctica seem to have remained connected and began to drift away from Africa and South America. Europe was an island chain. Populating some of these islands were endemic dwarf dinosaur species.\n",
"The continent of Antarctica is centered on the South Pole. Antarctica is surrounded on all sides by the Southern Ocean. As a result, high-speed winds circle around Antarctica, preventing warmer air from temperate zones from reaching the continent.\n",
"While Antarctica does have some small areas of tundra on the northern fringes, the vast majority of the continent is extremely cold and permanently frozen. Because it is climatically isolated from the rest of the Earth, the continent has extreme cold not seen anywhere else, and weather systems rarely penetrate into the continent.\n",
"Australia drifted away from Antarctica forming the Tasmanian Passage, and South America drifted away from Antarctica forming the Drake Passage. This caused the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, a current of cold water surrounding Antarctica. This current still exists today, and is a major reason for why Antarctica has such an exceptionally cold climate.\n",
"Millions of years ago, Antarctica was warmer and much wetter, and supported the Antarctic flora, including forests of podocarps and southern beech. Antarctica was also part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland, which gradually broke up by continental drift starting 110 million years ago. The separation of South America from Antarctica 30-35 million years ago allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to form, which isolated Antarctica climatically and caused it to become much colder. The Antarctic flora subsequently died out in Antarctica, but is still an important component of the flora of southern Neotropic (South America) and Australasia, which were also former parts of Gondwana.\n",
"The tectonic evolution of the Transantarctic Mountains appears to have begun when Antarctica broke away from Australia during the late Cretaceous and is ongoing, creating along the way some of the longest mountain ranges (at 3500 kilometers) formed by rift flank uplift and associated continental rifting. The Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) separate East and West Antarctica. The rift system that formed them is caused by a reactivation of crust along the East Antarctic Craton. This rifting or seafloor spreading causes plate movement that results in a nearby convergent boundary which then forms the mountain range. The exact processes responsible for making the Transantarctic Mountains are still debated today. This results in a large variety of proposed theories that attempt to decipher the tectonic history of these mountains.\n"
] |
Would a nuclear bomb explode if you bomb it with an other bomb? | No. There's a very critically timed cobination of events that have to happen to get a nuclear detonation. The worst that would happen is that you detonate the charge around the fissile material and produce a conventional 'Dirty' bomb. | [
"Fusion-boosted fission bombs can also be made immune to neutron radiation from nearby nuclear explosions, which can cause other designs to predetonate, blowing themselves apart without achieving a high yield.\n",
"Although neutron bombs are commonly believed to \"leave the infrastructure intact\", with current designs that have explosive yields in the low kiloton range, detonation in (or above) a built-up area would still cause a sizable degree of building destruction, through blast and heat effects out to a moderate radius, albeit considerably less destruction, than when compared to a standard nuclear bomb of the \"exact\" same total energy release or \"yield\".\n",
"Some nuclear weapons are designed for special purposes; a neutron bomb is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation; such a device could theoretically be used to cause massive casualties while leaving infrastructure mostly intact and creating a minimal amount of fallout. The detonation of any nuclear weapon is accompanied by a blast of neutron radiation. Surrounding a nuclear weapon with suitable materials (such as cobalt or gold) creates a weapon known as a salted bomb. This device can produce exceptionally large quantities of long-lived radioactive contamination. It has been conjectured that such a device could serve as a \"doomsday weapon\" because such a large quantity of radioactivities with half-lives of decades, lifted into the stratosphere where winds would distribute it around the globe, would make all life on the planet extinct.\n",
"When a nuclear bomb is exploded near ground level, the dense atmosphere interacts with many of the subatomic particles being released. This normally takes place within a short distance, on the order of meters. This energy heats the air, promptly ionizing it to incandescence and causing a roughly spherical fireball to form within microseconds.\n",
"Some sources describe the bomb as a functional nuclear weapon, but others describe it as disabled. If the bomb had a plutonium nuclear core installed, it was a fully functional weapon. If the bomb had a dummy core installed, it was incapable of producing a nuclear explosion but could still produce a conventional explosion. The 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs and bears the serial number 47782. It contains of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium. The Air Force maintains that the bomb's nuclear capsule, used to initiate the nuclear reaction, was removed before its flight aboard B-47. As noted in the Atomic Energy Commission \"Form AL-569 Temporary Custodian Receipt (for maneuvers)\", signed by the aircraft commander, the bomb contained a simulated 150-pound cap made of lead. However, according to 1966 Congressional testimony by then Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, the Tybee Island bomb was a \"complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule,\" and one of two weapons lost by that time that contained a plutonium trigger. Nevertheless, a study of the Strategic Air Command documents indicates that in February 1958, Alert Force test flights (with the older Mark 15 payloads) were not authorized to fly with nuclear capsules on board. Such approval was pending deployment of safer \"sealed-pit nuclear capsule\" weapons, which did not begin deployment until June 1958.\n",
"Though dangerous and frequently lethal to humans within the immediate area, the critical mass formed would not be capable of producing a massive nuclear explosion of the type that fission bombs are designed to produce. This is because all the design features needed to make a nuclear warhead cannot arise by chance.\n",
"There are two main considerations for the location of an explosion: height and surface composition. A nuclear weapon detonated in the air, called an air burst, produces less fallout than a comparable explosion near the ground. A nuclear explosion in which the fireball touches the ground pulls soil and other materials into the cloud and neutron activates it before it falls back to the ground. An air burst produces a relatively small amount of the highly radioactive heavy metal components of the device itself.\n"
] |
If gravity is a pulling force, why is there no equivalent repulsive/anti gravity force? | short answer to your question can be: because there is no matter with negative mass.
all matter has positive energy (this statement is called "weak energy condition") and creates positive curvature of spacetime (positive and negative are subject to sign convention). effect of this "positive" curvature is, that when you move forward in time, it acts as attracting force. you can imagine it like two people starting at the equator and going toward pole - they come closer to each other just as if there was some force that pulls them together, but in fact, they are only changing one coordinate (in real case it would be time coordinate) ( < - this was an EDIT2).
in theory, you can invent metric (metric describes the curvature of spacetime) that has negative curvature on some places in space and positive on other ones. those metrics can have really cool properties. some are described as "wormholes" some other as "warp bubbles", but the problem with all of them is, that they would require this matter with negative mass (also called exotic matter). we have no evidence of such a thing.
EDIT1: also, there are some issues with mathematical structure of the equations that describe gravity (einstein equations)...
EDIT3: google up "energy condition" | [
"This is because gravitation is an attractive force, but if there is an underdense region it apparently acts as a gravitational repeller, based on the concept that there may be less attraction in the direction of the underdensity, and the greater attraction due to the higher density in other directions acts to pull objects away from the underdensity; in other words, the apparent repulsion is not an active force, but due simply to the lack of a force counteracting the attraction.\n",
"Anti-gravity (also known as \"non-gravitational field\") is creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or to balancing the force of gravity with some other force, such as electromagnetism or aerodynamic lift. Anti-gravity is a recurring concept in science fiction, particularly in the context of spacecraft propulsion. Examples are the gravity blocking substance \"Cavorite\" in H. G. Wells's \"The First Men in the Moon\" and the Spindizzy machines in James Blish's \"Cities in Flight\".\n",
"Gravitation acting alone does not produce a g-force, even though g-forces are expressed in multiples of the free-fall acceleration of standard gravity. Thus, the standard gravitational force at the Earth's surface produces g-force only indirectly, as a result of resistance to it by mechanical forces. It is these mechanical forces that actually produce the g-force on a mass. For example, a force of 1 g on an object sitting on the Earth's surface is caused by the mechanical force exerted in the upward direction by the ground, keeping the object from going into free fall. The upward contact force from the ground ensures that an object at rest on the Earth's surface is accelerating relative to the free-fall condition. (Freefall is the path that the object would follow when falling freely toward the Earth's center). Stress inside the object is ensured from the fact that the ground contact forces are transmitted only from the point of contact with the ground.\n",
"Levitation is accomplished by providing an upward force that counteracts the pull of gravity (in relation to gravity on earth), plus a smaller stabilizing force that pushes the object toward a home position whenever it is a small distance away from that home position. The force can be a fundamental force such as magnetic or electrostatic, or it can be a reactive force such as optical, buoyant, aerodynamic, or hydrodynamic.\n",
"It is perhaps an issue of gravitational pull that is one of the biggest hindrances to life in the Negative Zone. While all objects of reasonably sized mass (planets, moons, asteroids, etc.) obviously have their own gravitational pull, it is weak enough to be overcome with minimal effort. Most heroes with flight capabilities can escape a planet's gravitational field with ease, as can any machine with the capacity for flight. Because of this lowered gravity, it is believed that vegetation has difficulty seeding properly, giving life a tenuous foothold at best on any given planet.\n",
"The equivalence between gravitational and inertial effects does not constitute a complete theory of gravity. When it comes to explaining gravity near our own location on the Earth's surface, noting that our reference frame is not in free fall, so that fictitious forces are to be expected, provides a suitable explanation. But a freely falling reference frame on one side of the Earth cannot explain why the people on the opposite side of the Earth experience a gravitational pull in the opposite direction.\n",
"The force of gravity on Earth is the resultant (vector sum) of two forces: (a) The gravitational attraction in accordance with Newton's universal law of gravitation, and (b) the centrifugal force, which results from the choice of an earthbound, rotating frame of reference. The force of gravity is the weakest at the equator because of the centrifugal force caused by the Earth's rotation and because points on the equator are furthest from the center of the Earth. The force of gravity varies with latitude and increases from about 9.780 m/s at the Equator to about 9.832 m/s at the poles.\n"
] |
what is the difference between an originalist interpretation and a "living document" interpretation when it comes to the u.s. supreme court? | The idea is a debate about whether the founders wrote the thing to be specific, rigid, and amendable only through the amendment process...
or whether the founders wrote the thing with deliberately looser language to take shifting societal norms into account.
For example, the 8th amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual" punishments but neglects to define those terms. An originalist would argue that we need to research what "cruel and unusual" meant to the founders. A proponent of living document theory would argue that "cruel and unusual" is deliberately vague so that the boundaries of cruel and unusual can shift as society progresses. | [
"Originalism is a theory of \"interpretation\", not \"construction\". However, this distinction between \"interpretation\" and \"construction\" is controversial and is rejected by many nonoriginalists as artificial. As Scalia said, \"the Constitution, or any text, should be interpreted [n]either strictly [n]or sloppily; it should be interpreted reasonably\"; once originalism has told a Judge what the provision of the Constitution means, they are bound by that meaning—however the business of Judging is not simply to know what the text means (interpretation), but to take the law's necessarily general provisions and apply them to the specifics of a given case or controversy (construction). In many cases, the meaning might be so specific that no discretion is permissible, but in many cases, it is still before the Judge to say what a reasonable interpretation might be. A judge could, therefore, be both an originalist \"and\" a strict constructionist—but he is not one by virtue of being the other.\n",
"In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding of the authors or the people at the time it was ratified. This concept views the Constitution as stable from the time of enactment, and that the meaning of its contents can be changed only by the steps set out in Article Five. This notion stands in contrast to the concept of the Living Constitution, which asserts that the Constitution is intended to be interpreted based on the context of the current times, even if such interpretation is different from the original interpretations of the document.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and current Associate Justice Clarence Thomas are known as originalists; originalism is a family of similar theories that hold that the Constitution has a fixed meaning from an authority contemporaneous with the ratification (although opinion as to what that authority \"is\" varies; see discussion at originalism), and that it should be construed in light of that authority. Unless there is a historic and/or extremely pressing reason to interpret the Constitution differently, originalists vote as they think the Constitution as it was written in the late 18th Century would dictate.\n",
"Originalism is an approach to interpretation of a legal text in which controlling weight is given to the intent of the original authors (at least the intent as inferred by a modern judge). In contrast, a non-originalist looks at other cues to meaning, including the current meaning of the words, the pattern and trend of other judicial decisions, changing context and improved scientific understanding, observation of practical outcomes and \"what works,\" contemporary standards of justice, and \"stare decisis\". Both are directed at \"interpreting\" the text, not changing it—interpretation is the process of resolving ambiguity and choosing from among possible meanings, not changing the text.\n",
"BULLET::::- Originalism involves judges trying to apply the \"original\" meanings of different constitutional provisions. To determine the original meaning, a constitutional provision is interpreted in its \"original\" context, i.e. the historical, literary, and political context of the framers. From that interpretation, the underlying principle is derived which is then applied to the contemporary situation. Former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia believed that the text of the constitution should mean the same thing today as it did when it had been written. A report in the \"Washington Post\" suggested that originalism was the \"view that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original meaning — that is, the meaning it had at the time of its enactment.\" \"Meaning\" based on \"original\" principles.\n",
"This view does not take into account \"why\" the original constitution does not allow for judicial interpretation in any form. The Supreme Court's power for constitutional review, and by extension its interpretation, did not come about until \"Marbury v. Madison\" in 1803. The concept for a \"living constitution\" therefore relies on an argument regarding the writing of the constitution that had no validity when the constitution was written.\n",
"A more recent variant that emerged in the 1980s is \"originalism\", the assertion that the United States Constitution should be interpreted to the maximum extent possible in the light of what it meant when it was adopted. Originalism should not be confused with a similar conservative ideology, strict constructionism, which deals with the interpretation of the Constitution as written, but not necessarily within the context of the time when it was adopted. In modern times, the term originalism has been used by Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, former federal judge Robert Bork and some other conservative jurists to explain their beliefs.\n"
] |
The "Duel of Champions": how common was it? What was it's purpose? | Been asked before a few times. The term for this is [Single Combat](_URL_0_).
_URL_1_
_URL_2_ | [
"Orazi e Curiazi (English title: \"Duel of Champions\") is a 1961 film about the Roman legend of the Horatii, triplet brothers from Rome who fought a duel against the Curiatii, triplet brothers from Alba Longa in order to determine the outcome of a war between their two nations.\n",
"A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules. Duels in this form were chiefly practiced in early modern Europe with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period (19th to early 20th centuries) especially among military officers.\n",
"BULLET::::- Duel: it is a competition between any two subjects. The magazine's team establishes five topics for each duel and compares the weak and the strong points, later deciding who wins, with the possibility of a tie. Some fights featuring famous characters or franchises were partially voted by the readers, like \"Harry Potter X The Lord of the Rings\", \"Gandalf X Professor Dumbledore\", \"Bill Gates X Carlos Slim\" and \"X-Men X The Avengers\"\n",
"Dueling became popular in the United States – the former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel against the sitting Vice President Aaron Burr in 1804. Between 1798 and the Civil War, the US Navy lost two-thirds as many officers to dueling as it did in combat at sea, including naval hero Stephen Decatur. Many of those killed or wounded were midshipmen or junior officers. Despite prominent deaths, dueling persisted because of contemporary ideals of chivalry, particularly in the South, and because of the threat of ridicule if a challenge was rejected.\n",
"The duel was based on a code of honor. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain \"satisfaction\", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On occasion, duels with pistols or swords were fought between women.\n",
"Though it was never an organized sport, participants would sometimes schedule their fights (as one could schedule a duel), and victors were treated as local heroes. Gouging was essentially a type of duel to defend one's honor that was most common among the poor, and was especially common in southern states in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.\n",
"Southern duels persisted through the 1840s even after duelling in the United States was outlawed. Commonly held on sand bars in rivers where jurisdiction was unclear, they were rarely prosecuted. States such as South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana and others had their own duelling customs and traditions. Most duels occurred between the upper classes but teenage duels and those in the middle-classes also existed. Dueling was not at all undemocratic and it enabled lesser men to participate without any prejudice. There was also the promise of esteem and status and it also served as a form of scapegoating for unresolved personal problems.\n"
] |
How are ions made artificially? | You usually just take regular atoms and rip off their electrons somehow (heat them up, subject them to strong electric fields, shoot them through stripper foils, or some combination of those). | [
"Ions can be non-chemically prepared using various ion sources, usually involving high voltage or temperature. These are used in a multitude of devices such as mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters, and ion engines.\n",
"Ions can be created in an inductively coupled plasma, which is a plasma source in which the energy is supplied by electrical currents which are produced by electromagnetic induction, that is, by time-varying magnetic fields.\n",
"Ion implantation is one of the methods used to transform physical properties of polymers and to improve their electrical, optical, and mechanical performance. Ion implantation is a technique by which the ions of a material are accelerated in an electrical field and impacted into a materials such that ion are inserted into this material. This technique has many important uses. One such example is the introduction of silver plasma into the biomedical titanium. This is important because Titanium-based implantable devices such as joint prostheses, fracture fixation devices and dental implants, are important to human lives and improvement of the life quality of patients. However, biomedical titanium is lack of Osseo integration and antibacterium ability. Plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) is a physical technique which can enhance the multi-functionality, mechanical and chemical properties as well as biological activities of artificial implants and biomedical devices. ERDA can be used to study this phenomenon very effectively. Moreover, many scientists have measured the evolution of electrical conductivity, optical transparency, corrosion resistance, and wear resistance of different polymers after irradiation by electron or low-energy light ions or high-energy heavy ions.\n",
"Electrotyping has been used for the production of metal sculptures, where it is an alternative to the casting of molten metal. These sculptures are sometimes called \"galvanoplastic bronzes\", although the actual metal is usually copper. It was possible to apply essentially any patina to these sculptures; gilding was also readily accomplished in the same facilities as electrotyping by using electroplating. Electrotyping has been used to reproduce valuable objects such as ancient coins, and in some cases electrotype copies have proven more durable than fragile originals.\n",
"An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines.\n",
"Ion implantation may be used to induce nano-dimensional particles in oxides such as sapphire and silica. The particles may be formed as a result of precipitation of the ion implanted species, they may be formed as a result of the production of an mixed oxide species that contains both the ion-implanted element and the oxide substrate, and they may be formed as a result of a reduction of the substrate, first reported by Hunt and Hampikian. Typical ion beam energies used to produce nanoparticles range from 50 to 150 keV, with ion fluences that range from 10 to 10 ions/cm. The table below summarizes some of the work that has been done in this field for a sapphire substrate. A wide variety of nanoparticles can be formed, with size ranges from 1 nm on up to 20 nm and with compositions that can contain the implanted species, combinations of the implanted ion and substrate, or that are comprised solely from the cation associated with the substrate.\n",
"Artificial or imitation mineral water cannot be made simply by dissolving all the mineral components in water to replicate the analysis of a natural water. If all the components were put together, many would be found to be insoluble, and others would form new chemical combinations, so that the result would differ widely from the mineral water imitated. The order in which salts are dissolved is important; dissolving some salts separately and combining the solutions can produce results impossible to obtain by dissolving everything together.\n"
] |
why can a laser be seen from miles away but a regular flashlight has such a limited range before the light fades? | A laser tends to be very well focused, which means that its energy doesn't spread out that much as it travels. A flashlight, on the other hand, isn't focused that well, which means that its energy spreads out very quickly as it travels, so gets dimmer much faster than a laser does. | [
"BULLET::::- Diode lasers are used as a lightswitch in industry, with a laser beam and a receiver which will switch on or off when the beam is interrupted, and because a laser can keep the light intensity over larger distances than a normal light, and is more precise than a normal light it can be used for product detection in automated production.\n",
"Even the first laser was recognized as being potentially dangerous. Theodore Maiman characterized the first laser as having a power of one \"Gillette\" as it could burn through one Gillette razor blade. Today, it is accepted that even low-power lasers with only a few milliwatts of output power can be hazardous to human eyesight when the beam hits the eye directly or after reflection from a shiny surface. At wavelengths which the cornea and the lens can focus well, the coherence and low divergence of laser light means that it can be focused by the eye into an extremely small spot on the retina, resulting in localized burning and permanent damage in seconds or even less time.\n",
"Scientists and engineers from Picatinny Arsenal have demonstrated that an electric discharge can go through a laser beam. The laser beam is self-focusing due to the high laser intensity of 50 gigawatts, which changes the speed of light in air. The laser was reportedly successfully tested in January 2012.\n",
"Some of the laser light might reflect off leaves or branches which are closer than the object, giving an early return and a reading which is too low. Alternatively, over distances longer than 1200 ft (365 m), the target, if in proximity to the earth, may simply vanish into a mirage, caused by temperature gradients in the air in proximity to the heated surface bending the laser light. All these effects have to be taken into account.\n",
"To give another example, of a more powerful laser—the type that might be used in an outdoor laser show: a 6-watt green (532 nm) laser with a 1.1 milliradian beam divergence is an eye hazard to about , can cause flash blindness to about 8,200 feet (1.5 mi/2.5 km), causes veiling glare to about 36,800 feet (), and is a distraction to about 368,000 feet ().\n",
"The very small size of the arc makes it possible to focus the light from the lamp with moderate precision. For this reason, xenon arc lamps of smaller sizes, down to 10 watts, are used in optics and in precision illumination for microscopes and other instruments, although in modern times they are being displaced by single mode laser diodes and white light supercontinuum lasers which can produce a truly diffraction-limited spot. Larger lamps are employed in searchlights where narrow beams of light are generated, or in film production lighting where daylight simulation is required.\n",
"Studies have found that even low-power laser beams of not more than 5 mW can cause permanent retinal damage if gazed at for several seconds; however, the eye's blink reflex makes this highly unlikely. Such laser pointers have reportedly caused afterimages, flash blindness and glare, but not permanent damage, and are generally safe when used as intended.\n"
] |
why can most people jump higher off of one leg, when clearly there is more power in two legs? | Well, it's not all about raw power. The problem isn't being able to move upwards, you can climb stairs a lot higher than you can jump. The problem is accelerating quickly.
Look at it this way; stand perfectly still with your hands at your sides and jump.
You probably didn't get very far. This is because when you jump off one leg, neither your arms or your extra leg is sitting as dead weight. Your body spends a great deal of energy to thrust them upward just before you leave the ground. There's a lot of weight in a leg, so the inertia from that plus your arms all being thrust upwards helps to accelerate the actual dead weight (the rest of the body).
Take for instance [this tornado kick](_URL_0_ ). The person in the gif appears to exert very little force on the ground as they lift off. This is because they slowly build up momentum leading up to the jump (by spinning) then angle that energy upwards to carry them off the mat.
Basically the idea is rather than pushing yourself up with two legs, you're pulling yourself up with the momentum you built up in your swinging arms and legs. | [
"\"\"I never assumed my handicap and if anything, as a kid not having a leg meant that my arms were much stronger,\"\" Pueta added. His right leg is stronger than a tree and he jumps all over the field–like a kangaroo–and will tackle everything that comes his way. His line-out jumping is also an asset to whatever team he plays in.\n",
"It is crucial for high jumpers to have strong lower bodies and cores, as the bar progressively gets higher, the strength of an athlete's legs (along with speed and technique) will help propel them over the bar. Squats, deadlifts, and core exercises will help a high jumper achieve these goals. It is important, however, for a high jumper to keep a slim figure as any unnecessary weight makes it difficult to jump higher.\n",
"This refers to the bend in the knees and height relative to a normal standing position. Low stances are very powerful and assist delivery of power through the body to either the arms or the legs. High stances are more mobile and allow one to reposition rapidly.\n",
"When someone wants to jump, he or she exerts additional downward force on the ground ('action'). Simultaneously, the ground exerts upward force on the person ('reaction'). If this upward force is greater than the person's weight, this will result in upward acceleration. When these forces are perpendicular to the ground, they are also called a normal force.\n",
"A vertical jump or vertical leap is the act of raising one's center of mass higher in the vertical plane solely with the use of one's own muscles; it is a measure of how high an individual or athlete can elevate off the ground (jump) from a standstill.\n",
"Long legs increase the time and distance over which a jumping animal can push against the substrate, thus allowing more power and faster, farther jumps. Large leg muscles can generate greater force, resulting in improved jumping performance. In addition to elongated leg elements, many jumping animals have modified foot and ankle bones that are elongated and possess additional joints, effectively adding more segments to the limb and even more length.\n",
"An important component of maximizing height in a vertical jump is attributed to the use of counter-movements of the legs and arm swings prior to take off, as both of these actions have been shown to significantly increase the body's center of mass rise. The counter-movement of the legs, a quick bend of the knees which lowers the center of mass prior to springing upwards, has been shown to improve jump height by 12% compared to jumping without the counter-movement. This is attributed to the stretch shortening cycle of the leg muscles enabling the muscles to create more contractile energy. Furthermore, jump height can be increased another 10% by executing arm swings during the take off phase of the jump compared to if no arm swings are utilized. This involves lowering the arms distally and posteriorly during the leg counter-movements, and powerfully thrusting the arms up and over the head as the leg extension phase begins. As the arms complete the swinging movement they pull up on the lower body causing the lower musculature to contract more rapidly, hence aiding in greater jump height. Despite these increases due to technical adjustments, it appears as if optimizing both the force producing and elastic properties of the musculotendinous system in the lower limbs is largely determined by genetics and partially mutable through resistance exercise training.\n"
] |
How do flu shots work? | > How does one shot protect you from all variations of flu?
> Do they need to be topped up, as newer strains come into existence?
One shot contains vaccines for three different strains of flu. The CDC spends a LOT of time and effort every year trying to predict which three strains are most likely to be a significant health threat that year, and do so with enough lead time to get the vaccines produced and distributed.
| [
"Flu-flu arrows are often used for children's archery, and can be used to play flu-flu golf. Similar to Frisbee Golf, the player must go to where the arrow landed, pick it up, shoot it again, and repeat this process until he reaches a specified place.\n",
"The influenza vaccine comes in two forms, the inactivated form which is what is typically thought of as the \"flu shot\", and a live but attenuated (weakened) form that is sprayed into the nostrils. it is recommended to get the flu shot each year since it is remade each year to protect against the viruses that are most likely to cause disease that year. Unfortunately there are a vast array of strains of influenza, so a single vaccine can not prevent all of them. The shot prevents 3 or 4 different influenza viruses and it takes about 2 weeks after the injection for protection to develop. This protection lasts from several months to a year. \n",
"A flu-flu arrow is a type of arrow specifically designed to travel a short distance. Such arrows are particularly useful when shooting at aerial targets or for certain types of recreational archery where the arrow must not travel too far. One of the main uses of these arrows is that they do not get lost as easily if they miss the target.\n",
"A flu-flu is a design of fletching, normally made by using long sections of feathers; in most cases six or more sections are used, rather than the traditional three. Alternatively, two long feathers can be spiraled around the end of the arrow shaft. In either case, the excessive fletching serves to generate more drag and slow the arrow down rapidly after a short distance (about 30 m). Recreational flu-flus usually have rubber points to add weight and keep the flight slower.\n",
"Influenza vaccines, also known as flu shots or flu jabs, are vaccines that protect against infection by influenza viruses. A new version of the vaccine is developed twice a year, as the influenza virus rapidly changes. While their effectiveness varies from year to year, most provide modest to high protection against influenza. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that vaccination against influenza reduces sickness, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. When an immunized worker does catch the flu, they are on average back at work a half day sooner. Vaccine effectiveness in those under two years old and over 65 years old remains unknown due to the low quality of the research. Vaccinating children may protect those around them.\n",
"A flu-flu is a form of fletching, normally made by using long sections of full length feathers taken from a turkey, in most cases six or more sections are used rather than the traditional three. Alternatively two long feathers can be spiraled around the end of the arrow shaft. The extra fletching generates more drag and slows the arrow down rapidly after a short distance, about or so.\n",
"Some varieties of flumes are used in measuring water flow of a larger channel. When used to measure the flow of water in open channels, a flume is defined as a specially shaped, fixed hydraulic structure that under free-flow conditions forces flow to accelerate in such a manner that the flow rate through the flume can be characterized by a level-to-flow relationship as applied to a single head (level) measurement within the flume. Acceleration is accomplished through a convergence of the sidewalls, a change in floor elevation, or a combination of the two.\n"
] |
I found this old helmet in an antique store, and I was wondering where it is from. | Swedish M26 Army Helmet seems to be the one,
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Heres some info on it.
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"The Canterbury Helmet is an Iron Age helmet found in a field near Canterbury, Kent, England, in December 2012. Made of bronze, it is one of only a few helmets dating from the Iron Age to ever have been found in Britain. The helmet currently resides in the British Museum, and is undergoing conservation work. It was found by an anonymous metal detectorist, who found it together with an iron brooch and a pin, and it is thought to have contained a bag with cremated human remains.\n",
"The helmet was discovered during peat digging in the parish of Witcham Gravel, Cambridgeshire, perhaps during the 1870s. It was said to have been found \"at a depth of about four feet\", although the exact findspot within Witcham Gravel is unknown; at the time, the parish comprised about 389 acres. The helmet was first published in 1877, when, owned by Thomas Maylin Vipan, it was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of London. When Vipan died in 1891, the British Museum purchased it from his estate. It remains in the museum's collection, and as of 2019 is on view in Room 49.\n",
"The helmet was made around 1460, during the period of English civil conflict known as the Wars of the Roses, and the armourer's marks suggest that it was made by an artisan originating from Italy. During the 19th century it was used in Coventry’s Godiva Procession. For a period it was kept on display at St Mary's Hall, Coventry, and is now shown at the city's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.\n",
"Overlooked at first, the helmet quickly gained notice. Even before all the fragments had been excavated, the \"Daily Mail\" spoke of \"a gold helmet encrusted with precious stones.\" A few days later it would more accurately describe the helmet as having \"elaborate interlaced ornaments in silver and gold leaf.\" Despite scant time to examine the fragments, they were termed \"elaborate\" and \"magnificent\"; \"crushed and rotted\" and \"sadly broken\" such that it \"may never make such an imposing exhibit as it ought to do,\" it was nonetheless thought the helmet \"may be one of the most exciting finds.\" The stag found in the burial—later placed atop the sceptre—was even thought at first to adorn the crest of the helmet, in parallel to the boar-crested Benty Grange helmet. This theory would gain no traction, however, and the helmet would have to wait out World War II before reconstruction could begin.\n",
"The provenance of the helmet is unknown, but on stylistic grounds it is thought likely that it comes from the north of England, in the area of Britain controlled by the Brigantes tribe. The helmet is first recorded as part of the collection of arms and armour accumulated by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783–1848), and so must have been discovered some time before 1848. It is possible that the helmet came from the Stanwick Hoard of about 140 bronze objects that was found some time between 1843 and 1845 near Stanwick Camp in North Yorkshire, which may have been the \"oppidum\" of the Brigantes. After Meyrick's death the helmet and other items of Iron Age armour, such as the Witham Shield, were left to his cousin, Lt. Colonel Augustus Meyrick, who disposed of them between 1869 and 1872. The helmet was purchased by Augustus Franks, an independently wealthy antiquarian who worked for the British Museum. Franks donated the helmet to the British Museum in 1872.\n",
"The helmet was dredged from the bed of the River Thames close to Waterloo Bridge in 1868, and in March of the same year it was given on loan to the British Museum by Thames Conservancy. In 1988 its successor body, the Port of London Authority, donated the helmet to the British Museum.\n",
"The helmet was discovered by 71-year-old Ken Wallace, a retired teacher and amateur archaeologist. He and other members of the Hallaton Fieldwork Group had found fragments of Roman pottery on a hill near Hallaton in 2000. He visited the site with a second-hand metal detector late one afternoon and found about 200 coins, which had been buried in a series of small pits dug into the clay. He also found another artifact, which he left in the ground overnight. The following day he returned to examine his discovery and found it that it was a silver ear. He reported the find to Leicestershire's county archaeologist, who called in the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to excavate the site. The dig took place in the spring of 2003.\n"
] |
When/how did human started cooking? | The modern human gastrointestinal tract is evolved to digest cooked food. That takes a long time. Here is a peer reviewed article that argues that control of fire was achieved nearly two million of years ago by some of the first members of the Homo genus:
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Because of the time needed for our current digestive systems to have evolved and also corresponding archeological evidence of controlled use of fire (ancient radiomatrically dated firepits) it's now the general consensus that control of fire (and it's use for cooking) must have occurred no earlier than 400,000 years ago:
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Irrefutable evidence of cooking fires has been dated to 125,000 years ago. But this is not really a possible timeline for when control of fire began due to the evolutionary evidence of our guts: Our species, Homo sapiens, must have evolved in a population that had control of fire and used it to cook food, which means control of fire and cooking must have begun half a million years ago at the earliest.
Edit:
It's impossible to answer the second part of your question. Humans would have experimented with cooking the variety of foods available. I don't see how you could get a specific timeline of the integration of spices and other cooking ingredients; it would all be highly variable and probably a subject of debate with many of the wild varieties. For instance we have no idea when humans started eating garlic, it's really difficult to get an accurate date of pre modern (read pre writing) things like this. | [
"Phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may have invented cooking as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, has provided evidence supporting control of fire by early humans there by 1 million years ago. There is evidence that \"Homo erectus\" was cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago. Evidence for the controlled use of fire by \"Homo erectus\" beginning some 400,000 years ago has wide scholarly support. Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe and the Middle East. Anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing.\n",
"The origins of culinary began with primitive humans roughly 2 million years ago. There are various theories as to how early humans used fire to cook meat. According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, author of \"Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human\", primitive humans simply tossed a raw hunk of meat into the flames and watching it sizzle. Another theory claims humans may first have savored roasted meat by chance when the flesh of a beast killed in a forest fire was found to be more appetizing and easier to chew and digest than the conventional raw meat.\n",
"BULLET::::- History of cooking – no known clear archeological evidence for the first cooking of food has survived. Most anthropologists believe that cooking fires began only about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing.\n",
"The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic and humans began to cook their food c. 250,000 years ago. Some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Robert K. Wayne, a molecular biologist, has controversially claimed, based on a comparison of canine DNA, that dogs may have been first domesticated during the Middle Paleolithic around or even before 100,000 BCE. Christopher Boehm (2009) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.\n",
"Although gathering and hunting comprised most of the food supply during the Middle Paleolithic, people began to supplement their diet with seafood and began smoking and drying meat to preserve and store it. For instance the Middle Stone Age inhabitants of the region now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo hunted large long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago, and Neandertals and Middle Paleolithic \"Homo sapiens\" in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neandertal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic \"Homo sapiens\" sites at Pinnacle Point, in Africa.\n",
"Humans built masonry ovens long before they started writing. The process began as soon as our ancestors started using fire to cook their food, probably by spit-roasting over live flame or coals. Big starchy roots and other slower-cooking foods, however, cooked better when they were buried in hot ashes, and sometimes covered with hot stones, and/or more hot ash. Large quantities might be cooked in an earth oven: a hole in the ground, pre-heated with a large fire, and further warmed by the addition of hot rocks.\n",
"Evidence of hominin use of fire and cooking in the Middle East dates back as far as 790,000 years, and prehistoric hearths, earth ovens, and burnt animal bones were spread across Europe and the Middle East by at least 250,000 years ago. Excavations of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri unearthed stone supports for skewers used before the 17th century BC. In ancient times, Homer in the Iliad (1.465) mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits (), and the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian text, also mentions large pieces of meat roasted on spits.\n"
] |
if utilities infastructure was created through taxpayer dollars, then why do people have to pay private companies for their utilities? | In most cases where facilities were built by the public and then privatized, the company either had to pay the government for the facilities, or agree to repair or improve the facilities at their own expense, thus effectively paying a bill that would have been the government's bill.
| [
"Although utilities are regulated industries, they are typically privately owned and must therefore attract private capital. Accordingly, because of constitutional takings law, government regulators must assure private companies that a fair revenue is available in order to continue to attract investors and borrow money. This creates competing aims of capital attraction and fair prices for customers. Utility companies are therefore allowed to charge \"reasonable rates,\" which are generally regarded as rates that allow utilities to encourage people to invest in utility stocks and bonds at the same rate of return they would in comparable non-regulated industries.\n",
"Public utilities can be privately owned or publicly owned. Publicly owned utilities include cooperative and municipal utilities. Municipal utilities may actually include territories outside of city limits or may not even serve the entire city. Cooperative utilities are owned by the customers they serve. They are usually found in rural areas. Publicly owned utilities are non-profit. Private utilities, also called investor-owned utilities, are owned by investors, and operate for profit, often referred to as a rate of return.\n",
"In the US, public utility districts (PUD) have similar functions to Municipal utility districts, but are created by a local government body such as a city or county, and have no authority to levy taxes. They provide public utilities to the residents of that district.\n",
"Some utility companies are for-profit companies, and their prices will include a financial return for shareholders and owners. These utility companies can exercise their political power within existing legal and regulatory regimes to guarantee that return and reduce competition from other sources like distributed generation. \n",
"In some situations, a local government may be legally allowed to transfer utility fee or charge proceeds to the general fund of the local agency to thereafter be spent at the discretion of local politicians. Such situations may include controversial reimbursements to the general fund for services and/or other benefits provided by the local government to the utility and legally allowable return on investment (“profit”) utility fee overcharges for electrical or gas service which are not subject to the cost of service constitutional protections under Proposition 218. \n",
"A public utility (or simply \"utility\") is an organization or company that maintains the infrastructure for a public service or provides a set of services for public consumption. Common examples of utilities are electricity, natural gas, water, sewage, cable television, and telephone. In the United States, public utilities are often natural monopolies because the infrastructure required to produce and deliver a product such as electricity or water is very expensive to build and maintain.\n",
"The traditional definition of the term public utility is \"an infrastructural necessity for the general public where the supply conditions are such that the public may not be provided with a reasonable service at reasonable prices because of monopoly in the area.\" Conventional public utilities include water, natural gas, and electricity. In order to secure the interests of the public, utilities are regulated. Public utilities can also be seen as natural monopolies implying that the highest degree of efficiency is accomplished under one operator in the marketplace.\n"
] |
after accomplishing something very challenging why do we sometimes feel empty and emotionless about it immediately after? | Because the challenge is gone.
