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why can any guitar company copy designs of a strat, tele, les paul, etc. and it not be copyright infringement?

There have been court cases over this very issue, and the conclusion that the judges came to is that these body shapes are so common that they are considered to be generic.

how do car alarms work?

It's pretty simple, really. A lot more simple than people think. When a window get smashed, you abruptly change the air pressure inside the car. There is a sensor somewhere inside the car that detects the pressure change. The same sensor reacts when you have a large dog barking inside the car too, so most car alarms have a setting where you can turn off that sensor either temporarily or permanently. Added to that, some cars have vibration sensors. They detect when the car is lifted, so that you can't steal the rims without the alarm going off. Incidentally, those sensors also react to things that are unrelated, like earth quakes or when a train passes by a poorly built parking lot. Then, to make it harder to bypass the alarm, it reacts when the car battery gets disconnected. Some alarms also react when you try to remove a light bulb (because, you know, if it ain't blinking people won't react quickly enough) and most of them protect themselves from short circuited lamps because that is one of the oldest tricks in the book to cull an old aftermarket alarm system. To top it off, the alarm often has its own battery so that it can run the siren independently from the cars electrical system for half an hour or so. The rest is about entry control. There is a switch in each door. Including the tank cap and the engine compartment. Sometimes you also replace the central locking motors with motors that are able to lock themselves, because that is also an old trick; if you can physically move the motor in the drivers door, it will typically order all the other motors to open. So if you manage to get access to the motor, the alarm will actually make it EASIER to get into the car. Unless it can lock itself, that is.

What happens when a solvent evaporates?

Yes. When solvent evaporates, you'll have a higher concentration of solute. When the concentration is higher than the saturation concentration, the solute will begin to precipitate out. This is one way of [recrystallizing](_URL_0_) a desired product in chemistry labs. It's also a way of obtaining large, single crystals by controlling the rate of evaporation such that it occurs slowly.

why do newsboys in movies etc. say "extra" when calling out headlines?

Newspapers, back when they where the main source of daily news, used to be printed several times a day (each time being updated with newer information or stories) so for example there would be both a morning and an evening edition of the same paper, and maybe more inbetween depending on the size of the paper and the city. When something really important happened an "Extra" edition would be immediately printed and rushed to news stands and of course the person selling the newspaper would want to loudly advertise this special event. So the newsboy shouting "Extra!" is sort of like the early 20th century version of a "Breaking News" story where they cut into regular TV programming.

why do economists say that the euro was 'a bad idea' since its launch in 2002?

The difference between North and.... Err, between South Europe and the rest of EU is too large. Basically Euro do not allow the southern neighbors to compete with the rest. Usually this competing would happen by devaluing the currency on hard times, and as such making the wage lower (and also making pensions cost less, inflation adjusted pay somehow never gets put into place) because the wage is paid on the nation's currency, which because of before-mentioned devaluing, well, you get the idea.

how exactly do whole grain foods such as rice, pastas, and breads give greater health benefits?

From my reading,not helpful at all,as grains are still broken down into sugar,plus the wheat of today is very different of the wheat of yesteryear. These videos can explain very well what I'm talking about. _URL_0_ _URL_1_

how come when you have an ear infection or a sinus infection it affects other parts of your head?

Most of the area just under the skin on your face is hollow sinus cavities. Obviously there are bones and nerves and other things that go through there, but the majority of the area of your face is just a covering for your mouth, nose, or sinuses. Your ears are connected to the nasal cavity by your eustachian tubes, which means that an infection in your ears will often drain down the eautachian tubes and into the sinuses. It's also why you don't want to grab your nose to block a sneeze, because the pressure of the sneeze will drive garbage from your nasal passages up into your ears and can easily cause an ear infection.

How did Gödel, in his incompleteness theorems, prove a statement that applied to all formal systems, using a formal system?

I'm going to assume you mean formal systems that attempt to describe the natural numbers (i.e. can perform arithmetic) here. While the proofs of Godel's actual theorems are incredibly complex and incomprehensible, how he proved that the theorems applied to all formal systems was actually quite simple. Godel's theorems apply to all formal systems of axioms that express elementary arithmetic and are consistent, and of which theorems may be listed in an effective procedure, i.e. a method for creating and testing statements about the system in a finite number of steps and could theoretically be done by a human. Godel's proofs relied *only* on these assumptions and therefore apply to all of the formal systems that fit his criteria (which, incidentally, any formal system that attempts to characterize the natural numbers must) because his proofs were completed without loss of generality.

why is there zero calorie soda but little/no zero calorie candy?

_URL_0_ I highly recommend you read the reviews before purchasing.

If i^4 is equal to 1. Is the fourth root of 1, i or is it 1?

When dealing with complex roots, you're going to get such results all the time. The fourth roots of unity are 1, -1, i, and -i. Even if you're just looking for real roots, this result should make it easier for you to understand. 1^4 = 1 (-1)^4 = 1 1 =/= -1 Is the fourth root of 1, 1 or -1? The answer is both.

Why is a negative base to a fractional square root a nonreal number?

x^2.1 is the 10th root of x^21 which is imaginary for negative values of x. Edit: 2.1 is 21/10 not 21/20, oops.

why are there no rip off car models as there is with so many other products in the world?

There are, they might not rip off the entire car, but components; door latch assemblies, window motors, smaller pieces like that get ripped off all the time and designs get copied.

why are green apples called granny smith apples?

Granny smith are a type of apple. It's a brand name as well, like Given Delicious or Pink Lady.

If races can have common physical characteristics, why can't they have common psychological ones?

In theory, they can. But so far we haven't found any genetic difference that wouldn't be dwarfed by cultural factors. For example you have lots of discussion in academic performance differences between white, black and asian, but when you look closer you find out that in many black communities it's actually a bit shameful to have good grades, while asian families not only respect academic performance, but tend to be above average when it comes to motivating children to learn. So in this conditions it's both difficult and pointless to hunt for a pure genetic difference.

What is the origin/development of food allergies in western societies?

with the growth and success of western medicine, public hygiene and quality standards of food production, we created an environment of next to no exposure to parasitic pathogens like worms and protozoa. This sounds good at first, but what also happens is that the part of the immune system that is fending off those parasites is "out of work" from the get-go. The immune system is a pretty complex topic, so I'll try to keep it simple: There's a plethora of different types of immune cells (the ones I am refering to are T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes, each having multiple subtypes). The lymphocytes that don't identify with any subtype yet are called naive cells, and these are the ones that can proliferate (ie develop) into any other subtype. anytime immune cells are fighting infections they will recruit more virgin/naive cells, some of which, strangely enough, actually proliferate into cells that *impede*/ease the immune response (so called regulatory T-lymphocytes). Not without reason: overarching immune response is no joke and can be the cause of death (as in SIRS/sepsis, for example). With that in mind, let's assess the situation: since we have lacking exposure to parasitic pathogens, we also lack the mechanism used to regulate/normalize the immune response, and it's hard for the immune system to discern real threats and harmless stuff. Allergens have similar epitopes (antigens) to parasitic lifeforms, hence the immune system confuses them with actual parasites and gives off an immune response as if it was one (specifically IgE immune response and secretion of histamin from mast cells, causing the typical allergic symptoms). And since there's nothing to downregulate the response like (memory) regulatory T-cells, you get full blown allergic symptoms. Notice how, for example, allergy is practically unheard of in African, South American and Asian countries, since public hygiene and supervision of food quality is (objectively, don't call me a racist!) worse in those places. Also statistically people from wealthier and/or cleaner households are more susceptible to allergies. This is also how desensitizing works: confronting the body with the allergen multiple times gives it a chance to form those regulatory T-lymphocytes, making the reaction less severe with each confrontation.

Do Black Holes go anywhere?

no. They don't. Eventually the particles that make you up contribute to a scattering process and many eons later will be released back into the universe in the form of Hawking radiation.

What’s the science behind a stuffed nose? What is its purpose and how does it occur?

Pre med student! External membranes and skin are the first line of defense in mammals. When your body senses some irritant around the nose or believes that you are sick, correctly or incorrectly, it will signal your nasal membrane to secrete mucus to prevent more pathogens from entering the body. Many pathogens typically enter through your nostrils, so this is the body covering its bases while it works with what it believes to be the matter at hand.

how come the treasure hunters, odyssey, are being forced to give back the $500m treasure that they found and pulled from the ocean floor?

Lawyer here! This case presents a great opportunity to look at abandonment and salvage law. The bottom line is that Spain - which owned the ship and cargo in question - never abandoned its ownership interest. In order for a person to abandon property, that person must exhibit some sort of *intent* to surrender its ownership of the property. Otherwise, the ownership interest may continue *indefinitely*. This can be done expressly (through a writing, for example) or by implication (through acts that suggest the property is being abandoned). Here, Spain never exhibited any such interest, so it's still the rightful owner of the wreck to this day. The fact that 200+ years elapsed is of no moment. The wreck was not discoverable or salvageable until very recently, and the law isn't going to strip you of your ownership of something just because it's literally not recoverable for a few generations. That would hardly be a just outcome. That said, the Odyssey should be entitled to recover under salvage law. Courts across the world recognize the right of a "salvor" to be compensated for recovering a wreck. While the salvor isn't generally entitled to keep the salvaged property itself (since that's still owned by someone else), they do have a right to be compensated for their services (whether agreed to or not by the rightful owner) through an award commensurate with the value of the property recovered. (I *believe* in this case that Spain *did* ultimately pay Odyssey for their services, but I could be wrong.) All that said, this wasn't your typical salvage case. Here, Odyssey sought to keep the salvage for themselves; they didn't want Spain to get its hands on it. So they engaged in some pretty shady practices before and during the lawsuit in order to keep Spain in the dark. That's why Odyssey was hit with a $1M fee award. You can read some of Judge Merryday's reasoning in that article: > Spain persistently attempted to secure through discovery from Odyssey the claimed identity of the vessel and the evidence supporting that identification," Merryday wrote. > "Of course, Odyssey knew at all times that Spain, given the information pertinent to identification, possessed the historical information and the expertise to identify immediately whether the wreck in question was a Spanish vessel, … " he added. "The fact that Odyssey never asked for Spain's assistance in identifying the vessel reveals much about Odyssey's motives and objectives." Bad faith discovery practices, in my experience, are one of the quickest ways to be hit with sanctions in federal court, so it's no real surprise to see this award here. Also, as someone who's handled more than a few cases before Judge Merryday, I can tell you that he's very just and capable, and like most judges in his district (and many others), abhors discovery abuses.

why is the english version of a wikipedia article always much longer and more detailed than in any other language?