Possibly. | [
"Emotionally unpleasant experiences have the tendency to come back and haunt us, even after frequent suppression. Such memories can be recovered gradually, through active search and reconstruction, or they can come to mind spontaneously, without active search.\n",
"In time, emotional exhaustion may set in, leading to distraction, and clear thinking may be difficult or impossible. Emotional detachment, as well as dissociation or \"numbing out\" can frequently occur. Dissociating from the painful emotion includes numbing all emotion, and the person may seem emotionally flat, preoccupied, distant, or cold. Dissociation includes depersonalisation disorder, dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, etc. Exposure to and re-experiencing trauma can cause neurophysiological changes like slowed myelination, abnormalities in synaptic pruning, shrinking of the hippocampus, cognitive and affective impairment. This is significant in brain scan studies done regarding higher order function assessment with children and youth who were in vulnerable environments.\n",
"This sequence of events serves as a reinforcement, causing the cycle to remain in motion. With every cycle, feelings of perceived fraudulence, increased self-doubt, depression, and anxiety accumulate. As the cycle continues, increased success leads to the intensification of feeling like a fraud. This experience causes the individual to remain haunted by their lack of perceived, personal ability. Believing that at any point they can be 'exposed' for who they think they really are keeps the cycle in motion.\n",
"Aside from this, a need for attention or a feel good sensation can ultimately cause this behavior. A prime example of this would be addiction to drugs or alcohol. In the beginning stages, people have the tendency to ease their way into these unhealthy behaviors because it gives them a pleasurable sensation. However, as time goes on, it becomes a habit that they can not stop and they begin to lose these great feeling easily. When these feelings stop, self-destructive behavior enhances because they aren't able to provide themselves with that feeling that makes mental or physical pain go away. \n",
"How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett for a rigorous discussion. One’s crying is not planned, unless one is an actor, then we are able to tap into the mechanism that causes tears to flow. Otherwise it just happens outside of out awareness of causing it by thinking. The brain has patterns of neurons that once activated generate physiologic responses that happens up to 10 seconds before we are aware. (Koch, Christof. 2012. “How Physics and Neuroscience Dictate Your “Free” Will”. Scientific American: April 12.) and many others.\n",
"Self-conscious emotions enable social healing. When an individual makes a social error, feelings of guilt or embarrassment changes not just the person’s mood but their body language. In this situation the individual gives out non-verbal signs of submission and this is generally more likely to be greeted with forgiveness. This has been shown in a study where actors knocked over a supermarket shelve (Semin & Manstead, 1982). Those that acted embarrassed were received more favorably than those who reacted in a neutral fashion.\n",
"In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: these thoughts might be called \"emotional amplifiers\" because, as they go around and around, they become more intense. Here are some typical all-or-nothing thoughts:\n"
] |
Does having houseplants at home provide any sort of measurable benefit to ones health? | [They can help reduce indoor pollutants](_URL_0_) | [
"The Healthy Homes program was made possible through a grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development via a Healthy Homes Demonstration Program (HHD). The grant allows the Healthy Homes program to address environmental triggers that contribute to illnesses, conduct education and outreach that furthers the goal of protecting families from environmentally induced illnesses.\n",
"In general, over 15% of the household expenditure and around 50% of disease morbidity in the region were directly attributable to poor housing conditions, most of which were avoidable. Keeping these issues in view, the Building and Construction Improvement Program (BACIP) set out to improve the living condition by developing several home–improvement products that mitigated the negative impact of planning and building inefficiencies on these traditional households and lessened the burden on the surrounding environment. BACIP also attempted to reduce the cost and increase the affordability of better housing conditions.\n",
"\"In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot find a place to live, lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have negative effects on a community's overall health.\"\n",
"Others benefit indirectly. Families of Householders speak of the reassurance that their loved one has someone in the house, looking out for their welfare. Public services benefit too, as homeshare can delay the need for costly services such as residential care.\n",
"Major factors that should be considered when caring for houseplants are moisture, light, soil mixture, temperature, humidity, fertilizers, potting, and pest control. The following includes some general guidelines for houseplant care. Specific care information may be found widely online and in books.\n",
"The Healthy Homes Project is a joint research initiative between the Columbia University Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH). The project targets the unequal exposure of environmental hazards faced by children in minority or low-income communities and works to educate families on a number of known risk factors such as \"cigarettes, lead poisoning, drugs and alcohol, air pollution, garbage, pesticides, and poor nutrition\". Educating parents on environmental health risks, can protect children from developing asthma or cancer or from experiencing growth or developmental delays, among others.\n",
"The direct benefits to a Householder include; help with daily living, companionship and the security of having someone in the house, especially at night. There are even recorded instances of homesharers saving lives; for example a German homesharer called the emergency services when the householder had a heart attack. Other benefits include: breaking down the barriers between generations and different cultures, fostering mutual understanding and tolerance. For instance, in an Australian program, an elderly Italian lady successfully shared her home with a Pakistani Muslim homesharer.\n"
] |
[META] Wide-scale revisions to the official rules | > [W]hile this is a public forum it is not an egalitarian one; not all answers will be treated as having equal merit.
Thank you for taking a clear stance on this issue and not pussy-footing around it. I come to this subreddit for content and there really is a very impressive panel of historians to provide that.
As a history buff, I always get the itch to pitch in my own two cents, but refrain from doing so as there probably is someone who can provide much more accurate information. (I should clarify that I am not implying that I have never found a helpful and on topic response from a non-flaired poster. Just that posts with people speculating and postulating have been on the rise..)
To the Mods and the panel, thanks a lot for all the work that you put into this subreddit! | [
"There are currently 44 rules, with the latest revision having been adopted on January 24, 2013. (The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 lobbying reform bill introduced a 44th rule on earmarks). The stricter rules are often waived by unanimous consent.\n",
"The advanced rules have been periodically updated, beginning in July 2007, with the Clarifications Document. The update introduces new concepts (such as ASW harassment and strafing penalties) not present in the original rules. Since at least one unit of the Task Force expansion set directly refers to these new rules, they are implicitly considered as part of the core ruleset, despite only having been published online to date.\n",
"The rule changes were generally favored by software companies, electronics companies and US government agencies for the reasons given above. Those that favored the rule changes felt that said changes were consistent with the laws governing continuation practice.\n",
"Effective December 1, 2009 substantial amendments were made to rules 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 27, 32, 38, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 62, 65, 68, 71.1, 72 and 81. While rules 48 and 62.1 were added. Rule 1 (f) was abrogated. The majority of the amendments affect various timing requirements and change how some deadlines are calculated. The most significant changes are to Rule 6.\n",
"In the 21st century, more programmers started to use a formalized version policy, such as the semantic versioning policy. The purpose of such policies is to make it easier for other programmers to know when code changes are likely to break things they have written. Such policies are especially important for software libraries and frameworks, but may also be very useful to follow for command-line applications (which may be called from other applications) and indeed any other applications (which may be scripted and/or extended by third parties).\n",
"The NCAA football rules committee proposed several rule changes for 2009. Before these rules were officially adopted, the proposals had to be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel. The rule changes include the following:\n",
"The Rules, established in 1938, replaced the earlier procedures under the Federal Equity Rules and the Conformity Act (28 USC 724 (1934)) merging the procedure for cases, in law and equity. The Conformity Act required that procedures in suits at law conform to state practice usually the Field Code and common law pleading systems. Significant revisions have been made to the FRCP in 1948, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1993, 2000, and 2006. (The FRCP contains a notes section that details the changes of each revision since 1938, explaining the rationale behind the language.) The revisions that took effect in December 2006 made practical changes to discovery rules to make it easier for courts and litigating parties to manage electronic records.\n"
] |
how can i help somebody with seasonal depression feel better? | Phototherapy is noted to help people with seasonal depression. It involves basically shining a special lamp in your indoor space to help mitigate the lack of light that comes with autumn & winter. | [
"A depressed mood is common during illnesses, such as influenza. It has been argued that this is an evolved mechanism that assists the individual in recovering by limiting his/her physical activity. The occurrence of low-level depression during the winter months, or seasonal affective disorder, may have been adaptive in the past, by limiting physical activity at times when food was scarce. It is argued that humans have retained the instinct to experience low mood during the winter months, even if the availability of food is no longer determined by the weather.\n",
"A recent study analyzes time-dependent rhythms in happiness comparing life satisfaction by weekdays (weekend neurosis), days of the month (negative effects towards the end of the month) and year with gender and education and outlining the differences observed. Primarily within the winter months of the year, an onset of depression can affect us, which is called seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It is recurrent, beginning in the fall or winter months, and remitting in the spring or summer. It is said that those who experience this disorder usually have a history of major depressive or bipolar disorder, which may be hereditary, having a family member affected as well.\n",
"The elderly frequently cite depression as a notable ailment. Many researchers have linked the depression to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and seasonal mood variations have been linked to lack of light. (SAD is markedly more frequent in extreme latitudes, such as the arctic and in Finland). Light therapy in the form of light boxes are a frequent non-drug treatment for SAD. Several preliminary studies have shown that light therapy is a positive treatment for depressive symptoms for older persons although more studies need to be done in this area.\n",
"Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder subset in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year, most commonly in winter. Common symptoms include sleeping too much, having little to no energy, and overeating. The condition in the summer can include heightened anxiety.\n",
"Seasonal affective disorder is hypothesized to be caused by the diminishing of the exposure to environmental light which can lead to changes in levels of the neurotransmitter chemical serotonin. Diminishing active serotonin levels increases depressive symptoms. There are currently a few treatment therapies in order to help with seasonal affective disorder. The first line of therapy is light therapy. Light therapy involves exposure to bright, white light that mimics outdoor light, counteracting the presumed cause of SAD. Due to the shifts in one's neurochemical levels, antidepressants are another form of therapy. Other than light therapy and antidepressants, there are several alternatives which involve agomelatine, melatonin, psychological interventions, as well as diet and lifestyle changes.\n",
"The summer months are especially difficult for these children, as they are in hospital undergoing treatments while their healthy friends are enjoying summer camp and other fun activities. The sick children who are undergoing painful treatments are forced to avoid summer pleasures: travelling in public areas, due to their weakened immune system (as a result of the treatments), swimming, visiting beaches, and participating in summer camps that offer a wide range of activities. To help compensate them, the Hayim Association brings summer camp into the pediatric oncology departments, where children can enjoy a wide range of special activities that cater to their special needs and limitations, uplifting the children's spirits.\n",
"Cognitive behavioral therapy and occupational programs (including modification of work activities and assistance) have been shown to be effective in reducing sick days taken by workers with depression.\n"
] |
what does the "crisper" drawer in my refrigerator do and what is the benefit to putting my veggies in there? | Actually, the crisper is the worst place to keep vegetables. They do better with air circulation and the temps higher in the fridge. The best thing to keep in the crisper are raw meats, primarily to prevent raw meat juices from dripping and contaminating anything else. The drawers are relatively easy to remove and sanitize afterward. | [
"A crisper drawer (also known as a crisper) is a compartment located within a refrigerator designed to prolong the freshness of stored produce. Crisper drawers have a different level of humidity from the rest of the refrigerator, optimizing freshness in fruits and vegetables. They can be adjusted to both prevent the loss of moisture from produce, and also allow ethylene gas produced by certain fruits to escape, thus preventing them from rotting quickly.\n",
"In the UK, sources often use the term \"crisper drawer\" in conjunction with a nearby explanation, like the Vegetable Expert advice website calling them \"special compartments or 'crisper drawers' to store fruits and vegetables\", the consumers' organisation \"Which?\" calling it a \"salad crisper drawer [...] for storing your fruit and veg\", and the appliance replacement firm Partmaster.co.uk calling it a \"fridge/freezer salad crisper\".\n",
"Crisper drawers operate by creating an environment of greater humidity than the rest of the refrigerator. Many crisper drawers have a separate humidity control which closes or opens a vent in the drawer. When the vent is in the closed position, airflow is shut off, creating greater humidity in the drawer. High humidity is optimal for the storage of leafy or thin-skinned vegetables such as asparagus. When the vent is in the open position, airflow keeps humidity in the crisper drawer low, which is beneficial for storage of fruits such as pears and apples. Additionally, because some fruits emit high levels of ethylene gas, the open vent allows the ethylene gas to escape instead of causing these fruits to rot. The ability to separate low-humidity fruits from high-humidity vegetables using the different crisper drawers also prevents ethylene gas from damaging the latter.\n",
"Appliance manufacturers have reported that many refrigerator owners are unaware of the purpose or operation of crisper drawers. A 2010 survey commissioned by Robert Bosch GmbH found that 55 percent of surveyed Americans \"admit to not knowing how to use their crisper drawer controls\".\n",
"The \"VacnSeal\" is an accessory intended to be installed on the underside of a kitchen cabinet, over a countertop used for food preparation. The nozzle of the device is used to evacuate excess air from a zipper lock plastic food storage bag (e.g. Ziploc), which is said by the manufacturer to preserve food freshness for a longer period of time.\n",
"In kitchen utensils, a \"spatula\" is any utensil fitting the above description. One variety is used to lift and flip food items during cooking, such as pancakes and fillets (known in British English as a fish slice). The blades on these are usually made of metal or plastic, with a wooden or plastic handle to insulate them from heat. A cookie shovel is a specialty spatula with a larger blade, made for scooping cookies off their pan or cooking sheet.\n",
"Prepackaged products may come with a utensil intended to be consumed or discarded after using it to consume the product. For instance, some single-serve ice cream is sold with a flat wooden spade, often erroneously called a \"spoon\", to lift the product to one's mouth. Prepackaged tuna salad or cracker snacks may contain a flat plastic spade for similar purposes.\n"
] |
Can moons of dramatically different size happily co-exist? | There's nothing distinctively different between a planet's orbit around a star and a moon's orbit around a planet--there simply needs to be sufficient distance between them where "far enough" depends on the object's sizes.
Even asteroids [can have moons.](_URL_0_)
Essentially the question you need to ask is this, can the system I want to make well approximated by a two-body system, can I ignore the parent orbit? For an Earth-Moon-Sun system, the answer is yes, we can ignore the Sun, the system is stable. If we cannot, and we *have to* describe things as a 3-body system, then we risk always ejecting one of the bodies over long times as a three body system is able to easily transfer momentum around, eventually it'll wander into the phase space that unbinds one of the objects.
So to answer your question, yes. This is why we're able to have satellites around Earth as well as satellites around the Moon. One more bit of nuance, it seems like "cheating" to ignore the third body, in principle, it can contribute to momentum transfer albeit tiny ones. Luckily for us, there is plenty of situations where the "effective stability time" blows up to values magnitudes older than our universe, the Earth-Sun-Moon system is one such example. | [
"An intense search conducted by \"New Horizons\" confirmed that no moons larger than 4.5 km in diameter exist at the distances up to 180,000 km from Pluto (for smaller distances, this threshold is still smaller).\n",
"Only the two largest regular moons have been imaged with a resolution sufficient to discern their shapes and surface features. Larissa, about 200 km in diameter, is elongated. Proteus is not significantly elongated, but not fully spherical either: it resembles an irregular polyhedron, with several flat or slightly concave facets 150 to 250 km in diameter. At about 400 km in diameter, it is larger than the Saturnian moon Mimas, which is fully ellipsoidal. This difference may be due to a past collisional disruption of Proteus. The surface of Proteus is heavily cratered and shows a number of linear features. Its largest crater, Pharos, is more than 150 km in diameter.\n",
"Among the other dwarf planets, has no known moons. It is 90 percent certain that Ceres has no moons larger than 1 km in size, assuming that they would have the same albedo as Ceres itself. has two moons, Hi'iaka and Namaka, of radii ~195 and ~100 km, respectively. has one moon, discovered in April 2016. has one known moon, Dysnomia. Accurately determining its size is difficult: one indicative estimate of its radius is , but on some assumptions could be as high as . The Kuiper belt object 90482 Orcus, believed to be a dwarf planet, was found in 2005 to have a natural satellite, later named Vanth.\n",
"Nineteen moons are known to be massive enough to have relaxed into a rounded shape under their own gravity, though some have since frozen out of equilibrium, and seven of them are more massive than either Eris or Pluto. These moons are not physically distinct from the dwarf planets, but do not fit the IAU definition of \"dwarf planet\" because they do not directly orbit the Sun. However, Alan Stern calls planetary-mass moons \"satellite planets\", one of three categories of planet, together with dwarf planets and classical planets. The term \"planemo\" (\"planetary-mass object\") also covers all three populations.\n",
"None of Uranus's moons would appear as large as a full moon on Earth from the surface of their parent planet, but the large number of them would present an interesting sight for observers hovering above the cloudtops. The angular diameters of the five large moons are as follows (for comparison, Earth's moon measures on average 31′ for terrestrial observers): Miranda, 11–15′; Ariel, 20–23′; Umbriel, 15–17′; Titania, 11–13′; Oberon, 8–9′. Unlike on Jupiter and Saturn, many of the inner moons can be seen as disks rather than starlike points; the moons Portia and Juliet can appear around the size of Miranda at times, and a number of other inner moons appear larger than Oberon. Several others range from 6′ to 8′. The outer irregular moons would not be visible to the naked eye.\n",
"Between \"different\" full moons, the Moon's angular diameter can vary from 29.43 arcminutes at apogee to 33.5 arcminutes at perigee—an increase of around 14% in apparent diameter or 30% in apparent area. This is because of the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit.\n",
"The sizes of both moons are calculated with the assumption that they have the same infrared albedo as Haumea, which is reasonable as their spectra show them to have the same surface composition. Haumea's albedo has been measured by the Spitzer Space Telescope: from ground-based telescopes, the moons are too small and close to Haumea to be seen independently. Based on this common albedo, the inner moon, Namaka, which is a tenth the mass of Hiʻiaka, would be about 170 km in diameter.\n"
] |
why don't credit cards just use 19 digits instead of 16 digits plus 3 digit "security code"? | The CVV is separate from the card number, so if people record your card number (such as a card skimmer), they don't have access to the 3 digit security code.
If you made it 19 digit, then 1 swipe and they have all they need to literally take all your cash. | [
"The international standard for financial services PIN management, ISO 9564-1, allows for PINs from four up to twelve digits, but recommends that for usability reasons the card issuer not assign a PIN longer than six digits. The inventor of the ATM, John Shepherd-Barron, had at first envisioned a six-digit numeric code, but his wife could only remember four digits, and that has become the most commonly used length in many places, although banks in Switzerland and many other countries require a six-digit PIN.\n",
"Two-digit codes are used with eight-digit subscriber numbers, three-digit codes with seven-digit numbers, and four-digit codes with six-digit numbers so the full telephone number is always ten digits.\n",
"In addition to the main credit card number, credit cards also carry issue and expiration dates (given to the nearest month), as well as extra codes such as issue numbers and security codes. Not all credit cards have the same sets of extra codes nor do they use the same number of digits.\n",
"An analysis of user-selected PIN codes suggested that ten numbers represent 15% of all iPhone passcodes, with \"1234\" and \"0000\" being the most common, with years of birth and graduation also being common choices. Even if a four-digit PIN is randomly selected, the key space is very small (formula_1 or 10,000 possibilities), making PINs significantly easier to brute force than most passwords; someone with physical access to a handset secured with a PIN can therefore feasibly determine the PIN in a short time.\n",
"The standard specifies that PINs shall be from four to twelve digits long, noting that longer PINs are more secure but harder to use. It also suggests that the issuer should not assign PINs longer than six digits.\n",
"6-digit codes are commonly provided by proprietary hardware tokens from a number of vendors informing the default value of \"d\". Truncation extracts 31 bits or formula_1 ≈ 9.3 decimal digits, meaning, at most, \"d\" can be 10, with the 10th digit providing less extra variation, taking values of 0, 1, and 2 (i.e., 0.3 digits).\n",
"An encrypted credit card number is susceptible to brute-force attacks because not every string of digits is equally likely. The number of digits can range from 13-19, though 16 is the most common. Additionally it must have a valid IIN and the last digit must match the checksum. An attacker can also take into account the popularity of various services: an IIN from MasterCard is probably more likely than an IIN from Diners Club Carte Blanche.\n"
] |
why are the brussels and paris attacks so publicized and mourned over when others, like the current pakistani bombings, kill more and do more damage? | It's pretty much accepted that that part of the world is basically a warzone. Nobody's too surprised if something explodes or people die there.
However if it happens in a modern major city, that IS a nasty shock. That kind of thing isn't "supposed" to happen in a "civilised area".
Remember in the Dark Knight how the Joker talked about nobody panicking when things went "according to plan" even if the plan is horrifying? That's exactly it. You expect bombs to go off in a warzone, you don't expect them to go off in the middle of a major European city. | [
"The perpetrators belonged to a terrorist cell which had been involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks. The Brussels bombings happened shortly after a series of police raids targeting the group. The bombings were the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium's history. The Belgian government declared three days of national mourning.\n",
"Governments, media outlets, and social media users received criticism in some media and academic analysis for their disproportionate emphasis placed on the attacks in Brussels over similar attacks in other countries, particularly in Turkey, which occurred days before. Similarly, reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks were viewed as disproportionate in comparison to those of earlier bombings in Beirut. According to Akin Unver, a professor of international affairs at Istanbul's Kadir Has University, being \"selective\" about terrorism is counterproductive to the global counterterrorism efforts.\n",
"Brussels has been on high alert since the November 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Brussels bombings. The Brussels police conducted major police operations in early 2016 against terrorism suspects. Salah Abdeslam and other suspects were arrested in these raids. Because of the police raids the Belgian crime rate has dropped but the illegal weapon trade, number of armed robberies and terrorism-related incidents in Brussels have significantly increased.\n",
"Before the bombings, several Islamist terrorist attacks had originated from Belgium, and a number of counter-terrorist operations had been carried out there. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of wiretapping and surveillance operations directed at suspected terrorists by Belgian intelligence almost doubled. In May 2014, a gunman with ties to the Syrian Civil War attacked the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. In January 2015, anti-terrorist operations against a group thought to be planning a second \"Charlie Hebdo\" shooting had included raids in Brussels and Zaventem. The operation resulted in the deaths of two suspects. In August 2015, a suspected terrorist shot and stabbed passengers aboard a high-speed train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels, before he was subdued by passengers.\n",
"BULLET::::- : Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said that what happened in Brussels disasters and is horrified by these events, but believes Europe and the world will be able to find the best response to the terrorist attacks.\n",
"From 21 November to 25 November 2015, the government of Belgium imposed a security lockdown on Brussels, including the closure of shops, schools, public transportation, due to information about potential terrorist attacks in the wake of the series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on November 13. One of the perpetrators of the attack, Belgian-born French national Salah Abdeslam, was thought to be hiding in the city. As a result of warnings of a serious and imminent threat, the terror alert level was raised to the highest level (four) across the Brussels metropolitan area, and people were advised not to congregate publicly, effectively putting the city under lockdown.\n",
"BULLET::::- : President Hassan Rouhani has \"firmly condemned\" terrorist bomb explosions in the Belgian capital city of Brussels: “Firmly condemn terrorist attacks in Brussels. Deepest condolences to the government and people of Belgium, especialy those who lost loved one“, saying Rouhani in his Twitter account. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hossein Ansari also condemned the twin blasts in Brussels, stressing the importance of adopting all-embracing efforts to fight terrorism which is threatening the entire world.\n"
] |
where and how does all the energy created by power plants get stored? or is the power being generated as it's needed? | The latter, mostly. In the case of plants that use some sort of fuel, the energy is *already* stored in whatever fuel that is being used. Generating energy from the fuel first, and then storing it back inside something else to be extracted later is a *huge* waste of everything. When you have too much power, you use less fuel. When you have too little, you use more, it's generally as simple as that.
In case of solar plants and such however, it gets interesting. Storing large amounts of energy is one of the biggest problems of today's engineering and there is considerable research being done about this very issue. There are some ways of storing the energy that a solar plant generates during the day, but they aren't exactly ideal. It usually revolves around conversion of electricity into some other form of energy. Like using the power from a solar plant to pump very large amounts of water uphill, which is essentially converting electrical energy into potential energy. You later let the water flow downhill and turn some turbines to generate electricity again. Or you could use the power from your soalr plant to pump air inside a huge tank to create pressure, and when needed you let the highly pressurized air out and, again, turn turbines with it. Obviously there are considerable losses involved in such techniques, but energy storage technology is still a developing one. We're getting there. | [
"Grid energy storage (also called large-scale energy storage) is a collection of methods used to store electrical energy on a large scale within an electrical power grid. Electrical energy is stored during times when production (especially from intermittent power plants such as renewable electricity sources such as wind power, tidal power, solar power) exceeds consumption, and returned to the grid when production falls below consumption.\n",
"Many individual energy storage projects augment electrical grids by capturing excess electrical energy during periods of low demand and storing it in other forms until needed on an electrical grid. The energy is later converted back to its electrical form and returned to the grid as needed.\n",
"One grid energy storage method is to use off-peak or renewably generated electricity to compress air, which is usually stored in an old mine or some other kind of geological feature. When electricity demand is high, the compressed air is heated with a small amount of natural gas and then goes through turboexpanders to generate electricity.\n",
"The pumped-storage power plant will operate by using two reservoirs to generate power, an upper and a lower. During periods of high energy demand, water is released from the upper reservoir and sent to the power station to generate electricity. After power generation, the water is discharged into the lower reservoir. When energy demand is low, such as at night, water is pumped back up to the upper reservoir as stored energy. The process repeats as needed and the pump-generators serve the dual-role of both pumping and generating electricity. Forming the lower reservoir will be a tall and long concrete-face rock-fill dam (CFRD). Its storage capacity will be of which is active (or 'usable') for pumping. The upper reservoir will be formed by a CFRD as well, this one will be tall and long, withholding a man-made lake. The normal elevation of the lower reservoir will be and the upper . This difference in elevation affords a rated hydraulic head of . The power station will be located underground near the bank of the lower reservoir and contain six 300 MW Francis pump turbine-generators.\n",
"As a pumped-storage power plant, it uses two reservoirs to produce electricity and store energy. The upper reservoir stores water (energy) for periods when electricity demand is high. During these periods, water from the upper reservoir is released down to the power plant to produce hydroelectricity. Water from the power plant is then discharged into the lower reservoir. When energy demand is low, usually at night, water is pumped from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir. The upper reservoir can be replenished in as little as 7.2 hours. The same turbine-generators that are used to generate electricity reverse into pumps during pumping mode.\n",
"In addition to electrical production, they may also be used for pumped storage, where a reservoir is filled by the turbine (acting as a pump) driven by the generator acting as a large electrical motor during periods of low power demand, and then reversed and used to generate power during peak demand. These pump storage reservoirs act as large energy storage sources to store \"excess\" electrical energy in the form of water in elevated reservoirs. This is one of a few methods that allow temporary excess electrical capacity to be stored for later utilization.\n",
"Some forms of storage that produce electricity include pumped-storage hydroelectric dams, rechargeable batteries, thermal storage including molten salts which can efficiently store and release very large quantities of heat energy, and compressed air energy storage, flywheels, cryogenic systems and superconducting magnetic coils.\n"
] |
Has anyone ever taught a computer to code? | You might be describing something a bit like [genetic programming.](_URL_0_) I believe these still require someone to determine the fitness of each program, but if you have some desired output and a set input, you can have something compare what the program produces to what you want the output to be and the algorithm will fix itself, maybe. Disclaimer, I'm just a student and don't know a ton about computer science just yet! So that could all be wrong. First thing that popped into my head though on reading this post.
[Here's a program](_URL_1_) that can write music based on previous works and a human teacher for its output.
Hah, and [here's the album](_URL_2_) it wrote. Ridiculous. | [
"The first computer codes were specialized for their applications: e.g., Alonzo Church was able to express the lambda calculus in a formulaic way and the Turing machine was an abstraction of the operation of a tape-marking machine.\n",
"John Mauchly's Short Code, proposed in 1949, was one of the first high-level languages ever developed for an electronic computer. Unlike machine code, Short Code statements represented mathematical expressions in understandable form. However, the program had to be translated into machine code every time it ran, making the process much slower than running the equivalent machine code.\n",
"The computer could be programmed using an assembly language system called QUIKOMP(TM), but its simple machine language instruction set and slow operation speed encouraged many programmers to code directly in machine language.\n",
"The program STUDENT, written in 1964 by Daniel Bobrow for his PhD dissertation at MIT is one of the earliest known attempts at natural-language understanding by a computer. Eight years after John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence, Bobrow's dissertation (titled \"Natural Language Input for a Computer Problem Solving System\") showed how a computer could understand simple natural language input to solve algebra word problems.\n",
"However, the first computer program is generally dated to 1843, when mathematician Ada Lovelace published an algorithm to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, intended to be carried out by Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. \n",
"Codes and information by machines were first conceptualized by Charles Babbage in the early 1800s. Babbage imagined that these codes would give him instructions for his Motor of Difference and Analytical Engine, machines that Babbage had designed to solve the problem of error in calculations.\n",
"Machine code is the only language a computer can process directly without a previous transformation. Currently, programmers almost never write programs directly in machine code, because it requires attention to numerous details that a high-level language handles automatically. Furthermore it requires memorizing or looking up numerical codes for every instruction, and is extremely difficult to modify.\n"
] |
Historically, how long have Arabs been the dominant ethnic group in the Middle East? | Unfortunately I don't think this an answerable question. "Arab blood" does not define Arabness. Arabness is at least partially a linguistically defined ethnicity. That's why dark-skinned dark-eyed [Anwar Sadat](_URL_2_) is just as much an Arab as light-skinned blue-eyed [Bashar al-Assad](_URL_0_) is an Arab.
Aside from that definitional issue, our earliest sources, including biblical references, are to "Saracens", not Arabs. It's not at all clear who is being referred to when these classical sources are referring to Saracens. For instance while some sources might be using it in the sense that we mean of "ethnicity", and therefore define the area of territory occupied by Saracens broadly, others are using an unusually narrow definition, where, for instance, Saracens are the people who live in one very specific place. [This can easily be misrepresented by Arab nationalists](_URL_1_) in cumulative fashion as suggesting that some huge portion of the Middle East was meaningfully "Arab" from a very early period. Maybe. I'm hugely, hugely skeptical.
Most of the writers we're relying on for these descriptions in the classical era have never been to the Middle East, have no idea who lives there, and the picture will remain fuzzy until the Arab conquests themselves.
I think the best we can probably do is to say that there were strong tribal connections throughout the region. Quite good linguistic connections. But making definitive statements in terms of percentages for ethnic populations is just not possible. | [
"The earliest and most significant instance of \"Arabization\" was the first Muslim conquests of Muhammad and the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates. They built a Muslim Empire that grew well beyond the Arabian Peninsula, eventually reaching as far as Spain in the West and Central Asia to the East.\n",
"Arab nationalism, a movement toward liberating and empowering the Arab peoples of the Middle East, emerged during the latter 19th century, inspired by other independence movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. As the Ottoman Empire declined and the Middle East was carved up by the Great Powers of Europe, Arabs sought to establish their own independent nations ruled by Arabs rather than foreigners. Syria was established in 1920; Transjordan (later Jordan) gradually gained independence between 1921 and 1946; Saudi Arabia was established in 1932; and Egypt achieved gradually gained independence between 1922 and 1952. The Arab League was established in 1945 to promote Arab interests and cooperation between the new Arab states.\n",
"Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic speaking groups. Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas.\n",
"Arabization describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture. It was most prominently achieved during the 7th-century Arabian Muslim conquests which spread the Arabic language, culture, and—having been carried out by Arabian Muslims as opposed to Arab Christians or Arabic-speaking Jews—the religion of Islam to the lands they conquered. The result: some elements of Arabian origin combined in various forms and degrees with elements taken from conquered civilizations and ultimately denominated \"Arab\", as opposed to \"Arabian\".\n",
"The Arabs historically originate as a Central Semitic group in the Arabian peninsula. Their expansion beyond Arabia and the Syrian desert is due to the Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) was conquered in 633, Levant (modern Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and tine) between 636 and 640 CE.\n",
"The region was not originally Arab – its Arabization was a consequence of the inclusion of Palestine within the rapidly expanding Arab Empire conquered by Arabian tribes and their local allies in the first millennium, most significantly during the Islamic conquest of Syria in the 7th century. Palestine, then a Hellenized region controlled by the Byzantine empire, with a large Christian population, came under the political and cultural influence of Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Kurdish Ayyubids. From the conquest down to the 11th century, half of the world's Christians lived under the new Muslim order and there was no attempt for that period to convert them. Over time, nonetheless, much of the existing population of Palestine was Arabized and gradually converted to Islam. Arab populations had existed in Palestine prior to the conquest, and some of these local Arab tribes and Bedouin fought as allies of Byzantium in resisting the invasion, which the archaeological evidence indicates was a 'peaceful conquest', and the newcomers were allowed to settle in the old urban areas. Theories of population decline compensated by the importation of foreign populations are not confirmed by the archaeological record Like other \"Arabized\" Arab nations the Arab identity of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins. The Palestinian population has grown dramatically. For several centuries during the Ottoman period the population in Palestine declined and fluctuated between 150,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and it was only in the 19th century that a rapid population growth began to occur.\n",
"The dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuq Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. They conquered Persia, Iraq (capturing Baghdad in 1055), Syria, Palestine, and the Hejaz. This was followed by a series of Christian Western Europe invasions. The fragmentation of the Middle East allowed joint European forces mainly from England, France, and the emerging Holy Roman Empire, to enter the region. In 1099 the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which survived until 1187, when Saladin retook the city. Smaller crusader fiefdoms survived until 1291. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the armies of the Mongol Empire, swept through the region, sacking Baghdad in the Siege of Baghdad (1258) and advancing as far south as the border of Egypt in what became known as the Mongol conquests. The Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuq Turks. In 1401, the region was further plagued by the Turko-Mongol, Timur, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottomans.\n"
] |
what exactly is that steamy-looking stuff that comes out right after a beer bottle is opened? | Water vapour condensed out of the air due to the sudden drop in pressure in the neck of the bottle would be my guess. | [
"\"Beer\" consisted of a cylindrical metal container in diameter and long containing seven or eight half-pint bottles. Each bottle was a SIP grenade - it contained white phosphorus, benzene, water and a strip of raw rubber, long, which dissolved and formed a layer. After a delay caused by a slow burning fuse, the metal container was tipped open and its contents allowed to fall out. Around the neck of each bottle was a small metal sleeve that held a heavy ball about in diameter. The ball was attached to a strip of canvas; this ensured that when the bottles dropped they fell the right way round. The SIP grenades would spontaneously ignite on shattering.\n",
"There have been various explanations for the use of the name \"steam beer\". According to Anchor Brewing, the name \"steam\" came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. Another explanation is that the carbon dioxide pressure produced by the 19th-century steam-beer-making process was very high, and that it may have been necessary as part of the process to let off \"steam\" before attempting to dispense the beer. It is also possible that the name or brewing process derive from \"Dampfbier\" (literally \"steam beer\"), a traditional German beer that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to 19th-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent; Dampfbier is an ale, however, not a lager.\n",
"When the can is opened, the pressure in the can quickly drops, causing the pressurised gas and beer inside the widget to jet out from the hole. This agitation on the surrounding beer causes a chain reaction of bubble formation throughout the beer. The result, when the can is then poured out, is a surging mixture in the glass of very small gas bubbles and liquid.\n",
"The two-liter bottle is a common container for soft drinks, beer, and wine. These bottles are produced from polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET plastic, or glass using the blow molding process. Bottle labels consist of a printed, tight-fitted plastic sleeve. A resealable screw-top allows the contents to be used at various times while retaining carbonation.\n",
"The first step in bottling beer is \"depalletising\", where the empty bottles are removed from the original pallet packaging delivered from the manufacturer, so that individual bottles may be handled. The bottles may then be rinsed with filtered water or air, and may have carbon dioxide injected into them in attempt to reduce the level of oxygen within the bottle. The bottle then enters a \"filler\" which fills the bottle with beer and may also inject a small amount of inert gas (usually carbon dioxide or nitrogen) on top of the beer to disperse the oxygen, as oxygen can ruin the quality of the product via oxidation. Finally, the bottles go through a \"capper\", which applies a bottle cap, sealing the bottle. A few beers are bottled with a cork and cage.\n",
"The bottle is partly filled with water and sealed. The bottle is then pressurized with a gas, usually air compressed from a bicycle pump, air compressor, or cylinder up to 125 psi, but sometimes CO or nitrogen from a cylinder.\n",
"From the cooker, the mash heads to the fermenter where it is cooled to 60–70 °F and yeast is added again. The yeast is fed by the sugars in the mash, producing heat, carbon dioxide and alcohol. Called \"distiller's beer\" or \"wash\", the resulting liquid (after filtering to remove solids) looks, smells and tastes like (and essentially is) a form of beer. The wash is pumped into a column still where it is heated to over 200 °F, causing the alcohol to turn to a vapor. As the vapor cools and falls it turns to a liquid called \"low wine\", which measures 125 proof or 62.5% alcohol. A second distillation in a pot still heats and condenses the liquid into \"high wine\", which reaches 135 proof (67.5% alcohol).\n"
] |
What would need to happen in order for it to be called the LAW of evolution? | There's nothing weak about the word theory. For instance, quantum field theory is the most accurate description of nature that we have.
As for laws and theorems in physics:
*Bell's theorem
*Newton's law of gravity, laws of motion, law of heating and cooling
*Kirkchoff's laws
*Kepler's laws
*Laws of thermodynamics
Are a few
| [
"The statement is often misinterpreted as claiming that evolution is not reversible, or that lost structures and organs cannot reappear in the same form by any process of devolution. According to Richard Dawkins, the law is \"really just a statement about the statistical improbability of following exactly the same evolutionary trajectory twice (or, indeed, any particular trajectory), in either direction\". Stephen Jay Gould suggested that irreversibility forecloses certain evolutionary pathways once broad forms have emerged: \"[For example], once you adopt the ordinary body plan of a reptile, hundreds of options are forever closed, and future possibilities must unfold within the limits of inherited design.\"\n",
"To explain the presence of such a universal \"law\" Peirce proposes a \"cosmological theory of evolution\" in which law develops out of chance. The hypothesis that \"out of irregularity, regularity constantly evolves\" seemed to him to have decided advantages not the least being its explanation of \"why laws are not precisely or always obeyed, for what is still in a process of evolution can not be supposed to be absolutely fixed.\"\n",
"This \"Borel's Law\" is actually the universal probability bound, which when applied to evolution is axiomatically incorrect. The universal probability bound assumes that the event one is trying to measure is completely random, and some use this argument to prove that evolution could not possibly occur, since its probability would be much less than that of the universal probability bound. This, however, is fallacious, given that evolution is not a completely random effect (genetic drift), but rather proceeds with the aid of natural selection.\n",
"BULLET::::- Dollo's law: \"An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors.\" Simply put this law states that evolution is not reversible; the \"law\" is regarded as a generalisation as exceptions may exist.\n",
"Creationists argue against evolution on the grounds that it cannot explain certain non-evolutionary processes, such as abiogenesis, the Big Bang, or the meaning of life. In such instances, \"evolution\" is being redefined to refer to the entire history of the universe, and it is argued that if one aspect of the universe is seemingly inexplicable, the entire body of scientific theories must be baseless. At this point, objections leave the arena of evolutionary biology and become general scientific or philosophical disputes.\n",
"In 2007, Behe's book \"The Edge of Evolution\" was published arguing that while evolution can produce changes within species, there is a limit to the ability of evolution to generate diversity, and this limit (the \"edge of evolution\") is somewhere between species and orders.\n",
"Another objection is that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that \"the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium\". In other words, an isolated system's entropy (a measure of the dispersal of energy in a physical system so that it is not available to do mechanical work) will tend to increase or stay the same, not decrease. Creationists argue that evolution violates this physical law by requiring a decrease in entropy, or disorder, over time.\n"
] |
why hockey refs fake a puck drop during a face off? | So that players who try to anticipate the drop and thus start their swing faster don't get an advantage. They are supposed to wait until the puck is dropped to start their swing. | [
"BULLET::::- In amateur ice hockey, intentionally icing the puck, lining up at the wrong face-off dot, or shooting the puck over the glass (in professional hockey, the team that ices the puck is not allowed a line change, while shooting the puck over the glass leads to a two-minute penalty).\n",
"A team which shoots the puck forward from their half of the ice over the opposing team's goal line in an effort to stonewall is guilty of icing, and the puck is brought to the other end of the ice for a face-off. The rule is not in effect when a team is playing shorthanded due to a penalty. Additionally, a player (usually a goalkeeper) may be charged with a minor (two-minute) penalty for delay of game for shooting the puck over the glass and out of play.\n",
"In ice hockey, if the puck gets knocked out of play (such as into the player's benches, over the glass, or into the netting), a face-off shall be conducted at the nearest face-off dot to where the puck had gone out of play. However, if the puck is directly shot out of bounds over the glass deliberately by a player such as a goaltender or any defensive player within their own defensive zone, a delay of game minor penalty shall be assessed on the offending player.\n",
"During a faceoff, a player may be judged to be in an offside position if they are lined up within 15 feet of the centres before the puck is dropped. This may result in a faceoff violation, at which point the official dropping the puck will wave the centre out of the faceoff spot and require that another player take their place. If one team commits two violations during the same attempt to restart play, it will be assessed a minor penalty for delay of game.\n",
"BULLET::::- The practice of dropping the puck from a few feet up at faceoff rather than placing it directly on the ice, which limited player contact with the referee's shins and ankles during faceoffs.\n",
"Prior to the puck being dropped for a face-off, players other than those taking the face-off must not make any physical contact with players on the opposite team, nor enter the face-off circle (where marked). After the puck is dropped, it is essential for wingers to engage the opposing players to prevent them from obtaining possession of the puck.\n",
"Directly as a result of the rat trick craze, the NHL amended its rules prior to the season to prevent a recurrence of this phenomenon and delays to the game that followed. Per the rule, if fans throw debris onto the ice, the referee can have the public address announcer warn the fans to stop. After a warning, the referee can then issue a delay of game penalty to the home team. The league, however, created a special exemption for articles \"thrown onto the ice following a special occasion\", specifically excluding the traditional tossing of hats onto the ice following a hat trick goal from subjection to the penalty.\n"
] |
why are cans in hawaii shaped differently than regular soda cans? | This is an older design of common cans. Let this guy shed some light on it in the most interesting can-related video ever produced:
_URL_0_ | [
"Cans come in a variety of shapes: two common ones are the \"soup tin\" and the \"tuna tin\". Walls are often stiffened with rib bulges, especially on larger cans, to help the can resist dents that can cause seams to split.\n",
"The American mechanical engineer and inventor Nathaniel Wyeth first patented PET in 1973 and soda companies soon started using PET to package their drinks. Over the past 20 years or so, PET bottles have become the most common material to package beverages, replacing glass and metal. Especially water and soda was starting to be packaged in PET bottles. This is because PET has certain material properties that make it more favorable than glass or metal cans. Most importantly, PET is lightweight and difficult to break. Further, PET is clear and has \"good barrier properties towards moisture and oxygen\". Because of these qualities, PET has replaced glass bottles and metal cans in many instances, with PET bottles also being used for energy drinks, beer, wine, and juice. The introduction of PET bottles marked the final stage in the change away from reusable bottles to \"one-way\", nonreturnable bottles.\n",
"Most cans are right circular cylinders with identical and parallel round tops and bottoms with vertical sides. However, cans for small volumes or particularly-shaped contents, the top and bottom may be rounded-corner rectangles or ovals. Other contents may suit a can that is somewhat conical in shape.\n",
"In the past, \"khanom la\" was made from coconut shell because formerly, there were no cans. People will made in the coconut shell several small holes. In Thailand we call coconut is “Kala”(). Now, they use the canned drilling small holes into device instead of coconut shell.\n",
"Because it is easy and inexpensive to make, it is often served as a punch. At its simplest, it is a bottle or two of plain or coconut-flavored light rum, a bottle of blue curacao, a can of pineapple juice, and a bag of ice, mixed together in a punchbowl. The Blue Hawaii is seasonal, often considered a summer or warm weather drink. Occasionally, because it contains yellow pineapple juice, the Blue Hawaii will have a green coloration instead.\n",
"During the war, soldiers frequently requested that the cylindrical cans be replaced with flat, rectangular ones (similar to a sardine can), comparable to those used in the earliest versions of contemporary K rations, because of their compactness and packability; but this was deemed impractical because of the shortage of commercial machinery available to produce rectangular cans. After 1942 the K ration too, reverted to the use of small round cans.\n",
"Can design and shape have changed drastically. The earliest cans were simple in terms of graphic design and were often corrugated in the middle two-thirds of the can. Cans with straight steel sides appeared next, finally settling on a more modern shape. Like the earlier cans, this type also starts as a flat sheet that is curled and seamed. Extruded steel is also used extensively. Aluminum coffee cans are almost non-existent, although UCC Black is a notable exception.\n"
] |
Would an ancient Roman be able to read and understand the Latin Wikipedia? | Post this to r/latin--I think they'd get a kick out of it. :) | [
"Roman authors, such as Sallust, allude to some books written in the Punic language, but none have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g., Mago's treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus' plays). The Cippi of Melqart, a bilingual inscription in Ancient Greek and Carthaginian discovered in Malta in 1694, was the key which allowed French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy to decipher and reconstruct the alphabet in 1758. Even as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptions were known to scholars. These were compiled in Wilhelm Gesenius's \"Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta\", which comprised all that was known of Phoenician by scholars at that time.\n",
"An intensive program with PhD level professors of Latin who impart grammar, syntax, and vocabulary through related readings of poetry and prose from various moments in Rome's history. Students also engage with Latin as a spoken language. Morning classroom teaching is followed with afternoon walks through the city reading ancient authors in the locations where history happened, as well as inscriptions in their original locations.\n",
"There is even a Latin Wikipedia, although discussions are held not only in Latin but in German, English, and other languages as well. Nearly 200 active editors work on the project. There are nearly 100,000 articles on topics ranging from to , , and . Those in particularly good Latin, currently about 10% of the whole, are marked.\n",
"Even though science continued under the Roman Empire, Latin texts were mainly compilations drawing on earlier Greek work. Advanced scientific research and teaching continued to be carried on in Greek. Such Greek and Hellenistic works as survived were preserved and developed later in the Byzantine Empire and then in the Islamic world. Late Roman attempts to translate Greek writings into Latin had limited success, and direct knowledge of most ancient Greek texts only reached western Europe from the 12th century onwards.\n",
"Wheelock's Latin (originally titled Latin and later Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors) is a comprehensive beginning Latin textbook. Chapters introduce related grammatical topics and assume little or no prior knowledge of Latin grammar or language. Each chapter has a collection of translation exercises created specifically for the book, most drawn directly from ancient sources. Those from Roman authors (\"Sententiae Antiquae\"—lit., \"ancient sentences\" or \"ancient thoughts\") and the reading passages that follow may be either direct quotations or adapted paraphrases of the originals. Interspersed in the text are introductory remarks on Ancient Roman culture. At the end of each chapter is a section called \"Latina Est Gaudium — Et Utilis!\", which means \"Latin Is Fun — And Useful!\" This section introduces phrases that can be used in conversation (such as \"Quid agis hodie?\", meaning \"How are you today?\"), and in particular comments on English words and their relation to Latin. Originally published in 1956 in the Barnes & Noble College Outline Series, the textbook is currently in its seventh edition. The 6th edition has been translated into Korean (2005), with a Korean translation of the 7th edition pending; the 7th edition has been translated into Chinese (2017).\n",
"The Latin Wikipedia () is the Latin language edition of Wikipedia, created in May 2002. As of 2020, it has about articles. While all primary content is in Latin, in discussions modern languages such as English, Italian, French, German or Spanish are often used, since many users (\"usores\") find this easier.\n",
"The full, critically edited Latin text is to be found in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (MHSI), \"Constitutiones\", vol.1, Rome, 1934, pp. 24-32. Also in Reich, \"Documents\", pp. 216-219, and a condensed version in Robinson, \"European History\", ii. 161-165.\n"
] |
how have members of the bush admin not been charged with committing war crimes yet? | This is bull they by definition did commi war crimes facts are not opinions | [
"Bugliosi argues that, under the felony-murder rule, the resulting deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (as of spring 2008) since hostilities began can be charged against Bush as second-degree murder. He said that any of the 50 state attorneys general, as well as any district attorney in the United States, had sufficient grounds to indict Bush for the murder of any soldier or soldiers who live in their state or county\n",
"On May 12, 2012, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found Yoo, along with former President Bush, former Vice President Cheney, and several other senior members of the Bush administration, guilty of war crimes in absentia. The trial heard \"harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan\".\n",
"He also believed that George W. Bush should have been charged with the murders of more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the American-led invasion of that country, because of his belief that Bush launched the invasion under false pretenses. In his book, \"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,\" he laid out his view of evidence and outlined what questions he would ask Bush at a potential murder trial. Bugliosi testified at a House Judiciary Committee meeting on July 25, 2008, at which he urged impeachment proceedings for Bush. The book formed the basis of a 2012 documentary film, \"The Prosecution of an American President.\" \n",
"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is a 2008 book by Vincent Bugliosi, a former prosecutor in Los Angeles. He argues that President George W. Bush took the United States into the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses and should be tried for murder for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. \n",
"With the War Crimes Act in mind, this ruling presented the Bush administration with the risk of criminal liability for war crimes. To address these legal problems, the president requested and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act.\n",
"In early 2004, \"Chronicle\" reporter Lucas Wall interviewed the family of Leroy Sandoval, a Marine from Houston who was killed in Iraq. After the article appeared, Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station KSEV and said that a sentence alleging \"President Bush's failure to find weapons of mass destruction\" in Iraq misrepresented their views on the war and President George W. Bush, that Wall had pressured them for a quotation that criticized Bush, and that the line alleging Bush's \"failure\" was included against the wishes of the family.\n",
"Bugliosi argues that, under the felony-murder rule, the resulting deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (as of spring 2008) since hostilities began can be charged against Bush as second-degree murder. He said that any of the 50 state attorneys general, as well as any district attorney in the United States, had sufficient grounds to indict Bush for the murder of any soldier or soldiers who live in their state or county. Bugliosi said as a prosecutor he would seek the death penalty. He said that an impeachment of Bush (as discussed by other opponents) would be \"a joke\" because of the scale of Bush's alleged crimes.\n"
] |
what does board mean in room and board? | If someone is offering "room and board", they are offering to house and feed you (generally). This sometimes is forgotten, but that's what it means. | [
"Room and board describes a situation where, in exchange for money, labor or other considerations, a person is provided with a place to live as well as meals on a comprehensive basis. It commonly occurs as a fee at colleges and universities; it also occurs in hotel-style accommodation for short stays.\n",
"The \"floor\" is the name for the full assembly, and a \"committee\" is a small deliberative assembly that is usually subordinate to the floor. In the United Kingdom, either chamber may opt to take some business such as detailed consideration of a Bill on the Floor of the House instead of in Committee.\n",
"A floor model is a piece of equipment placed in a retail shop's sales area for display purposes. Floor models are taken out of their packaging and displayed how they would be used. In the case of furniture, stores will arrange pieces as they may be placed in the home. Appliances, such as microwaves, refrigerators, and washing machines, are typically put into rows so customers may compare the different models. Consumer electronics are typically plugged into an electric outlet, cable or satellite television feed, or local area network as appropriate. In all cases, floor models allow customers to test the quality of the displayed merchandise, or compare between different models of a certain type.\n",
"Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. Both terms are used interchangeably but floor covering refers more to loose-laid materials.\n",
"A \"board\", which is an administrative, managerial, or quasi-judicial body. A board derives its power from an outside authority that defines the scope of its operations. Examples include an organized society's or company's board of directors and government agency boards like a board of education.\n",
"The board is a square divided into seven rows and columns. The outer centre squares on each side of the board are specially marked. They are the starting squares for each player, and also function as \"resting squares\".\n",
"A floor trader is a member of a stock or commodities exchange who trades on the floor of that exchange for his or her own account. The floor trader must abide by trading rules similar to those of the exchange specialists who trade on behalf of others. The term should not be confused with floor broker. Floor traders are occasionally referred to as registered competitive traders, individual liquidity providers or locals.\n"
] |
why do a lot of hentai and japanese porn use rape? | I would theorize it comes partially from the cultural status of women in japan as submissive beings that you can force your will on, and partially from the value of purity in the sense that a women *wanting* it is slutty. As a result you get a power fantasy of forceful men and an unwanting/pure woman.
At least in hentai there is also a difference between "true" rape and corruption rape, the former has the girl remaining resistant until the end, and seems to me to remain somewhat rare - The corruption of purity on the other hand seems to be *extremely* popular, in which case the girl is reluctant *at first* and then "learns to love it". So basically, turning someone pure and innocent to corrupt and slutty is what's fetishized here more so than the actual rape. | [
"Traditional Japanese religions do not consider sex or pornography a moral corruption in the Judaeo-Christian sense, and until the changing morals of the Meiji era led to its suppression, shunga erotic prints were a major genre. While the Tokugawa regime subjected Japan to strict censorship laws, pornography was not considered an important offence and generally met with the censors' approval. Many of these prints displayed a high level a draughtsmanship, and often humour, in their explicit depictions of bedroom scenes, voyeurs, and oversized anatomy. As with depictions of courtesans, these images were closely tied to entertainments of the pleasure quarters. Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced shunga at some point. Records of societal acceptance of shunga are absent, though Timon Screech posits that there were almost certainly some concerns over the matter, and that its level of acceptability has been exaggerated by later collectors, especially in the West.\n",
"With the relaxation of censorship in Japan after the early 1990s, various forms of graphically drawn sexual content appeared in manga intended for male readers that correspondingly occurred in English translations. These depictions ranged from partial to total nudity through implied and explicit sexual intercourse through sadomasochism (SM), incest, rape, and sometimes zoophilia (bestiality). In some cases, rape and lust-murder themes came to the forefront, as in \"Urotsukidōji\" by Toshio Maeda and \"Blue Catalyst\" from 1994 by Kei Taniguchi, but these extreme elements are not commonplace in either untranslated or translated manga.\n",
"The Japanese Anti-child prostitution and pornography law was enacted in November 1999—and revised in 2004 to criminalize distribution of child pornography over the Internet—defines child pornography as the depiction \"in a way that can be recognized visually, such a pose of a child relating to sexual intercourse or an act similar to sexual intercourse with or by the child\", of \"a pose of a child relating to the act of touching genital organs, etc.\" or the depiction of \"a pose of a child who is naked totally or partially in order to arouse or stimulate the viewer's sexual desire.\"\n",
"In Japan, pornographic art depicting underage characters (\"lolicon\", \"shotacon\") is legal but remains controversial even within the country. They are commonly found in manga, erotic computer games, and doujinshi.\n",
"There is a popular belief that links the origin of the practice to a form of punishment for adultery on women in medieval Japan. In fact, that description of its origin is false, mainly because the actual punishment for cheating wives was decapitation. Bukkake was first represented in pornographic films in the mid to late 1980s in Japan. According to one commentator, a significant factor in the development of bukkake as a pornographic form was the mandatory censorship in Japan where genitals must be pixelated by a \"mosaic\". One consequence of this is that Japanese pornography tends to focus more on the face and body of actresses rather than on their genitals. Since film producers could not show penetration, they sought other ways to depict sex acts without violating Japanese law and since semen did not need to be censored, a loophole existed for harder sex scenes. However, popularization of the act and the term for it has been credited to director Kazuhiko Matsumoto in 1998. The Japanese adult video studio Shuttle Japan registered the term \"ぶっかけ/BUKKAKE\" as a trademark (No. 4545137) in January 2001.\n",
"A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.\n",
"Rape fantasy is a theme commonly found in yaoi manga. Anal intercourse is understood as a means of expressing commitment to a partner, and in yaoi, the \"apparent violence\" of rape is transformed into a \"measure of passion\". While Japanese society often shuns or looks down upon women who are raped in reality, the yaoi genre depicts men who are raped as still \"imbued with innocence\" and are typically still loved by their rapists after the act, a trope that may have originated with \"Kaze to Ki no Uta\". Rape scenes in yaoi are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim: scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not depicted as symptomatic of the \"disruptive sexual/violent desires\" of the seme, but instead are a signifier of the \"uncontrollable love\" felt by a seme for an uke. Such scenes are often a plot device used to make the uke see the seme as more than just a good friend and typically result in the uke falling in love with the seme. Rape fantasy themes explore the protagonist's lack of responsibility in sex, leading to the narrative climax of the story, where \"the protagonist takes responsibility for his own sexuality\".\n"
] |
Why can't the immune system prevent shingles outbreaks, since it already has antibodies for the virus? | My professor explained it as a cellular vs humoral immunity question.
Antibodies do a great job of stopping spread in humors (blood, interstitial fluid, etc.) -- hence antibody immunity is called humoral immunity. But, Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) survives in the nerve (dorsal root ganglia, to be specific), which is an immune-privileged site -- no antibodies or T cells are getting into a nerve. So when the virus decides to come out of the nerve back to the skin cells (not well understood when or why, as CD8plus said), it can easily track along the nerve and infect adjacent cells.
& nbsp;
So, our only way of getting rid of the VZV outbreak in our skin cells (ie shingles) is for T cells to move in and purge the infected cells. This takes a while, and is very inflammatory. | [
"Unless the immune system is compromised, it suppresses reactivation of the virus and prevents shingles outbreaks. Why this suppression sometimes fails is poorly understood, but shingles is more likely to occur in people whose immune systems are impaired due to aging, immunosuppressive therapy, psychological stress, or other factors. Upon reactivation, the virus replicates in neuronal cell bodies, and virions are shed from the cells and carried down the axons to the area of skin innervated by that ganglion. In the skin, the virus causes local inflammation and blistering. The short- and long-term pain caused by shingles outbreaks originates from inflammation of affected nerves due to the widespread growth of the virus in those areas.\n",
"Antibodies can continue to be an effective defence mechanism even after viruses have managed to gain entry to the host cell. A protein that is in cells, called TRIM21, can attach to the antibodies on the surface of the virus particle. This primes the subsequent destruction of the virus by the enzymes of the cell's proteosome system.\n",
"As with chickenpox and other forms of alpha-herpesvirus infection, direct contact with an active rash can spread the virus to a person who lacks immunity to it. This newly infected individual may then develop chickenpox, but will not immediately develop shingles.\n",
"The causative agent for shingles is the varicella zoster virus (VZV) – a double-stranded DNA virus related to the herpes simplex virus. Most individuals are infected with this virus as children which causes an episode of chickenpox. The immune system eventually eliminates the virus from most locations, but it remains dormant (or latent) in the ganglia adjacent to the spinal cord (called the dorsal root ganglion) or the trigeminal ganglion in the base of the skull.\n",
"Shingles is due to a reactivation of varicella zoster virus (VZV) in a person's body. The disease chickenpox is caused by the initial infection with VZV. Once chickenpox has resolved, the virus may remain inactive in nerve cells. When it reactivates, it travels from the nerve body to the endings in the skin, producing blisters. Risk factors for reactivation include old age, poor immune function, and having had chickenpox before 18 months of age. How the virus remains in the body or subsequently re-activates is not well understood. Exposure to the virus in the blisters can cause chickenpox in someone who has not had it, but will not trigger shingles. Diagnosis is typically based on a person's signs and symptoms. Varicella zoster virus is not the same as herpes simplex virus; however, they belong to the same family of viruses.\n",
"When an individual is infected with this particular virus, its immune system can play a role in clearing away the virus particles. Alphaviruses are able to cause the production of interferons. Antibodies and T cells are also involved. The neutralizing antibodies also play an important role to prevent further infection and spread.\n",
"Because the production of intrinsic immune mediating proteins cannot be increased during infection, these defenses can become saturated and ineffective if a cell is infected with a high level of virus.\n"
] |
At what altitude on earth is the air pressure roughly equivalent to the surface pressure of the Martian atmosphere? | > The surface pressure on Mars is equivalent to the range of pressures on Earth at altitudes between ~30 km and ~60 km.
--[Math Encounters Blog](_URL_1_)
> At altitudes above 50,000 feet [_15.2 km_] man requires a pressurized suit to be safe in this near space environment.
--[A Brief History of the Pressure Suit](_URL_0_)
> At 55,000 feet [_16.76 km_], atmospheric pressure is so low that water vapor in the body appears to boil causing the skin to inflate like a balloon. At 63,000 feet [_19.2 km_] blood at normal body temperature (98 F) appears to boil. ... At altitudes above 65,000 feet [_19.8 km_] atmospheric pressure approaches that of space, that is the pressurization factors for protective equipment to be used at 65,000 feet are essentially the same as would be required for survival in a vacuum.
--[A Brief History of the Pressure Suit](_URL_0_) | [
"At about 28 miles (45 km, 150 thousand feet ) Earth altitude the pressure starts to be equivalent to Mars surface pressure. However, the major component of Mars air, CO gas, is denser than Earth air for a given pressure. Perhaps more significantly there is no land at this altitude on earth. The highest point on earth is the summit of Mount Everest at about 5.5 miles (8.8 km, 29 thousand feet), where the pressure is about fifty times greater than on the surface of Mars. The correct atmospheric pressure can be created by a vacuum chamber. NASA's Space Power Facility was used to test the airbag landing systems for the Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, under simulated Mars atmospheric conditions.\n",
"Atmospheric pressure at a particular location is the force per unit area perpendicular to a surface determined by the weight of the vertical column of atmosphere above that location. On Earth, units of air pressure are based on the internationally recognized standard atmosphere (atm), which is defined as 101.325 kPa (760 Torr or 14.696 psi). It is measured with a barometer.\n",
"In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. As elevation increases, there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation. Pressure measures force per unit area, with SI units of Pascals (1 pascal = 1 newton per square metre, 1N/m). On average, a column of air with a cross-sectional area of 1 square centimetre (cm), measured from mean (average) sea level to the top of Earth's atmosphere, has a mass of about 1.03 kilogram and exerts a force or \"weight\" of about 10.1 newtons, resulting in a pressure of 10.1 N/cm or 101kN/m (101 kilopascals, kPa). A column of air with a cross-sectional area of 1in would have a weight of about 14.7lb, resulting in a pressure of 14.7lb/in.\n",
"One atmosphere is approximately equal to 33 feet of sea water or 14.7 psi, which gives 4.9/11 or about 0.445 psi per foot. Atmospheric pressure may be considered constant at sea level, and minor fluctuations caused by the weather are usually ignored. Pressures measured in fsw and msw are gauge pressure, relative to the surface pressure of 1 atm absolute, except when a pressure difference is measured between the locks of a hyperbaric chamber, which is also generally measured in fsw and msw.\n",
"The typical atmospheric pressure at the top of Olympus Mons is 72 pascals, about 12% of the average Martian surface pressure of 600 pascals. Both are exceedingly low by terrestrial standards; by comparison, the atmospheric pressure at the summit of Mount Everest is 32,000 pascals, or about 32% of Earth's sea level pressure. Even so, high-altitude orographic clouds frequently drift over the Olympus Mons summit, and airborne Martian dust is still present. Although the average Martian surface atmospheric pressure is less than one percent of Earth's, the much lower gravity of Mars increases the atmosphere's scale height; in other words, Mars's atmosphere is expansive and does not drop off in density with height as sharply as Earth's.\n",
"In thermodynamic calculations, a commonly used pressure unit is the \"standard atmosphere\". This is the pressure resulting from a column of mercury of 760 mm in height at 0 °C. For the density of mercury, use ρ = 13,595 kg/m and for gravitational acceleration use g = 9.807 m/s.\n",
"The pressure of the atmosphere is maximum at sea level and decreases with altitude. This is because the atmosphere is very nearly in hydrostatic equilibrium so that the pressure is equal to the weight of air above a given point. The change in pressure with altitude can be equated to the density with the hydrostatic equation\n"
] |
the core principles of immanuel kant's philosphy. | Kant answers 3 big questions:
1- what is reality?
Kant says there's a real world outside of your body. But the way you experience this world (using your senses of seeing, hearing, touching etc.) creates a map, or model, of this outside reality in your mind, which is unique to YOU. Even things like space and time are unique to you. So if you had different senses, like Superman has superhearing, you'd have a completely different model of reality.
2- what should be? (Right and wrong)
This is Kant's most famous contribution (categorical imperatives.) It means when you conclude that something is wrong, it is wrong 100% of the time, under any circumstances, and for everybody. You can't say murder is wrong then justify using it in some situations (capital punishment, war, etc.) It does not change nor does it matter where or when.
His point is that because your model of reality is unique to you, you can always come up with situations to convince yourself what you're doing isn't wrong ("it's not stealing if you're starving.") And there would be no sense of morality if enough people do that. The only way that there can be any morality is that right and wrong are universally established.
3- How should society be governed?