Most other languages simply don't have as many contributors. The German Wiki is actually very good and very active. Some smaller language simply don't have as many editors which greatly limits the amount of subjects they write on.

Are any ancient roads or bridges still in use today?

Sure. [The King's Highway](_URL_0_) in Jordan immediately jumps to mind. > Was there continued development on these roads even after their empires fell? I'm less familiar with whether or not the development would have been "continuous" per se (i.e. whether or not the road ever fell into prolonged periods of neglect or disuse. I strongly suspect it would have.) but it has been used and developed by a succession of empires that controlled the region, down to the present Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. There are also roads that by virtue of simple geography have remained in use in the same place, like the Khyber Pass in the Hindu Kush between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

how do swear words become swear words in the first place?

Actually very interesting topic, whilst a good number are just insults, the majority of English language swear words are Germanic origin words as opposed to Latin origin words; when the french-speaking Normans conquered England, they would include more french words when they spoke, whereas the Anglo-Saxons, which made up the majority of English population, had all been including German origin words. Wealthy people (both Norman and otherwise) wished to seem more Norman in order to get further ahead in life, so shunned German origin words; eventually this evolves into "only a poor person says that" meaning a proper person looking to forward there standing in society would never sound so common, then just flat out rude as people continued to emulate the "proper people". Example: cunt is a germanic origin word for vagina, and it's predecessor can be found in 13th century poetry, yet became considered slang, then by the nineteenth century it had the same vulgarity as it does now. & #x200B; TLDR: Swear words tend to become swear words because poor people used to say them. Edit: I love that my most upvoted comment is explaining the origin of the word cunt. I'm a true fucking Scotsman

How do we have fossils older than the Cretaceous at current rates of tectonic plate subduction?

There are some anomalously old bits of ocean floor knocking around - I believe there’s some parts of the Pacific Ocean basin that are 200ish million years old, and a few slivers in the Mediterranean that are remnants of the Neotethys ocean getting on for 300 million years old. This is not really the answer to your question though. The reason why we have fossils from half a billion years ago (and much farther back when we extend it to all the bacterial life before hard parts got going), is because continents don’t get recycled. Continental crust is much more buoyant than oceanic crust and so tends not to subduct. When it does, it’s due to situations where the leading (oceanic) edge of a subducting plate which has continental crust attached behind it is chugging at a good pace down that subduction zone. The continental crust will get dragged in, maybe some of it will be assimilated into the mantle for keeps, but essentially it just pops back up again and we get a nice metamorphic mineral assemblage preserved from our continent’s brief (a few million years) trip into the mantle. So all the fossils of stuff we have older than 200 million years-ish is stuff from land. This may be an area that was always land, with land animals and plants preserved; or it may be an area that was once a shallow sea and due to regional tectonic uplift is now land. Shelf seas are just that: seas which are underlain by continental shelves. If they are lifted above water level, or if sea level drops to expose the sea bed, then providing there’s some sort of preservation mechanism (buried organisms, sheltered from weathering etc) then this whole area will not be subducted as it is part of the continental crust. We don’t actually have a huge fossil record of vertebrates from the deep water of the oceans proper, simply because we can’t go looking around there quite as effectively or easily as we can on land. There are plenty of research vessels that take core samples of the seafloor sediments though, and these have built up a good record of microfossils for the past 200 million years or so. In particular, the tests (shells) of single called organisms known as [foraminifera](_URL_0_) are often found, and can be used to correlate ages of the layers based on the species present; to chart the changing shape of ocean basins and certain ocean currents; and even to reconstruct past climates. There are a few other important groups of microfossils we find in marine sediments, namely diatoms, radiolarians and coccolithophores (actually so small they are technically nanofossils) which can also tell us similar things. Perhaps there are countless untold fossilised beasts that have been swept out to deep waters and that we will never find unless we happen to be coring in *exactly* the right spot. For the most part though, the deep ocean is a quiet place that has a constant, slow rain of plankton hard parts to the sea-bed and not much else. When things like whale falls occur they are a temporary oasis in a desolate land, and all sorts of creatures big and small will come and devour it until even the bones are gone (I believe hagfish get every last scrap of meat from the bone and then some types of worm can actually digest the bone itself). It would have to be a particularly rare occurrence even by fossilisation standards for a big creature to make it to the seafloor *and* get preserved. I know of one such discovery: the best preserved dino we have, [an ankylosaurus discovered by some miners.](_URL_1_)

ceramic glazes

A ceramic glaze is a essentially a powdered glass-forming substance that liquefies at high temperatures, forming a smooth glass layer that is bonded with the ceramic itself. There are many different types of glazes that utilize different chemicals to produce different colors and effects. A flux is a substance added to the pre-fired glaze that lowers its melting temperature, making it easier to liquefy.

What do meteorologists actually do these days? Don't computer models do all the predicting?

Who do you think makes, improves, and interprets those models?

why can't we just throw all of our trash into an oceanic trench? wouldn't it be recycled back into the earth?

Trash is all sorts of crazy stuff, including oils that float, plastic bits that float, paper bits that float, wood bits that float and even cans with a little air in them that float. It's also filled with air. And air floats. So you'd need to seal it and get all the air out of it to keep it down there. So you Wall-E big cubes of garbage as best you can and seal them somehow. Now you have to deliver it to the dock, and then load it on a vessel, and then pay that vessel huge amounts of money to transport it to that trench because most are pretty far away from land. Now you're over the trench. The bottom of the trench is way way down there where the water pressure is super high. Drop a Wall-E cube. As it sinks, its irregular shape causes it to tumble and drift off. So you build a giant cable that you hook your delivery vessel and cubes to to they it drop down straight. Delivery system complete... But as it falls, the pressure on the cube rises, and any remaining air (because you can't get it all) dramatically increases the chance it's going to rupture if not just float. It does, and all the air and those lovely oils and other chemicals squirt out, and with them comes plastic bits and other pollutants as your case's integrity fails. A few hours later there's a minor but potently stenchy oil slick under your vessel and that giant floating garbage patch in the middle of the ocean gets just a little bit bigger, and your picture's on a dartboard in Greenpeace offices all over the globe.

how did the punctuation marks get their shapes?

. comes from ancient greece, there used to be 3 different kinds which sat at varying height, the higher the dot the longer the pause. ! is the latin work Io (joy) with the o smushed under the I. ? derives from the same dots as the period, only it had a squiggle to show that you should raise your voice, like you do when asking a question. It started out being sideways, but was eventually turned upright to work better with other punctuation , used to be represented by a slash like "/", it just got squished down. Basically, most punctuation is because some ancient guy said so.

Did people really used to talk in such a formal way in the past? Historical novels make it seem like abbreviating words is a new thing...

It's pretty much just an affectation of the genre (side note: as a writer of historical fiction, I've run up against this frequently, as I refuse to follow it). People of all time periods used various levels of language depending on the situation and, yes, those levels of language did include slang and "contractions." I put contractions in quotes there as the words they used aren't necessarily the words we would recognize as contractions, but nonetheless serve the same linguistic function. I think (minor speculation based on experience) that the "no contractions" rule is used to make the characters more distant from us so the time period feels more real. Honestly, a sixteenth-century man rightly pissed off saying "Fuck you and fuck yo' momma" is going to seem REALLY weird, even if it's a translation of the sentiment. "A pox on both your houses" is more of what we would *expect* such a character to say. In other words, yes, people would have spoken differently but no, our ancestors were not mysteriously lacking in an informal speech register.

why do so many flies end up stuck in the blinds and die there?

Because they walk up. Most people have their blinds angled so that walking up across the blinds takes the fly (through the gaps) to the side where the window is. To get out, the fly would have to walk downwards (and upside down) on the blinds, and they don't like to do that, so they kinda get stuck on the window side and die of starvation.

how does apple get away with selling iphones in europe when the eu rule that all mobile phones must use a micro usb connection?

by making it an adapter that has a micro usb connection

how are brain surgeons able to remove 30% of somebody's brain, and have them function normally?

Every lobe in the brain is symmetrical and can be divided into two parts along the medial line. Each side of a lobe contain copies of one another, so if half of somebody's brain is surgically removed, they will be able to function normally over time. The process of converting all brain functions to a given side is not immediate. Source: high school anatomy & physiology

What about elements cause some to be solid at room temperature while others are gaseous or liquid? What are the differences on an atomic level?

for atoms and molecules, boiling points/melting points are by and large determined by what are known as noncovalent interactions, which are basically how two different particles of the same molecule/atom interact with each other. atomic radius determines a lot about noncovalent forces in individual elements. generally speaking, the larger the atom, the more interactions this atom will have with another atom of the same element because of what are known as london dispersion forces. If you think of how matter works, a gas is just the same mixture of an element with individual atoms having more freedom to move around and bump into each other. Noncovalent forces hold individual atoms together more frequently and so they have less freedom of movement. SO, you'll see that most of the larger elements will tend to be liquids/solids, while most lighter elements are gases. Note that this is an oversimplification of more complex quantum mechanical interactions of orbitals, but it generally holds true

the oil industry and it's subparts

Drilling - exactly what you think. Like sucking out the milk from a bowl of cereal through a straw, then processing it further. Shale - it's kind of like traditional mining, except what you're removing is a rock that's rich in oil, which, again, has to be processed. Fracking - hydraulic fracturing - essentially using high-pressure liquid to crack open the earth and get to the goodies inside Obviously new techniques for getting oil can create all sorts of problems with the environment (like how fracking can pollute groundwater), so people get angry about this. Oil prices fall for a lot of reasons, but hopefully someone else can ELI5 it for you (I can't)

why is sparkling water so popular in europe, but not in north america

The popularity of bottled water started in Europe, and it started with mineral water from specific famous springs. In a lot of cases, the water from these springs is naturally carbonated. (I say "in a lot of cases" because Evian is not carbonated, and neither are a few other French brands.) For the most part, in Europe when you buy a bottle of water, what you're getting is the water from that spring as it naturally comes out. Because people in Europe who buy bottled water developed a taste for this, they tend to expect bottled water to be mineral water, and for it to be naturally carbonated to at least some extent. In America, naturally sparkling mineral water has never been very popular. A lot of people enjoy things like club soda and seltzer, but that's not the same thing at all and not nearly as ubiquitous for everyday drinking. When bottled water became popular here, the companies selling it wanted to make it as appealing as possible to as many people as possible, so they neither looked for naturally carbonated mineral springs nor did they try to sell Americans on carbonated water. Especially because it's cheaper just to use filtered tap water and sell it to people using the magic of branding rather than any genuine claims about the source, ingredients, or flavor. In general in the US, carbonated waters are associated with Europe. The two main brands of mineral water are San Pellegrino and Perrier, which are imported from Europe (and gained popularity/established brand positioning via affluent Americans who had tried these waters in Europe first). Even canned carbonated water brands such as La Croix are given a European brand concept, since relatively few people are dedicated seltzer drinkers.

what's actually happening when my eyes get "stuck" for a few seconds, staring at nothing in particular?

I dont know if you watch Doctor Who. But if you do, it's the silence.

an article on _url_0_ states that 96% of space is undiscovered, but how can you give a percentage of something that you can't quantify the full size of?

You are right, it is a ridiculous thing to say. It is also important to remember two things about people who write these (and any) articles. 1) Their job is to write articles and those articles are products to be consumed. The more readers, the more profitable the site is. This means investing a lot in a few deeply researched and well thought out articles, or cranking out loads of pop science level articles for mass consumption. 2) The authors are not experts on the subject matter. Most don't have advanced degrees or experience in the subject they cover. Spending 15 minutes interviewing an expert doesn't make you an expert. Being someone who used to follow _URL_0_, I think they fall squarely in the pop sci arena. Many of their articles are non-discovery based and pointless. And it's not their fault, they cover a subject that progresses slowly over years. But as a business they have to "engage" readers multiple times a day. Hence the large amount of fluff. This is something to consider when reading articles on any site, science, news, food, entertainment, technology, etc. All authors who have a consumer level understanding of the subject and are trying to rush through work to get home to see their families or friends, just like the rest of us.

how do we know the visible universe is 4% and not more or less?

The visible universe and the observable universe are two different things. The thing that is 4% is the collective mass of things in the observable universe comprised of ordinary (visible) matter. The other 96% is dark matter and dark energy, which are invisible but whose presence can be roughly detected via gravitational effects. From these gravitational effects, we have determined roughly how much dark matter and dark energy there are in the observable universe, and there's a lot. Specifically, dark matter impacts rotational velocities of galaxies, and dark matter impacts the rate of expansion of space. Measuring those allowed us to learn how much there is.

watching the olympics and the shirts for the olympic athlete from russia team literally say "olympic athlete from russia". why is this in english and not russian or korean?

English is the world's most popular second language. At an international event, you want people from lots of countries to understand your message.

how is new origami created? do they grab paper and just start folding and see what happens, or is there a mathematical/formulaic approach?

Yes, there is a very mathematical aproach on how to create new and complex models. The easiest one is extending an existing base and adding new details, e.g. toes, mouth etc.. A base being the simplest way of representing a stick figure of the model you want to fold. Next comes circle packing. In it you use the advantage of knowing the correlation between the flat square and the finished model. Each detail represents a circle on the square. So if you add a few squares on a paper and follow the rules on how to combine them, you should get the expected result. Folding in further detail is a challenge to the creator. This works aswell with box packing, replacing the circles by squares, which allows even more complex models like Black Forest Cukkoo Clock or the amazing Ryu-Zin. The best book to get into creating own origami is Robert J. Langs Origami Design Secrets, though it is very long and still pretty challenging.

What is in the “smog” that swallows up Los Angeles and surrounding cities?

It's usually a mix of vehicle exhaust products and water vapor that chemically react to create said smog. Fuels/engines that burn dirty (lots of particulates both burnt and unburnt, sulfur, nOX compounds, etc) obviously provide more material for the production of smog. What makes it stick to the ground levels though is something called temperature inversion, wherein a layer of warmer air caps the lower cooler layers of air, preventing convection and keeping the smog trapped close to the ground.

On the ISS do they have to adjust for flatulence because of the closed loop environment?

No, there are multiple, different types of filters responsible for removing components of the air. Carbon Dioxide, being the main culprit, is absorbed on a zeolite and dumped overboard (by reheating). Other minor impurities (such as methane and thiols from your butt) are captured in Carbon filters, which are regularly replaced and disposed of.

what makes a person a good singer?

It really is 99% work and practice. The first step is developing an ear for music. Listen to and sing along w/ your favorite artists. Surround yourself w/ music. A good teacher does wonders. There are plenty of You Tube videos, but since everyone's voice is different, this is an area where personalized instruction is especially important. Voice lessons aren't cheap, but they will give you the techniques you need to sound your best.

In the Middle Ages, most of Western and Northern Europe appeared to use patronymics (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Leif Ericson, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Harold Godwinson, Maurice FitzGerald). These patronymics eventually became frozen into regular surnames. When and why did this happen?

In the Scandinavian countries the partial abolishment of patronymics was mostly to do with rising populations in and around the early 1900's. There are only so many patronymics available before things just get confusing. This is also why patronymics are still in use in Iceland, because the population is so small. Hopefully /u/Vonadler can provide a better answer for you.

why do so many asian nationality adjectives end in "ese" (i.e. chinese, japanese, vietnamese, etc.) where so many other nationality adjectives end in "ish" or "an" (i.e. scottish, american, german, egyptian, italian, etc.)? i know there are exceptions, but in general, this seems to be a thing.

We get our language/nationality names from European explorers who first made contact and had to call them something pronounceable. Those ending in "ese" were countries first visited by explorers speaking Italian, Portuguese, or a similar language -- this ending is normal in those languages. Those ending in something else were first visited by explorers speaking other languages.

the legality of pranks.

The law varies somewhat but in most states it is not legal to make a prank call. Nevada is an exception, so that's where shows like 'Crank Yankers' operated from. But, even they had to get permission from the targets before they could air the phone call. You can usually videotape people in public. If someone is harmed during a prank then the pranker can be sued, just the same as if someone is harmed during a normal non-prank interaction.

Some people in Hong Kong seem to have very fond memories of its colonial past. How much rights did non-British Hong Konger have in the colonial period? How did these rights evolve over time, and why did the British give or revoke these rights?