So since right and wrong are universal, societies should be governed by a constitution and by the rule of law. Pure democracy (rule of majority) is not the answer, because no matter how many people believe something to be right, wrong is always wrong. | [
"Immanuel Kant employs the term \"amphiboly\" in a sense of his own, as he has done in the case of other philosophical words. He denotes by it a confusion of the notions of the pure understanding with the perceptions of experience, and a consequent ascription to the latter of what belongs only to the former.\n",
"Immanuel Kant had a radically different view of morality. In his view, there are universal laws of morality that one should never break regardless of emotions. He proposes a four-step system to determine whether or not a given action was moral based on logic and reason. The first step of this method involves formulating \"a maxim capturing your reason for an action\". In the second step, one \"frame[s] it as a universal principle for all rational agents\". The third step is assessing \"whether a world based on this universal principle is conceivable\". If it is, then the fourth step is asking oneself \"whether [one] would will the maxim to be a principle in this world\". In essence, an action is moral if the maxim by which it is justified is one which could be universalized. For instance, when deciding whether or not to lie to someone for one's own advantage, one is meant to imagine what the world would be like if everyone always lied, and successfully so. In such a world, there would be no purpose in lying, for everybody would expect deceit, rendering the universal maxim of lying whenever it is to your advantage absurd. Thus, Kant argues that one should not lie under any circumstance. Another example would be if trying to decide whether suicide is moral or immoral; imagine if everyone committed suicide. Since mass international suicide would not be a good thing, the act of suicide is immoral. Kant's moral framework, however, operates under the overarching maxim that you should treat each person as an end in themselves, not as a means to an end. This overarching maxim must be considered when applying the four aforementioned steps. \n",
"Immanuel Kant's \"Critique of Pure Reason\", first published in 1781 and presented again with major revisions in 1787, represents a significant intervention into what will later become known as the philosophy of mind. Kant's first critique is generally recognized as among the most significant works of modern philosophy in the West. Kant is a figure whose influence is marked in both continental and analytic/Anglo-American philosophy. Kant's work develops an in-depth study of transcendental consciousness, or the life of the mind as conceived through universal categories of consciousness.\n",
"Thomas McFarland (2002), in his \"Prolegomena\" to Coleridge's \"Opus Maximum\", identifies Immanuel Kant's \"Critique of Pure Reason\" (1781) as the genesis of the thesis/antithesis dyad. Kant concretises his ideas into:\n",
"In his discussion of \"Spirit\" in his \"Encyclopedia\", Hegel praises Aristotle's \"On the Soul\" as \"by far the most admirable, perhaps even the sole, work of philosophical value on this topic\". In his \"Phenomenology of Spirit\" and his \"Science of Logic\", Hegel's concern with Kantian topics such as freedom and morality and with their ontological implications is pervasive. Rather than simply rejecting Kant's dualism of freedom versus nature, Hegel aims to subsume it within \"true infinity\", the \"Concept\" (or \"Notion\": \"Begriff\"), \"Spirit\" and \"ethical life\" in such a way that the Kantian duality is rendered intelligible, rather than remaining a brute \"given\".\n",
"Hannah Arendt stated that Immanuel Kant distinguished between \"Vernunft\" (\"reason\") and \"Verstand\" (\"intellect\"): these two categories are equivalents of \"the urgent need of\" reason, and the \"mere quest and desire for knowledge\". Differentiating between reason and intellect, or the need to reason and the quest for knowledge, as Kant has done, according to Arendt \"coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing, and two altogether different concerns, meaning, in the first category, and cognition, in the second\". These ideas were also developed by Kantian philosopher, Wilhelm Windelband, in his discussion of the approaches to knowledge named \"nomothetic\" and \"idiographic\".\n",
"The thinking of Immanuel Kant greatly influenced moral philosophy. He thought of moral value as a unique and universally identifiable property, as an absolute value rather than a relative value. He showed that many practical goods are good only in states-of-affairs described by a sentence containing an \"if\" clause, e.g., in the sentence, \"Sunshine is only good if you do not live in the desert.\" Further, the \"if\" clause often described the category in which the judgment was made (art, science, etc.). Kant described these as \"hypothetical goods\", and tried to find a \"categorical\" good that would operate across all categories of judgment without depending on an \"if-then\" clause.\n"
] |
How is nuclear radiation stored in objects? | Unstable nuclei will eventually decay and emit radiation. If something is bombarded with neutrons, some of them are captured by the nuclei, which can become unstable. In the case of water, it's possible that some could be captured to produce tritium, which is radioactive. | [
"Since nuclear materials are radioactive, it is important to ensure that radiation exposure of those involved in the transport of such materials and of the general public along transport routes is limited. Packaging for nuclear materials includes, where appropriate, shielding to reduce potential radiation exposures. In the case of some materials, such as fresh uranium fuel assemblies, the radiation levels are negligible and no shielding is required. Other materials, such as spent fuel and high-level waste, are highly radioactive and require special handling. To limit the risk in transporting highly radioactive materials, containers known as spent nuclear fuel shipping casks are used which are designed to maintain integrity under normal transportation conditions and during hypothetical accident conditions.\n",
"In order to store the high level radioactive waste in long-term geological depositories, specific waste forms need to be used which will allow the radioactivity to decay away while the materials retain their integrity for thousands of years. The materials being used can be broken down into a few classes: glass waste forms, ceramic waste forms, and nanostructured materials.\n",
"Radiation is used to determine the composition of materials in a process called neutron activation analysis. In this process, scientists bombard a sample of a substance with particles called neutrons. Some of the atoms in the sample absorb neutrons and become radioactive. The scientists can identify the elements in the sample by studying the emitted radiation.\n",
"Cosmic radiation will produce secondary neutrons if it hits spacecraft structures. Those neutrons will be captured in B, if it is present in the spacecraft's semiconductors, producing a gamma ray, an alpha particle, and a lithium ion. Those resultant decay products may then irradiate nearby semiconductor \"chip\" structures, causing data loss (bit flipping, or single event upset). In radiation-hardened semiconductor designs, one countermeasure is to use \"depleted boron\", which is greatly enriched in B and contains almost no B. This is useful because B is largely immune to radiation damage. Depleted boron is a byproduct of the nuclear industry.\n",
"The neutron radiation serves to transmute the surrounding matter, often rendering it radioactive. When added to the dust of radioactive material released by the bomb itself, a large amount of radioactive material is released into the environment. This form of radioactive contamination is known as nuclear fallout and poses the primary risk of exposure to ionizing radiation for a large nuclear weapon.\n",
"The museum exhibits objects that were exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb. Though some materials are double-cased, display techniques generally are not tailored in any special way for the preservation of these materials.\n",
"The largest, and therefore the most radioactive particles, are deposited by fallout in the first few hours after the blast. Smaller particles are carried to higher altitudes and descend more slowly, reaching ground in a less radioactive state as the isotopes with the shortest half-lives decay the fastest. The smallest particles can reach the stratosphere and stay there for weeks, months, or even years, and cover an entire hemisphere of the planet via atmospheric currents. The higher danger, short-term, localized fallout is deposited primarily downwind from the blast site, in a cigar-shaped area, assuming a wind of constant strength and direction. Crosswinds, changes in wind direction, and precipitation are factors that can greatly alter the fallout pattern.\n"
] |
If we set off a nuke near Jupiters core.... | No. Some fusion might occur but it would not be self-sustaining. | [
"\"Jupiter\" sank the on 17 January 1942. On 27 February 1942 she struck a mine laid earlier in the day by the as she steamed with the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) cruiser force during the Battle of the Java Sea. The destroyer sank off the north Java coast in the Java Sea at 21:16 hours. Initially, the explosion was thought to have been caused by a Japanese torpedo.\n",
"BULLET::::- 27 August – NASA's \"Juno\" probe makes a close pass of Jupiter, coming within of the cloud tops – the closest any spacecraft has ever approached the gas giant without entering its atmosphere.\n",
"At about 75 Jupiter radii from the planet, the interaction of the magnetosphere with the solar wind generates a bow shock. Surrounding Jupiter's magnetosphere is a magnetopause, located at the inner edge of a magnetosheath—a region between it and the bow shock. The solar wind interacts with these regions, elongating the magnetosphere on Jupiter's lee side and extending it outward until it nearly reaches the orbit of Saturn. The four largest moons of Jupiter all orbit within the magnetosphere, which protects them from the solar wind.\n",
"On June 24, 2016 the Waves instrument recorded \"Juno\" passing across Jupiter's magnetic field's bow shock. It took about two hours for the unmanned spacecraft to cross this region of space. On June 25, 2016 it encountered the magnetopause. \"Juno\" would go on to enter Jupiter's orbit in July 2016. The magnetosphere blocks the charged particles of the solar wind, with the number of solar wind particles \"Juno\" encountered dropping 100-fold when it entered the Jovian magnetosphere. Before \"Juno\" entered it, it was encountering about 16 solar wind particles per cubic inch of space.\n",
"In the present day, a rapidly moving object is detected beyond Jupiter's orbit and forecast to impact Manhattan. It is moving at 30,000 kilometers per second, enough to destroy all life on Earth. The United States government hastily assembles a group of scientists, including Dr. Helen Benson and her friend Dr. Michael Granier, to develop a survival plan.\n",
"The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia in June 1908. (This would be approximately 12,500–13,000 Megatons of TNT, over a million times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.)\n",
"More exciting for planetary astronomers was that the best orbital calculations suggested that the comet would pass within of the center of Jupiter, a distance smaller than the planet's radius, meaning that there was an extremely high probability that SL9 would collide with Jupiter in July 1994. Studies suggested that the train of nuclei would plow into Jupiter's atmosphere over a period of about five days.\n"
] |
why does squirting lemon juice over spicy food make it less spicy? | It does reduce the spice. Spicy chili peppers contain an oil called *capsaicin* which gives the spicy flavor. Lemon juice has acids in it, and the acids neutralize the oils, which reduces the spice. | [
"Astringency, the dry, puckering mouthfeel caused by the tannins in unripe fruits, lets the fruit mature by deterring eating. Ripe fruits and fruit parts including blackthorn (sloe berries), \"Aronia\" chokeberry, chokecherry, bird cherry, rhubarb, quince and persimmon fruits, and banana skins are very astringent; citrus fruits, like lemons, are somewhat astringent. Tannins, being a kind of polyphenol, bind salivary proteins and make them precipitate and aggregate, producing a rough, \"sandpapery\", or dry sensation in the mouth. The tannins in some teas and red grape wines like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot produce mild astringency.\n",
"After using toothpaste, orange juice and other juices have an unpleasant taste. Sodium lauryl sulfate alters taste perception. It can break down phospholipids that inhibit taste receptors for sweetness, giving food a bitter taste. In contrast, apples are known to taste more pleasant after using toothpaste. Distinguishing between the hypotheses that the bitter taste of orange juice results from stannous fluoride or from sodium lauryl sulfate is still an unresolved issue and it is thought that the menthol added for flavor may also take part in the alteration of taste perception when binding to lingual cold receptors.\n",
"Although citrus fruits do not themselves contain tannins, orange-colored juices often contain food dyes with tannins. Apple juice, grape juices and berry juices are all high in tannins. Sometimes tannins are even added to juices and ciders to create a more astringent feel to the taste.\n",
"Limonin and other limonoid compounds contribute to the bitter taste of some citrus food products. Researchers have proposed removal of limonoids from orange juice and other products (known as \"debittering\") through the use of polymeric films.\n",
"While the lemon or orange are peeled to consume their pulpy and juicy segments, the citron's pulp is dry, containing a small quantity of insipid juice, if any. The main content of a citron fruit is the thick white rind, which adheres to the segments and cannot be separated from them easily. The citron gets halved and depulped, then its rind (the thicker the better) is cut in pieces, cooked in sugar syrup, and used as a spoon sweet, in Greek known as \"kitro glyko\" (κίτρο γλυκό), or it is diced and caramelized with sugar and used as a confection in cakes.\n",
"Succade is the candied peel of any of the citrus species, especially from the citron or \"Citrus medica\" which is distinct with its extra-thick peel; in addition, the taste of the inner rind of the citron is less bitter than those of the other citrus. However, the term is also occasionally applied to the peel, root, or even entire fruit or vegetable like parsley, fennel and cucurbita which have a bitter taste and are boiled with sugar to get a special \"sweet and sour\" outcome.\n",
"Lemons contain numerous phytochemicals, including polyphenols, terpenes, and tannins. Lemon juice contains slightly more citric acid than lime juice (about 47 g/l), nearly twice the citric acid of grapefruit juice, and about five times the amount of citric acid found in orange juice.\n"
] |
if oil is ancient organic matter, then how is there so much of it? | Hundreds of millions of years of swamps doing swampy things...
...like sucking down carbon from the atmosphere and sinking it in anoxic environments where it turns to kerogen and then to fossil fuels.
The Carboniferous period predated the Permian Triassic Mass Extinction Event —aka: The Great Dying— by laying down gigatons of Carbon... which turned to coal, oil, and methane... huge volumes of which were burned by the EXTREME volcanism of the Siberian Traps.
Like 96%+ of the tree of life went extinct.
[Burning Fossil Fuels Almost Ended Life on Earth](_URL_0_) | [
"Petroleum is a naturally occurring liquid found in rock formations. It consists of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds. It is generally accepted that oil is formed mostly from the carbon rich remains of ancient plankton after exposure to heat and pressure in Earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years. Over time, the decayed residue was covered by layers of mud and silt, sinking further down into Earth’s crust and preserved there between hot and pressured layers, gradually transforming into oil reservoirs.\n",
"It may be possible to make petroleum from any kind of organic matter under suitable conditions. The concentration of organic matter is not very high in the original deposits, but petroleum and natural gas evolved in places that favored retention, such as sealed-off porous sandstones. Petroleum, produced over millions of years by natural changes in organic materials, accumulates beneath the earth's surface in extremely large quantities.\n",
"It consists of naturally occurring hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and may contain miscellaneous organic compounds. The name \"petroleum\" covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, mostly zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both intense heat and pressure.\n",
"Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae. Vast amounts of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms where they were covered in stagnant water (water with no dissolved oxygen) or sediments such as mud and silt faster than they could decompose aerobically. Approximately 1 m below this sediment or water oxygen concentration was low, below 0.1 mg/l, and anoxic conditions existed. Temperatures also remained constant.\n",
"Heavy crude oil, which is much more viscous than conventional crude oil, and oil sands, where bitumen is found mixed with sand and clay, began to become more important as sources of fossil fuel as of the early 2000s. Oil shale and similar materials are sedimentary rocks containing kerogen, a complex mixture of high-molecular weight organic compounds, which yield synthetic crude oil when heated (pyrolyzed). These materials have yet to be fully exploited commercially. With additional processing, they can be employed in lieu of other already established fossil fuel deposits. More recently, there has been disinvestment from exploitation of such resources due to their high carbon cost, relative to more easily processed reserves.\n",
"Crude oil is found in all oil reservoirs formed in the Earth's crust from the remains of once-living things. Evidence indicates that millions of years of heat and pressure changed the remains of microscopic plant and animal into oil and natural gas.\n",
"Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed \"petrochemicals\", are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil. The name \"mineral oil\" is a misnomer, in that minerals are not the source of the oil—ancient plants and animals are. Mineral oil is organic. However, it is classified as \"mineral oil\" instead of as \"organic oil\" because its organic origin is remote (and was unknown at the time of its discovery), and because it is obtained in the vicinity of rocks, underground traps, and sands. \"Mineral oil\" also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.\n"
] |
what exactly is management consulting? | In short you're correct: a management consultancy does spend a lot of time investigating a company, then makes a number of recommendations to senior staff on how to improve their business.
Not all management consultants are equal. The senior consultants and partners spend a lot of time with senior members of the company with which they're working, discussing performance and strategies.
Mid-level consultants tend to hold interviews with mid-level managers to understand the company and recognise problems. They may also supervise a team of junior consultants.
The junior consultants spend a lot of time typing up notes, fiddling with PowerPoint slides and ordering dinner because they're having to work very late.
Depending on ability, performance and luck it takes about 5 years and an MBA to move from junior to senior. | [
"The practice of management consulting is about \"helping organizations to improve their performance, operating primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and the development of plans for improvement.\" with the purpose of \"gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise.\" It follows therefore that there is scope for an international organization to promote and foster competence in the management consulting profession.\n",
"Management consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise.\n",
"Management consulting indicates both the industry of, and the practice of, helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement.\n",
"There is a relatively unclear line between management consulting and IT consulting. There are sometimes overlaps between the two fields, but IT consultants often have degrees in computer science, electronics, technology, or management information systems while management consultants often have degrees in accounting, economics, Industrial Engineering, finance, or a generalized MBA (Masters in Business Administration).\n",
"Consulting psychology is a specialty area of psychology that addresses such areas as assessment and interventions at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The \"Handbook of Organizational Consulting Psychology\" provides an overview of specific areas of study and application within the field. The major journal in the field is \"\". Consulting psychologists typically work in business or non-profit organizations, in consulting firms or in private practice. Consulting psychologists are typically professionally licensed as psychologists.\n",
"Consulting psychology includes the application of psychology to consulting contexts at the individual, group and organizational levels. The field specializes in assessment and intervention, particularly in business and organizational applications but also is concerned with the consulting process used to assess and facilitate change in any area of psychology. Lowman (2002) provides an overview of the field, including the relevance of individual, group and organizational levels to consulting psychologists.\n",
"In contrast to management consulting, which primarily concerns internal organization and performance, risk and strategic consulting aims to provide clients with an improved understanding of the political and economic climate in which they operate. Most such consultancy is focused on those developing countries and emerging markets in which political and business risks may be greater, harder to manage, or harder to assess. Risk and strategic consulting is sometimes carried out alongside other activities such as corporate investigation, forensic accounting, employee screening or vetting, and the provision of security systems, training or procedures. Some of the largest groups in the industry include Kroll Inc. and Control Risks Group, though the size and range of consultancies varies widely, with groups such as Black Cube and Hakluyt & Company providing boutique services. \n"
] |
Why didn't Israel keep the Sinai peninsular? | Because giving it up was a hugely important bargaining chip for peace with Egypt. No one really regarded it as part of Israel (the way the West Bank is), though there were people there who were less than thrilled about being kicked out. Making it demilitarized allowed for Israel to retain a buffer, while still getting peace with Egypt. | [
"The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty led Israel to give up the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and transform the military rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into the Israeli Civil Administration in 1981. The Western part of Golan Heights was unilaterally annexed by Israel the same year, thus abolishing the Military Governorate system entirely.\n",
"Under a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the peninsula is supposed to remain demilitarized, but Israel permitted the Egyptians to deploy about seven battalions in the peninsula to enforce control. Israel hopes that in this way, Egypt will be more able to eliminate terrorists that pose a threat to Egypt and Israel.\n",
"The Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt ( BC). This comes in stark contrast to the region north of it, the Levant (present-day territories of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine), which, due largely to its strategic geopolitical location and cultural convergences, has historically been the center of conflict between Egypt and various states of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire (1517–1867) and the United Kingdom (1882–1956). Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis (known in Egypt as the \"Tripartite Aggression\" due to the simultaneous coordinated attack by the UK, France and Israel) of 1956, and during the Six-Day War of 1967. On 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was unsuccessful. In 1982, as a result of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai Peninsula except the contentious territory of Taba, which was returned after a ruling by a commission of arbitration in 1989.\n",
"Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War. It established settlements along the Gulf of Aqaba and in the northeast portion, just below the Gaza Strip. It had plans to expand the settlement of Yamit into a city with a population of 200,000, though the actual population of Yamit did not exceed 3,000. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in stages beginning in 1979 as part of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty. As required by the treaty, Israel evacuated Israeli military installations and civilian settlements prior to the establishment of \"normal and friendly relations\" between it and Egypt. Israel dismantled eighteen settlements, two air force bases, a naval base, and other installations by 1982, including the only oil resources under Israeli control. The evacuation of the civilian population, which took place in 1982, was done forcefully in some instances, such as the evacuation of Yamit. The settlements were demolished, as it was feared that settlers might try to return to their homes after the evacuation. Since 1982, the Sinai Peninsula has not been regarded as occupied territory.\n",
"The Sinai peninsula status was returned to full sovereignty of Egypt in 1982 as a result of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. The United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice both describe the West Bank and Western Golan Heights as \"occupied territory\" under international law, and the Supreme Court of Israel describes it as held \"in belligerent occupation\", however Israel's government calls all of them \"disputed\" rather than \"occupied\". Israel's government also argues that since the Gaza disengagement of 2005, it does not militarily occupy the Gaza strip, a statement rejected by the United Nations Human Rights Council and Human Rights Watch because Israel continues to maintain control of its airspace, waters, and borders.\n",
"In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula. Israel subsequently withdrew in several stages, ending in 1982. The Israeli pull-out involved dismantling almost all Israeli settlements, including the settlement of Yamit in north-eastern Sinai. The exception was that the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh (which the Israelis had founded as Ofira during their occupation of the Sinai Peninsula) was not dismantled. The Treaty allows monitoring of Sinai by the Multinational Force and Observers, and limits the number of Egyptian military forces in the peninsula.\n",
"Following Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, captured during the 1956 Suez Crisis, the peninsula remained de facto demilitarized of most Egyptian forces. It was garrisoned by one infantry brigade, elements of several reconnaissance regiments and up to 100 tanks. Although the outcome of the Suez Crisis had been politically positive for Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), as well as military and civilian decision makers, had regarded Israel's military victory in the war as an effective deterrent to future Egyptian designs. In early 1960, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, therefore, estimated that Egypt would seek \"to avoid a military confrontation with Israel and keep the United Nations Emergency Force\" (UNEF) installed in the Gaza Strip following the crisis.\n"
] |
Reddit science people, my 6 year old would like an answer to a space question. I have no idea what to tell her. | Your daughter is in good company with that wondering. One of the very first scientists was a Greek guy named Thales, who held that the primary essence of every substance was water.
What do you mean by "what if?" Do you mean "If the universe were all water, what would it be like?" Or do you mean "How do we know the universe is not made of water?" | [
"Less than two weeks after the trip, she applied to study communication and electronic engineering at Monterrey Tech, graduating in 2003. Unfortunately, she was the only one at the school at the time interested in space. Despite this, she attended space conferences and other events such as the National Astronomy Congress, which allowed her to meet people in her future field. She was also invited to join a project to conserve Chipinque Park in Monterrey, which has an observatory. It had been out of use for some time and she worked to reactivate it. She then gave classes and workshops on astronomy to student visitors.\n",
"O’Shaughnessy has extensive experience cultivating girls’ and boys’ interest in reading, math, and science. Besides being a former science teacher, she is an award-winning writer of science books for children. O’Shaughnessy has written 12 children's science books, including six with Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Ride and O’Shaughnessy's clear and eloquent writing style earned them many accolades, including the American Institute of Physics Children's Science Writing Award in 1995 for their second book, \"The Third Planet: Exploring the Earth From Space\". In October 2015, O’Shaughnessy published a children's biography of Ride, \"Sally Ride: A Photobiography of America's Pioneering Woman in Space\". The book combines reminiscences from Ride's family and friends with dozens of photos, including many never-before-published family and personal photos.\n",
"NASA Space Place is an award-winning educational website about space and Earth science targeting upper-elementary aged children. Launched in 1998, it was the first NASA website to create content about multiple missions directly for children. It has its own url, and it also serves as the kids’ portion of the NASA Science Mission Directorate website.\n",
"When asked where her love of space science came from, Green has said: \"As a child, I remember hearing my parents say that they thought I was going to be an astrophysicist when I grew up. Not actually knowing what an astro-thinga-me-wotsit was, I agreed with them because I thought it sounded impressive. Really at that time I wanted to look after animals. People used to bring me injured birds and I would stay up all night feeding them worms!\"\n",
"On 20 March 2019 Galsworthy, amongst others, publicized a petition to revoke Article 50. In a televised interview the following day, with the petition having received 750,000 signatures, he expressed his view that Article 50 should be \"nuked from space\".\n",
"The Spacewoman in question is a scientist and explorer. The book is set many centuries in the future, though no dates are given. Humans have explored many worlds in a number of different galaxies. Their quest is for knowledge and to be helpful: there is a strict rule against 'interference'.\n",
"Haarsma takes part in school visits to promote his book and encourage imagination and reading in the school children. His presentation lasts fifty minutes, and discussions center around space travel, exploration, \"The Rings of Orbis\" universe, and other interactive topics, thus allowing for questions from the students at the conclusion. To help illustrate the scientific topics, NASA supplied Haarsma with space related information to present.\n"
] |
how do car dealerships work with the car companies and how do they make their profits? | Car dealerships are independent businesses who have franchise agreements with the various car makers they sell. They purchase the vehicles through the manufacturers at the invoice price, but there are often other mechanisms for the dealers to make money from the sale, such as manufacturer holdbacks, quota bonuses, and other incentives. So even if a dealer sells a car "at invoice" they may still be making 3-5% of the cost in profit. Obviously then, if they sell for above invoice, they make more profit. Then there are the additional revenue streams that the finance manager tries to sell you on, like extended warranties, wheel protection, etc. that are all high margin products (same reason Best Buy always tries to sell you the extended warranty). And then there is the financing, with bounty going to the dealer when they go through the auto makers' credit arm. But most dealers actually make the most of the profit form the service part of the dealership, whether repairs covered under warranty that the car maker reimburses for, or repairs/service that are paid directly by the customer. | [
"Car dealerships are usually franchised to sell and service vehicles by specific companies. They are often located on properties offering enough room to have buildings housing a showroom, mechanical service, and body repair facilities, as well as to provide storage for used and new vehicles. Many dealerships are located out of town or on the edge of town centers. An example of a traditional single proprietorship car dealership is Collier Motors in North Carolina. Many modern dealerships are now part of corporate-owned chains such as AutoNation with over 300 franchises. Dealership profits in the US mainly come from servicing, some from used cars, and little from new cars.\n",
"A car dealership or vehicle local distribution is a business that sells new or used cars at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. It employs automobile salespeople to sell their automotive vehicles. It may also provide maintenance services for cars, and employ automotive technicians to stock and sell spare automobile parts and process warranty claims.\n",
"In the United States and Canada, a car dealer may specialize in used vehicles, or be a franchised dealership, which is a retailer that sells new and sometimes used cars. In most cases Franchised Dealerships include certified preowned vehicles, employ trained automotive technicians, and offer financing. In the United States, direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in almost every state by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by dealers.\n",
"New car dealerships also sell used cars, and take in trade-ins and/or purchase used vehicles at auction. Most dealerships also provide a series of additional services for car buyers and owners, which are sometimes more profitable than the core business of selling cars.\n",
"Car dealers also provide maintenance and in some cases, repair service for cars. New car dealerships are more likely to provide these services, since they usually stock and sell parts and process warranty claims for the manufacturers they represent. Maintenance is typically a high-margin service and represents a significant profit center for automotive dealers.\n",
"Most dealers utilize indirect lenders. This means that the installment loan contracts are immediately \"assigned\" or \"resold\" to third-party finance companies, often an offshoot of the car's manufacturer such as GM Financial, Ally Financial, or banks, which pay the dealer and then recover the balance by collecting the monthly installment payments promised by the buyer. To facilitate such assignments, dealers generally use one of several standard form contracts preapproved by lenders. The most popular family of contracts for the retail installment sale of vehicles in the U.S. are sold by business process vendor Reynolds and Reynolds; their contracts have been the subject of extensive (and frequently hostile) judicial interpretation in lawsuits between dealers and customers.\n",
"Used car dealers carry cars from many different manufacturers, while new car dealerships are generally franchises associated with only one manufacturer. Some new car dealerships may carry multiple brands from the same manufacturer. In some locales, dealerships have been consolidated and a single owner may control a chain of dealerships representing several different manufacturers.\n"
] |
Is there any proof that Mesopotamia and Egypt had contact with each other and if they did, what was their relationship like? | What timeframe are you refering to? | [
"The intensity of the exchanges suggest however that the contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia were often direct, rather than merely through middlemen or through trade. Uruk had known colonial outposts of as far as Habuba Kabira, in modern Syria, insuring they presence in the Levant. Numerous Uruk cylinder seals have also been uncovered there. There were suggestions that Uruk may have had an outpost and a form of colonial presence in northern Egypt. The site of Buto in particular was suggested, but it has been rejected as a possible candidate.\n",
"Indus-Mesopotamia relations are thought to have developed during the second half of 3rd millennium BCE, until they came to a halt with the extinction of the Indus valley civilization after around 1900 BCE. Mesopotamia had already been an intermediary in the trade of Lapis Lazuli between the South Asia and Egypt since at least about 3200 BCE, in the context of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations.\n",
"Levantine sites previously showed evidence of trade links with Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), Anatolia (Hattia, Hurria, Luwia and later the Hittites), Egypt and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age. Evidence at Ugarit shows that the destruction there occurred after the reign of Merneptah (ruled 1213–1203 BC) and even the fall of Chancellor Bay (died 1192 BC). The last Bronze Age king of the Semitic state of Ugarit, Ammurapi, was a contemporary of the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his reign are unknown.\n",
"There is sufficient archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indian seals have been found at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites.\n",
"Userkaf's reign might have witnessed a revival of trade between Egypt and its Aegean neighbors as shown by a series of reliefs from his mortuary temple representing ships engaged in what may be a naval expedition. Further evidence for such contacts is a stone vessel bearing the name of his sun temple that was uncovered on the Greek island of Kythira. This vase is the earliest evidence of commercial contacts between Egypt and the Aegean world. Finds in Anatolia, dating to the reigns of Menkauhor Kaiu and Djedkare Isesi, demonstrate that these contacts continued throughout the Fifth Dynasty.\n",
"Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and in the pre-literate Gerzean culture for Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated \"deep-seated\" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.\n",
"Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and the Gerzean culture of pre-literate Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated \"deep-seated\" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.\n"
] |
How much cytoplasm does the average animal cell contain? | About 100-1000 femtoliters.
& #x200B;
But it's a pretty hard thing to answer. The cell with the smallest volume that I know of is the sperm cell, with about 20 femtoliters (fL). The most numerous cell in your body is the red blood cell, and it has a cytoplasmic volume of about 100 fL. But a fibroblast has a volume of 1000 fL, a fat cell has a volume of about 100,000 fL, and a egg cell (oocyte) has a volume of about 1,000,000 fL.
& #x200B;
So how small of a volume is 100 femtoliters? Well, in 100 femtoliters, there is only a trillion water molecules. I know a trillion is a big number, but the fact that we even have a common word for the number of molecules in that volume tells you it's pretty small. | [
"The proportion of cell volume that is cytosol varies: for example while this compartment forms the bulk of cell structure in bacteria, in plant cells the main compartment is the large central vacuole. The cytosol consists mostly of water, dissolved ions, small molecules, and large water-soluble molecules (such as proteins). The majority of these non-protein molecules have a molecular mass of less than 300 Da. This mixture of small molecules is extraordinarily complex, as the variety of molecules that are involved in metabolism (the metabolites) is immense. For example, up to 200,000 different small molecules might be made in plants, although not all these will be present in the same species, or in a single cell. Estimates of the number of metabolites in single cells such as \"E. coli\" and baker's yeast predict that under 1,000 are made.\n",
"The molecular masses of proteins, nucleic acids, and other large polymers are often expressed with the units kilodaltons (kDa), megadaltons (MDa), etc. Titin, one of the largest known proteins, has a molecular mass of between 3 and 3.7 megadaltons. The DNA of chromosome 1 in the human genome has about 249 million base pairs, each with an average mass of about , or total.\n",
"C-values vary enormously among species. In animals they range more than 3,300-fold, and in land plants they differ by a factor of about 1,000. Protist genomes have been reported to vary more than 300,000-fold in size, but the high end of this range (\"Amoeba\") has been called into question. Variation in C-values bears no relationship to the complexity of the organism or the number of genes contained in its genome; for example, some single-celled protists have genomes much larger than that of humans. This observation was deemed counterintuitive before the discovery of non-coding DNA. It became known as the C-value paradox as a result. However, although there is no longer any paradoxical aspect to the discrepancy between C-value and gene number, this term remains in common usage. For reasons of conceptual clarification, the various puzzles that remain with regard to genome size variation instead have been suggested to more accurately comprise a complex but clearly defined puzzle known as the C-value enigma. C-values correlate with a range of features at the cell and organism levels, including cell size, cell division rate, and, depending on the taxon, body size, metabolic rate, developmental rate, organ complexity, geographical distribution, or extinction risk (for recent reviews, see Bennett and Leitch 2005; Gregory 2005).\n",
"In animal cells, myoinositol polyphosphates are ubiquitous, and phytic acid (myoinositol hexakisphosphate) is the most abundant, with its concentration ranging from 10 to 100 µM in mammalian cells, depending on cell type and developmental stage.\n",
"Cell size is highly variable among organisms, with some algae such as \"Caulerpa taxifolia\" being a single cell several meters in length. Plant cells are much larger than animal cells, and protists such as \"Paramecium\" can be 330 μm long, while a typical human cell might be 10 μm. How these cells \"decide\" how big they should be before dividing is an open question. Chemical gradients are known to be partly responsible, and it is hypothesized that mechanical stress detection by cytoskeletal structures is involved. Work on the topic generally requires an organism whose cell cycle is well-characterized.\n",
"In prokaryotes the cytosol contains the cell's genome, within a structure known as a nucleoid. This is an irregular mass of DNA and associated proteins that control the transcription and replication of the bacterial chromosome and plasmids. In eukaryotes the genome is held within the cell nucleus, which is separated from the cytosol by nuclear pores that block the free diffusion of any molecule larger than about 10 nanometres in diameter.\n",
"Eukaryotic cells are typically much larger than those of prokaryotes having a volume of around 10,000 times greater than the prokaryotic cell. They have a variety of internal membrane-bound structures, called organelles, and a cytoskeleton composed of microtubules, microfilaments, and intermediate filaments, which play an important role in defining the cell's organization and shape. Eukaryotic DNA is divided into several linear bundles called chromosomes, which are separated by a microtubular spindle during nuclear division.\n"
] |
why does it take so long for employers to reach hiring decisions? | Hiring an employee is a big investment. If there are lots of good options, then you want to make sure you're making the right one. | [
"Edmund Phelps [1972] introduced the assumption of uncertainty in hiring decisions. When employers make a hiring decision, although they can scrutinize the qualifications of the applicants, they cannot know for sure which applicant would perform better or would be more stable. Thus, they are more likely to hire the male applicants over the females, if they believe on \"average\" men are more productive and more stable. This general view affects the decision of the employer about the individual on the basis of information on the group averages.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Try-before-you-buy\" - In economics, potential employees send signals to the employers through their resume and interviews in an attempt to impress upon the interviewer to land the job. Shift based hiring allows employers to further \"test the waters\" on the workers’ suitability for the job by only committing to hiring the employee for one single shift, allowing employers to better select suitable employees to work for the company, before accepting these employees for more shifts.\n",
"The intent of skills-based hiring is for the applicant to demonstrate, independent of an academic degree, that he or she has the skills required to be successful on the job. It is also a mechanism by which employers may clearly and publicly advertise the expectations for the job – for example indicating they are looking for a particular set of skills at an appropriately communicated level of proficiency. The result of matching the specific skill requirements of a particular job to with the skills an individual has is both more efficient for the employer to identify qualified candidates, as well as provides an alternative, more precise method for candidates to communicate their knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors to the employer .\n",
"Lastly, the research suggests that for a better fit between an employee and a job, organization, or group to be more probable, it is important to spend an adequate amount of time with the applicant. This is because spending time with members before they enter the firm has been found to be positively associated with the alignment between individual values and firm values at entry (Chatman, 1991). Furthermore, if there are more extensive HR practices in place in the selection phase of hiring, then people are more likely to report that they experience better fits with their job and the organization as a whole (Boon et al., 2011).\n",
"The Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines apply to any selection procedure that is used for making employment decisions, not only for hiring, but also for promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff, discharge, or early retirement. Therefore, employment appraisal procedures must be validated like tests or any other selection device. Employers who base their personnel decisions on the results of a well-designed performance review program that includes formal appraisal interviews are much more likely to be successful in defending themselves against claims of discrimination.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Try-before-you-buy\" - Similarly for the employees, shift based hiring allows them to gain a deeper understanding on how working in the business is like by committing to a shift. They can then make a more informed decision on whether or not to continue working more shifts on a longer basis with the company.\n",
"After determining what career interests clients have and/or are best suited for via its comprehensive vocational evaluation system, staff provide clients with training in various areas of job readiness, from learning to fill out applications and develop their resumes to practicing job interviews and learning about employer expectations. Through networking and partnerships with various organizations in northeast Ohio, including Progressive Field, the Great Lakes Science Center, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, employment services helps connect clients with employers and secure work. Once a client finds permanent work, he/she is monitored for 90 days during which employment services determines what accommodations the client needs to perform at optimal efficiency.\n"
] |
why is the senate investigating claims that facebook censors conservative news when facebook is a private entity/platform? | Because the senate doesn't give a shit about actual government duties and only cares about their own partisan political ideologies and abusing their powers as much as possible in order to advance those particular political ideologies. | [
"Claims of shadow banning of conservative social media accounts began in 2016 with Facebook’s “Trending News” controversy. Conservative news sites lashed out at Facebook after a report from an unnamed Facebook employee on May 7 alleged that contractors for the social media giant were told to minimize links to their sites in its \"trending news\" column. Alex Breitbart, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, claimed that “Facebook trending news artificially mutes conservatives and amplifies progressives.” Facebook’s response included a statement that they “do not permit the suppression of political perspectives” and that its trending news articles are selected by algorithms to prevent human bias from violating its policy of neutrality. \n",
"As a result of perception that conservatives are not treated neutrally on Facebook alternative social media platforms have been established. This perception has led to a reduction of trust in Facebook, and reduction of usage by those who consider themselves to be conservative.\n",
"McCarthy is confident that social media platforms, such as Twitter, are actively censoring conservative politicians and their supporters. He called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify before congress on the matter. On August 17, 2018, McCarthy submitted a tweet to suggest that conservatives were being censored by showing a screen capture of conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's Twitter account with a sensitive content warning on one of her tweets. This warning was due to McCarthy's own Twitter settings rather than any censorship from the platform. He refused to acknowledge this fact. McCarthy also suggested that Google was biased against Republicans due to some of its short-lived vandalism of the English Wikipedia entry on the California Republican Party that was automatically indexed in the search results.\n",
"Some commentators criticized Thune's letter as an example of government overreach against a private company. Facebook denied the bias allegations. Thune thanked Facebook in a statement saying, \"Private companies are fully entitled to espouse their own views, so I appreciate Facebook's efforts to address allegations of bias raised in the media and my concern about a lack of transparency in its methodology for determining trending topics.\"\n",
"In 2018, Facebook removed hundreds of pages related to U.S. politics on grounds of \"inauthentic activity\" one month before the midterm elections. Facebook representatives claimed that the posts and user accounts were deleted not because of the content of the posts, but because they violated Facebook's terms of service.\n",
"Although not directly performed during prescribed time in the presidential office, the use of personal private information for targeted politics on social media platforms has caused concerns regarding consumer privacy. In 2018, Facebook was accused of interfering in the 2016 election, potentially leading to events that altered the outcome.\n",
"In a 2017 feature on partisan news, BuzzFeed News analyzed weekly Facebook engagements \"since the beginning of 2015 and found that Occupy Democrats on the left and Fox News on the right are the top pages in each political category.\" The article added that the pages \"consistently generate more total engagement than the pages of major media outlets.\" The organization received wide attention during the 2016 presidential primaries of the Democratic Party, and was credited for having helped \"build support\" for Bernie Sanders' candidacy.\n"
] |
How do Historians typically calculate an "exact" date? | hi! hopefully some of the historians in antiquities will drop by with more info, but you may be interested in a few related posts
* [How do we know what years certain pre-gregorian historical events happened in?](_URL_4_)
* [How certain are we of what year it is? Were there every any disagreements, like during the Dark Ages or afterwards, of the exact year?](_URL_2_)
* [If an event is recorded to have occurred on a particular date, and I ask you to say with 100% confidence how many days have elapsed since that event, what is the oldest era for which you can do this?](_URL_3_)
* [What is the earliest recorded date that we can determine accurately?](_URL_5_)
* [What is the earliest reliable documented event in human history?](_URL_0_)
* [How do historians work with dates from different calendars? Do you have some kind of unified calendar?](_URL_1_) | [
"A calendar date is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, \"24 2020\" is ten days after \"14 2020\" in the Gregorian calendar. The date of a particular event depends on the observed time zone. For example, the air attack on Pearl Harbor that began at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time on 7 December 1941 took place at 3:18 a.m. Japan Standard Time, 8 December in Japan. \n",
"A very curious concept of dating is employed in Gethen, though this is only explained briefly in the book: the years are not numbered sequentially in increasing order, but the current year is always referred to as \"Year One\", and the others are counted as years before or after this standpoint. Historical records employ well-known events to mark (fixed) past dates.\n",
"The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from the Mayan creation date 4 Ahaw, 8 Kumkʼu (August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar -3113 astronomical dating). But instead of using a base-10 (decimal) scheme like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25 and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40. As the winal unit resets after only counting to 18, the Long Count consistently uses base-20 only if the tun is considered the primary unit of measurement, not the kʼin; with the kʼin and winal units being the number of days in the tun. The Long Count 0.0.1.0.0 represents 360 days, rather than the 400 in a purely base-20 (vigesimal) count.\n",
"The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 3114 BCE in the Julian Calendar (-3113 astronomical). Rather than using a base-10 scheme, like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40.\n",
"A different form of calendar was used to track longer periods of time, and for the inscription of calendar dates (i.e., identifying when one event occurred in relation to others). This form, known as the Long Count, is based upon the number of elapsed days since a mythological starting-point. According to the calibration between the Long Count and Western calendars accepted by the great majority of Maya researchers (known as the GMT correlation), this starting-point is equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (−3113 astronomical).\n",
"Date and time notation in the United Kingdom records the date using the day-month-year format (21 October 2011 or 21/10/11). The ISO 8601 format (2011-10-21) is increasingly used for all-numeric dates. The time can be written using either the 24-hour clock (16:10) or 12-hour clock (4.10 p.m.).\n",
"During the changeover between calendars and for some time afterwards, dual dating was used in documents and gave the date according to both systems. In contemporary as well as modern texts that describe events during the period of change, it is customary to clarify to which calendar a given date refers by using an O.S. or N.S. suffix (denoting Old Style, Julian or New Style, Gregorian).\n"
] |
With the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the English language began rapidly changing. What other long-term cultural changes did this event bring about within England? | Hi there, I essentially answered a similar question to yours [here](_URL_1_), and linked to an earlier answer on some more of the legal changes [here](_URL_0_). The legal changes in particular would have had a genuine impact on the day-to-day life of the English people, especially as the legal system turned heavily from restorative to punative justice. | [
"After the conquest of England in 1066, the Normans's language developed into Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until the Hundred Years' War, by which time the use of French-influenced English had spread throughout English society.\n",
"After the conquest of England in 1066, the Normans's language developed into Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until the Hundred Years' War, by which time the use of French-influenced English had spread throughout English society.\n",
"The Norman conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French known as Old Norman, which developed in England into Anglo-Norman. The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of words of French origin began to appear in the English language alongside native English words of similar meaning, giving rise to such Modern English synonyms as \"pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, sheep/mutton, wood/forest, house/mansion, worthy/valuable, bold/courageous, freedom/liberty, sight/vision, eat/dine\".\n",
"After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, society seemed fixed and unchanging for several centuries, but gradual and significant changes were still taking place, the exact nature of which would not be appreciated until much later. The Norman lords spoke Norman French, and in order to work for them or gain advantage, the English had to use the Anglo-Norman language that developed in England. This became a necessary administrative and literary language (see Anglo-Norman literature), but despite this the English language was not supplanted, and after gaining much in grammar and vocabulary began in turn to replace the language of the rulers. At the same time the population of England more than doubled between Domesday and the end of the 13th century, and this growth was not checked by the almost continual foreign warfare, crusades and occasional civil anarchy.\n",
"The Norman Conquest led to a profound change in the history of the English state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes, which reveals that within 20 years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders, who monopolised all senior positions in the government and the Church. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French, in both Normandy and England. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.\n",
"The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two-tiered society with an aristocracy which spoke Anglo-Norman and a lower class which spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England ascended the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with French. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their court. In 1204, the Anglo-Normans lost their continental territories in Normandy and became wholly English. By the time Middle English arose as the dominant language in the late 14th century, the Normans (French people) had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English of which 75% remain in use today. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, the influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.\n",
"For 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Norman language was the language of administration and few Kings of England spoke English. A large number of French words were assimilated into Old English, which lost most of its inflections, the result being Middle English. Around the year 1500, the Great Vowel Shift marked the transformation of Middle English into Modern English.\n"
] |
Biologically, how does pedophilia even make sense? | Although what causes pedophilia is not yet known, beginning in 2002, researchers began reporting a series of findings linking pedophilia with brain structure and function: Pedophilic (and hebephilic) men have lower IQs, poorer scores on memory tests, greater rates of non-right-handedness, greater rates of school grade failure over and above the IQ differences, lesser physical height, greater probability of having suffered childhood head injuries resulting in unconsciousness, and several differences in MRI-detected brain structures. They report that their findings suggest that there are one or more neurological characteristics present at birth that cause or increase the likelihood of being pedophilic. Evidence of familial transmittability "suggests, but does not prove that genetic factors are responsible" for the development of pedophilia.