This is an excellent question which deserves a nuanced answer. British colonial policy towards HK, as you rightly pointed out, varied in relation to local and cold war politics. I will attempt to answer this question based on four stages of colonial policy, which was chiefly used by legal scholar Benny Tai. The First Stage: Rule by law (1840- 1960) Hong Kong was ceded to the British after the Opium Wars chiefly for business and economic interests. The Victoria Harbour in particular was naturally conducive for British trade in China and Southeast Asia. The ideals of imperialism or ‘enlightening the natives’ were not as strong in Hong Kong as in other British colonies. The British pacified the Chinese by allowing local magistrates to continue to apply Chinese customary law (including traditional land and marriage rights) but subject British citizens (and foreigners) to the Common Law system. This dual legal system was only gradually abolished in the mid-1950s. In colonial Hong Kong, the governor dominated the colonial government system. The legislature was considered merely an advisory body; it was chaired by the President, the governor. Members of the legislature were not elected; they were either government officials (usually from the UK) or appointed by the governor. In all fairness, the foreign governor often relied on the local Chinese bureaucracy for advice, but there was effectively no checks and balances on his powers. The Second Stage: Decolonization 1970s The 1960s saw two significant developments. First, decolonization movements elsewhere led Britain to realize that Hong Kong would not become a colony forever. Secondly, the rise of Communist Maoist riots 1967 (coupled with the cultural revolution in China) raised questions on whether Hong Kong could even become an independent state. The plan of self- governance was abandoned, and development was mainly limited to social and economic aspects. The British colonial legacy during this era is particularly instrumental in Hong Kong’s development. After the Mao Riots, which in part reflected the abysmal conditions of factory labour, the government expanded social welfare: legislation protecting labour (in particular prohibiting child labour), public housing, free education for nine years. The Mass Transit Railways Corporations (MTR) created an efficient system of rail travel that millions in Hong Kong still rely today. An efficient (and importantly, covered) sewage system was developed, which improved public sanitation. Perhaps most importantly, an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was established to tackle rampant corruption in Hong Kong. At the same time, political rights were still severely restricted. The new public order ordinance imposed heavy restrictions on public gatherings and protests. The legislature continued to be unelected, and the governor still exercised great power. Although democratic reform was strictly off the table, aspirations from the local entrepreneur and Chinese middle class rapidly gained influence. To address this, hundreds of advisory committees and consultative organisations allowed the Chinese (esp. elites) to participate in policy making. Eventually, more Chinese unofficial members were appointed to LegCo until they exceeded non-Chinese members. This was the policy of building government by ‘consensus’- building an image of a caring government. The Third Stage – Representative Government 1980s Reform in the 1980s was prompted by concerns over HK’s future. The Opium War leased Hong Kong (technically the New Territories, the largest part of Hong Kong) for 99 years, which was due to expire in 1997. Concerns began to emerge regarding the status of Crown leases. Initially, the British Government wanted to maintain some sovereignty over Hong Kong. Accordingly, it introduced political reform (elections) in order to develop a representative government. Some argued that this would allow the British to maintain a degree of political influence, or to insulate Hong Kong from Communist China. For the first time, some forms of election were introduced to the legislature. However, elections were not based on universal and equal suffrage. Members of specific functional constituencies (ie. the education sector, or the medical sector) may elect their own representatives. This was justified on the grounds that they would provide a measure of specialist knowledge to the Legislature. Members of the general public could only indirectly elect representatives to the Urban Councils and District Boards, who would then vote among themselves to be elected as a legislator. These constitutional changes (viewed as radical at the time) were perceived by the Chinese as an attempt to influence post 1997 affairs. Motivated by a desire to maintain relations with China, officials engaged reforms rather half-heartedly. Direct elections to elect the legislature was postponed to 1988, and then delayed until 1991. A 1987 proposal to create a Bill of Rights of Hong Kong was shelved. An ombudsman scheme to handle complaints was weakened because the administration was reluctant to give the position too much power. Increasing judicial reviews sought to challenge the government, but the judges were adopted a deferential and restrictive approach. The Fourth Stage – The Patten Reforms 1990 After the infamous Tiananmen Square Incident (the June Fourth incident), the approach of appeasement by the British government was replaced by that of confrontation. The traditional apathy of those in Hong Kong were challenged when 40,000 Chinese protested under a severe typhoon. The British empire wished the world to see that Hong Kong was not only developed economically but also politically. The British governor at the time, Chris Patten, expanded the legislature by adding more democratic elements. At the time, proposals were already in place between HK and China to develop Hong Kong’s Constitution (the Basic Law). The proposals were alleged by the Chinese government to contravene the spirit previous agreement on the structuring of the legislature. As a result, negotiations broke down. The legislature passed the electoral reform, but the Chinese government refused to recognize the 1995 election. Under the Patten administration, the Bill of Rights Ordinance began to grant those in Hong Kong entrenched human rights. The courts began to take an increasingly active approach toward judicial review, and the Ombudsman began to receive a steady stream of complaints towards the government. Despite this, many officials of the colonial administration remained uncooperative. The government refused to set up a Human Rights Commission to enforce the Bill of Rights Ordinance. Conclusion To address your question directly, those in Hong Kong did not really have many political rights until the late 1980s. Elections were nowhere near democratic, universal, or equal, nor were freedom of speech and expression expressly guaranteed until the 1990s. Arguably, they were only given those rights superficially under international pressure and the desire to distance HK from communism. Tai describes this as “window dressing behind their glorious retreat.” In terms of economic, public health, education, and infrastructure, however, British policies contributed largely to Hong Kong’s success. Sources: Lo, Stefan H. C. and Chui, Wing Hong Hong Kong Legal System Hong Kong, McGraw-Hill 2012 Tai, Benny Yiu-ting ‘The Development of Constitutionalism in Hong Kong’ in Wacks, Raymond (ed) The New Legal Order in Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press 1999, Ch 2, p.39-65

why do people tend to fall backwards and bend over when laughing?

Idk about falling backwards. But bending over when laughing, I believe, is because laughing makes your abdominal muscles contract.

How much can we learn or know about an unknown creature from just DNA?

If it were an unknown Earth species, we would eventually be able to determine its most closely-related currently living species or groups of species. Usually when this is done, there is already a pretty good idea of relatedness, so here, considerably more effort would be required. Then we can say "it probably looks a lot like these guys and has features x,y, and z that they all share." Our knowledge of what specific genes do is very limited. This unknown species may be found to have the gene that codes for a known blue pigment for example, but whether the creature is ever blue is much more complicated. If you'd never seen humans but had a sample of their genome and looked at closely related extant Earth species, you might expect us to have tails. This is because of the actual processes of which genes are functional, when they're functional, how they interact, and the incredibly complex process of building the organism are not obvious from the genome. The genome doesn't say "make an arm," it says "when this molecule changes to this shape, transcribe this section of DNA to make this molecule." As for an alien species, we'll probably never know until we find some aliens. It could be most of our knowledge of Earth applies, because the ways in which genetics function on Earth are pretty much the only way to make things work. Perhaps more likely is that big differences in how DNA and the most integral DNA-related molecules and organelles evolved mean that we'd have to learn a new set of molecular biology. For example, DNA could be written in the same base pairs, but in a different "language" of exons, introns, promoters, etc. Assuming they *have* DNA. Besides all that, due to the building-on-what-worked-before nature of evolution, even if their biochemistry was similar, they'd probably be incredibly weird and not fit into our traditional types of organisms.

why is it when you quickly touch a hot object and remove your hand it takes a little while for you to feel the burn?

This is a really fun one! Your spinal cord has its own reflexive system, almost acting like a second brain. When something of 'grave' danger occurs to you, such as putting your hand on a hot stove, cells are dying extremely quickly and your brain is a slow shit compared to your reflexes. So, the signal of "shit's going down" just hits your spinal cord instead of your brain, which extremely quickly responds with a "get the hell out of there" motor command, rather than waiting for you to make the conscious decision to pull out. The spinal cord, however, doesn't process pain, your brain does. So the pain signal reaches your brain a little later. Some people have severe psychological issues that stop all of this. They can't feel pain, and they don't have those reflexes, so they can get horribly injured and not even know about it.

What were some of Benjamin Franklins ideas/inventions that were considered radical during the time he was alive but are now acceptable today?

Not one of his ideas per say - but he was one of the only contemorary suppporters of the [Wave of Light Theory](_URL_0_) - Basically that colors were made up of diffrent wave lenghts of like (like you would see broken down by a prism or rainbow)

Was Caesar upset about Ptolemy XIII killing Pompey?

Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar notes: "Arriving at Alexandria just after Pompey's death, he turned away in horror from Theodotus as he presented the head of Pompey, but he accepted Pompey's seal-ring, and shed tears over it." Remember that Caesar was big on granting clemency to his defeated adversaries as a propaganda move to show both his power (this failed rival of mine could never pose a threat to me again) as well as his own magnanimity. Pardoning the washed-up, geriatric, and totally beaten Pompey the Great into a quiet retirement might defang the threat posed by those still loyal to Pompey (like Pompey's sons, who would bedevil the Caesarians for another 20 years).

Evolution of Battle Tactics: How did battles change from the Napoleonic Wars to World War II?

Oh my god you have no clue who enormous of a topic this is. God where do I even begin. Okay, the Napoleonic Wars! The Napoleonic Wars greatest innovation, something which would paint warfare forever after, is the concept of a citizen army -- to replace the highly trained, specialized mercenary armies employed by crowns around Europe. These mercenary armies would generally be foreign and highly paid, which makes them very efficient at quelling local revolutionary tendencies. With the French Revolution, the combination of the ideas of the Enlightenment and Democracy came the idea that if this is a nation of the people then the army must also be of the people. When basically all of Europe went to war with Revolutionary France to subdue them and restore the monarchy, hundreds of thousands of men would willingly sign up and fight the invaders as a united force. They were not nearly as trained and in fact had egregious casualty ratios but their sheer numbers and force would wreck the balance of power. These Prussian and Austrian and etc. Generals pleaded with their monarch's for armies of equal size to compete lest they be conquered entirely. How these battles would actually be fought is too diverse to cover and would be its own major post on its own, so I'll focus on Napoleon. Napoleon's strategy and tactics were that of complete annihilation whether on the attack or defense -- his goal was to obliterate the enemy forces under any circumstance. Absolute victory or bust. So let's talk about an average Napoleonic battle. Napoleon's army would be in [this marching formation](_URL_0_) which allowed for ridiculous flexibility. The cavalry screen allowed much early warning and the dual army allowed him to further spread his power rather than putting his 'eggs in one basket.' So he detects an enemy, his cavalry returns to the communications staff and the army would begin forming. Light infantry would approach the enemy first and begin harassing the enemy lines. They would operate in teams of two covering each other and operate with 100 in a roughly 100-200 meter region. They tended to have more camouflaged uniform (but not much). They were also the highly intelligent and generally more trained members of the group, many times even hunters and rangers before their military tenure. The Voltigeur also were designated by something that many people would not immediately think, height. Height was actually critical in designation of Napoleon's armies -- you were likely pushed into skirmisher roles if you were 4'11 to 5'1. Small and maneuverable and exceedingly accurate makes a deadly combination. Their job was, like I said, harassment -- generally of the enemies weakest links to try and further weaken them. They also had to contest with enemy skirmishers which lead to warfare that could look pretty similar to a modern soldier -- small 'squads' with rifles operating with cover against each other. They were especially useful in urban environments to climb into and through buildings and small places to become a nuisance to the enemy. After that the light artillery near the front would open up as the light infantry began to withdrawal. They would also target weak points in the enemy line as the first wave of infantry began to form...not into lines as you may imagine, but columns! The Napoleonic Wars, especially in the early days, was as I said a citizen army and these men never held a gun in their life and had no dream of joining the military years prior. They were not military men and it would be too time consuming and even irresponsible to try and train them in complex military tactics and maneuvers. Why bother with finesse when you have brute force? These infantry would be organized in tight columns with ridiculous depth that rivaled Greek phalanxes centuries prior -- dozens of men deep was not uncommon. A center line would unleash an initial volley and then the two sides, in their column formation, would charge with all their force into the enemy line with bayonets. Many times the threat of hundreds of men charging you with that kind of depth would be enough to cause a break in the enemy lines and a total rout which your cavalry would promptly clean up. However if it wouldn't, you would crash into their weak point and your men would pour out and that much shock and force and men pushed into one small area immediately following artillery and a barrage of muskets would cause a route. This would have so much ridiculous success and would contribute to France winning wars against, again, basically the entirety of Europe at once consistently. As the different Coalition Wars (ie: Napoleonic Wars) drew on, Napoleon would get more experienced troops and would fight a more finesse based style. He would utilize Grenadiers -- tall men with huge bearskin caps for intimidation and as elite shock troops. He would love using his inexperienced line infantry and light infantry to hold the enemy in place while his elite troops swung around and crashed into the enemy's flank and "rolled them up". I can't talk about the American Civil War since it's out of my wheelhouse and to my understanding a weird aberration, but I can talk about the Franco-Prussian War. The Franco-Prussian War taught a story to Europe that many would not want to hear, but would harken in an age of new warfare. As opposed to the ACW just five years prior which used muzzle loaded percussion muskets, the French and German forces would both be using breech loaded bolt action rifles using cartridges. The French had the *Chassepot* and the Germans had their infamous "Needle Gun" -- both with an effective range over a thousand meters. I'll quote from Michael Howard:^[1] > *The German infantry did not, indeed, acquit themselves particularly well. The company columns in which they advanced into action disintegrated under fire into a ragged skirmishing line which quickly went to [the] ground, and which officers and N.C.O.s urged forward in vain. In the woods and close country which lay before the French positions the temptation to 'get lost' was sometimes overwhelming. Only close order could give the infantry confidence, and close order in the face of breech-loading rifles was suicidal. The answer to the problem, as the Germans discovered during hte course of the campaign, was for the infantry, so long as its armament was inferior to that of the enemy, to hold back and leave matters to the guns; and the German field artillery proved quite capable of settling matter sitself. Its range and rate of fire gave it, at the beginning of both battles, such an ascendancy that the French gunners -- including the dreaded *mitrailleuses*--were silenced in a matter of minutes.* The Franco-Prussian War was a "half and half" war even more than the ACW. The Germans would have rapid mobilization -- over 250,000 men -- and would have staggering casualty rates. They would simply not be capable of assaulting positions without unacceptable casualties because of the deadliness of French riflemen and them not having the tactical flexibility to deal with it. The Generals had no idea what to do other than to just sit back and try and flatten the target area with their artillery and send in their infantry to mop up -- something we'll see tried again in a few years with much less success. However it worked then and, unfortunately, both sides didn't get a real picture of the futility of their tactics because of how much of a fluke the war was. The French would be duped by the genius Von Moltke the Elder into being completely surrounded at Sedan and surrendering along with their monarch Napoleon III. Paris would declare herself the Third Republic but would still surrender just a few months later after a prolonged siege. There was a significant amount of casualties (the Prussians suffered 68% casualties at Mars-la-Tour for instance) as holes began to form in 'Napoleonic Tactics' but the war did not drag on long enough and there were not enough battles for any of serious influence to notice. Most of those who did notice were lying somewhere face down in a field somewhere, and they didn't have much of an influence on military doctrine unfortunately.

Why doesn't the immune system of genetic chiemras attack their body?

I don't know the answer but if I have to make an educated guess I would have to say that it has to do with Thymic education. If there is genetic chimerism we can assume that the genetically different cells are dispersed throughout the body and that it can be encountered in the Thymic cortex and medulla where positive and negative selection occurs. In the end mature naive T cells that do not interact with either self-antigen MHC residues would be produced which would make them harmless against your own cells. I don't know if this makes sense to you but If you'd like to learn more about the subject I would suggest reading an immunology textbook or read up on T cell development and maturation. It can be a bit daunting at first but it's a very interesting subject.

what makes gordon ramsay such an incredible chef? wouldn't the skill level of top level culinary artists not vary a lot?

He's an incredible restauranteur, which is a bit different. He understands the entire business. Creating top quality food is not actually super difficult. He doesn't do any wacky trendy stuff; just honest high-quality ingredients, fresh food, and good execution. He's particularly good are running a restaurant business, choosing good staff, and setting standards.

I just read that the space station is not high enough to have escaped the bulk of earth's gravitational pull, and still experiences a full 90% of it. If this is the case, why do they experience weightlessness?

Imagine firing a bullet fast enough that it falls toward Earth at the rate the Earth curves beneath it. Its always accelerating towards the center of the Earth but never gets any closer. This is precisely what the ISS and other satellites are doing.

Has any animal evolved in a way to adapt to the modern human?

Dogs Decoded is a really good documentary that talks about evolution of dogs. And dogs have adapted to the modern human. One interesting example that i don't see anyone talking about is that dogs read human faces like humans read other humans' faces. They look at the left eye and then to the right and at the nose/mouth area. They do this every time and this is exactly how humans read faces. This is why dogs always seem to know what you are thinking or feeling. They can read your emotions. AND they only do this with humans. They don't do this with other dogs at all. Wolves don't do this to other wolves or to humans either. Dogs Decoded, watch it.

What was the relationship like between the Spanish and their Tlaxcala alllies?

You may be interested in [my earlier answer on a similar topic](_URL_0_): - ​[In the second part](_URL_0_dwj7dmf/) I look at Tlaxcala's "special status", so you can also go straight to this - this focuses more on colonial times and Tlaxcala's rewards for siding with the Spanish - [This answer to a follow up](_URL_0_dwowehk/) also directly deals with Tlaxcala in more detail (esp. on the 2nd question) - here I look more at Tlaxcala's reasons for forming the alliance in the first place Hope that's helpful! In case of questions let me know.

if the scotus decided to uphold roe vs. wade back in 1992, how could it be overturned now? can scotus just decide to "change its mind"?

So, they aren't overturning a previous decision, they are simply taking a different stance with regards to a new case that touches on the same subject but which has slightly different implications to it. For instance, say in 1990 the Supreme Court ruled to ban all candy. Stores stop selling all sweets, including chocolate. And then in 2000, there was a court case against a supermarket that tried to claim that chocolate doesn't meet the legal definition of candy. The Supreme Court could then rule that yes, chocolate *is not* candy, which would mean that there is a legal precedent for stores to sell chocolate again.

if you touch something so hot that it vaporizes your finger would you feel the pain?

Yes, because something that hot will be heating your arm hot enough to burn you. It doesn't matter if you can get the signal from your finger or not if the rest of your arm and body is on fire.

is scoliosis genetic? or is it something you can get from say sitting in a crooked chair every day while growing up?

Scoliosis is a genetic condition. Sitting in a chair that's crooked can give you back aches and spasms, but it cannot give you scoliosis.

What are examples of Prophecies that were very influencial in their time, or culture?

The [Sybilline Books](_URL_0_) were a series of oracular predictions written in Greek hexameters that were supposedly sold to Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome by a sibyl. Basically, the legend goes that the Hellespontine Sibyl (an Oracle of Apollo) wrote them in the lifetime of Cyrus the Great, and they passed down to the Erythraean Sibyl another Apollonian Oracle in Ionia. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus wanted to purchase them but thought that the price she quoted was too high, so she burned 3 and offered to sell the rest for the same price, he still refused, so she burned another 3, and he relented and bought the last 3 for the price all 9 would have been. Tarquinius then had them carefully preserved in a vault below the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter. Supposedly they predicted the time and nature of several calamities (plagues, hail, earthquakes etc.) and the necessary rites of expiation to avert total disaster (like burying 2 Gauls and 2 Greeks alive after the legions were defeated by Hannibal at Cannae). They remained housed in the Temple of Jupiter (until 87 BC, when the Temple burned down, and the books were replaced with various similar writings collected from Illium, Erythrae, Samos, Sicily, and Africa together with the writings of Roman oracles) Having been collected in Anatolia and being connected to Greek cult practice they were instrumental in integrating Greek deities and belief systems (more than the Etruscan influence already had) and the Keepers of the Sybilline Books had superintendence over the worship of Apollo, Cybele, and Ceres. They were kept under tight control by the Roman Senate, first entrusted to 2 patricians, changed to 5 patricians and 5 plebeians in 367 BC, and finally to 15 caretakers (around Sulla's time). They held this office for life and were exempted from all other duties due to the importance of that office. Of course, being in Greek hexameter there were always 2 Greek translators to assist in interpretation. They were consulted whenever the Roman Republic, and later Empire, faced a crisis although it was warned that the interpretation of the necessary form of expiation (but not the oracles themselves oddly enough) could potentially be abused by those appointed to read them. The Sibylline Books were an important part of Roman legendary tradition, and helped to shape Roman policies and religious practices, being consulted in times of uncertainty to help guide political, religious and sometimes military action and were the reason for the construction of eight temples within the city of Rome, the institution of the Lectisternium ceremony, Megalesia Ludi and the Ludi Florales (a springtime fertility festival associated with flowers and growth), among more political actions like extending friendship to King Ptolemy XII of Egypt but refusing military aid (although he eventually did receive aid from Aulus Gabinius). However at times the oracles were ignored due to practical necessities, and finally were burned on the orders of Roman general Stilcho as they were being used to attack his government. Still, several exerpts from the Syballine Books and their translations have survived, although I do not have any links where you can find them. Sources: [Livy's History of Rome (5, 7, 10, 13, 27, 28, 31, 47)](_URL_1_) [Tacitus' *Annals* (Book 6, VI.12)](_URL_4_) [Lactantius' Institutiones Divinae (I: 6)](_URL_3_) Ammianus Marcellinus' *History of Rome, XXIII* (1, 7) [Hermann Diels' *Sibyllinische Blätter*](_URL_5_) [Eric M. Orlin's *Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic* (chapter 3)] (_URL_2_) Edit: Didn't realise this question was against sub rules. :-/ Hopefully this still helped.

Are birth controls pills relate to disease in women?