Another study, using structural MRI, shows that male pedophiles have a lower volume of white matter than a control group.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has shown that child molesters diagnosed with pedophilia have reduced activation of the hypothalamus as compared with non-pedophilic persons when viewing sexually arousing pictures of adults. A 2008 functional neuroimaging study notes that central processing of sexual stimuli in heterosexual "paedophile forensic inpatients" may be altered by a disturbance in the prefrontal networks, which "may be associated with stimulus-controlled behaviours, such as sexual compulsive behaviours." The findings may also suggest "a dysfunction at the cognitive stage of sexual arousal processing."
Blanchard, Cantor, and Robichaud (2006) reviewed the research that attempted to identify hormonal aspects of pedophiles. They concluded that there is some evidence that pedophilic men have less testosterone than controls, but that the research is of poor quality and that it is difficult to draw any firm conclusion from it.
A study analyzing the sexual fantasies of 200 heterosexual men by using the Wilson Sex Fantasy Questionnaire exam, determined that males with a pronounced degree of paraphilic interest (including pedophilia) had a greater number of older brothers, a high 2D:4D digit ratio (which would indicate excessive prenatal estrogen exposure), and an elevated probability of being left-handed, suggesting that disturbed hemispheric brain lateralization may play a role in deviant attractions.
Wikipedia | [
"BULLET::::- Pedophilia is a psychological disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children. According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), pedophilia is a paraphilia in which a person has intense sexual urges towards children, and experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children. Pedophilic disorder is further defined as psychological disorder in which a person meets the criteria for pedophilia above, and also either acts upon those urges, or else experiences distress or interpersonal difficulty as a consequence. The diagnosis can be made under the DSM or ICD criteria for persons age 16 and older. Child sexual abuse is not committed by all pedophiles, and not all child molesters are pedophiles.\n",
"Pedophilia emerges before or during puberty, and is stable over time. It is self-discovered, not chosen. For these reasons, pedophilia has been described as a disorder of sexual preference, phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation. These observations, however, do not exclude pedophilia from the group of mental disorders because pedophilic acts cause harm, and mental health professionals can sometimes help pedophiles to refrain from harming children.\n",
"Pedophilia is termed pedophilic disorder in the \"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders\" (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that have either been acted upon or which cause the person with the attraction distress or interpersonal difficulty. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) defines it as a \"sustained, focused, and intense pattern of sexual arousal—as manifested by persistent sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, or behaviours—involving pre-pubertal children.\"\n",
"Pedophilia is one of the most stigmatized mental disorders. One study reported high levels of anger, fear and social rejection towards pedophiles who have not committed a crime. The authors suggested such attitudes could negatively impact child sexual abuse prevention by reducing pedophiles' mental stability and discouraging them from seeking help. According to sociologists Melanie-Angela Neuilly and Kristen Zgoba, social concern over pedophilia intensified greatly in the 1990s, coinciding with several sensational sex crimes (but a general decline in child sexual abuse rates). They found that the word \"pedophile\" appeared only rarely in \"The New York Times\" and \"Le Monde\" before 1996, with zero mentions in 1991.\n",
"Pedophilia is a condition in which an adult or older adolescent is primarily or exclusively attracted to prepubescent children, whether the attraction is acted upon or not. A person with this attraction is called a \"pedophile\".\n",
"In the same article, Gardner denied that he condoned pedophilia. \"I believe that pedophilia is a bad thing for society,\" he wrote. \"I do believe, however, that pedophilia, like all other forms of atypical sexuality is part of the human repertoire and that all humans are born with the potential to develop any of the forms of atypical sexuality (which are referred to as paraphilias by DSM-IV). My acknowledgment that a form of behavior is part of the human potential is not an endorsement of that behavior. Rape, murder, sexual sadism, and sexual harassment are all part of the human potential. This does not mean I sanction these abominations.\"\n",
"In response to misinterpretations that the American Psychiatric Association considers pedophilia a sexual orientation because of wording in its printed DSM-5 manual, which distinguishes between paraphilia and what it calls \"paraphilic disorder\", subsequently forming a division of \"pedophilia\" and \"pedophilic disorder\", the association commented: \"'[S]exual orientation' is not a term used in the diagnostic criteria for pedophilic disorder and its use in the DSM-5 text discussion is an error and should read 'sexual interest.'\" They added, \"In fact, APA considers pedophilic disorder a 'paraphilia,' not a 'sexual orientation.' This error will be corrected in the electronic version of DSM-5 and the next printing of the manual.\" They said they strongly support efforts to criminally prosecute those who sexually abuse and exploit children and adolescents, and \"also support continued efforts to develop treatments for those with pedophilic disorder with the goal of preventing future acts of abuse.\"\n"
] |
why do black americans resent white americans so much for slavery when america wasn't the first to use slavery, and banned slavery 13 years before the last country to ban slavery did? | So in your world slavery was the end of the matter? | [
"The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution brought an end to the system of slavery that had kept American blacks in bondage since colonial times. After slavery was abolished, there was somewhat of a cultural crisis in the Southern states. Even though black Americans had received their freedom from the unjust practice of slavery, they also lost a consistent form of shelter, food, and worship. Almost overnight, these became things that tens of thousands of freed slaves now had to provide for by themselves. As if this hurdle were not enough, many white Americans, uncomfortable with this societal change, created, endorsed, and enforced Jim Crow laws as a way to segregate and suppress black Americans.\n",
"Until the Civil War, slavery was legal. After the Revolutionary War, the new Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 to provide a way for foreigners to become citizens of the new country. It limited naturalization to aliens who were \"free white persons\" and thus left out indentured servants, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asians. In addition, many states enforced anti-miscegenation laws (e.g. Indiana in 1845), which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites, that is, blacks, mulattoes, and, in some states, also Native Americans. After an influx of Chinese immigrants to the West Coast, marriage between whites and Asians was banned in some western states.\n",
"Conservative writer David Horowitz wrote a list of ten reasons why \"Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too\" in 2001. He contends that there isn't one particular group that benefited from slavery, there isn't one group that is solely responsible for slavery, only a small percentage of whites ever owned slaves and many gave their lives fighting to free slaves, and most Americans don't have a direct or indirect connection to slavery because of the United States' multi-ethnic background.\n",
"By late 1865, the American Civil War was over and slavery in the United States ended with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, known as freedmen, millions of former African American slaves were without employable job skills, opportunities, and even literacy itself, (e.g., in Virginia, since the bloody Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831, it had been unlawful to teach a slave to read).\n",
"According to a 2016 article in the Washington Post, a U.N. panel said they believe the U.S. owes black people reparations. A report done by a U.N connected panel claimed because of slavery, Americans with African descent should receive reparations in some form. In the same article, it is also stated that \" Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today.The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population.\" They concluded that because of slavery, violence against the black community, and terrorist acts like lynching, black people should receive some sort of apology or other form of reparation.\n",
"In 1999, African American lawyer and activist Randall Robinson, founder of the TransAfrica advocacy organization, wrote that America's history of race riots, lynching and institutional discrimination have \"resulted in $1.4 trillion in losses for African Americans\". Economist Robert Browne stated the ultimate goal of reparations should be to \"restore the black community to the economic position it would have if it had not been subjected to slavery and discrimination\". But what it doesn't cover is how none of those in the black community who are here due to slavery would even be here had slavery not existed in the United States. He estimates a fair reparation value anywhere between $1.4 to $4.7 trillion, or roughly $142,000 for every black American living today. Other estimates range from $5.7 to $14.2 to $17.1 trillion \n",
"In 1807, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress abolished the international slave trade. While American Blacks celebrated this as a victory in the fight against slavery, the ban increased the demand for slaves. Changing agricultural practices in the Upper South from tobacco to mixed farming decreased labor requirements, and slaves were sold to traders for the developing Deep South. In addition, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 allowed any Black person to be claimed as a runaway unless a White person testified on their behalf. A number of free Blacks, especially indentured children, were kidnapped and sold into slavery with little or no hope of rescue. By 1819 there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism. Fears of an imbalance in Congress led to the 1820 Missouri Compromise that required states to be admitted to the union in pairs, one slave and one free.\n"
] |
What books should be trusted? | Obviously, there is always a ton to be said on this sort of question, but you might find [this](_URL_0_) response by /u/Cosmic_Charlie informative | [
"The \"Los Angeles Times\" wrote that the author \"has given us a clear, almost controversial book that draws on the text and teachings of an ancient mystical faith and applies them to the concerns of contemporary life. His insights into the use of meditation to overcome the fear of death are comforting, reassuring, invigorating... [and this] is as much a book about the richness of life as it is about the end of living.\"\n",
"The Hai Gaon in 998 in Pumbeditah comments, \"Three possessions should you prize- a field, a friend, and a book.\" However the Hai Gaon mentions that a book is more reliable than even friends for sacred books span across time, indeed can express external ideas, that transcend time itself.\n",
"The \"Independent Thinking Review\" wrote, \"This is a book that deserves to be widely read. Skeptics and critical thinkers can learn from it, but more importantly, it's a book to give those who maybe aren't as skeptical as you, those who need some clear and reasonable arguments to gently push them in a more critical direction. Read this book yourself: buy it for someone whose mind you care about.\"\n",
"\"The book you hold is my own fictional version of what is surely one of the greatest stories of survival ever told. I can only offer gratitude to the reader for turning a blind eye to any historical inaccuracies, and for tolerating a novelist's liberties. I am no historian, and have massaged facts and fictions into place, re-conjuring history.\"\n",
"Philip F. Williams of Arizona State University stated that some people reading the book may need to consult other scholarly reference guides in order to help them understand \"Fin-de-Siècle Splendor\" due to the absence of edition, publication, and serialization information of some works chronicled within the book.\n",
"Any good book can be an inspiration, but many of these books highlight people overcoming adversity or reaching new levels of understanding. Whether they pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or have help from a higher power, these books will uplift and entertain you.\n",
"\"A Book to Keep (Hidden)\" gives accounts of thousands of years of good and bad deeds from antiquity to the current age. By Li’s own advice, it cannot be read by those who possess “eyes of flesh” (a Buddhist term indicating the “most mundane form of vision” characteristic of someone unenlightened).\n"
] |
Can light impart momentum? | The solar sail can either absorb the light (so the sail gains the momentum of the photon it asborbs), or better yet, reflect the light, reversing its momentum. By conservation of momentum, the sail then gains two times the photon's momentum.
This is completely analogous to experiments you might do with, say, a medicine ball and a person standing on a skateboard.
| [
"The angular momentum of light is a vector quantity that expresses the amount of dynamical rotation present in the electromagnetic field of the light. While traveling approximately in a straight line, a beam of light can also be rotating (or “\"spinning\"”, or “\"twisting\"”) around its own axis. This rotation, while not visible to the naked eye, can be revealed by the interaction of the light beam with matter.\n",
"Less widely known is the fact that light may also carry angular momentum, which is a property of all objects in rotational motion. For example, a light beam can be rotating around its own axis while it propagates forward. Again, the existence of this angular momentum can be made evident by transferring it to small absorbing or scattering particles, which are thus subject to an optical torque.\n",
"It is well known that light, or more generally an electromagnetic wave, carries not only energy but also momentum, which is a characteristic property of all objects in translational motion. The existence of this momentum becomes apparent in the “\"radiation pressure\"” phenomenon, in which a light beam transfers its momentum to an absorbing or scattering object, generating a mechanical pressure on it in the process.\n",
"Current commonly accepted physical theories imply or assume the photon to be strictly massless. If the photon is not a strictly massless particle, it would not move at the exact speed of light, \"c\", in vacuum. Its speed would be lower and depend on its frequency. Relativity would be unaffected by this; the so-called speed of light, \"c\", would then not be the actual speed at which light moves, but a constant of nature which is the upper bound on speed that any object could theoretically attain in spacetime. Thus, it would still be the speed of spacetime ripples (gravitational waves and gravitons), but it would not be the speed of photons.\n",
"In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object the speed of light, or for a massive object to move the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.\n",
"where formula_8. So relativistic energy and momentum significantly increase with speed, thus the speed of light cannot be reached by massive particles. In some relativity textbooks, the so-called \"relativistic mass\" formula_9 is used as well. However, this concept is considered disadvantageous by many authors, instead the expressions of relativistic energy and momentum should be used to express the velocity dependence in relativity, which provide the same experimental predictions.\n",
"When an object is pushed in the direction of motion, it gains momentum and energy, but when the object is already traveling near the speed of light, it cannot move much faster, no matter how much energy it absorbs. Its momentum and energy continue to increase without bounds, whereas its speed approaches (but never reaches) a constant value—the speed of light. This implies that in relativity the momentum of an object cannot be a constant times the velocity, nor can the kinetic energy be a constant times the square of the velocity.\n"
] |
Why are the lanthanides and actinides crammed in one space? | They don't, it's just a,way of drawing the Periodic Table more compactly. If you wanted the table set out properly as a grid it would have to be an unwieldy long piece of paper. The whole thing really should be split at that point and the La and Ac elements inserted as two long lines. We draw it the way we do for for covenience. If we wanted to, we could also draw the d-block elements similarly.
Chemically it's because the order of filling electron orbitals doesn't go simply shells 1-2-3-4-5... For the higher weight atoms, electrons start to fill the higher numbered "s" and "p" shells before the "d" and "f" of lower numbered shells have all the electrons they can take. So at the start of the Lanthanides and Actinides the sequence goes back filling in the remainder. | [
"Lanthanum and actinium are commonly depicted as the remaining group 3 members. It has been suggested that this layout originated in the 1940s, with the appearance of periodic tables relying on the electron configurations of the elements and the notion of the differentiating electron. The configurations of caesium, barium and lanthanum are [Xe]6s, [Xe]6s and [Xe]5d6s. Lanthanum thus has a 5d differentiating electron and this establishes it \"in group 3 as the first member of the d-block for period 6\". A consistent set of electron configurations is then seen in group 3: scandium [Ar]3d4s, yttrium [Kr]4d5s and lanthanum [Xe]5d6s. Still in period 6, ytterbium was assigned an electron configuration of [Xe]4f5d6s and lutetium [Xe]4f5d6s, \"resulting in a 4f differentiating electron for lutetium and firmly establishing it as the last member of the f-block for period 6\". Later spectroscopic work found that the electron configuration of ytterbium was in fact [Xe]4f6s. This meant that ytterbium and lutetium—the latter with [Xe]4f5d6s—both had 14 f-electrons, \"resulting in a d- rather than an f- differentiating electron\" for lutetium and making it an \"equally valid candidate\" with [Xe]5d6s lanthanum, for the group 3 periodic table position below yttrium. Lanthanum has the advantage of incumbency since the 5d electron appears for the first time in its structure whereas it appears for the third time in lutetium, having also made a brief second appearance in gadolinium.\n",
"They are called lanthanides because the elements in the series are chemically similar to lanthanum. Both lanthanum and lutetium have been labeled as group 3 elements, because they have a single valence electron in the 5d shell. However, both elements are often included in discussions of the chemistry of lanthanide elements. Lanthanum is the more often omitted of the two, because its placement as a group 3 element is somewhat more common in texts and for semantic reasons: since \"lanthanide\" means \"like lanthanum\", it has been argued that lanthanum cannot logically be a lanthanide, but IUPAC acknowledges its inclusion based on common usage.\n",
"Currently there is research showing that lanthanide elements can be used as anticancer agents. The main role of the lanthanides in these studies is to inhibit proliferation of the cancer cells. Specifically cerium and lanthanum have been studied for their role as anti-cancer agents.\n",
"The lanthanides and actinides, in the metallic state, can exist as either divalent (such as europium and ytterbium) or trivalent (most other lanthanides) metals. The former have fds configurations, whereas the latter have fs configurations. In 1975, Johansson and Rosengren examined the measured and predicted values for the cohesive energies (enthalpies of crystallization) of the metallic lanthanides and actinides, both as divalent and trivalent metals. The conclusion was that the increased binding energy of the [Rn]5f6d7s configuration over the [Rn]5f7s configuration for mendelevium was not enough to compensate for the energy needed to promote one 5f electron to 6d, as is true also for the very late actinides: thus einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium were expected to be divalent metals. The increasing predominance of the divalent state well before the actinide series concludes is attributed to the relativistic stabilization of the 5f electrons, which increases with increasing atomic number. Thermochromatographic studies with trace quantities of mendelevium by Zvara and Hübener from 1976 to 1982 confirmed this prediction. In 1990, Haire and Gibson estimated mendelevium metal to have an enthalpy of sublimation between 134 and 142 kJ/mol. Divalent mendelevium metal should have a metallic radius of around . Like the other divalent late actinides (except the once again trivalent lawrencium), metallic mendelevium should assume a face-centered cubic crystal structure. Mendelevium's melting point has been estimated at 827 °C, the same value as that predicted for the neighboring element nobelium. Its density is predicted to be around .\n",
"Like the lanthanides, the actinides form a family of elements with similar properties. Within the actinides, there are two overlapping groups: transuranium elements, which follow uranium in the periodic table—and transplutonium elements, which follow plutonium. Compared to the lanthanides, which (except for promethium) are found in nature in appreciable quantities, most actinides are rare. The majority of them do not even occur in nature, and of those that do, only thorium and uranium do so in more than trace quantities. The most abundant or easily synthesized actinides are uranium and thorium, followed by plutonium, americium, actinium, protactinium, neptunium, and curium.\n",
"The lanthanides and actinides, in the metallic state, can exist as either divalent (such as europium and ytterbium) or trivalent (most other lanthanides) metals. The former have fs configurations, whereas the latter have fds configurations. In 1975, Johansson and Rosengren examined the measured and predicted values for the cohesive energies (enthalpies of crystallization) of the metallic lanthanides and actinides, both as divalent and trivalent metals. The conclusion was that the increased binding energy of the [Rn]5f6d7s configuration over the [Rn]5f7s configuration for nobelium was not enough to compensate for the energy needed to promote one 5f electron to 6d, as is true also for the very late actinides: thus einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium were expected to be divalent metals, although for nobelium this prediction has not yet been confirmed. The increasing predominance of the divalent state well before the actinide series concludes is attributed to the relativistic stabilization of the 5f electrons, which increases with increasing atomic number: an effect of this is that nobelium is predominantly divalent instead of trivalent, unlike all the other lanthanides and actinides. In 1986, nobelium metal was estimated to have an enthalpy of sublimation between 126 kJ/mol, a value close to the values for einsteinium, fermium, and mendelevium and supporting the theory that nobelium would form a divalent metal. Like the other divalent late actinides (except the once again trivalent lawrencium), metallic nobelium should assume a face-centered cubic crystal structure. Divalent nobelium metal should have a metallic radius of around 197 pm. Nobelium's melting point has been predicted to be 827 °C, the same value as that estimated for the neighboring element mendelevium. Its density is predicted to be around 9.9 ± 0.4 g/cm.\n",
"It is disputed whether lanthanum and actinium should be included in group 3, rather than lutetium and lawrencium. Other d-block groups are composed of four transition metals, and group 3 is sometimes considered to follow suit. Scandium and yttrium are always classified as group 3 elements, but it is controversial which elements should follow them in group 3, lanthanum and actinium or lutetium and lawrencium. Scerri has proposed a resolution to this debate on the basis of moving to a 32-column table and consideration of which option results in a continuous sequence of atomic number increase. He thereby finds that group 3 should consist of Sc, Y, Lu, Lr. The current IUPAC definition of the term \"lanthanoid\" includes fifteen elements including both lanthanum and lutetium, and that of \"transition element\" applies to lanthanum and actinium, as well as lutetium but \"not\" lawrencium, since it does not correctly follow the Aufbau principle. Normally, the 103rd electron would enter the d-subshell, but quantum mechanical research has found that the configuration is actually [Rn]7s5f7p due to relativistic effects. IUPAC thus has not recommended a specific format for the in-line-f-block periodic table, leaving the dispute open.\n"
] |
How fast does an object inside the event horizon of a black hole move towards it? | There are two important things we have to remember here:
1. Velocity is a relative quantity. We can't just say, "That thing is moving at velocity *v*." We can only say, "That thing is moving at velocity *v* **relative to that other thing**." I assume you question is then, "Does an object inside the event horizon of a black hole move faster than c relative to an observer outside the event horizon?" This brings us to the second important fact.
2. The region inside the event horizon of a black hole **is not part of our universe**. This may sound shocking, but let's think about it. Nothing can cross from inside to outside, so we can never receive any information about it. It is completely inaccessible to us. We might as well say it's outside of our universe.
Thus, there's no meaningful way to talk about how fast something *inside* the event horizon of a black hole is moving relative to something *outside* of a black hole since we can never compare their velocities. Now, two massive objects inside the event horizon and in causal contact with each other (that is, they can "see" each other) must move at less than c relative to each other.
We, of course, could ask the hypothetical question, "Well, if we *could* see inside the event horizon of a black hole, would objects in there be moving at faster than c relative to us?" To answer that, I'd have to dig out my old relativity textbook and read up on it a lot, but even if it could happen, it wouldn't be a violation of special relativity thanks to the event horizon censorship. | [
"In the case of the horizon around a black hole, observers stationary with respect to a distant object will all agree on where the horizon is. While this seems to allow an observer lowered towards the hole on a rope (or rod) to contact the horizon, in practice this cannot be done. The proper distance to the horizon is finite, so the length of rope needed would be finite as well, but if the rope were lowered slowly (so that each point on the rope was approximately at rest in Schwarzschild coordinates), the proper acceleration (G-force) experienced by points on the rope closer and closer to the horizon would approach infinity, so the rope would be torn apart. If the rope is lowered quickly (perhaps even in freefall), then indeed the observer at the bottom of the rope can touch and even cross the event horizon. But once this happens it is impossible to pull the bottom of rope back out of the event horizon, since if the rope is pulled taut, the forces along the rope increase without bound as they approach the event horizon and at some point the rope must break. Furthermore, the break must occur not at the event horizon, but at a point where the second observer can observe it.\n",
"BULLET::::- At the event horizon, formula_30 the speed of light shining outward away from the center of black hole is formula_31 It can not escape from the event horizon. Instead, it gets stuck at the event horizon. Since light moves faster than all others, matter can only move inward at the event horizon. Everything inside the event horizon is hidden from the outside world.\n",
"The event horizon of a black hole may be thought of as a surface moving outward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between escaping and falling back. The event horizon of a white hole is a surface moving inward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between being swept outward and succeeding in reaching the center. They are two different kinds of horizons—the horizon of a white hole is like the horizon of a black hole turned inside-out.\n",
"As a black hole rotates, it twists spacetime in the direction of the rotation at a speed that decreases with distance from the event horizon. This process is known as the Lense–Thirring effect or frame-dragging. Because of this dragging effect, an object within the ergosphere cannot appear stationary with respect to an outside observer at a great distance unless that object were to move at faster than the speed of light (an impossibility) with respect to the local spacetime. The speed necessary for such an object to appear stationary decreases at points further out from the event horizon, until at some distance the required speed is that of the speed of light.\n",
"Any object approaching the horizon from the observer's side appears to slow down and never quite pass through the horizon, with its image becoming more and more redshifted as time elapses. This means that the wavelength of the light emitted from the object is getting longer as the object moves away from the observer. The notion of an event horizon was originally restricted to black holes; light originating inside an event horizon could cross it temporarily but would return. Later a strict definition was introduced as a boundary beyond which events cannot affect any outside observer at all, encompassing other scenarios than black holes. This strict definition of EH has caused information and firewall paradoxes; therefore Stephen Hawking has supposed an apparent horizon to be used. \n",
"Since the ergosphere is outside the event horizon, it is still possible for objects that enter that region with sufficient velocity to escape from the gravitational pull of the black hole. An object can gain energy by entering the black hole's rotation and then escaping from it, thus taking some of the black hole's energy with it (making the maneuver similar to the exploitation of the Oberth effect around \"normal\" space objects).\n",
"This \"slingshot\" effect has been explored in theoretical physics: it is hypothetically possible to slingshot oneself \"around\" the event horizon of a black hole. As a result of the black hole's extreme gravitation, time would pass at a slower rate near the event horizon, relative to the outside universe; the traveler would experience the passage of only several minutes or hours, while hundreds of years would pass in 'normal' space.\n"
] |
the difference in programming languages. | Every single programming language serves one purpose: explain to the computer what we want it to do.
HTML is... not a programming language, it's a markup language, which basically means text formatting. XML and JSON are in the same category
The rest of languages fall in a few general categories (with examples):
1. Assembly is (edit: for every intent and purpose) the native language of the machine. Each CPU has it's own version, and they are somewhat interoperable (forward compatibility mostly).
2. System languages (C and C++) . They are used when you need to tell the computer what to do, as well as HOW to do it. A program called a compiler interprets the code and transforms it into assembler.
3. Application languages (Java and C#). Their role is to provide a platform on which to build applications using various standardized ways of working.
4. Scripting languages (Python, and Perl). The idea behind them is that you can build something useful in the minimal amount of code possible.
5. Domain-specific languages (FORTRAN and PHP). Each of these languages exist to build a specific type of program (Math for FORTRAN, a web page generator for PHP)
Then you have various hybrid languages that fit in between these main categories. The list goes on and on. Various languages are better suited for various tasks, but it's a matter of opinion.
Finally and most importantly: JavaScript is an abomination unto god, but it's the only language that can be reliably expected to be present in web browsers, so it's the only real way to code dynamic behavior on webpages.
Edit: Corrections, also added the 5th category
| [
"Just as different groups in software engineering advocate different \"methodologies\", different programming languages advocate different \"programming paradigms\". Some languages are designed to support one paradigm (Smalltalk supports object-oriented programming, Haskell supports functional programming), while other programming languages support multiple paradigms (such as Object Pascal, C++, C#, Visual Basic, Common Lisp, Scheme, Python, Ruby, and Oz).\n",
"Different programming languages support different styles of programming (called \"programming paradigms\"). The choice of language used is subject to many considerations, such as company policy, suitability to task, availability of third-party packages, or individual preference. Ideally, the programming language best suited for the task at hand will be selected. Trade-offs from this ideal involve finding enough programmers who know the language to build a team, the availability of compilers for that language, and the efficiency with which programs written in a given language execute. Languages form an approximate spectrum from \"low-level\" to \"high-level\"; \"low-level\" languages are typically more machine-oriented and faster to execute, whereas \"high-level\" languages are more abstract and easier to use but execute less quickly. It is usually easier to code in \"high-level\" languages than in \"low-level\" ones.\n",
"The syntax of most programming languages uses English keywords, and therefore it could be argued some knowledge of English is required in order to use them. However, it is important to recognize all programming languages are in the class of formal languages. They are very different from any natural language, including English.\n",
"Programming languages tend to have their own, oftentimes multiple, programming styles and naming conventions. Enumerations frequently follow either a PascalCase or uppercase convention, while lowercase and others are seen less frequently.\n",
"The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning). Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common.\n",
"A programming language may also be classified by factors unrelated to programming paradigm. For instance, most programming languages use English language keywords, while a minority do not. Other languages may be classified as being deliberately esoteric or not.\n",
"Just as software engineering (as a process) is defined by differing \"methodologies\", so the programming languages (as models of computation) are defined by differing \"paradigms\". Some languages are designed to support one paradigm (Smalltalk supports object-oriented programming, Haskell supports functional programming), while other programming languages support multiple paradigms (such as Object Pascal, C++, Java, C#, Scala, Visual Basic, Common Lisp, Scheme, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Wolfram Language, Oz, and F#). For example, programs written in C++, Object Pascal or PHP can be purely procedural, purely object-oriented, or can contain elements of both or other paradigms. Software designers and programmers decide how to use those paradigm elements.\n"
] |
why do modern tvs seem to increase the framerate of video, even when to footage is decades old? | Modern televisions have a setting that is usually turned on by default that causes this effect. The way it does it is by looking at two frames in the image, seeing what the differences are, and "guessing" what another frame between the two would look like if it was there when the show was recorded. The TV then creates this extra frame, and gives the appearance of the TV show or film being recorded at 48-60 FPS. | [
"Conventional video displays consist of a series of images, or \"frames\", representing single snapshots in time. When the frames are updated rapidly enough, changes in those images provide the illusion of continuous motion. This makes normal television tubes unsuitable for computer displays, where the image is generally static for extended periods of time (as it is while you read this). The solution is to use additional hardware and computer memory to store the image between each update, a section of memory known as a framebuffer.\n",
"Although video technology had the potential to be cheaper since it doesn't have the costs of film stock and have to go through the development process respectively, the quality of early video recording technology in the 1950s and even into the mid 1960s was often far too low to be taken seriously against the aesthetical look, familiarity and relative ease of editing of 16mm and 35mm film stock – which many television cinematographers used well up until the late 1980s in documentaries, dramas etc. before video technology caught up to being 'acceptable' as television cameras and camcorders eventually displaced film stock for regular television use as they became lighter and more practical to take with them. Because early video cameras were so large and so expensive, it wasn't until 1984 with the JVC VHS-C camcorder that consumers had access to video tape technology.\n",
"Digital video equipment has made this approach easier; theatrical-release documentaries and features originated on video are now being produced this way. High Definition video became popular in the early 2000s by pioneering filmmakers like George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez, who used HD video cameras (such as the Sony HDW-F900) to capture images for popular movies like \"\" and \"Spy Kids 2\", respectively, both released in 2002.\n",
"Devices like Apple TV or Netgear's Digital Entertainer, capable of transferring video files from the Internet to the television screen, will cause an increase in the length of the size of videos, both in definition and duration.\n",
"In the mid and late 2000s, digital video technology had started to make it possible to shoot video at the \"film look\" rate of 24 frame/s at little or no additional cost. This had resulted in less high motion on television and on the internet on Video sharing applications such as YouTube in the early to mid 2010s.\n",
"Old video technology only had a 5 stop exposure dynamic range. Modern HD video cameras have up to 14 stops. The exposure range is therefore less of an issue than before, although there is still a popular belief that video is considerably worse than film in the shoulder of the gamma curve, where whites blow out in video, while film tends to overexpose more evenly and gracefully.\n",
"Until the late 1990s, programs shot on video always possessed high motion, while programming shot on film never did. (The exceptions: Certain motion simulators and amusement park rides included film projected at 48–60 frames per second, and video recorded on kinescope film recorders lost its high motion characteristic.) This had the result of high motion being associated with news coverage and low-budget programming such as soap operas and some sitcoms. Higher-budget programming on television was usually shot on film. In the 1950s, when Hollywood experimented with higher frame rates for films (such as with the Todd AO process) some objected to the more video-like look (although the inability to convert such films for projection in regular theaters was a more serious problem).\n"
] |
what exactly does a dip in economy do to a country? | If the economy dips less people are buying things, if less people are buying things then companies that make things can't afford to hire so many people to make those things. Those people lose their jobs and have less resources to buy things, and so on, and so on.