Since no one has given what appears to be an adequate respond to your question, let me answer your question from my perspective as a public health researcher/biostatistician. Yes, birth control pills are associated with increased risks of blood clots. Any links between birth control pills and other conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and many of the other conditions listed in that article are controversial and unproven. It appears that hormonal birth control can interact with known risk factors such as smoking to further increase risk of certain conditions. The article is clearly written with an anti-hormonal birth control agenda. They describe PremPro as "arguably... one of the greatest embarrassments in medical history" which simply isn't true. While prempro has been associated with the conditions the article mentioned (in some studies, while others have not reproduced those findings), it is not a birth control pill. It is used for the treatment of menopause. > HRT is now widely accepted as poison Note how the article does not actually state who "widely accepts" HRT as poison. It simply isn't by doctors or public health researchers. HRT has been shown to have benefits while the risks of HRT remain controversial. Some studies have found that HRT had a protective effect for the same diseases that other studies say HRT increases risk for. This usually indicates a few possible scenarios: 1. There is some unknown confounder or effect modifier of the association between HRT and these chronic diseases (almost certainly the case) 2. Some of the observed associations occurred due to random chance > BCP’s have poisoned three generations of women around the world. This article is littered with hyperbolic statements like this with no evidence or proof. In fact the two cited sources in the article are from ABC News and some place called "_URL_0_" which appears to be a pro-life Christian group's website. Some of these statements are even so ridiculous as to be humorous: > The fewer chemicals you put in your body, the healthier you are. > Health is reflective of the number of medications you take. The less medications, the healthier you are. This article is not credible. It's not scientifically rigorous or well-researched. It uses fear tactics and strong words to scare the readers. Furthermore, chiropractors, to my knowledge, are not experts on sexual health or endocrinology.

What happened to King George's copy of the Declaration of Independence?

[This](_URL_0_) previous answer by /u/mydearestangelica might answer your question.

Do large impacts cause nuclear reactions?

I'm going to go ahead and say that I think it's not possible. The Chicxulub impactor (the one that we think killed the dinosaurs) was 10 km across, and going 20 km/s. A little Googling tells me people have done lots of simulations of [what this might look like,](_URL_0_) and seem to believe that 10,000 K sounds like a reasonable upperbound for the peak temperature. This is also way way way smaller than temperatuers where thermonuclear fusion takes place. Think millions or even billions of Kelvin for that.

how is it possible that a washing machine can spin so quickly (1200 rpm)? that's 20 spins in a second..?

> ELI5: How is it possible that a washing machine can spin so quickly (1200 rpm)? That's 20 spins in a second..? That's not even fast! A blender can spin at 18,000 RPM All you need is a properly built motor that's strong enough and good bearings. The motor just needs to be able to overcome the drag at that speed and should be built to spin at that speed either by design or with gears to get it there. If you've got good bearings then you don't lose much energy at all each revolution so the motor can keep adding more and more energy and spin it up further so the motor doesn't require too much energy to hit ludicrous speeds.

zero day exploits and what makes them so rare?

A zero day is just an exploit that isn't public or out there on the market yet. Basically its a known exploit, its not patched, and its gonna work as you expect. It's a "new" exploit. "Zero" as in zero days out in the public for it to be seen and fixed. These are rare because first of all, finding any exploit is difficult, a second because exploits often make their way out pretty quickly so they end up getting patched fast. A zero day just means an exploit that is currently unknown by the public or thing its exploiting, and its working. Having a zero day exploit is a massive prize to nefarious users, as they know its going to work. It may not work for long, but it will work now.

How far back would modern human sperm cells be compatible with our ancestors' egg cells? (or vice-versa)

Short answer, there is no possible way we could get an accurate date or species for this type of question with the information we have at hand. It is very unlikely we will be able to answer this question in the future, given that 1. Fossils are very rare and limited 2. Artifacts and fossils which indicate sexual behaviour are limited. 3. DNA degradation is a pretty serious issue when we talk about fossils that are this old. A caveat here is that we are working under the assumption that a working species definition in this case is the ability to produce viable offspring. There are many issues with this definition of a species, and of course species classification is a topic unto itself. The long answer is that [anatomically modern humans](_URL_0_) arose about 200,000 years ago so it is **very likely** that anyone from our time would be able to mate with them and produce a viable offspring. Bone specimens from this time are for all intents and purposes exactly like today's humans. However, it is possible that they were not behaviourally similar to us. So just because modern humans and ancient humans were *sexually* compatible doesn't mean we were *behaviourally* or cognitively compatible. [Behavioural modernity](_URL_1_) might have arisen only 50,000 years ago. "It is the point at which Homo sapiens began to demonstrate an ability to use complex symbolic thought and express cultural creativity. These developments are often thought to be associated with the origin of language...One theory holds that behavioral modernity occurred as a sudden event some 50 kya (50,000 years ago) in prehistory, possibly as a result of a major genetic mutation or as a result of a biological reorganization of the brain that led to the emergence of modern human natural languages. The second theory holds that there was never any single technological or cognitive revolution. Proponents of this view argue that modern human behavior is the result of the gradual accumulation of knowledge, skills and culture occurring over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution". Therefore, let us work under the assumption that you could probably produce viable offspring with another human living about 200,000 years ago - however that offspring may or may not have had the ability to acquire all of our modern cognitive abilities. We also know that humans mated with [Neanderthals](_URL_4_) in Europe where populations overlapped about 50,000 - 30,000 years ago. Recall that humans evolved about 200,000 years ago and Neanderthals about 600,000 years ago...so that for the majority of our evolutionary lives Neanderthals and Humans did not interact. About 1-5% of non-african human population's DNA is of Neanderthal origin. However, this does not mean that these hybrids were common, ubiquitous throughout the ranges, or always viable. Indeed, we have no evidence of Neanderthals having Human DNA so for now the evidence suggests the flow of DNA was one way. "While modern humans share some nuclear DNA with the extinct Neanderthals, the two species do not share any mitochondrial DNA, which in primates is always maternally transmitted. This observation has prompted the hypothesis that whereas female humans interbreeding with male Neanderthals were able to generate fertile offspring, **the progeny of female Neanderthals who mated with male humans were either rare, absent or sterile.**" We also don't know the context in which these mating events occurred (was it mutual consent? was it rape?). These are important considerations when we discuss where we want to draw the species line between humans and neanderthals. Just because interbreeding is possible does not necessarily mean we should be classified as the same species or subspecies. Again, this classification debate is pretty much a topic unto itself. Regardless of how you want to classify humans and neanderthals, we mated and produced offspring. **From the information we have it is likely a human female could mate with a neanderthal male, and less likely a modern human male could mate with a neanderthal female**. We see this is nature too...some hybrids are more viable depending on the species-sex of their parents. e.g. the [tiglon](_URL_5_) and [liger](_URL_3_) hybrids have different success rates in terms of hybrid fertility and vigour. So we know that we could mate with at least one other species of [*Homo*](_URL_6_) living at that time, but what about the others like *H. erectus* or *H. heidelbergensis*? Before I go on, it is worth mentioning that the classification of *Homo* specimens is highly debated. Some think that all members of the *Homo* genus are in fact one species slowly changing through time. If this were the case then we could mate and produce viable offspring with *H. erectus* or any other *Homo* species. Strong arguments can be made on either side, after all, all we have are fossils we can't talk to these ancient hominins. Regardless of how you want to classify these specimens, the question remains could a modern human mate with them and produce viable offspring? One part of the problem is that its unlcear how much geographical and temporal overlap early human populations had with other *Homo* species besides Neanderthals. So that with our current fossils we just don't have enough evidence to conclusively say that we did mate with *H. erectus*. But lets work under your hypothetical situation where a human from today could encounter any *Homo* species from our past, regardless of whether or not ancient humans at that time did encounter them. So could we (modern humans) have mated with other members of the *Homo* genus besides Neanderthals? The answer is perhaps. Some will argue for it, some will argue agains't it. However, the farther you go back in our [hominin](_URL_2_) lineage the less likely it becomes. If bidirectional flow of DNA was already difficult with our closest living relatives of that time, the Neanderthals, it probably would have only been more difficult with distantly related populations of *H. erectus* etc.

at what point does a fertilized egg or an embryo gain consciousness or awareness that its alive?

If you're talking about self-awareness, then around the age of two assuming you follow the mirror test as a valid test of self-awareness. Basically, you show the child a mirror. If they think it's another child, it's not self-aware. If it recognizes the image in the mirror as themself, they are self-aware.

Are any cultures known that did not use fire at the time of first contact?

This Smithsonian Article says no : [Why Fire Makes Us Human](_URL_1_) The only people who were popularly accepted not to have an artificial means of making fire were the Tasmanians, but the claim was probably false. The Tasmanians carried fire sticks that slowly burned and would get fire from other natives when their fire went out. It was sort of like the "Olympic Flame" method, where the fire was never allowed to go out. However, there are other contemporary historical accounts that Tasmanians did know how to make fire. Taking fire from place to place was like having a pilot light on your stove. It was convenient, but if they totally ran out of fire they would bang flint together or use stick friction to make new fire. Here's a link to a scholarly article on Tasmanian fire tech: [The polemics of making fire in Tasmania: the historical evidence revisited](_URL_0_)

If a varying electric field produces magnetism, can a varying gravitational field produce an analogous field?

Yep, it's just really weak. _URL_0_

Has a nation ever existed that did not occupy physical land?

The term for what you're describing is a stateless nation; the term coming from Jacques Lereuz's book about Scotland. Though it was originally about the Scottish, the term was quickly adopted by people with far less of a state. Groups frequently identified with the term, such as your own, include the Kurds, Catalans (sometimes), Sindhs, and Tauregs, to name a few of the most prominent. So in other words, yes. By that definition, there are many nations--shared cultural and ancestral bodies of people--that lack states; in fact, you could argue very few nations possess independent states. But I think you're asking about a state, in addition to a nation. The term for that is the convenient Nation-State; these are the corporate legal entities that are the primary actors on the globe today. And as it stands, according to the general consensus of political science, a state requires territory. This need not be independent--autonomous ethnic enclaves are found around the world, and these are generally considered states. Today, international law as recognized by the UN considers territory a requirement for statehood. But you asked about history: Historically, the answer is a little smudgy, and it cuts into multiple fields. It even gets a little philosophical: When can we speak about 'nations?' Because depending on how you define some of these nebulous terms, the answers can vary widely. For example, not every culture has placed a value, historically, on land ownership, in the legal sense. They might claim hunting rights or have a vague sphere of influence they defend, but for example, Comancheria, the Comanche territories prior to the 1860s or so, had no formal boundaries; it was a largely informal zone that marked where the Comache tribes generally were. Of course, I'm ignoring the most obvious answer, which are the Jewish people, post diaspora. Despite not possessing a state for most of the last two thousand years, they maintained strong cultural cohesion across dozens of kingdoms and operated networks of mutual aid and commerce that spanned the length of the old world, the most famous being the Radhanites who operated much of the Silk Road during the early middle ages. What is a nation, to you? Google's definition is quite vague, as the term is more personal than people generally admit. Could the Circassian people organize some kind of transnational society? Of course! I'd expect there is one. Could that society have some kind of political clout? Possibly, though I'd suspect only in places where they could flex the power of their members: Again, think of the Zionist movement in the 20th century. Could they form an administrative unit, though? Without land, I'm not sure how that would work.

How much does ocean water temperature change at the shoreline?

Short answer: Yes. Wind direction plays an important role in shifting water temperatures. Calm winds or winds blowing towards shore will generally keep water temperatures warmer as surface water is heated by the air and sun and pushed towards the beach. Winds blowing off shore (out to sea) will actually cause upwelling near the beach and cause water temperatures to drop. Upwelling occurs because as surface water gets pushed out to sea, colder and more nutrient rich water replaces it from below.

Did tattoos exist in medieval Europe?

Side questions: What kind of ink did they use during this period, or before? Also, was there any known medical risks (infections, etc.) associated with getting tattoos during this period?

how is earth's gravity strong enough to keep the moon in orbit but not strong enough to pull the iss or satellites back to the ground?

The ISS is travelling at just the right speed and is falling towards the earth but the earth , as the ISS travels forward, curves away under the ISS , this curvature matches exactly the free fall distance that the ISS falls during any period and therefore ISS maintains the same distance from the earth and as there is virtually no atmosphere at that height to slow ISS it continues to constantly fall to earth but never reaching it and therefore is in orbit .

After the Blitz, what happened to people who's homes were bombed or destroyed? Did they rebuild them? Was there a government housing scheme? Etc.

There's a thread from a few months back that may be of interest: [I am a resident of central London during the Blitz. Am I most likely to own my own home or rent? What happens to me when my home is destroyed by a bomb? Where do I go? Who helps me find a new place to live?] (_URL_0_) Reposting my first answer from it: Homelessness was a massive problem during the Blitz; something like one person in six in the London region (1,400,000 people) was homeless at some point over 1940-41. Outright destruction of houses was comparatively rare, though, in the first six weeks of attacks around 16,000 houses were destroyed, 60,000 seriously damaged but repairable, and 130,000 slightly damaged. Unexploded bombs also forced many houses to be evacuated, with over 3,000 UXBs by the end of November 1940 awaiting disposal. Local authorities were not prepared for the scale of the problem, in part due to pre-war estimates of casualties from bombing raids being far higher than actually transpired. Rest centres had been established for bombing victims, typically in schools, but these were envisaged as a very short term measure, for a matter of hours rather than days, before people made their own arrangements for accommodation. In most cases this was possible; wealthier people could rent a flat in London or a cottage in the home counties, others arranged to stay with family or friends. Some took to 'Trekking', leaving the city entirely at night for camps outside in places such as Epping Forest, or were evacuated to other parts of the country. For some (around one in seven) the rest centres became longer term accommodation; up to 25,000 people were staying in them during the first months. Conditions were extremely poor at first, most rest centres having minimal sanitation facilities and insufficient bedding, but were rapidly improved by both government action and individual volunteers (*Problems of Social Policy* by Richard M. Titmuss includes the account of a "Mrs B", a beetroot seller who took charge of an Islington rest centre to organise the feeding of babies, washing, sweeping, breakfast etc.) Responsibility for assisting the victims of bombing was disjointed, with 96 different authorities concerned with billeting and housing in the London region. Some exhibited posters after attacks with information about the rest centres and other services, but the approach was piecemeal until late 1940, air raid victims could spend much time going from office to office trying to get assistance. On September 26th 1940 Henry Willink was appointed Special Regional Commissioner for the Homeless. Repair of damaged houses was a priority, as people strongly desired to return to their own homes, or at least neighbourhoods, if at all possible, and by January 1941 80% of the 500,000 damaged houses in London had been repaired, linoleum, cardboard, plasterboard and tarpaulin used for at least temporary repairs if necessary. Local authorities requisitioned empty houses (25,000 by late October 1940), though these still required furniture, bedding and utilities before people could be moved in, and Willink also appointed a permanent staff of social workers for as a Ministry of Health circular put it: "Experience has shown that the rehousing of homeless people involves more than securing simply that there is accommodation in billets or in requisitioned homes for the number of persons involved. "Case-work," taking into account the needs of the individual persons or families affected is also necessary and becomes more important the greater the distance between the original home and the new accommodation". By the middle of 1941, then, the situation was greatly improved. More government administrative centres and information centres had been established, along with assistance from voluntary bodies such as the Women's Voluntary Service. Over the course of the London Blitz around 107,000 people were rehoused, 366,000 were billeted, and 181,000 mothers and children were officially evacuated. Sources: *Problems of Social Policy*, Richard M. Titmuss *The People's War: Britain, 1939-1945*, Angus Calder *The Bombing War: Europe 1939‑1945*, Richard Overy

How were the Maltese actually threated under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller?

As you know, Malta was ruled by the Knights of St. John for a very long time, specifically and fully up until 1798, and had been so since the 16th Century. As a religious and military order, the government system of feudalism followed all the way up until they were liberated by Napoleon. While I do not know the specifics, I can attest to the state of Malta by the time Napoleon came, who, by the way, faced no resistance since there was a French schism within the order. In the six days that he was there, he expelled all but fourteen of the knights, replaced the island's medieval administration with a governing council, dissolved the monasteries, introduced street lighting and paving, freed all political prisoners, installed fountains and reformed the hospitals, postal service, and university (which up until this point did not teach science and humanities). He also abolished slavery and ordered the allowance of the Jews to build a synagogue and increased the salaries for librarians and lecturers. After this change, the island was given back to the Knights in 1803, and then back to the British after Napoleon's defeat. In any case, in light of these reformations conducted by Napoleon, there is some indication that while the rest of the world was in a state of Enlightenment, there was still some kind of social cling to the Feudal and Medieval periods. Andrew Roberts, *Napoleon: A Life* (2014)

why aren't car windshields covered with hydrophobic coatings in 2015?

RainX is awesome and in every auto parts store. They also make a washer fluid that adds the coating and melts ice.

Did the Wright Brothers benefit monetarily from their invention of the airplane?

Yes, they did gain monetary benefit from their invention. The most obvious source is the Wright Company, founded on the 22 November 1909 by the Wright Brothers and with several prominent industrialists from New York and Detroit. Initially Wilbur and Orville received $100,000 and a third of the shares of stock. (Alongside this money they would have received gain from sales from this company, and royalties from others copying their patent.) It's also interesting to note that in an interview in 1939, Orville said "If we had been interested in invention with the idea of profit, we most assuredly would have tried something in which the chances for success were brighter. You see, we did not expect in the beginning to go beyond gliding." (Harpers Magazine, “How the Wright Brothers Began,” Fred C. Kelly, October 1939.)

Why do galaxies have such childlike names?

Whimsy is not the property of children.

Is there anyone who can trace their family tree back to a Roman family?

No we can't. Tracing one's family tree, genealogy, needs records to track relations between individual ( X's father, Y's husband, Z's brother,...Etc ). These records are various, the most common and necessary being birth, marriage, death records but others can be available such as wills, military records,...Etc THe thing is, records for many countries began to be kept in the late 1500s ( at that date in many countries such as France, priests were asked to keep records about who they baptized, buried,...Etc. The point was to be able to keep en eye on the population so to tax them better ). So most people can hope to trace back their genealogy to the late 1500s if they are lucky ( that the country search has such early records, that they survived the centuries,...Etc ) and good enough. Some people can be more lucky to find even older records such as wills or land property records but these are now rare and hard to find and even harder to connect to your actual ancestors with certainty. So no, most people can only hope to be able to trace ancestors back to the 1500s ( which takes years ). Now indeed as you said, aristocratic families had their family trees made and kept in order ( among other things ) to control who is who as well as succession and heritage matters for example. So we have early " trees " available, some more reliable than others of course. That said, even for some of the greatest families historians are not always sure on who is who or who is the father/mother of X for people having lived around the 1000 A.D. For example, who really are the first members of the great Salian dynasty ? Well it is not sure so if we had to go back to the time of the Romans it would be nothing but presomptions, full of uncertainties and mistakes ( imagine if you make a mistake early in your genealogy, such as your great grand father for example, then everything is wrong ). There is no families existing at the time of the Roman Republic/Empire that we can assume still exists today. One thing about genealogy that is funny though : If you were able to go back at your generation 30, you have 537 millions ancestors and at the 35th, it's around 17 billions ancestors. You double the number of ancestors at each generation so we all at some point should descend or be related at a famous Roman or a famous tribesmen, we know it with mathematics and statistics but genealogy can't prove it for us. Anecdote : Mathematicians say that ( you can search the exercise online ) you have 99,999996% chances of having Genghis Khan has an ancestor and only 1 chance on 24 millions of not having Genghis Khan has an ancestor Hope this helps

intelligent design

Intelligent Design was created to try and get around the US Supreme Court ban on the teaching of Creationism as science in publicly funded schools.

why do negative prescription glasses require a prescription from a docter and cost hundreds of dollars where positive lens glasses can be bought for $3 with no prescription.