Houses are lost because the bank expects you to pay mortgages, cars are repossessed, utilities are shut off.
Quality of life goes down.
More people die from disease that could have been treated if they could afford it.
Crime rate goes up. | [
"These economic downturns occur because of increased supply and decreased demand, which combine to create a shift in surplus and power to the semi-periphery. Semi-periphery regions take advantage of the situation by expanding control of their home markets and the surrounding periphery countries at the expense of core countries. The underlying reason for this shift in power lies in the basic economic principle of scarcity. As long as core countries maintain scarcities of their goods, they can select customers from semi-periphery and periphery countries that are competing over them. When excess supply occurs, the core countries are the ones competing over a smaller market. This competition allows semi-peripheral nations to select from among core countries rather than vice versa when making decisions about commodity purchases, manufacturing investments, and sales of goods, shifting the balance of power to the semi-periphery. While in general there is a power shift from core to semi-periphery in times of economic struggles, there are few examples of semi-peripheral countries transitioning to core status. To accomplish this, semi-peripheral nations must not only take advantage of weaker core countries but must also exploit any existing advantages over other semi-peripheral nations. How well they exploit these advantages determines their arrangement within the semi-periphery class.\n",
"Then he argued that the contraction of the markets in that area tends to have a depressing effect on new investments, which in turn causes a further reduction of income and demand and, if nothing happens to modify the trend, there is a net movement of enterprises and workers towards other areas. Among the further results of these events, fewer local taxes are collected in a time when more social services is required and a vicious downward cumulative cycle is started and a trend towards a lower level of development will be further reinforced.\n",
"The economic malaise affecting the Comecon countries – low growth rates and diminishing returns on investment – led many domestic and Western economists to advocate market-based solutions and a sequenced programme of economic reform. It was recognized that micro-economic reform and macro-economic stabilization had to be combined carefully. Price liberalization without prior remedial measures to eliminate macro-economic imbalances, including an escalating fiscal deficit, a growing money supply due to a high level of borrowing by state-owned enterprises, and the accumulated savings of households (\"monetary overhang\") could result in macro-economic destabilization instead of micro-economic efficiency. Unless entrepreneurs enjoyed secure property rights and farmers owned their farms the process of Schumpeterian \"creative destruction\" would limit the reallocation of resources and prevent profitable enterprises from expanding to absorb the workers displaced from the liquidation of non-viable enterprises. A hardening of the budget constraints at state-owned enterprises would halt the drain on the state budget from subsidization but would require additional expenditure to counteract the resulting unemployment and drop in aggregate household spending. Monetary overhang meant that price liberalization might convert \"repressed inflation\" into open inflation, increase the price level still further and generate a price spiral. The transition to a market economy would require state intervention alongside market liberalization, privatization and deregulation. Rationing of essential consumer goods, trade quotas and tariffs and an active monetary policy to ensure that there was sufficient liquidity to maintain commerce might be needed. In addition to tariff protection, measures to control capital flight were also considered necessary in some instances.\n",
"However, when a country is suffering from high unemployment or wishes to pursue a policy of export-led growth, a lower exchange rate can be seen as advantageous. From the early 1980s the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has proposed devaluation as a potential solution for developing nations that are consistently spending more on imports than they earn on exports. A lower value for the home currency will raise the price for imports while making exports cheaper. This tends to encourage more domestic production, which raises employment and gross domestic product (GDP). Such a positive impact is not guaranteed however, due for example to effects from the Marshall–Lerner condition. Devaluation can be seen as an attractive solution to unemployment when other options, like increased public spending, are ruled out due to high public debt, or when a country has a balance of payments deficit which a devaluation would help correct. A reason for preferring devaluation common among emerging economies is that maintaining a relatively low exchange rate helps them build up foreign exchange reserves, which can protect against future financial crises.\n",
"An increase in government expenditure shifts the IS curve to the right. This will mean that domestic interest rates and GDP rise. However, this increase in the interest rates attracts foreign investors wishing to take advantage of the higher rates, so they demand the domestic currency, and therefore it appreciates. The strengthening of the currency will mean it is more expensive for customers of domestic producers to buy the home country's exports, so net exports will decrease, thereby cancelling out the rise in government spending and shifting the IS curve to the left. Therefore, the rise in government spending will have no effect on the national GDP or interest rate.\n",
"In the case of government intervention in the market, there is always a trade-off with positive and negative effects. For example, a price ceiling may cause a shortage, but it will also enable a certain percentage of the population to purchase a product that they couldn't afford at market costs. Economic shortages caused by higher transaction costs and opportunity costs (e.g., in the form of lost time) also mean that the distribution process is wasteful. Both of these factors contribute to a decrease in aggregate wealth.\n",
"A country with a large trade surplus would generally see the value of its currency appreciate relative to other currencies, which would reduce the imbalance as the relative price of its exports increases. This currency appreciation occurs as the importing country sells its currency to buy the exporting country's currency used to purchase the goods. Alternatively, trade imbalances can be reduced if a country encouraged domestic saving by restricting or penalizing the flow of capital across borders, or by raising interest rates, although this benefit is likely offset by slowing down the economy and increasing government interest payments.\n"
] |
why do helicopters crash so much more often than other aircraft? | Helicopters have extremely poor glide characteristics. Your best case scenario for a malfunction resulting in loss of lift is a controlled crash. There are a lot of flight regimes in which you're basically just 100% screwed in a helicopter because you simply don't have enough velocity or altitude to make any real recovery.
Planes have a lot more options because they are much simpler machines, and most are pretty decent gliders. A small private plane that loses power at altitude can get a pretty good distance before he hits the ground. That allows for the pilot to have some time to consider the situation, attempt to recover the aircraft, or pick a good spot to land/crash.
Helicopters also tend to operate near the ground a lot more often than planes. | [
"Of the accidents and incidents included in this list, six were caused by engine failure, while six flight-into-terrain accidents were recorded, with two additional hard landings resulting in serious damage to the aircraft. Seven more of the accidents and incidents were a result of problems in the helicopters' drive systems, while five others were caused by collisions, three of them being mid-air collisions - two with other Sea Kings, the third, with a Lockheed Hercules transport -, one a collision with the superstructure of a ship, and another a collision with a high-tension cable. Two accidents were the result of failure of the main rotor, with two others being caused by weather, while one accident each was caused by instrument failure, bird strike (presumed), fuel exhaustion, and on-board fire; eleven other accidents and incidents did not mention a specific cause, simply that the helicopter involved crashed or ditched without further detail being provided.\n",
"The construction of helicopters has to be more precise than for fixed-wing model aircraft, because helicopters are susceptible to even the smallest of vibrations, which can cause problems when the helicopter is in flight.\n",
"Helicopters became frequently used, due to a number of advantages; they could fly in rougher weather than fixed-wing aircraft and could deliver injured passengers directly to hospitals or other emergency facilities. Helicopters can hover above the scene of an accident while fixed-wing aircraft must circle, or for seaplanes, land and taxi toward the accident. Helicopters can save those stranded among rocks and reefs, where seaplanes are unable to go. Landing facilities for helicopters can be much smaller and cruder than for fixed-wing aircraft. Additionally, the same helicopter that is capable of air-sea rescue can take part in a wide variety of other operations including those on land. Disadvantages include the loud noise causing difficulties in communicating with the survivors and the strong downdraft that the hovering helicopter creates which increases wind chill danger for already-soaked and hypothermic patients. Helicopters also tend to have limited range and endurance.\n",
"The rotor turbulence may be harmful for other small aircraft such as balloons, hang gliders and paragliders. It can even be a hazard for large aircraft; the phenomenon is believed responsible for many aviation accidents and incidents, including the in-flight breakup of BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707, near Mt. Fuji, Japan in 1966, and the in-flight separation of an engine on an Evergreen International Airlines Boeing 747 cargo jet near Anchorage, Alaska in 1993.\n",
"Helicopters also produce wake turbulence. Helicopter wakes may be of significantly greater strength than those from a fixed wing aircraft of the same weight. The strongest wake can occur when the helicopter is operating at lower speeds (20 to 50 knots). Some mid-size or executive class helicopters produce wake as strong as that of heavier helicopters. This is because two-blade main rotor systems, typical of lighter helicopters, produce a stronger wake than rotor systems with more blades. The strong rotor wake of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor can extend beyond the description in the manual, which contributed to a crash.\n",
"In contrast, low-g conditions can be disastrous for helicopters. In such a situation their rotors may flap beyond normal limits. The excessive flapping can cause the root of the blades to exceed the limit of their hinges and this condition, known as mast bumping, can cause the separation of the blades from the hub or for the mast to shear, and hence detach the whole system from the aircraft, falling from the sky. This is especially true for helicopters with teetering rotors, such as the two-bladed design seen on Robinson helicopters.\n",
"The helicopter crash was attributed to technical and mechanical fault, indicated by the air force inquiries. Initial military reports suggested engine failure. Developing reports later revealed a failure in the helicopter's tail rotor while it was landing, which caused it to lose control and crash. The black box was recovered. According to Foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad, \"It was purely an accident, and accidents do happen.\" Ahmad added that the helicopter was serviced regularly, with the last service taking place 11 hours before the crash. The Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Air Staff constituted a military board of inquiry, the results of which would be made available to the public.\n"
] |
what are options and derivatives? and what are some of the more complex securities being traded? | A derivative is a contract you can buy and sell. For example, "whoever holds this piece of paper can buy 100 shares of IBM from me for $50 per share." Now, if IBM is worth a lot more than $50 a share, that piece of paper is valuable and you can sell it -- someone will pay good money for it, and its value fluctuates as IBM's (present and future) value fluctuate.
An option is a specific kind of derivative -- one which says you have the right to buy (or sell) a certain thing at a certain price if you want, often with a certain time constraint. The above example is an option.
There are also more complex derivatives, such as "I agree to deliver you any combination of apples and oranges totaling 100,000 kg, at a time of my choosing in November 2016, for a price equal to the then-current price of 1000 barrels of Brent crude oil, but only if the USA has exited Iraq by that time." | [
"This article covers those who deal in securities and futures in US markets. Securities include equities (stocks), bonds (US Government, corporate and municipal), and options thereon. Derivatives include futures and options thereon as well as swaps. The distinction in the US relates to having two regulators. Markets in other countries have similar categories of securities and types of participants, though not two regulators.\n",
"A stock derivative is any financial instrument for which the underlying asset is the price of an equity. Futures and options are the main types of derivatives on stocks. The underlying security may be a stock index or an individual firm's stock, e.g. single-stock futures.\n",
"Option and futures contracts often provide leverage on underlying stocks, bonds or commodities; this increases the returns but also the risks. Note that in some cases, derivatives can be used to hedge, decreasing the overall risk of the portfolio due to negative correlation with other investments.\n",
"For instance, when investing in a stock it is possible to buy an option to sell that stock at a defined price at some point in the future. The combined portfolio of stock and option is now much less likely to move below a given value. As in diversification there is a cost, this time in buying the option for which there is a premium. Derivatives are used extensively to mitigate many types of risk.\n",
"Derivatives are contracts between two parties that specify conditions (especially the dates, resulting values and definitions of the underlying variables, the parties' contractual obligations, and the notional amount) under which payments are to be made between the parties. The assets include commodities, stocks, bonds, interest rates and currencies, but they can also be other derivatives, which adds another layer of complexity to proper valuation. The components of a firm's capital structure, e.g., bonds and stock, can also be considered derivatives, more precisely options, with the underlying being the firm's assets, but this is unusual outside of technical contexts.\n",
"Derivatives evolved from simple commodity future contracts into a diverse group of financial instruments that apply to every kind of asset, including mortgages, insurance and many more. Futures contracts, Swaps (1970s-), Exchange-traded Commodities (ETC) (2003-), forward contracts, etc. are examples. They can be traded through formal exchanges or through Over-the-counter (OTC). Commodity market derivatives unlike credit default derivatives for example, are secured by the physical assets or commodities.\n",
"Futures traders are traditionally placed in one of two groups: hedgers, who have an interest in the underlying asset (which could include an intangible such as an index or interest rate) and are seeking to \"hedge out\" the risk of price changes; and speculators, who seek to make a profit by predicting market moves and opening a derivative contract related to the asset \"on paper\", while they have no practical use for or intent to actually take or make delivery of the underlying asset. In other words, the investor is seeking exposure to the asset in a long futures or the opposite effect via a short futures contract.\n"
] |
Is it theoretically possible to replace all my bones (or most of the) for something made from a stronger material, like carbon fiber | Start by reading [this](_URL_0_) to learn about the functions of bone, which go beyond the structural. | [
"Bone generally has the ability to regenerate completely but requires a very small fracture space or some sort of scaffold to do so. Bone grafts may be autologous (bone harvested from the patient’s own body, often from the iliac crest), allograft (cadaveric bone usually obtained from a bone bank), or synthetic (often made of hydroxyapatite or other naturally occurring and biocompatible substances) with similar mechanical properties to bone. Most bone grafts are expected to be reabsorbed and replaced as the natural bone heals over a few months’ time.\n",
"Research on artificial bone materials has revealed that bioactive and resorbable silicate glasses (bioglass), glass-ceramics, and calcium phosphates exhibit mechanical properties that similar to human bone. Similar mechanical property does not assure biocompatibility. The body's biological response to those materials depends on many parameters including chemical composition, topography, porosity, and grain size. If the material is metal, there is a risk of corrosion and infection. If the material is ceramic, it is difficult to form the desired shape, and bone can't reabsorb or replace it due to its high crystallinity. Hydroxyapatite, on the other hand, has shown excellent properties in supporting the adhesion, differentiation, and proliferation of osteogenesis cell since it is both thermodynamically stable and bioactive. Artificial bones using hydroxyapatite combine with collagen tissue helps to form new bones in pores, and have a strong affinity to biological tissues while maintaining uniformity with adjacent bone tissue. Despite its excellent performance in interacting with bone tissue, hydroxyapatite has the same problem as ceramic in reabsorption due to its high crystallinity. Since hydroxyapatite is processed at a high temperature, it is unlikely that it will remain in a stable state.\n",
"Bone grafting is a surgical procedure that replaces missing bone in order to repair bone fractures that are extremely complex, pose a significant health risk to the patient, or fail to heal properly. Some kind of small or acute fractures can be cured but the risk is greater for large fractures like compound fractures.\n",
"Although the bone is a dynamic tissue that can self-heal upon minor injuries, it cannot regenerate after experiencing large defects such as bone tumor resections and severe nonunion fractures because it lacks the appropriate template. Currently, the standard treatment is autografting which involves obtaining the donor bone from a non-significant and easily accessible site (i.e. iliac crest) in the patient own body and transplanting it into the defective site. Transplantation of autologous bone has the best clinical outcome because it integrates reliably with the host bone and can avoid complications with the immune system. But its use is limited by its short supply and donor site morbidity associated with the harvest procedure. Furthermore, autografted bones are avascular and hence are dependent on diffusion for nutrients, which affects their viability in the host. The grafts can also be resorbed before osteogenesis is complete due to high remodeling rates in the body. Another strategy for treating severe bone damage is allografting which transplants bones harvested from a human cadaver. However, allografts introduce the risk of disease and infection in the host.\n",
"Bone grafting is possible because bone tissue, unlike most other tissues, has the ability to regenerate completely if provided the space into which to grow. As native bone grows, it will generally replace the graft material completely, resulting in a fully integrated region of new bone. The biologic mechanisms that provide a rationale for bone grafting are osteoconduction, osteoinduction and osteogenesis.\n",
"Bone has a unique and well documented natural healing process that normally is sufficient to repair fractures and other common injuries. Misaligned breaks due to severe trauma, as well as treatments like tumor resections of bone cancer, are prone to improper healing if left to the natural process alone. Scaffolds composed of natural and artificial components are seeded with mesenchymal stem cells and placed in the defect. Within four weeks of placing the scaffold, newly formed bone begins to integrate with the old bone and within 32 weeks, full union is achieved. Further studies are necessary to fully characterize the use of cell-based therapeutics for treatment of bone fractures.\n",
"It can be used as a tissue replacement for repairing bony defects when autogenous bone graft is not feasible or possible. It may be used alone or in combination with a biodegradable, resorbable polymer such as polyglycolic acid. It may also be combined with autologous materials for a bone graft.\n"
] |
if 1 and 0 (data) are voltage values, how is voltage stored in a flash drive after you plug it out of the computer and stop the electricity flow? | Think of it as balls and buckets. It takes energy to kick a ball into a bucket, and it takes energy to remove a ball from a bucket, but unless someone does something a ball outside a bucket will stay out, and if the ball is in it will stay in. Each bucket is a bit, and it's state (0 or 1) will be determined by whether or not it has a ball. You sculpt your stored data by plucking balls out of buckets.
The balls are electrons and the buckets are just a metaphor for some quantum behavior I've never understood, but the ball & bucket analogy helps me understand. | [
"For use in a binary digital computer, the tube had to be capable of storing either one of two states at each of its memory locations, corresponding to the binary digits (bits) 0 and 1. It exploited the positive or negative electric charge generated by displaying either a dash or a dot at any position on the CRT screen, a phenomenon known as secondary emission. A dash generated a positive charge, and a dot a negative charge, either of which could be picked up by a detector plate in front of the screen; a negative charge represented 0, and a positive charge 1. The charge dissipated in about 0.2 seconds, but it could be automatically refreshed from the data picked up by the detector.\n",
"If the battery contacts at the back of the unit were short circuited, then all of the data stored at the device was erased, because the data was held in a kind of memory that required power for retaining the data. Enthusiasts were able to fix that issue by adding a diode to one of the battery contacts, so that during the charging of the device the diode was open, but during the short-circuit, the diode blocked the short circuiting current.\n",
"The disk's embedded microcontroller may signal the main computer that a disk write is complete immediately after receiving the write data, before the data is actually written to the platter. This early signal allows the main computer to continue working even though the data has not actually been written yet. This can be somewhat dangerous, because if power is lost before the data is permanently fixed in the magnetic media, the data will be lost from the disk buffer, and the file system on the disk may be left in an inconsistent state.\n",
"After being written to, the insulator traps electrons on the FG, locking it into the 0 state. However, in order to change that bit, the insulator has to be \"overcharged\" to erase any charge already stored in it. This requires higher voltage, about 10 volts, much more than a battery can provide. Flash systems include a \"charge pump\" that slowly builds up power and releases it at higher voltage. This process is not only slow, but degrades the insulators. For this reason flash has a limited number of writes before the device will no longer operate effectively.\n",
"To write a value to memory, the address was amplified and sent to the Y deflection plates, such that the beam would be fixed to a horizontal line on the screen. A timer then set the X deflection plate to increasing voltages, causing the beam to be scanned across the selected line. The gun was set to a default energy close to , and the bits from the computer fed to the gun to modulate the voltage up and down such that 0's would be below and 1's above it. By the time the beam reached the other side of the line, a pattern of short dashes was drawn for each 1, while 0's were empty locations.\n",
"BULLET::::- As of 2007, charge pumps are integrated into nearly all EEPROM and flash-memory integrated circuits. These devices require a high-voltage pulse to \"clean out\" any existing data in a particular memory cell before it can be written with a new value. Early EEPROM and flash-memory devices required two power supplies: +5 V (for reading) and +12 V (for erasing). , commercially available flash memory and EEPROM memory requires only one external power supply – generally 1.8 V or 3.3 V. A higher voltage, used to erase cells, is generated internally by an on-chip charge pump.\n",
"A single-level NOR flash cell in its default state is logically equivalent to a binary \"1\" value, because current will flow through the channel under application of an appropriate voltage to the control gate, so that the bitline voltage is pulled down. A NOR flash cell can be programmed, or set to a binary \"0\" value, by the following procedure:\n"
] |
why can't i (besides being a dick to the postal service) drop off a letter in a mailbox, with the return address being my actual intended address, to avoid using a stamp? | You can. I have a friend who got caught, and was banned from the Postal Service for several years. | [
"Mailboxes, on the other hand, often have a \"maximum\" setback instead of a minimum one. A postal administration or postmaster may mandate that if a mailbox on a street is too far from the curb for the letter carrier to insert mail, without having to get out of the vehicle, the mail may not be delivered to that address at all until the situation is corrected.\n",
"The return address is not required on postal mail. However, lack of a return address prevents the postal service from being able to return the item if it proves undeliverable; such as from damage, postage due, or invalid destination. Such mail may otherwise become dead letter mail.\n",
"Any long-lived mailing list is going to eventually contain addresses that can't be reached. Addresses that were once valid can become unusable because the person receiving the mail there has switched to a different provider. In another scenario, the address may still exist but be abandoned, with unread mail accumulating until there is not enough room left to accept any more.\n",
"In a May 1980 ruling, Conner decided that community organizations that placed fliers in personal mailboxes did not violate the law, holding that the organizations' First Amendment rights trumped a 1934 statute imposing a $300 fine for placing mailable material into a mailbox without postage. The organizations that challenged the ban claimed that the cost and delays of using the mail \"barred them from effective communication\", while the United States Postal Service contended that mailbox security would be lost and that mail carriers would have to waste time checking what's in mailboxes.\n",
"The United States Postal Service has a monopoly on the delivery of \"non-urgent\" first-class mail, where delivery is not time-sensitive. It also has the exclusive right to use customer-owned mail boxes for placing the customer's mail for delivery. This means that, even though mail boxes, such as those in the door of a house, or on the curb, or in the front lobby of the customer's building, are owned by the customer, and not owned by the Postal Service, by law only the Postal Service may use them to deliver mail. This law is in effect because it is believed that were the Postal Service to not have this monopoly, other competing mail carriers would take over the most lucrative parts of the business (e.g. local delivery of bills in dense urban areas), leaving the Postal Service with more expensive urban deliveries and rural service.\n",
"This is the name for mail which is sent and received between employees and departments. Internal mail will often use a special envelope which can be reused. It is common for them to have many address boxes that are used in order. The most recent box is the current delivery address.\n",
"Occasionally, because of political instability when a post office could not provide normal services, incoming mail from a mail steamer would be delivered to a local delivery service, which would deliver the mail and charge the addressee an extra fee for the service. When this occurred, the local delivery service would place its own local service stamp or mark on the envelope when the extra fee was paid.\n"
] |
why people prefer mega or the pirate bay than mediafire? | I use TPB for a couple reasons. Number one is nostalgia.
Number two is respect. They've been around for 10(?) years or so, name another pirating platform team that has faced the level of pressure TPB has...Mega, maybe? These guys are serving prison time and still running TPB. They've made plenty money and could have gotten out years ago, but they continue to risk their freedom for us(and more money).
TL;DR 1. Nostalgia 2. Much Respect. | [
"The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated to TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.\n",
"The films \"The Boat That Rocked\", \"Pump Up the Volume\", and \"On the Air Live with Captain Midnight\", as well as the TV series \"People Just Do Nothing\" are set in the world of pirate radio, while \"Born in Flames\" features pirate radio stations as being part of an underground political movement.\n",
"The Pirate Bay is considered part of an international anti-copyright movement. The documentary \"Steal This Film\" was produced and distributed (via BitTorrent) in the months following the raid. In the words of its speakers, it aimed to present the other side of the debate, until that time dominated by the media industry. The film was made available free, as donationware. \n",
"The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website that indexes and tracks BitTorrent files. It bills itself as \"the galaxy's largest BitTorrent tracker\" and is ranked as the 73rd most popular website by Alexa Internet. The website is funded primarily with advertisements shown next to torrent listings. Initially established in November 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån (\"The Piracy Bureau\") it has been operating as a separate organization since October 2004.\n",
"On April 18, 2011, the torrent site The Pirate Bay renamed itself to \"Research Bay,\" a display of their collaboration with the Cybernorms group. The Pirate Bay encouraged its users to take a sociological survey about file-sharing related issues. Private information was promised not to be released. The survey, powered by Questback queried participants about what media they were most likely to share, and what sources they use to download besides The Pirate Bay. Questions including asking about uploading practices to P2P networks and how much they use free streaming media services to watch TV, films, and listen to music. The survey's stated purpose was to understand online norms and values, which, the website goes on to say, is essential to developing relevant and effective laws and policies. Another purpose of the survey was to help researchers to better understand habits and norms within the file-sharing community.\n",
"The \"Great Pirate\" concept is explained in depth, and the source of their power is that they are the \"only\" masters of \"global\" information in a time where people are focused locally. Specifically, the \"Great Pirates\" are aware that resources are not evenly distributed around the world, so that items which are abundant in one area are scarce in another. This gives rise to trade which the \"Great Pirates\" exploit for their own advantage.\n",
"The Pirate Bay has sparked controversies and discussion about legal aspects of file sharing, copyright, and civil liberties and has become a platform for political initiatives against established intellectual property laws and a central figure in an anti-copyright movement. The website faced several shutdowns and domain seizures which \"did little to take the site offline, as it simply switched to a series of new web addresses and continued to operate\".\n"
] |
What is the oldest, civilized and still existing nation? | Depends on how you define "civilized" and "nation".
6th edition of *Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English* defines "civilized" as: "1. a civilized society is well organized and developed, and has fair laws and customs". In historical use, from what I remember, a civilized state has the following characteristics:
* Urban city centers
* A form of symbolic writing
* An organized government and a taxation system
Egyptians had hieroglyphs as early as around 3 200 B.C, if I recall correctly. However, Egypt has not been existed continuously as it's own nation, the Persians conquered it around 525 B.C, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt (and pretty much everything else while at it, too) from the Persians, and the Hellenes were driven out after the war between Octavian, who would later be known as *Augustus Caesar*, and Marcus Antonius, or Mark Anthony, as his name has been anglicized, and finally, the Arabs conquered Egypt from the Eastern Roman Empire.
As far as I remember, the Kurds have never been independent, so I am not sure if they really count.
Meanwhile, in the Far East, China has had, according to folklore and tradition, dynasties, and thus governments, and thus taxation, since 22nd century B.C. Written language in China may date back even to [7th millenium B.C] (_URL_0_), but the evidence can be disputed as an anomaly. China, while it has been conquered, has never had it's ethnicity, culture and government system changed much, as far as I know, so I would say that China is the oldest civilization which still exists. | [
"The society is divided into 83 provinces along with six independent regions and ten dependent regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and the US. Their average age was 57.3 years: 63.4 years for priests, 29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers.\n",
"The oldest known people with sustained civilizations in Indiana are the Woodland Indians. These mound builders lived in what would become Indiana from approximately 1,000 BC to 900 AD. These Native American tribes disappeared, and were replaced by other tribes during the 1700s. In future northeast Indiana, the new tribes were the Miami and Potawatomi Indians. The Lake James area was the hunting grounds of the Potawatomi Indians, who managed the land and wildlife with periodic controlled burns.\n",
"BULLET::::- Japan, considered a constitutional monarchy under the Imperial House of Japan, has a claim to being the world's oldest extant continuous hereditary monarchy, with a traditional origin in 660 BC, commonly accepted archaeological and cultural evidence from the 3rd century and reliable historiographical evidence from at least the 6th century.\n",
"According to its Web site its history of over 140 years makes it one of the oldest in the country. It is, with the Carnival of Campeche, the only one that has preserved traditional expressions of historical value in the Yucatán Peninsula, and has become an event of heritage for the state of Quintana Roo. It is distinguished by its long history, its cultural aspects, its organization, and its family character.\n",
"This article attempts to list the oldest extant, freestanding buildings constructed in the United States and its territories. The list includes sites in current states and territories which were not part of the original Thirteen Colonies when the United States of America was founded in 1776. \n",
"BULLET::::4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose emigrants the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Amazon River, the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations.\n",
"BULLET::::- Kalingga: Kalingga (Javanese: Karajan Kalingga) was the 6th century Indianized kingdom on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia. It was the earliest Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in Central Java, and together with Kutai and Tarumanagara are the oldest kingdoms in Indonesian history.\n"
] |
What is the history of course and grounds upkeep at St. Andrews? | St Andrews was unusual in that between 1552 and 1805 they used rabbits. There was a financial incentive for this, because rabbiting was a huge industry when every part of a rabbit had a use and there was always an increasing supply. This benefitted both the landlords who sold on the rabbits and the commoners who caught them - both received financial rewards - but the golf course would have held little revenue for commoners until tourism as an industry developed as we know it today.
Mass killing the rabbits was legalised in 1805, as the tourist golfer population and their interest in st andrews was rising. Golf itself was being standardised, and rabbits left too many of their own holes in the course to disturb matches. There was a 16 year struggle between the two sides until 1821 when the foundations for an established course were laid out.
Because the golf course is known to be over 500 years old, but rabbits were permitted in 1552, I would assume that rabbits were already being used and permission was granted as it was a difficult practice to curb (as is often the way) but it would otherwise have been livestock, probably sheep. Modern grass maintenance arrived in the mid-victorian era when the basic lawnmower was invented, in 1830, so I would again assumed livestock were used until later in the 18th century when St Andrews would have been able to purchase one.
I was able to find [this internet history](_URL_0_) for quick reading, but the 'definitive history' recommended is St Andrews, The Evolution of the Old Course: The Impact on Golf of Time, Tradition and Technology by Scott MacPherson. Hope this was helpful. | [
"The Charleston Trust is a charity set up in 1980 to restore and maintain the home of the Bloomsbury Group artists for the benefit of the public. The unique collection at Charleston is illustrative of the art and lifestyle of the influential Bloomsbury Group and has been on show to the public since 1986. Charleston attracts visitors from the local community as well as the rest of the UK and abroad.\n",
"The four galleries aim to tell the story of the University of St Andrews from its foundation in 1410 until the present day. Each gallery takes a different theme. 'Scotland's First University' covers the foundation and early period of the University's history. 'Living and Learning' examines student life at St Andrews and looks at aspects such as dining, student societies and the iconic red gown. 'Seeing and Believing' investigates the big ideas that have emerged from students, staff and alumni in the areas of Science, Theology and the Arts and features figures such as astronomer James Gregory (mathematician), mathematician John Napier and theologian Samuel Rutherford. The fourth gallery is now used for temporary exhibitions and shows a range of changing displays. Recent exhibitions have included the history of medicine at the University and a display of artworks representing Britain during the Second World War, some from the University's own collection and some on loan from the Victora & Albert Museum, London.\n",
"The house and gardens are open to visitors by guided tour in the summer and by appointment at other times. Guided tours focus upon the historical context of the house, the ancient mythological and religious origins of the Greek Revival, connections with Freemasonry, the Agricultural Revolution, the Picturesque movement, and issues of interpretation of the Borghese Vase and the Parthenon Frieze. A musical instrument collection including pianos, harpsichords, two pipe organs and a modified five-manual Makin electronic are used for an annual programme of concerts. The latter served at St Columb's Cathedral, Derry for 12 years (whilst its predecessor was being repaired after the Troubles), and is used in particular to promote the music of the French symphonic writers such as Vierne and Widor. Its expansion from three to five manuals, with more than 150 stops, makes it one of the largest such instruments in Europe with more than 25,000 possible stop combinations. The other keyboards are tuned to an unequal temperament, such as Well or Meantone, which composers of the Classical and Romantic era relied upon to choose the key in which to write their compositions.\n",
"The academic year at St Andrews is divided into two semesters, Martinmas and Candlemas, named after two of the four Scottish Term and Quarter Days. Martinmas, on 11 November, was originally the feast of Saint Martin of Tours, a 4th-century bishop and hermit. Candlemas originally fell on 2 February, the day of the feast of the Purification, or the Presentation of Christ. Martinmas semester runs from early September until mid-December, with examinations taking place just before the Christmas break. There follows an inter-semester period when Martinmas semester business is concluded and preparations are made for the new Candlemas semester, which starts in January and concludes with examinations at the end of May. Graduation is celebrated at the end of June.\n",
"That summer, Van Horne also visited St. Andrews, staying in its resort hotel. Van Horne, a Montreal resident, purchased nearby Minister's Island and soon began construction of his \"Covenhoven\" estate, which still stands today.\n",
"The Episcopal Church in Gardiner was organized in 1772 by Sylvester Gardiner, a major landowner for whom the city is named. This building, constructed in 1820, is its third sanctuary, the first having succumbed to fire in 1792, and the congregation having outgrown the second. It was designed by the Rev. Samuel Farmer Jarvis in what was then termed the \"Gothick\" style, which was then without precedent in New England.\n",
"The University of St Andrews announced in August 2014 that the theatre was to reopen under the management of the University, after striking a deal with owners Fife Council and Creative Scotland. Under the agreement, which takes the form of a 25-year lease, the Byre will be used as a theatre, educational resource, general arts venue and music centre. When the announcement was made, the University stressed that the \"rescue package will be delivered at no cost to council tax payers in Fife who hitherto had subsidised the ailing theatre\". Michael Downes, the University of St Andrews’ Director of Music, was appointed as Artistic Director in September 2014, and replaced by Liam Sinclair in 2016.\n"
] |
Could Russia ever have won the Cold War? | In his book, *Predicting Politics*, political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita simulates the Cold War as a battle over ideology between different countries. He allows the *salience* of foreign policy to vary randomly in each run of the simulation; military, economic, and demographic capabilities are set at the outset and then vary over time due to conflict or cooperation between states. Anyway, what his model finds is that most of the time, the USSR more or less gives in and moves to the US position on international ideology. Still, in at least a quarter of cases, the opposite happens (usually because the US cannot assemble a coalition that cares about ideology and it suffers costs from resisting a more-powerful Soviet bloc alone). I'm not entirely persuaded by the simulations, but the model has been reasonably accurate as a forecasting tool, so it's not unreasonable to suppose that if Europe and Japan went to the far left, the US would basically withdraw from intense competition with the Soviet Union, leaving it to set the international agenda. Political science is probably as close to counterfactual history as you'll get, since all cause-effect statements necessarily include counterfactuals (e.g. if A makes B more likely, then B must be less likely absent A). | [
"In January 2017, a former US Government adviser Molly K. McKew said at \"Politico\" that the US would win a new cold war. \"The New Republic\" editor Jeet Heer dismissed the possibility as \"equally troubling[,] reckless threat inflation, wildly overstating the extent of Russian ambitions and power in support of a costly policy\", and too centred on Russia while \"ignoring the rise of powers like China and India\". Heer also criticized McKew for suggesting the possibility. Jeremy Shapiro, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution, wrote in his blog post at \"RealClearPolitics\", referring to the US–Russia relations: \"A drift into a new Cold War has seemed the inevitable result\".\n",
"In August 2017, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denied claims that the US and Russia were having another cold war, despite ongoing tensions between the two countries and newer US sanctions against Russia. In March 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview: \"My point of view is that the individuals that have said that a new Cold War has started are not analysts. They do propaganda\"- Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute said that the new cold war for Russia \"is about its survival as a power in the international order, and also about holding on to the remnants of the Russian empire\". Lyle Goldstein, a research professor at the US Naval War College claims that the situations in Georgia and Ukraine \"seemed to offer the requisite storyline for new Cold War\".\n",
"Powell further claimed that even if nuclear weapons had not existed, the Russians would still not have invaded Western Europe: \"What has prevented that from happening was ... the fact that the Soviet Union knew ... that such an action on its part would have led to a third world war—a long war, bitterly fought, a war which in the end the Soviet Union would have been likely to lose on the same basis and in the same way as the corresponding war was lost by Napoleon, by the Emperor Wilhelm and by Adolf Hitler. It was that fear, that caution, that understanding, that perception on the part of Russia and its leaders that was the real deterrent against Russia committing the utterly irrational and suicidal act of plunging into a third world war in which the Soviet Union would be likely to find itself confronting a combination of the greatest industrial and economic powers in the world\".\n",
"The developer Kremlingames released a remake of this game under the same title (\"Crisis in the Kremlin\"). Unlike the original, the goal is not just to preserve the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, but to expand the communist bloc to other countries. In this game, it is possible to win the Cold War by weakening the United States until it no longer is a superpower.\n",
"Even before the war came to an end, it seemed highly likely that cooperation between the Western powers and the USSR would give way to intense rivalry or conflict. This was due primarily to the starkly contrasting economic ideologies of the two superpowers, now quite easily the strongest in the world. Whereas the USA was a liberal, two-party democracy with an advanced capitalist economy, based on free enterprise and profit-making, the USSR was a one-party Marxist–Leninist State with a state-controlled economy where private wealth was all but outlawed. Nevertheless, the origins of the Cold War should also be seen as a historical episode that demarcated the spheres of interests of the United States and the Soviet Union. Lewkowicz argues that \"the origins of the Cold War should not be seen from the perspective of a magnified spectrum of conflict. Instead, it should be regarded as a process by which the superpowers attempted to forge a normative framework capable of sustaining their geopolitical needs and interests in the postwar scenario.\" \n",
"In February 2016, a National Research University academic and Harvard University visiting scholar Yuval Weber wrote on \"E-International Relations\" that \"the world is not entering Cold War II\", asserting that the current tensions and ideologies of both sides are not similar to those of the original Cold War, that situations in Europe and the Middle East do not destabilize other areas geographically, and that Russia \"is far more integrated with the outside world than the Soviet Union ever was\". In September 2016, when asked if he thought the world had entered a new cold war, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, argued that current tensions were not comparable to the Cold War. He noted the lack of an ideological divide between the United States and Russia, saying that conflicts were no longer ideologically bipolar.\n",
"While new tensions between Russia and the West have similarities with those during the Cold War, there are also major differences, such as modern Russia's increased economic ties with the outside world, which may potentially constrain Russia's actions, and provide it with new avenues for exerting influence, such as in Belarus and Central Asia, which have not seen the type of direct military action that Russia engaged in less cooperative former Soviet states like Ukraine and the Caucasus region. The term \"Cold War II\" has therefore been described as a misnomer.\n"
] |
why are there fourteen mountains over 8,000m, but none over 9,000m? | It's likely Mt. Everest is near to the largest size mountain earth will support. A larger mountain is more massive, which puts a strain on the material at its base. They deform the plates they sit upon, more mass will further the deformation. And depending on height and climate, can promote glacial development, which it has been theorized to cause vigorous erosion limiting total height. | [
"Thirteen of the fourteen 8,000m summits are Ultras (the exception being Lhotse), and there are a further 64 Ultras over in height. There are 90 Ultras with a prominence of over , but only 22 with more than prominence.\n",
"The list contains 451 mountains with a prominence higher than 300 m, among which 24 are above 4000 m, 64 above 3500 m, 208 above 3000 m, 321 above 2500 m, 384 above 2000 m, 417 above 1500 m and 443 above 1000 m. The average and median heights are respectively 2812 and 2956 m. Eight summits (sometimes called ultra-prominent peaks) have a prominence exceeding 1500 m, they are found in seven cantons. The great majority of the summits are located in the Alps, the other being located in the Jura Mountains. On average, each summit is the culminating point of an area corresponding to 91.5 km, which is equivalent in term of density to approximately 1.09 summits per 100 km.\n",
"The importance of thirteeners is greatest in Colorado, which has the majority of such peaks in North America with over 600 of them. Despite the large number of peaks, over 20 peak baggers have reported climbing all of Colorado's thirteeners. Thirteeners are also significant in states whose highpoints fall between 13,000 and 13,999 feet. Regarding whether or not peaks in excess of 13,999 feet should be considered as \"thirteeners\", this article will count them as such for statistical purposes, but concentrate its focus on those peaks less than 14,000 feet since the higher peaks are already covered in the fourteeners list.\n",
"Other 6,000 m peaks which are often defined as individual peaks but which have less than 300 m of re-ascent or prominence, include:- Huandoy W 6,342 m (prominence between 200-250m), Sarapu 6,127 (prominence between 180-230m), Callangate North 6,000 m (less than 295m prominence).\n",
"There are two peaks above 2,900 m, Vihren and Kutelo; seven above 2,800 m; 13 above 2,700 m; 32 above 2,600 m and 60 above 2,500 m. The highest granite peak is the Banderishki Chukar (2,732 m). Some of the highest peaks are: \n",
"Besides Mt. Everest and K2, the other 9 of the world's 17 tallest peaks on China's western borders are: Lhotse (8516 m, 4th highest), Makalu (8485 m, 5th), Cho Oyu (8188 m, 6th), Gyachung Kang (7952 m, 15th) of the Himalayas on the border with Nepal and Gasherbrum I (8080 m, 11th), Broad Peak (8051 m, 12th), Gasherbrum II (8035 m, 13th), Gasherbrum III (7946 m, 16th) and Gasherbrum IV (7932 m, 17th) of the Karakorum on the border with Pakistan. The tallest peak entirely within China is Shishapangma (8013 m, 14th) of the Tibetan Himalayas in Nyalam County of Tibet Autonomous Region. In all, 9 of the 14 mountain peaks in the world over 8,000 m are in or on the border of China. Another notable Himalayan peak in China is Namchabarwa (7782 m, 28th), near the great bend of the Yarlungtsanpo (upper Brahmaputra) River in eastern Tibet, and considered to be the eastern anchor of the Himalayas.\n",
"BULLET::::- Thirteen of California's fifteen peaks which exceed 14,000 feet (a Fourteener) in elevation; the isolated Mount Shasta in northern California, and White Mountain Peak in neighboring Mono County, are the only California 14ers not (at least partly) in Inyo County\n"
] |
why is "the big crunch" an unpopular theory? | So you have this balloon hooked up to an air compressor. Youre watching this and you see its slowly getting bigger. We know its getting bigger because if we draw a bunch of dots on the balloon with sharpie, you notice all the dots are getting farther from eachother.
The big crunch says that this air compressor will turn off, or atleast slow down enough that air is escaping faster than entering.
If the air compressor is currently on, yes its possible that it will turn off, but without other knowledge it makes more sense that it will keep inflating. | [
"The Big Crunch is a theoretical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach zero, an event potentially followed by a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang. The vast majority of evidence indicates that this theory is not correct. Instead, astronomical observations show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than being slowed down by gravity. \n",
"The Big Crunch hypothesis is a symmetric view of the ultimate fate of the universe. Just as the Big Bang started as a cosmological expansion, this theory assumes that the average density of the universe will be enough to stop its expansion and begin contracting. The end result is unknown; a simple estimation would have all the matter and space-time in the universe collapse into a dimensionless singularity back into how the universe started with the Big Bang, but at these scales unknown quantum effects need to be considered (see Quantum gravity). Recent evidence suggests that this scenario is not likely but it has not been ruled out as measurements are only available over a short period of time and could reverse in the future.\n",
"Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries) () is a book written by Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and published in 2008. In it, Bernstein offers a layman's introduction to how the U.S. economic system works. Using economic inequality as the basis of his argument, Bernstein explains why Americans still feel squeezed during boom times, what he believes is wrong with the economy, and how he believes it could be improved for the greater common good.\n",
"The crunch is generally caused by a reduction in the market prices of previously \"overinflated\" assets and refers to the financial crisis that results from the price collapse. This can result in widespread foreclosure or bankruptcy for those who came in late to the market, as the prices of previously inflated assets generally drop precipitously. In contrast, a liquidity crisis is triggered when an otherwise sound business finds itself temporarily incapable of accessing the bridge finance it needs to expand its business or smooth its cash flow payments. In this case, accessing additional credit lines and \"trading through\" the crisis can allow the business to navigate its way through the problem and ensure its continued solvency and viability. It is often difficult to know, in the midst of a crisis, whether distressed businesses are experiencing a crisis of solvency or a temporary liquidity crisis.\n",
"Malthus' work did not spark many economic debates at the time of its publication. In fact, many denied Malthus' ideas on recessions. Say's Law remained the more commonly accepted theory at the time due to its popularity. Malthus' book does not attract much attention until the Great Depression occurs and it becomes evident that depressions are real. After this, economists such as John Maynard Keynes begin to look more deeply into Malthus' ideas and utilize them in their own work.\n",
"French economist Thomas Piketty states in his 2013 book, \"Capital in the Twenty-First Century,\" that \"the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed.\"\n",
"In Keynes’ Treatise, he does not agree that booms and busts happen solely because of extrinsic random variables such as “sunspots”. Instead, he believes that economic events emerge when there are discrepancies between savings and investments.\n"
] |
if millipedes have around 200 legs and are that little then why are they so slow? | If you had to organise 200 legs you'd be slow, too.[1]
Actually - some centipedes are very speedy, because that's the niche they've evolved to fit, but millipedes aren't predators (that I know of) and have no need for speed.
[1] Actually, they're self-organising - each segment responds in a set way to the movement of the one before, so much of it is automatic. | [
"Octopuses mainly move about by relatively slow crawling, with some swimming in a head-first position. Jet propulsion, or backwards swimming, is their fastest means of locomotion, followed by swimming and crawling. When in no hurry, they usually crawl on either solid or soft surfaces. Several arms are extended forwards, some of the suckers adhere to the substrate and the animal hauls itself forwards with its powerful arm muscles, while other arms may push rather than pull. As progress is made, other arms move ahead to repeat these actions and the original suckers detach. During crawling, the heart rate nearly doubles, and the animal requires ten or fifteen minutes to recover from relatively minor exercise.\n",
"Among myriapods, millipedes have traditionally been considered most closely related to the tiny pauropods, although some molecular studies challenge this relationship. Millipedes can be distinguished from the somewhat similar but only distantly related centipedes (class Chilopoda), which move rapidly, are venomous, carnivorous, and have only a single pair of legs on each body segment. The scientific study of millipedes is known as diplopodology, and a scientist who studies them is called a diplopodologist.\n",
"Centipedes and millipedes have many sets of legs that move in metachronal rhythm. Some echinoderms locomote using the many tube feet on the underside of their arms. Although the tube feet resemble suction cups in appearance, the gripping action is a function of adhesive chemicals rather than suction. Other chemicals and relaxation of the ampullae allow for release from the substrate. The tube feet latch on to surfaces and move in a wave, with one arm section attaching to the surface as another releases. Some multi-armed, fast-moving starfish such as the sunflower seastar (\"Pycnopodia helianthoides\") pull themselves along with some of their arms while letting others trail behind. Other starfish turn up the tips of their arms while moving, which exposes the sensory tube feet and eyespot to external stimuli. Most starfish cannot move quickly, a typical speed being that of the leather star (\"Dermasterias imbricata\"), which can manage just in a minute. Some burrowing species from the genera \"Astropecten\" and \"Luidia\" have points rather than suckers on their long tube feet and are capable of much more rapid motion, \"gliding\" across the ocean floor. The sand star (\"Luidia foliolata\") can travel at a speed of per minute. Sunflower starfish are quick, efficient hunters, moving at a speed of using 15,000 tube feet.\n",
"Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name being derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a result of two single segments fused together. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball. Although the name \"millipede\" derives from the Latin for \"thousand feet\", no known species has 1,000; the record of 750 legs belongs to \"Illacme plenipes\". There are approximately 12,000 named species classified into 16 orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods, an arthropod group which also includes centipedes and other multi-legged creatures.\n",
"BULLET::::- Arthropoda: 4, 6 (Insecta), 8, 12, or 14 legs. Some arthropods have more than a dozen legs; a few species possess over 100. Despite what their names might suggest, centipedes (\"hundred feet\") may have fewer than 20 or more than 300 legs, and millipedes (\"thousand feet\") have fewer than 1,000 legs, but up to 750.\n",
"Millipedes are arthropods in the class Diplopoda, which is characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball. The average number of legs are about 500 or so, but rarely about 750. Approximately 12,000 species classified into sixteen orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods.\n",
"Centipedes make up the class Chilopoda. They are fast, predatory and venomous, hunting mostly at night. There are around 3,300 species, ranging from the diminutive \"Nannarrup hoffmani\" (less than 12 mm or in in length) to the giant \"Scolopendra gigantea\", which may exceed .\n"
] |
how is it humanly possible to survive a flight in an airplane wheel well given the lack of heating, pressure ond oxygen, which are vital for survival at a high altitude? | Luck.
The young man in question was unconscious for most of the trip, luckily for him, but he was certainly dicing with death. Stowing away in a wheel well isn't a surefire way to kill yourself, but this risk is certainly unacceptably high. There's just enough oxygen and heat -- and plenty of pressure -- up there to make survival possible, just not very likely.
It is usually fatal, though. A few years ago a man literally fell out of the sky onto a street in London. He'd stowed away in a wheel well in Angola and perished on the way; when the plane lowered its undercarriage on its approach to Heathrow, the body fell out and gave several Londoners a nasty shock. | [
"The newest models of aircraft were capable of exceeding altitudes at which humans can breathe, even with 100% oxygen supplementation, introducing the risk of hypoxia. Bird discovered that an oxygen regulator in a crashed German bomber he was ferrying back to the U.S. for study seemed to contain a pressure breathing circuit. He took the oxygen regulator home, studied it, and made it more functional. It became the standard design for high-altitude oxygen regulators for most military aircraft until recent time. Bird studied medicine \" ... to understand the human body and its stress in flight\". This led to him developing efficient respirators and ventilators.\n",
"For airliners that need to fly over terrain that does not allow reaching the safe altitude within a minimum of 30 minutes, pressurized oxygen bottles are mandatory since the chemical oxygen generators fitted to most planes cannot supply sufficient oxygen.\n",
"Well below the Armstrong limit, humans typically require supplemental oxygen in order to avoid hypoxia. For most people, this is typically needed at altitudes above 4,500 m (15,000 ft). Commercial jetliners are required to maintain cabin pressurization at a cabin altitude of not greater than . U.S. regulations on general aviation aircraft (non-airline, non-government flights) require that the minimum required flight crew, but not the passengers, be on supplemental oxygen if the plane spends more than half an hour at a cabin altitude above . The minimum required flight crew must be on supplemental oxygen if the plane spends \"any\" time above a cabin altitude of , and even the passengers must be provided with supplemental oxygen above a cabin altitude of . Skydivers, who are at altitude only briefly before jumping, do not normally exceed .\n",
"Any failure of cabin pressurization above requires an emergency descent to or the closest to that while maintaining the Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA), and the deployment of an oxygen mask for each seat. The oxygen systems have sufficient oxygen for all on board and give the pilots adequate time to descend to below . Without emergency oxygen, hypoxia may lead to loss of consciousness and a subsequent loss of control of the aircraft. Modern airliners include a pressurized pure oxygen tank in the cockpit, giving the pilots more time to bring the aircraft to a safe altitude. The time of useful consciousness varies according to altitude. As the pressure falls the cabin air temperature may also plummet to the ambient outside temperature with a danger of hypothermia or frostbite.\n",
"Pure aviator oxygen which has moisture removed to prevent freezing of valves at altitude is readily available and routinely used in general aviation mountain flying and at high altitudes. Most small general aviation aircraft are not pressurized, therefore oxygen use is an FAA requirement at higher altitudes.\n",
"One of the most significant breakthroughs in the prevention of altitude DCS is oxygen pre-breathing. Breathing pure oxygen significantly reduces the nitrogen loads in body tissues by reducing the partial pressure of nitrogen in the lungs, which induces diffusion of nitrogen from the blood into the breathing gas, and this effect eventually lowers the concentration of nitrogen in the other tissues of the body. If continued for long enough, and without interruption, this provides effective protection upon exposure to low-barometric pressure environments. However, breathing pure oxygen during flight alone (ascent, en route, descent) does not decrease the risk of altitude DCS as the time required for ascent is generally not sufficient to significantly desaturate the slower tissues.\n",
"Cold or oxygen-rich atmospheres can sustain life at pressures much lower than atmospheric, as long as the density of oxygen is similar to that of standard sea-level atmosphere. The colder air temperatures found at altitudes of up to 3 km generally compensate for the lower pressures there. Above this altitude, oxygen enrichment is necessary to prevent altitude sickness in humans that did not undergo prior acclimatization, and spacesuits are necessary to prevent ebullism above 19 km. Most spacesuits use only 20 kPa (150 Torr) of pure oxygen. This pressure is high enough to prevent ebullism, but decompression sickness and gas embolisms can still occur if decompression rates are not managed.\n"
] |
when did the united states do away with voting as a "legal" holiday? | It's a holiday under state law in a handful of states, but it has never been a national holiday. The problem with making it a holiday or having voting on the weekend is that there will still always be people who have to work. If the law mandated that everybody had the day off, then emergency services like police and hospitals would stop and that would be terribly dangerous. Even if first responders and other essential safety personnel worked, it would be a pain for a lot of people for all restaurants, stores, gas stations, etc. to be closed. At the end of the day there's no good way to force a holiday for everyone - our society relies on having access to various services to run and people have to work for those services to operate.
Early voting exists for people who can't take off on election day. A lot of states also require that employers let employees take a couple hours off from work to go vote. | [
"In 1939, William Randolph Hearst advocated, through his chain of daily newspapers, the creation of a holiday to celebrate citizenship. In 1940, Congress designated the third Sunday in May as \"I am an American Day.\" In 1944 \"I am an American Day\" was promoted through the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. A 16-minute film, \"I Am an American\", was featured in American theaters as a short feature. In 1947 Hearst Newsreels featured the event on \"News of the Day\". By 1949, governors of all 48 states had issued Constitution Day proclamations. On February 29, 1952, Congress moved the \"I am an American Day\" observation to September 17 and renamed it \"\"Citizenship Day\"\".\n",
"Conyers' proposed the holiday in Resolution (H.R.) 63 - Democracy Day Act of 2005. The bill called for the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year, Election Day, to be a legal public holiday. The purpose of the holiday was to increase voter turnout by giving citizens more time to vote, as well as to allow for the opening of more polling places with more workers while raising awareness of the importance of voting and civic participation.\n",
"On June 28, 1870, Grant approved and signed legislation that made Christmas, or December 25, a legal public Holiday within Washington D.C. Historian Ron White said this was done by Grant because of his passion to unify the nation. During the early 19th Century in the United States, Christmas became more of a family-centered activity. Other Holidays, included in the law within Washington D.C., were New Year, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. The law affected 5,300 federal employees working in the District of Columbia, the nation's capital. The legislation was meant to adapt to similar laws in states surrounding Washington D.C. and \"in every State of the Union.\"\n",
"The Flag Act of 1777 () was passed by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, in response to a petition made by an American Indian nation on June 3 for \"an American Flag.\" As a result, June 14 is now celebrated as Flag Day in the United States.\n",
"The law establishing the present holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an amendment by Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004. Before this law was enacted, the holiday was known as \"Citizenship Day\". In addition to renaming the holiday \"Constitution Day and Citizenship Day,\" the act mandates that all publicly funded educational institutions, and all federal agencies, provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day. In May 2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any kind.\n",
"The history of federal holidays in the United States dates back to June 28, 1870, when Congress created federal holidays \"to correspond with similar laws of States around the District ... and ... in every State of the Union.\" Although at first applicable only to federal employees in the District of Columbia, Congress extended coverage in 1885 to all federal employees.\n",
"Arizona resident, John Makkai, is credited with pushing the holiday through the Arizona legislation. American Family Day began as a 1-year proclamation, signed by then Governor Raúl Héctor Castro, declaring August 7, 1977 American Family Day. The following year, American Family Day was signed into law as an official Arizona holiday by Governor Bruce Babbitt. The holiday also caught on in several other states, including North Carolina and Georgia.\n"
] |
Is blood pressure related to blood viscosity | The formula for blood pressure is:
Heart rate • Stroke volume • Systemic vascular resistance
* Heart rate = how many times the heart beats in 1 minute.
* Stroke volume = how much blood is ejected from the heart each time it beats.
* Systemic vascular resistance = the resistance to blood flow caused by the blood flowing through the vessels.
The systemic vascular resistance is composed of many factors, including the total length of the vascular system, the radius of the vessels, the flow rate of the blood through them, and yes, the viscosity of the blood. Check out the [Hagen–Poiseuille equation](_URL_0_) for more info on that.
**tl;dr - The viscosity of the blood is only one small component of the total contribution to blood pressure.** | [
"Blood viscosity is a measure of the resistance of blood to flow. It can also be described as the thickness and stickiness of blood. This biophysical property makes it a critical determinant of friction against the vessel walls, the rate of venous return, the work required for the heart to pump blood, and how much oxygen is transported to tissues and organs. These functions of the cardiovascular system are directly related to vascular resistance, preload, afterload, and perfusion, respectively.\n",
"Arteries have a blood pressure higher than other parts of the circulatory system. The pressure in arteries varies during the cardiac cycle. It is highest when the heart contracts and lowest when heart relaxes. The variation in pressure produces a pulse, which can be felt in different areas of the body, such as the radial pulse. Arterioles have the greatest collective influence on both local blood flow and on overall blood pressure. They are the primary \"adjustable nozzles\" in the blood system, across which the greatest pressure drop occurs. The combination of heart output (cardiac output) and systemic vascular resistance, which refers to the collective resistance of all of the body's arterioles, are the principal determinants of arterial blood pressure at any given moment.\n",
"Systemic arterial pressures are generated by the forceful contractions of the heart's left ventricle. High blood pressure is a factor in causing arterial damage. Healthy resting arterial pressures are relatively low, mean systemic pressures typically being under above surrounding atmospheric pressure (about at sea level). To withstand and adapt to the pressures within, arteries are surrounded by varying thicknesses of smooth muscle which have extensive elastic and inelastic connective tissues. The pulse pressure, being the difference between systolic and diastolic pressure, is determined primarily by the amount of blood ejected by each heart beat, stroke volume, versus the volume and elasticity of the major arteries.\n",
"A simple view of the hemodynamics of systemic arterial pressure is based around mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure. Most influences on blood pressure can be understood in terms of their effect on cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance. Cardiac output is the product of stroke volume and heart rate, and stroke volume is influenced by blood volume. In the short-term, the greater the blood volume, the higher the cardiac output. This may explain in part the relationship between dietary salt intake and increased blood pressure, where increased salt intake may increase blood volume potentially resulting in higher arterial pressure. However, this varies with the individual and is highly dependent on autonomic nervous system response and the renin–angiotensin system. In the longer-term the relationship between volume and blood pressure is more complex. In simple terms systemic vascular resistance is mainly determined by the caliber of small arteries and arterioles. The resistance attributable to a blood vessel depends on its radius as described by the Hagen-Poiseuille's equation (resistance∝1/radius). Hence, the smaller the radius, the very much higher the resistance. Other physical factors that affect resistance include: vessel length (the longer the vessel, the higher the resistance), blood viscosity (the higher the viscosity, the higher the resistance) and the number of vessels, particularly the smaller numerous, arterioles and capillaries. The presence of an arterial stenosis increases resistance to flow, however this increase in resistance rarely increases systemic blood pressure because its contribution to total systemic resistance is small, although it may profoundly decrease downstream flow. Substances called vasoconstrictors reduce the caliber of blood vessels, thereby increasing blood pressure. Vasodilators (such as nitroglycerin) increase the caliber of blood vessels, thereby decreasing arterial pressure. In the longer term a process termed remodeling also contributes to changing the caliber of small blood vessels and influencing resistance and reactivity to vasoactive agents. Reductions in capillary density, termed capillary rarefaction, may also contribute to increased resistance in some circumstances.\n",
"Regardless of site, blood pressure is related to the wall tension of the vessel according to the Young–Laplace equation (assuming that the thickness of the vessel wall is very small as compared to the diameter of the lumen):\n",
"Blood pressure in the arteries supplying the body is a result of the work needed to pump the cardiac output (the flow of blood pumped by the heart) through the \"vascular resistance\", usually termed total peripheral resistance by physicians and researchers. An increase in the media to lumenal diameter ratio has been observed in hypertensive arterioles (arteriolosclerosis) as the vascular wall thickens and/or lumenal diameter decreases.\n",
"If the blood viscosity increases (gets thicker), the result is an increase in arterial pressure. Certain medical conditions can change the viscosity of the blood. For instance, anemia (low red blood cell concentration), reduces viscosity, whereas increased red blood cell concentration increases viscosity. It had been thought that aspirin and related \"blood thinner\" drugs decreased the viscosity of blood, but instead studies found that they act by reducing the tendency of the blood to clot.\n"
] |
what thoughts go on in the mind of a typical mentally handicapped person? | There is no such thing as a "typical mentally handicapped person". Every individual is different and the brain is an extremely complex organ and development or injury affects every individual in different ways. A "mental handicap" may manifest completely different in two people depending on nature and/or nurture. | [
"Mental health and stability is a very important factor in a person’s everyday life. Social skills, behavioral skills, and someone’s way of thinking are just some of the things that the human brain develops at an early age. Learning how to interact with others and how to focus on certain subjects are essential lessons to learn. This spans from the time we can talk all the way to when we are so old that we can barely walk. However, there are some people out there who have difficulty with these kind of skills and behaving like an average person. This is most likely the cause of having a mental illness. A mental illness is a wide range of conditions that affect a person’s mood, thinking, and behavior. About 26% of people in the United States, ages 18 and older, have been diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder. However, not much is said about children with mental illnesses even though there are many that will develop one, even as early as age three.\n",
"Mental illness affects not only the person themselves, but the people around them. Friends and family also play an important role in the child’s mental health stability and treatment. If the child is young, parents are the ones who evaluate their child and decide whether or not they need some form of help. Friends are a support system for the child and family as a whole. Living with a mental disorder is never easy, so it’s always important to have people around to make the days a little easier. However, there are negative factors that come with the social aspect of mental illness as well. Parents are sometimes held responsible for their child’s own illness. People also say that the parents raised their children in a certain way or they acquired their behavior from them. Family and friends are sometimes so ashamed of the idea of being close to someone with a disorder that the child feels isolated and thinks that they have to hide their illness from others. When in reality, hiding it from people prevents the child from getting the right amount of social interaction and treatment in order to thrive in today’s society.\n",
"Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz compared that 50 years ago children were either categorized as good or bad, and today \"all children are good, but some are mentally healthy and others are mentally ill\". The social control and forced identity creation is the cause of many mental health problems among today's children. A behaviour or misbehaviour might not be an illness but exercise of their free will and today's immediacy in drug administration for every problem along with the legal over-guarding and regard of a child's status as a dependent shakes their personal self and invades their internal growth.\n",
"Mind mentions childhood abuse, trauma, violence or neglect, social isolation, loneliness or discrimination, the death of someone close, stress, homelessness or poor housing, social disadvantage, poverty or debt, unemployment, caring for a family member or friend, significant trauma as an adult, such as military combat, and being involved in a serious accident or being the victim of a violent crime as possibly triggering an episode of mental illness.\n",
"In the UK a lot of work has been done to extend the concept of psychological mindedness beyond the individual. This work recognises that the health and success of families, schools, hospitals, businesses, communities and indeed society as a whole depends in a large part on the psychological mindedness of the system or environment created by that institution. This is more than the sum of the individual parts. For example, an individual nurse on a psychiatric ward may be psychologically minded and motivated to connect with a service user who may also have some psychological mindedness. However, the chances of two such individuals having a psychologically minded encounter can easily be sabotaged by a \"psychologically blind\" or \"alexithymic\" care system that allows the nurse no time, no headspace, no structure and no back up to function in this way. It is well known that nurses on chaotic psychiatric wards have to shut off emotionally just to survive personally in the face of the overwhelming demands placed upon them. Once this happens the experience for the service user will obviously become one of \"not being listened to\". This real emotional neglect coupled with transference factors is what leads to so many incidents on our psychiatric wards. Service users who feel rejected are bound to escalate their behaviour in order to be heard and in order to \"hit back\" at those who are in effect just repeating the failures of past caregivers.\n",
"According to Coni Kalinowski (a psychiatrist at the University of Nevada and Director of Mojave Community Services) and Pat Risser (a mental health consultant and self-described former recipient of mental health services), mentalism at one extreme can lead to a categorical dividing of people into an empowered group assumed to be normal, healthy, reliable, and capable, and a powerless group assumed to be sick, disabled, crazy, unpredictable, and violent. This divide can justify inconsiderate treatment of the latter group and expectations of poorer standards of living for them, for which they may be expected to express gratitude. Further discrimination may involve labeling some as \"high functioning\" and some as \"low-functioning\"; while this may enable the targeting of resources, in both categories human behaviors are recast in pathological terms.\n",
"Psychological mindedness refers to a person's capacity for self-examination, self-reflection, introspection and personal insight. It includes an ability to recognize meanings that underlie overt words and actions, to appreciate emotional nuance and complexity, to recognize the links between past and present, and insight into one's own and others' motives and intentions. Psychologically minded people have above average insight into mental life.\n"
] |
during the cold war, what's the point of splitting berlin? like, it seemed like a bad idea from the start? | It wasn't split during the cold war. It was split 4 ways after the Germans surrendered in WWII, into the Russian, American, English, and French zones. The idea behind splitting Berlin was that the allied powers defeated Germany, and thus each should be responsible for a section of the German capital. | [
"At first, this arrangement was intended to be of a temporary administrative nature, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany and Berlin broke down. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations. In 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food and other goods through the Berlin Airlift. In May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained.\n",
"Germany's capital, Berlin, was deep within the area controlled after World War II by the Soviet Union. Initially governed in four sectors controlled by the four Allied powers (United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union), tensions of the Cold War escalated until the Soviet forces implemented the Berlin Blockade, which the Western allies relieved with the dramatic airlift. Afterward, the sectors controlled by the NATO Allies became an effective exclave of West Germany, completely surrounded by East Germany. From 1952, the border between East and West was closed everywhere but in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin, a labour drain that threatened East Germany with economic collapse.\n",
"In 1945, the Third Reich ended in defeat and Germany was divided into four occupation zones, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The capital city of Berlin was similarly divided into four sectors. Between 1947 and 1949, the three zones of the western allies were merged, forming the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, aligned with capitalist Europe (which later developed into the European Community). The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic with its capital in East Berlin, part of the communist Soviet Bloc. The FRG was a member of the western military alliance, NATO and the GDR was a member of the Warsaw Pact. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War.\n",
"With the London Protocol of 1944 signed on September 12, 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the whole city that was called \"Magistrate of Greater Berlin\", which existed until 1947. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administered the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, which served as the governing body of the city. However, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a separate city government was established, which continued to call itself \"Magistrate of Greater Berlin\".\n",
"After the defeat in World War II, Germany was occupied by the troops of Britain, France, the United States and Soviet Union. Berlin was a case of its own, as it was situated on the territory of the Soviet zone but divided into four sectors. The western sectors were later called West Berlin, the other one East Berlin. The communists tended to consider the Soviet sector of Berlin as a part of GDR; West Berlin was, according to them, an independent political unit. In the GDR \"Westberlin\" was the preferred spelling in order to de-emphasize the relationship to \"Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR\" (the GDR capital).\n",
"Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany made it a natural focal point in the Cold War after 1947. Though the city was initially governed by a Four Power Allied Control Council with a leadership that rotated monthly, the Soviets withdrew from the council as East-West relations deteriorated and began governing their sector independently. The council continued to govern West Berlin, with the same rotating leadership policy, though now only involving France, Great Britain, and the United States.\n",
"From the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945 until the reunification of Germany in October 1990, Berlin was divided into four sectors: the American Sector, the French Sector, the British Sector, and the Soviet Sector, each named after the occupying power. The Soviet sector, informally called East Berlin, was considered by East Germany, then a member of the Warsaw Pact, to be part of its territory and in fact its capital, and the American, French, and British Sectors, collectively called West Berlin, were in some respects governed as if they were a part of West Germany, a member of NATO. Seldom did the American government exercise power directly in the American sector, except as it affected American military forces stationed in Berlin. In particular, the judgeship of the United States Court for Berlin was vacant except during the trial over which Judge Stern presided.\n"
] |
What location does fat get used to create energy? | Ok so fat is called a Triglyceride or TAG and it is called that because it is made of three fatty acid chains. This structure is very stable and is unsoluable and is stored in docks called adipose tissue. When the body runs out of glucose and glycogen as fuel it starts burning fatty acids. A number of things need to happen first though.
To begin with the fatty acids need to be mobilised. This is done through a process called Lipolysis. The three acids are seperated and then transported to the cell that requires the fuel. In this case a muscle cell. Now what the cell needs to do is convert the fatty acid into energy or basically ATP. Through a complicated metabolic pathway they form a molecule called Acteyl Co-A. This molecule enters the energy producing cycle called the citric acid cycle. It is now the same as glucose and goes through the same steps such as the electron transport chain and stuff.
Let me know if you need more detail. Key thing is fat is stored in a stable unsoluable form in adipose tissue. When the body is starving hormones such as insulin activate the degradation of the TAGs into 3 separate chains which then enter the blood and get transported to the starving cell. The cell then uses that fuel.
I think that answers your question. | [
"Fat is an important foodstuff for many forms of life, and fats serve both structural and metabolic functions. They are a necessary part of the diet of most heterotrophs (including humans) and are the most energy dense, thus the most efficient form of energy storage.\n",
"Adipose tissue, commonly known as fat, is a depository for energy in order to conserve metabolic homeostasis. As the body takes in energy in the form of glucose, some is expended, and the rest is stored as glycogen primarily in the liver, muscle cells, or fat.\n",
"The macronutrients (excluding fiber and water) provide structural material (amino acids from which proteins are built, and lipids from which cell membranes and some signaling molecules are built), and energy. Some of the structural material can also be used to generate energy internally, and in either case it is measured in Joules or kilocalories (often called \"Calories\" and written with a capital 'C' to distinguish them from little 'c' calories). Carbohydrates and proteins provide 17 kJ approximately (4 kcal) of energy per gram, while fats provide 37 kJ (9 kcal) per gram, though the net energy from either depends on such factors as absorption and digestive effort, which vary substantially from instance to instance.\n",
"The macronutrients (excluding fiber and water) provide structural material (amino acids from which proteins are built, and lipids from which cell membranes and some signaling molecules are built) and energy. Some of the structural material can be used to generate energy internally, and in either case it is measured in Joules or kilocalories (often called \"Calories\" and written with a capital \"C\" to distinguish them from little 'c' calories). Carbohydrates and proteins provide 17 kJ approximately (4 kcal) of energy per gram, while fats provide 37 kJ (9 kcal) per gram, though the net energy from either depends on such factors as absorption and digestive effort, which vary substantially from instance to instance. Vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water do not provide energy, but are required for other reasons.\n",
"The fats and carbohydrates in food constitute the majority of energy used by the body. They are measured cumulatively in the USA and many other places in calories and in kilojoules in some other parts of the world.\n",
"In addition to dietary fats, storage lipids stored in the adipose tissues are one of the main sources of energy for living organisms. Triacylglycerols, lipid membrane and cholesterol can be synthesized by the organisms through various pathways.\n",
"Energy in food comes from three sources: fat, protein, and carbohydrates. A typical energy bar weighs between 45 and 80 g and is likely to supply about 200–300 Cal (840–1,300 kJ), 3–9 g of fat, 7–15 g of protein, and 20–40 g of carbohydrates.\n"
] |
How can scientists measure the mass of an atom, and other subatomic particles to such extreme precision? | Particle masses can be measured in a few ways. Typically, subatomic particle masses are determined by the relationship between their energy and their momentum. If a particle is not moving, its total energy is E=mc\^2. If it is moving, then E\^2=(mc\^2)\^2+(pc)\^2, where p is the momentum and c is the speed of light. One way to measure the mass, say, of a proton, is to put it in a mass spectrometer. Accelerating it in a known electric field gives it an amount of kinetic energy proportional to its charge. Causing the proton to move in a circular path in a uniform, well-calibrated magnetic field allows the momentum to be measured quite precisely.
| [
"Since the electron mass determines a number of observed effects in atomic physics, there are potentially many ways to determine its mass from an experiment, if the values of other physical constants are already considered known.\n",
"Typically, the mass of objects is measured in relation to that of the kilogram, which is defined as the mass of the \"international prototype kilogram\" (IPK), a platinum alloy cylinder stored in an environmentally-monitored safe secured in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France. However, the IPK is not convenient for measuring the masses of atoms and particles of similar scale, as it contains trillions of trillions of atoms, and has most certainly lost or gained a little mass over time despite the best efforts to prevent this. It is much easier to precisely compare an atom's mass to that of another atom, thus scientists developed the atomic mass unit (or Dalton). By definition, 1 u is exactly one twelfth of the mass of a carbon-12 atom, and by extension a carbon-12 atom has a mass of exactly 12 u. This definition, however, might be changed by the proposed redefinition of SI base units, which will leave the Dalton very close to one, but no longer exactly equal to it.\n",
"The difficulty of making the measurement is illustrated by the wide-ranging values for the mass of the neutron obtained from 1932-1934. The accepted value today is . In Chadwick's 1932 paper reporting on the discovery, he estimated the mass of the neutron to be between and . By bombarding boron with alpha particles, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie obtained a high value of , while Ernest Lawrence's team at the University of California measured the small value using their new cyclotron.\n",
"This method of measuring \"α\" is very similar in principle to the atom-recoil method. In this case, the accurately known mass ratio of the electron to the neutron is used. The neutron mass is measured with high precision through a very precise measurement of its Compton wavelength. This is then combined with the value of the Rydberg constant to extract \"α\". The result is,\n",
"The accurate mass (more appropriately, the measured accurate mass) is an experimentally determined mass that allows the elemental composition to be determined. For molecules with mass below 200 u, 5 ppm accuracy is often sufficient to uniquely determine the elemental composition.\n",
"An accurate value for the mass of the neutron could be determined from this process. Chadwick and Goldhaber tried this and found that it worked. They measured the kinetic energy of the proton produced as 1.05 MeV, leaving the mass of the neutron as the unknown in the equation. Chadwick and Goldhaber calculated that it was either 1.0084 or 1.0090 atomic units, depending on the values used for the masses of the proton and deuteron. (The modern accepted value for the mass of the neutron is .) The mass of the neutron was too large to be a proton–electron pair.\n",
"To get the mass of the electron, this method actually measures the mass of an Rb atom by measuring the recoil speed of the atom after it emits a photon of known wavelength in an atomic transition. Combining this with the ratio of electron to Rb atom, the result for \"α\" is,\n"
] |
why dont people have a problem with cuba being a problem? | There isn't a sort of flicked switch between free and oppressive. As countries go, Cuba isn't *that bad.*
It's also poor, yes, but arguably because of US-imposed trade embargoes.
All the money it spends on medical aid is also a very good PR move - it sends hundreds of doctors to developing countries. It also has free healthcare and a lower child mortality rate than the US, despite spending a fraction of the amount of money per person on healthcare, which is why pro-healthcare reform people like to bring it up as a contrast to the US's current system. | [
"Furthermore, Cuba has little to offer the United States economically. From the United States viewpoint, Cuba's one party semi-dictatorial form of government is especially undesirable due to characteristics such as its crackdowns on religious freedom, repression of the press, and repression of almost all criticism of the government. These policies are allegedly designed to ensure one party, dictatorial rule for as long as possible. Many in the United States profoundly disagree with Cuba's historical policies of severely limiting private property ownership and property rights in order to attain a more communistic society. The danger that Cuba will try to export its repressive and backward form of government, especially into the United States, is a national security threat due to Cuba's close proximity to the United States. This is not an unfounded threat as Cuba has launched several military campaigns, by itself and with other usually hostile nations, designed to export its undesirable form of government in the past. \n",
"The collapse of the Soviet Union put Cuba into a crisis because Cuba relied on the latter to remain a viable economy. People in Cuba suffered from daily shortages such as electricity blackouts, severe gasoline rationing, huge cuts in public transportation, and bicycles from China. Filmmakers, artists and intellectuals suffered the same consequence as everyone else. ICAIC only completed three features in 1990. At 1991, due to the economic crisis, it also led people to escape the island.\n",
"More than one million Cubans of all social classes have left the island to the United States, and to Spain, The UK, Canada, Mexico and other countries. Because leaving required exit permit and a substantial amount of money, most Cubans could never leave Cuban soil.\n",
"Cuba is the largest and most populated island in the Caribbean yet consistently experiences the lowest death tolls during hurricane season. According to United Nations, it's not because Cubans are lucky but because they're prepared. According to Oxfam, from 1996 to 2002, only 16 people were killed by the six hurricanes that struck Cuba.\n",
"Cuba today works with a growing bloc of Latin American politicians opposed to the \"Washington consensus\", the American-led doctrine that free trade, open markets, and privatization will lift poor third world countries out of economic stagnation. The Cuban government have condemned neoliberalism as a destructive force in the developing world, creating an alliance with Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia in opposing such policies.\n",
"Cuba had fallen into an economic crisis because of the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and old American embargo. Many citizens began to try to leave the country. Some had even begun to steal boats to flee. The clash began as police began securing boats to prevent theft.\n",
"In a December 2014 article, “Only Cubans Can Save Cuba,” she noted that America's change in its Cuban policy occurred only a week after 100 Cuban democracy protesters had been arrested and treated violently. “The US president has now rewarded the Cuban regime for having released a prisoner,” she wrote. “The Barack Obama administration has decided to normalize relations with a government that isn’t normal, because it is not legitimate. The Cuban people never chose it, and it violates our most fundamental human rights. In the ongoing dialogue between the elites of Washington and Havana, where are the Cuban people?”\n"
] |
What would be the implications if the existence of a magnetic monopole was found? | First, the existence of a magnetic monopole would imply the necessity of electric charge quantization -- the phenomenon that all electric charges are integer multiples of some fundamental charge, a property which is observed but for which we do not have a confirmed explanation.
Secondly, many unified theories imply the existence of monopoles. So if you found a monopole, you could ask, if this is a unified theory monopole, what would it tell you about the unified theory? The mass of the monopole would allow us to determine the energy scale at which unification occurs. Also, in unified theories, the monopoles have a radius determined by the unification scale.
One last thing: The density of monopoles in the universe is related to the expansion rate of the universe and when that expansion occurred. Inflation -- a period of rapid expansion -- appears to be needed in the context of grand unification, because otherwise there'd be a much higher density of monopoles and we should have seen some already.
BTW, you might be interested to read about Cabrera's experiment that [appeared to detect a magnetic monopole](_URL_0_) in 1982, although since that signal never occurred again, it seems doubtful that one event was real.
Edit: I should add that the connection between the existence of magnetic monopoles and quantization of electric charge was [realized by Dirac](_URL_1_) in 1931. | [
"Modern interest in this concept stems from particle theories, notably Grand Unified Theories and superstring theories, that predict either the existence, or the possibility, of magnetic monopoles. These theories and others have inspired extensive efforts to search for monopoles. Despite these efforts, no magnetic monopole has been observed to date.\n",
"The magnetic monopole in the \"quantum\" theory of magnetic charge started with a paper by the physicist Paul A.M. Dirac in 1931. The detection of magnetic monopoles is an open problem in experimental physics. In some theoretical models, magnetic monopoles are unlikely to be observed, because they are too massive to be created in particle accelerators, and also too rare in the Universe to enter a particle detector with much probability.\n",
"The existence of magnetic monopoles has long been an interesting and profound possibility. Such solitons could potentially explain the quantization of electric charge, as pointed out by Dirac; they can arise as the classical solutions in gauge theories, as pointed out by Polyakov and 't Hooft; and the inability to detect them is one of the motivations of proposing a period of inflation before the hot Big-Bang phase.\n",
"In 1931, Dirac proposed that the existence of a single magnetic monopole in the universe would suffice to explain the quantisation of electrical charge. In 1975, 1982, and 2009 intriguing results suggested the possible detection of magnetic monopoles, but there is, to date, no direct evidence for their existence (see also Magnetic monopole#Searches for magnetic monopoles).\n",
"Nevertheless, some theoretical physics models predict the existence of these magnetic monopoles. Paul Dirac observed in 1931 that, because electricity and magnetism show a certain symmetry, just as quantum theory predicts that individual positive or negative electric charges can be observed without the opposing charge, isolated South or North magnetic poles should be observable. Using quantum theory Dirac showed that if magnetic monopoles exist, then one could explain the quantization of electric charge—that is, why the observed elementary particles carry charges that are multiples of the charge of the electron.\n",
"The magnetic monopole is a theorized particle that has not yet been observed. It is a possible solution to Maxwell's equations. One researcher claimed to have observed a monopole with a light-bulb-sized detector. The fact that a detector the size of multiple football pitches (MACRO) has not yet duplicated this feat leads most to disregard the earlier claim.\n",
"A \"magnetic monopole\" is a hypothetical particle (or class of particles) that has, as its name suggests, only one magnetic pole (either a north pole or a south pole). In other words, it would possess a \"magnetic charge\" analogous to an electric charge. Magnetic field lines would start or end on magnetic monopoles, so if they exist, they would give exceptions to the rule that magnetic field lines neither start nor end.\n"
] |
How accurate is Battlefield 1? | There's always room for discussion, but perhaps this previous topic found through the search function will answer your inquiry.
* [Battlefield 1 Trailer Accuracy](_URL_0_) | [
"There is no serious historical evidence giving an exact place or time to the battle, nor any troop positions, numerical statistics, casualties, or much of anything of that nature. It is not even fully understood if the battle was in of itself a major engagement or merely a small battle or even a large skirmish. Dio Cassius gives a minor mention of the battle, but it is a mere mention.\n",
"English Heritage, a government body in charge of conservation of historic sites, roughly locates the battlefield in an area 800 to 1600 metres (0.5 to 1.0 mile) north of the town of Barnet. Over the centuries, much of the terrain has changed, and records of the town's boundaries and geography are not detailed enough for English Heritage or historians to conclude the exact location of the battle. Geographical features corresponding to contemporary descriptions allow approximations of where the fighting took place.\n",
"\"\"Cemetery Hill\" is a simulation, on an operational level, of the battle between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The game covers the period from 1 July to 4 July 1863, when these two armies fought the bloodiest battle in American history to that point. The game system is an adaptation of the popular \"Napoleon at Waterloo\" system. Various special and optional rules allow the Players to recreate a picture of an historical event.\" \n",
"The scale of the battle was, however, confirmed in the 19th century when the railway line in Moira was being constructed. Thousands of bodies of men and horses were excavated. When one considers that the survivors probably numbered quite considerably more, then the reputation of the scale of the battle becomes obvious.\n",
"It is described as \"probably the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil\", and according to historical sources, probably the longest. According to chroniclers, more than 50,000 Yorkist and Lancastrian soldiers fought for hours amidst a snowstorm on that day, which was Palm Sunday. A newsletter circulated a week after the battle reported that 28,000 died on the battlefield.\n",
"Not much is known about this battle since it, along with other events of the era, are clouded by mythology. Thus, the historical accuracy of accounts of this battle is disputed. Chinese historiographical tradition places it in the 26th century BC.\n",
"Battlefield is an American documentary series that debuted in 1994 on PBS that explores the most important battles fought primarily during the Second World War and the Vietnam War. The series employs a novel approach in which history is described by detailed accounts of major battles together with background and contextual information. The sixth and final series of the program was broadcast in 2002.\n"
] |
why did we shoot people that contracted rabies? (context within) | 1. you're gonna die, and pretty soon, and it's incredibly painful.
2. you are likely to go nutso as the disease progresses and then bite someone, scratch someone or exchange fluids with them someone - you're contagious.
In days of yore we took slightly more drastic approaches to dealing with this sort of thing.... | [
"BULLET::::- Rabies, a fatal neurologic disease in animals and people, is caused by a virus. Animals and people are most commonly infected through bites from rabid animals. Infected cats may have a variety of signs, but most often have sudden behavioral changes and progressive paralysis.\n",
"BULLET::::- Rabies – Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure, followed by one or more of the following symptoms: violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, the result is nearly always death. The time period between contracting the disease and the start of symptoms is usually one to three months; however, the time is dependent on the distance the virus must travel along nerves to reach the central nervous system. In people who have been exposed to rabies, the rabies vaccine and sometimes rabies immunoglobulin are effective in preventing the disease if the person receives the treatment before the start of rabies symptoms. Once the patient becomes symptomatic, treatment is almost never effective and mortality is over 99%. Rabies may also inflame the spinal cord, producing transverse myelitis.\n",
"In 1969 there was an outbreak of rabies when a dog, just released from a sixth month quarantine after returning from Germany, attacked two people on Camberley Common. The scare resulted in restriction orders for dogs and large-scale shoots to carry out the destruction of foxes and other wildlife.\n",
"Rabies is a viral disease that exists in Haiti and throughout the world. It often causes fatal inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals, such as dogs and mongooses in Haiti. The term \"rabies\" is derived from a Latin word that means \"to rage\"; rabid animals sometimes appear to be angry. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure, followed by one or more of the following symptoms: violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, death is nearly always the outcome. The time period between contracting the disease and showing symptoms is usually one to three months; however, this time period can vary from less than a week to more than a year. The time between contraction and the onset of symptoms is dependent on the distance the virus must travel to reach the central nervous system.\n",
"Unlike rabies and at least a dozen other pathogens carried by raccoons, distemper, an epizootic virus, does not affect humans. This disease is the most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population and affects individuals of all age groups. For example, 94 of 145 raccoons died during an outbreak in Clifton, Ohio, in 1968. It may occur along with a following inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), causing the animal to display rabies-like symptoms. In Germany, the first eight cases of distemper were reported in 2007.\n",
"Rabies is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease which causes inflammation in the brain and is usually fatal. Rabies, caused by the rabies virus, primarily infects mammals. In the laboratory it has been found that birds can be infected, as well as cell cultures from birds, reptiles and insects. Animals with rabies suffer deterioration of the brain and tend to behave bizarrely and often aggressively, increasing the chances that they will bite another animal or a person and transmit the disease. Most cases of humans contracting the disease from infected animals are in developing nations. In 2010, an estimated 26,000 people died from rabies, down from 54,000 in 1990.\n",
"Any mammal may become infected with the rabies virus and develop symptoms, but dogs are by far the main source of human rabies deaths — responsible for up to 99% of all rabies transmissions to humans. Infected monkeys, raccoons, foxes, skunks, cattle, wolves, bats, and cats are also known to transmit rabies to humans. Rabies may also spread through exposure to infected domestic farm animals, groundhogs, weasels, bears and other wild carnivores. Small rodents such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice and lagomorphs like rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and are not known to transmit rabies to humans. Vampire bats can transmit rabies to humans in the 'new world' tropics.\n"
] |
Were the Vandals any more destructive than other invading tribes during the fall of the Roman Empire, or was there another reason their name became connected with vandalism? | I'll only speak for one aspect of the Vandals in that, while certainly proving to be just as if not more destructive than the Huns and Alaric's visigoths--in terms of the sack of Rome they actually proved to be far less Vandal-like.
Like when Attilla and the Huns were at Rome's doorstep, Pope Leo I once again rode out to meet the would-be invaders and attempt to turn them away from the city. However, Leo's position with the Vandals was far weaker. They were far closer to Rome than Attila was, and Leo didn't have the benefit this time of an army at his back. Unlike the Huns though, the Vandals were christian.
What this is leading to is that when the Vandals did sack Rome, they made an agreement with Leo. They would take what they want--but they wouldn't harm the citizens. They stuck to their word. The Visigoths certainly didn't do that much.
Though, the Visigoths had a far better reason than the Vandals for wishing to sack Rome in the first place. Alaric wanted to establish a homeland for his people--and attempted multiple times to seek some sort of settlement Honorius. Honorius was too stupid or stubborn to accept Alaric's peace offers.
Things are not very black and white in history. While I can't speak of to how the act of vandalism became overtly associated with the Vandals, I can at least say that their sacking of Rome proved to be far less brutal than the other barbarian invasions of the Western Empire. | [
"The Vandals were also weakened by the hostility of their Roman subjects, the continued existence among the Vandals of a faction loyal to Hilderic, and by the ambivalent position of the Moorish tribes, who watched the oncoming conflict from the sidelines, ready to join the victor and seize the spoils.\n",
"The modern term \"vandalism\" stems from the Vandals' reputation as the barbarian people who sacked and looted Rome in AD 455. The Vandals were probably not any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but writers who idealized Rome often blamed them for its destruction. For example, English Restoration poet John Dryden wrote, \"Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, / Did all the matchless Monuments deface\".\n",
"By the end of the 2nd century, the Vandals were divided in two main tribal groups, the Silingi and the Hasdingi, with the Silingi being associated with Silesia and the Hasdingi living in the Sudetes. Around the mid 2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin (Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, Burgundians, and others) towards the south-east, creating turmoil along the entire Roman frontier. The 6th century Byzantine historian Procopius noted that the Goths, Gepidae and Vandals were physically and culturally identical, suggesting a common origin. These migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. During the Marcomannic Wars (166–180) the Hasdingi (or Astingi), led by the kings Raus and Rapt (or Rhaus and Raptus) moved south, entering Dacia as allies of Rome. However they eventually caused problems in Dacia and moved further south, towards the lower Danube area. Together with the Hasdingi were the Lacringi, who were possibly also Vandals. In about 271 AD the Roman Emperor Aurelian was obliged to protect the middle course of the Danube against them. They made peace and stayed on the eastern bank of the Danube.\n",
"Although the Vandals had fended off attacks from the Romans and established hegemony over the islands of the western Mediterranean, they were less successful in their conflict with the Berbers. Situated south of the Vandal kingdom, the Berbers inflicted two major defeats on the Vandals in the period 496–530.\n",
"The traditional view has been that the Vandals migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers during the 2nd century BC and settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. They are associated with the Przeworsk culture and were possibly the same people as the Lugii. Expanding into Dacia during the Marcomannic Wars and to Pannonia during the Crisis of the Third Century, the Vandals were confined to Pannonia by the Goths around 330 AD, where they received permission to settle from Constantine the Great. Around 400, raids by the Huns forced many Germanic tribes to migrate into the territory of the Roman Empire, and fearing that they might be targeted next the Vandals were pushed westwards, crossing the Rhine into Gaul along with other tribes in 406. In 409 the Vandals crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, where their main groups, the Hasdingi and the Silingi, settled in Gallaecia (northwest Iberia) and Baetica (south-central Iberia) respectively.\n",
"The Vandals, an ancient Germanic people, are associated with senseless destruction as a result of their sack of Rome under King Genseric in 455. During the Enlightenment, Rome was idealized, while the Goths and Vandals were blamed for its destruction. The Vandals may not have been any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but they did inspire British poet John Dryden to write, \"Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, Did all the matchless Monuments deface\" (1694). However, the Vandals did intentionally damage statues, which may be why their name is associated with the vandalism of art. The term \"Vandalisme\" was coined in 1794 by Henri Grégoire, bishop of Blois, to describe the destruction of artwork following the French Revolution. The term was quickly adopted across Europe. This new use of the term was important in colouring the perception of the Vandals from later Late Antiquity, popularising the pre-existing idea that they were a barbaric group with a taste for destruction.\n",
"In 400 or 401, Hunnic raids forced many Germanic tribes such as the Goths to migrate Westward. Worried that they might be targeted next by the Huns, the Vandals under king Godigisel, along with their allies (the Iranian Alans and Germanic Suebians), moved westwards into Roman territory. Some of the Silingi joined them later. Vandals raided the Roman province of Raetia in the winter of 401/402. From this, historian Peter Heather concludes that at this time the Vandals were located in the region around the Middle and Upper Danube. It is possible that the Vandals were part of the Gothic king Radagaisus' invasion of Italy in 405–406 AD.\n"
] |
The negative side of the square root does not matter? | The square root symbol is just an object that we made up to keep track of certain quantities. The equation x^(2)-A=0 has two solutions in the real numbers for A > 0. Luckily we know that if x=b is a solution (so b is a number so that b^2=A), then x=-b is *also* a solution. This says two things: 1) We just need to know *one* solution in order to keep track of *both* of them and 2) One of the solutions will be positive. We then *invent* the symbol "sqrt(A)" to be the *positive* solution to x^(2)-A=0. This means that the solutions to x^(2)-A=0 are sqrt(A) and -sqrt(a). sqrt(A) is a single value, it can't be both positive and negative.
sqrt(A) symbol invented to represent a single number that can be used as a bookkeeping device in order to keep track of *both* solutions to x^(2)-A=0. We can't have, for instance, sqrt(4)=+-2, because equality is *transitive*. We'd have sqrt(4)=-2 and sqrt(4)=2, which then says -2=2. What we can say is that the solutions to x^(2)-4=0 are x=2 and x=-2.
An interesting thing is that the equation x^(2)+1=0 has two solutions, but neither of them is positive or negative. In fact, we *can't* tell the two solutions to this equation apart! What we do is then just say that "i" is *one* of these solutions. Which one? Doesn't matter. But we can use it to keep track of both solutions, as the other is -i. | [
"No square root can be taken of a negative number within the system of real numbers, because squares of all real numbers are non-negative. The lack of real square roots for the negative numbers can be used to expand the real number system to the complex numbers, by postulating the imaginary unit , which is one of the square roots of −1.\n",
"Square roots of negative numbers can be discussed within the framework of complex numbers. More generally, square roots can be considered in any context in which a notion of \"squaring\" of some mathematical objects is defined (including algebras of matrices, endomorphism rings, etc.)\n",
"Since the square of every real number is a positive real number, negative numbers do not have real square roots. However, for every negative real number there are two imaginary square roots. For example, the square roots of −25 are 5\"i\" and −5\"i\", where \"i\" represents a number whose square is .\n",
"As the solutions to the equation involve square roots, negative roots are equally valid. They can be interpreted as both ladders and walls being below ground level and with them in opposing sense, they can be interchanged.\n",
"The square of any positive or negative number is positive, and the square of 0 is 0. Therefore, no negative number can have a real square root. However, it is possible to work with a more inclusive set of numbers, called the complex numbers, that does contain solutions to the square root of a negative number. This is done by introducing a new number, denoted by \"i\" (sometimes \"j\", especially in the context of electricity where \"\"i\"\" traditionally represents electric current) and called the imaginary unit, which is \"defined\" such that . Using this notation, we can think of \"i\" as the square root of −1, but notice that we also have and so −\"i\" is also a square root of −1. By convention, the principal square root of −1 is \"i\", or more generally, if \"x\" is any nonnegative number, then the principal square root of −\"x\" is\n",
"We are not taking the square root of any negative values here, since both \"x\" and 4 are necessarily positive. But we have lost the solution \"x\" = −2. The reason is that \"x\" is actually not in general the \"positive\" square root of \"x\". If \"x\" is negative, the positive square root of \"x\" is \"-x\". If the step is taken correctly, it leads instead to the equation:\n",
"The square root term in these expressions cause them to have two solutions. However, only solutions with a positive real part are physically meaningful since passive circuits cannot exhibit negative resistance. This will normally be the positive root.\n"
] |
why are people scared of guns? | I get hunting, and have fired weapons myself (including a 20-gauge when I was a teenager, as well as a South African "R5" 5.56mm assault rifle on a range). So I don't "hate" guns, nor am I "scared" of them, but I still have major issues with the whole concept, philosophically.
Step back a bit and look at the big picture, forgetting specifics for a minute. A gun is a machine for killing people and other animals. It's not the only way of killing, of course, but it makes killing incredibly *easy*. Just point it at someone and squeeze the trigger.
With great power comes great responsibility, then, and I frankly don't want that kind of responsibility. Some bad guys have guns, so I should have guns too? That's a circular argument, and it's how arms races start. The bad guys know I have guns, so they get more and/or bigger guns, so should I follow suit? If someone breaks in on me in the suburbs at 4AM, and I started firing my little Glock (or whatever), I doubt that the intruders would be in any danger.
Where does it end? What kind of society would it be if guns were both the problem and the solution? I don't have kids, but if I did, would they be able to go outside and play, away from parental gaze, have fun, and come back safely? My idea of a world safe for everyone is not one that requires guns at all. | [
"In studies of nonfatal gun use, it was found that guns can contribute to coercive control, which can then escalate into chronic and more severe violence. Guns can have a negative impact on victims even without being discharged. Threats of gun use or showing a weapon can create damaging and long-lasting fear and emotional stress in victims because they are aware of the danger of having an abuser who has access to a gun.\n",
"Firearms users that have to rely on their weapon under adverse conditions, such as big five and other dangerous game hunters, obviously have to check the correct functioning of the firearm and ammunition they intend to use before exposing themselves to potentially dangerous situations.\n",
"Being tough on terrorism, particularly the sorts of homegrown terrorism that we've seen now in Orlando and San Bernardino, means making it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on assault weapons that are capable of killing dozens of innocents as quickly as possible. That's something I'll continue to talk about in the weeks ahead.\n",
"David Hemenway of Harvard School of Public Health claims that when some people in a community own guns, it \"imposes psychic costs on most other members of the community\". He claims that \"eighty-five percent of non-gun-owners report they would feel less safe if more people in their community acquired guns; only 8% would feel more safe\". This is purportedly because non gun-owners would worry about guns being used in the neighbourhood.\n",
"Because of the increase in guns in the United States, many schools and local communities are taking it into their own hands by providing young students with early gun safety courses to make them aware of the dangers these objects actually are, also to prevent school shootings.According to Katherine A. Fowler, PhD, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An average 1,297 children die (two children per 100,000) and 5,790 are treated for injuries caused by guns each year, the study reported. Six percent of these deaths were accidental, 38% were suicides, 53% were homicides and the remaining 3% were from legal intervention or undetermined reasons. Guns injured children at a rate of 8 per 100,000 children, but this rate is likely considerably higher because of unreported injuries.\n",
"The US attitude to guns generally perplexes those in other developed countries, who cannot understand the unusual permissiveness of American gun laws, and why the American public does not push for harsher gun control measures in the face of mass shootings. Critics contrast the US reaction to terrorism given how few deaths it causes, with their high death rates from non-terror related gun crime.\n",
"The stopping power of firearms when used against humans is a more complex subject, in part because many persons voluntarily cease hostile actions when shot; they either flee, surrender, or fall immediately. This is sometimes referred to as \"psychological incapacitation\".\n"
] |
How many photons from a distant star hit the Earth at any given moment or per second, and does a unique photon strike every (very small) unit area of the side of the planet that faces the source? | > I was wondering if two people standing next to one another see distinct photons
Any time you and another person see the same thing, you are actually seeing distinct photons. When you see something, it means photons from that object have been absorbed by your retina; the same photon can't be absorbed by the retinas of two different people.
> how does something so far away "cover" the entire side of the Earth (facing the source) with photons?
It does by emitting a *huge* number of photons. In some sense, that's the definition of something which is visible.
> I realize the light is red-shifted and the wave is stretched out as it travels away from the source
The light from stars we see is not necessarily red shifted. While on a large scale, the universe is expanding, that's not reflected in the motion of nearby objects. For things in the galaxy, the light can be red-shifted or blue-shifted depending on the local velocities of the stars relative to us.
| [
"If we assume a 10 m diameter ideal ground-based telescope and an unresolved star: every second, over a patch the size of the seeing-enlarged image of the star, 35 photons arrive from the star and 3500 from air-glow. So, over an hour, roughly arrive from the air-glow, and approximately arrive from the source; so the S/N ratio is about:\n",
"Our star will likely not be directly affected by such an event, but the Earth may be easily affected by a nearby collision. Astronomers say that if a stellar collision happens within 100 light years of the Earth, the resulting gamma-ray burst could possibly destroy all life on Earth. This is still very unlikely though because there are no stellar clusters this close to the Solar System.\n",
"BULLET::::- March 19, 2008: \"Swift\" detected GRB 080319B, a burst of gamma rays amongst the brightest celestial objects ever witnessed. At 7.5 billion light-years, \"Swift\" established a new record for the farthest object (briefly) visible to the naked eye. It was also said to be 2.5 million times intrinsically brighter than the previous brightest accepted supernova (SN 2005ap). \"Swift\" observed a record four GRBs that day, which also coincided with the death of noted science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.\n",
"The Swift BAT all-sky survey detected hard X-rays (in the energy range 14-195 keV) in the direction of M31 and found that this emission was centered in a region 6 arcseconds away from the galaxy center. Using a subsequent NuSTAR observation, it was found that a single source was responsible for this emission, and optical HST images ruled out the presence of stars more massive than 3 solar masses in that direction.\n",
"BULLET::::- Astronomers report the detection of the most distant individual star (actually, a blue supergiant), named Icarus (formally, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1), at 9 billion light-years (light-travel distance) away from Earth.\n",
"In terms of gamma rays, a magnetar (type of neutron star) called SGR 1806-20, had an extreme burst reach Earth on 27 December 2004. It was the brightest event known to have impacted this planet from an origin outside the Solar System; if these gamma rays were visible, with an absolute magnitude of approx. −29, it would be brighter than the Sun \"(as measured by the Swift spacecraft)\".\n",
"Unless a star is being observed from the direction of its pole, sections of the surface have some amount of movement toward or away from the observer. The component of movement that is in the direction of the observer is called the radial velocity. For the portion of the surface with a radial velocity component toward the observer, the radiation is shifted to a higher frequency because of Doppler shift. Likewise the region that has a component moving away from the observer is shifted to a lower frequency. When the absorption lines of a star are observed, this shift at each end of the spectrum causes the line to broaden. However, this broadening must be carefully separated from other effects that can increase the line width.\n"
] |
how come women begin being biologically capable of having babies at an age (periods can start as early as 9) in which they are not developmentally/emotionally/physically capable to? | I see a lot of people mentioning evolution. Valid to some point. But a huge influence are
endocrine disruptors like BPA. A few decades ago it wasn't common for girls as young as 9 to get their period. The chances of surviving a birth as a 9 year old are also pretty low. | [
"Precocious puberty can make a child fertile when very young, with the youngest mother on record being Lina Medina, who gave birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 17 days, in one report and at 6 years 5 months in another.\n",
"These young girls, some as young as 12, are being force into sexual relationships which results to them being pregnant and becoming mothers at an early age when they should be looked after by their parents. \n",
"Females typically give birth to 2 young, sometimes 1 or 3. The gestation period is on average 133 days. The female typically reaches sexual maturity by 2 years of age. Because of competition between males based upon size males usually reach reproductive age later than females. After birth, the mother leaves the young to forage and returns nourishing the young with nutrient rich milk. The juveniles typically remain with their mother until they reach close to sexual maturity.\n",
"In the United States, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of first child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, 10% of births were to teenage girls, and 14% were to women ages 35 and older. In the United States, a study found that the average woman spends 5 years working and building a career before having children, and mothers working non-salary jobs began having children at age 27, compared to mothers with salary positions, who became pregnant at age 31. The study shows that the difference in age of child birth is related to education, since the longer a woman has been in school, the older she will be when she enters the workforce.\n",
"Females become fertile at around 9 years of age. The oldest pregnant female ever recorded was 41 years old. Gestation requires 14 to 16 months, producing a single calf. Sexually mature females give birth once every 4 to 20 years (pregnancy rates were higher during the whaling era). Birth is a social event, as the mother and calf need others to protect them from predators. The other adults may jostle and bite the newborn in its first hours.\n",
"In females, changes in the primary sex characteristics involve growth of the uterus, vagina, and other aspects of the reproductive system. Menarche, the beginning of menstruation, is a relatively late development which follows a long series of hormonal changes. Generally, a girl is not fully fertile until several years after menarche, as regular ovulation follows menarche by about two years. Unlike males, therefore, females usually appear physically mature before they are capable of becoming pregnant.\n",
"Females give birth to a single young up to twice a year, typically between June and January. The young are born blind, and weighing around , after a gestation of 135 days. They are weaned by 40–80 days, and are able to fly by the time they have reached in weight. Females are sexually mature at ten months of age.\n"
] |
How prevalent was Latin in Britain under the Romans and if it was when did it die out as a common language? | We can't know for sure, but it was probably somewhat similar to English in India: it was a language of administration and law, a literary language, and a common language, particularly in the towns. Unfortunately we just don't have enough writing from Britain to know for certain. | [
"With the end of Roman rule, Latin was displaced as a spoken language by Old English in most of what became England during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of the fifth and sixth centuries. It survived in the remaining Celtic regions of western Britain until about 700, when it was replaced by the local Brittonic languages.\n",
"The demise of Vulgar Latin in the face of Anglo-Saxon settlement is very different from the fate of the language in other areas of Western Europe which were subject to Germanic migration, like France, Italy and Spain, where Latin and the Romance languages continued. The likely reason is that in Britain there was a greater collapse in Roman institutions and infrastructure, leading to a much greater reduction in the status and prestige of the indigenous Romanised culture; and so the indigenous people were more likely to abandon their languages, in favour of the higher-status language of the Anglo-Saxons.\n",
"Although Latin continued to be spoken by many of the British elite in western Britain, by about 700, it had died out. The incoming Latin-speakers from the lowland zone seem to have rapidly assimilated with the existing population, and adopted Brittonic. The continued viability of British Latin may have been negatively affected by the loss to Old English of the areas where it had been strongest: the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the lowland zone may have indirectly ensured that Vulgar Latin would not survive in the highland zone either. The assimilation to Brittonic appears to be the exact opposite to the situation in France, where the collapse of towns and the migration of large numbers of Latin-speakers into the countryside apparently caused the final extinction of Gaulish.\n",
"British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire, Latin became the principal language of the elite, especially in the more Romanized south and east of the island. However, it never substantially replaced the Brittonic language of the indigenous Britons, especially in the less Romanized north and west. In recent years, scholars have debated the extent to which British Latin was distinguishable from its continental counterparts, which developed into the Romance languages.\n",
"Gaulish survived in Gaul into the late 6th century, and played a decisive role in the formation of Gallo-Romance languages. Latin did not become as deeply entrenched in the province of Britannia, and may have dwindled rapidly after the Roman withdrawal around 410 AD, although pockets of Latin-speaking Britons survived in western Britain until about 700 AD. The evidence of Latin loanwords into Brittonic suggests that the Latin of Roman Britain was academic, in contrast to the everyday conversational Latin (\"Vulgar\" Latin) on the continent.\n",
"It is not known when Vulgar Latin ceased to be spoken in Britain, but it is likely that it continued to be widely spoken in various parts of Britain into the 5th century. In the lowland zone, Vulgar Latin was replaced by Old English during the course of the 5th and the 6th centuries, but in the highland zone, it gave way to Brittonic languages such as Primitive Welsh and Cornish. However, scholars have had a variety of views as to when exactly it died out as a vernacular. The question has been described as \"one of the most vexing problems of the languages of early Britain.\"\n",
"All linguistic evidence from Roman Britain suggests that most inhabitants spoke British Celtic and/or British Latin. However, by the eighth century, when extensive evidence for the post-Roman language situation is next available, it is clear that the dominant language in what is now eastern and southern England was Old English, whose West Germanic predecessors were spoken in what is now the Netherlands and northern Germany. Old English then continued spreading westwards and northwards in the ensuing centuries. This development is strikingly different from, for example, post-Roman Gaul, Iberia, or North Africa, where Germanic-speaking invaders gradually switched to local languages. Old English shows little obvious influence from Celtic or spoken Latin: there are for example vanishingly few English words of Brittonic origin. Moreover, except in Cornwall, the vast majority of place-names in England are easily etymologised as Old English (or Old Norse, due to later Viking influence), demonstrating the dominance of English across post-Roman England. Intensive research in recent decades on Celtic toponymy has shown that more names in England and southern Scotland have Brittonic, or occasionally Latin, etymologies than was once thought, but even so, it is clear that Brittonic and Latin place-names in the eastern half of England are extremely rare, and although they are noticeably more common in the western half, they are still a tiny minority─2% in Cheshire, for example.\n"
] |
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