This isn't exactly true. What you have to look at is what the "negative" and "positive" mean. However, there is a distinction between that and prescription glasses versus non-prescription. The negative and positive reflect what your eyes need--negative is for people who are near-sighted (can see close, but not far), and positive is for far-sighted (can see far, but not close). The $3 glasses you see over the counter are reading glasses, which basically help people see those things close to them, such as reading material. They are all very weak and generic, not specifically made for a particular person. You can not do this for people who are nearsighted. If you wanted to, you could say that a nearsighted person could buy binoculars over the counter, but they don't actually help that much. Any person with a more severe sight impairment would need glasses specially tailored to their needs to see properly, and those cost much more money.

Why don't Forests and Jungles take over the Savannas and Praries?

A mixture of grazing animals and moisture availability, and fire. In North America, the western part of the Great Plains simply doesn't get enough reliable precipitation to support a forest, having a functionally semi-arid climate. This is the short-grass prarie of Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. [This maps shows mostly what I'm talking about. ](_URL_1_) In the Eastern Part of the Great Plains, the tall-grass prairie was historically maintained by a mix of windthrow, grazing, and natural fires. Since the late 18th century, most of the tall-grass prairie has been converted to agricultural use, and the supression of natural fires and extirpation of large grazing animals has allowed the most of the rest to undergo ecological succession into forests (mostly beech-maple, some maple-pine). Today less than 5% of the original tallgrass prairie remains in it's natural condition. I'm trying to find the original 2003 paper that explained the dynamics of the tallgrass prairie ecosystems, but I can't find a version that isn't behind a paywall. Instead, here's an university press release the summarizes it rather well: _URL_0_

Did Diogenes the Cynic and Alexander the Great die on the same day?

In fact that's pretty much the only story of his death that Diogenes Laertius *doesn't* report -- that story actually comes from Plutarch. [Diogenes Laertius reports three alternate death stories as follows (6.76-7):](_URL_0_) > Diogenes is said to have been nearly ninety years old when he died. Regarding his death there are several different accounts. One is that he was seized with colic after eating an octopus raw and so met his end. Another is that he died voluntarily by holding his breath. This account was followed by Cercidas of Megalopolis (or of Crete), who in his meliambics writes thus: > Not so he who aforetime was a citizen of Sinope, That famous one who carried a staff, doubled his cloak, and lived in the open air. But he soared aloft with his lip tightly pressed against his teeth And holding his breath withal. For in truth he was rightly named Diogenes, a true-born son of Zeus, a hound of heaven. > Another version is that, while trying to divide an octopus amongst the dogs, he was so severely bitten on the sinew of the foot that it caused his death. His friends, however, according to Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, conjectured that it was due to the retention of his breath. For he happened to be living in the Craneum, the gymnasium in front of Corinth. When his friends came according to custom and found him wrapped up in his cloak, they thought that he must be asleep, although he was by no means of a drowsy or somnolent habit. They therefore drew aside his cloak and found that he was dead. This they supposed to have been his deliberate act in order to escape thenceforward from life. When there are this many variants of his death story, there's no way of pinning anything down. Though Plutarch is a tad more discriminating than Diogenes Laertius in his source criticism...

why do we say 'decimate' when referring to total destruction, when the roman punishment of decimation only reduced the punished group by 10%

The Romans killed 10% in order to completely break the group/unit. You don't need to kill everyone to break the will of group, that would be pretty silly if they were useful to you. Basically, the idea is that by killing 10% of the group you break 100% of the group to your will, which is total.

why is pencil graphite referred to as lead instead of graphite?

Before chemistry was really a thing, everyone thought that graphite was a type of lead, probably because it's so soft.

why are roads always wet in movies?

Pretty sure it's called a wet down. It's used to reflect light to make the scene more visible.

Portuguese Man O' Wars are a collection of organisms that function as one entity. How do they come together to begin with?

These guys are really cool! They are part of the class Hydrozoa which is part of the phylum Cnidaria which includes jellyfish and corals etc. All of these types of animals have some sort of life cycle that cycles between two forms. The medusae which are what your traditional jellyfish is and a polyp which is a sessile non mobile form. Then there are inbetween forms. Note that some such as coral only have polyp forms. Now to the Man o war! The Man o War starts out in a larva stage called a planula. A planula is a small oval shaped organism that will eventually develop into a polyp form. This polyp will eventually reproduce asexually meaning all of the offspring will be genetic clones of that one polyp. But what's interesting in colonial Hydrozoa like the Man o War is that these offspring will only have certain genes turned on making them specialized. Each offspring of that original planula is now specialized to a certain task to help the colony. These specialized individuals are called zooids. There are really a few main types of zooids. You have the gastrozooids which are specialized for feeding. Gonozooids which are specialized for reproduction and all future offspring will come solely from these individuals. Finally some colonial Hydrozoa such as the Man o War also have dactylozooids which are special individuals which have cnidae cells with nematocysts. These guys are cells that can sting which is what is characteristic of the Cnidaria phylum. So to summarize: the basic larva form, the planula, does its normal thing and grows into many polyp like forms which differentiate and specialize to certain tasks. We call these specialized individuals zooids. So they don't really "come together" like you might think but rather arise from one organism. You might ask but how do they get that bell-like structure? How is that one organism? And that bell is just one super specialized zooid. The Portuguese Man o War is part of what we call Siphonophora which also includes other colonial organisms like Praya which is the longest predator in the world. It is even longer than a blue whale! Fell free to ask more questions and I'll do my best to answer them!

Health wise are you better off drinking a low cal sugar free Gatorade or a diet soda no caffeine?

Gatorade. The electrolytes are good for you and the acidity of soda is not good for your teeth or the rest of your digestive system for that matter.

why does drinking water solve so much?

Don't think of drinking water as solving problems, think of not drinking enough being a very big problem. Water is essential for almost every bodily function and without it the entire body is worse off

Why are second derivatives written in the format d2(f(x))/dx2?

Really it should be d^2 / (dx)^2, but the parentheses are dropped. This just comes from (d/dx) (d/dx) ... (d/dx) = (d/dx)^n = d^n / (dx)^n = d^n / dx^n. It's just convention

why doesn't google chrome allow unity player anymore?

The unity player uses a mechanism of integrating with chrome that chrome were no longer willing to support. The 'NPAPI' (Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface) was how a lot of different browser plugins integrated with both Firefox and Chrome such as Flash (not in Chrome's case which builds flash in), Java, media players like VLC / RealPlayer, etc. The NPAPI has been around since the Netscape browsers, it's very old, and I think the Chrome/Chromium team didn't want to continue to maintain and support it when the Chrome extension system and HTML 5 cover the vast majority of use cases between them. Plus getting rid of NPAPI plugins improves security, no more Java for a start - you aren't exposing all the different plugins to the websites you visit that might poentially try to exploit them anymore.

can cigarette companies just remove toxins and carcinogens from their cigarettes to make them still addictive but not as dangerous? why or why not?

Most of the carcinogens are just byproducts of burning of the dried tobacco leaf. Inhaling smoke is unhealthy, no matter the source. Some of the carcinogens come from chemicals added to enhance flavor, control the burning and so forth. But removing them would surely help only a little, yet make the smoking process more arduous.

why sleeping in the morning and waking up at night is bad for health ?

The body has something called a circadian rhythm which is correlated to the cycle of night and daylight. This circadian rhythm affects which hormones are released in our body; this is called hormonal homeostasis. Certain hormones are released at different times and the concentrations of such hormones are varied at different times. Sleeping in the morning during daylight and waking up at night in the dark will initially throw this circadian hormonal homeostasis off balance, which could be unhealthy.

How did individuals fund their Hajj?

I can't give any direct information on this topic, however I do want to point out that the stipulations for making the Hajj state that it should be carried out by Muslims who are able-bodied enough to make the journey and wealthy enough to be able to afford it. Basically, if you *can* afford the journey and are physically able enough to make it, you should, however it wouldn't be held against you if you were not physically or monetarily able to make the journey.

why do drums sound in key with every song?

They don't really have a definite pitch. The sounds they produce are too complex and consist of too many pitches for us to be able to pick out a pitch. That's why they sound okay in any key. This applies to things like snare drums, bass drums, cymbals, etc. Things like timpani have definite pitches, and they have to be in key with the rest of the instruments in the ensemble.

Skeletal musculature - is it possible to cure/lessen scoliosis through exercise?

In short: no. There are three basic types of scoliosis - idiopathic, neuromuscular, and congenital. I'm assuming you have idiopathic as it's the most common. Bracing is the only non-surgical treatment that has any proved efficacy but is used primarily to stop the worsening of scoliosis while someone is still developing, not once they're reached maturity. The biggest question I'd ask at this point is how bad is the curvature? If you're at 30 degrees or less, more than likely things won't get worse since you've stopped growing, so if you can handle things as they are now, surgery isn't necessarily mandatory. If you're above 30 and especially 45 degrees, you're likely to get worse even if you've reached bone maturity. In that case fusion will likely be needed. All that being said, strength and stretching exercises won't hurt (as long as you talk to your doctor first to tell him what you'd like to do), but unfortunately can't straighten a scoliotic spine.

my right in the us when pulled over by a cop seemingly out of nowhere

Your right to do what? To leave? No, you can't leave, a cop can briefly detain you for committing an infraction or upon reasonable suspicion of a crime. If that reasonable suspicion elevates to probable cause, a cop can order you out of the car and conduct a brief search. If a cop has a reasonable suspicion that you are armed and dangerous, they can also frisk you for weapons.

how does a drug "hang around" in my body for weeks after i have last consumed it? why if it is in my body am i no longer affected by it?

Well, the drug itself might not. Most chemicals are eliminated from your body through several steps. Alcohol, for example, gets metabolized into a close relative of cyanide (ED: relative of formaldehyde, my mistake), which is one of the reasons it's so awful for you. It's possible a drug test detects the by-products, not the drug itself. But even if it doesn't, it takes a fairly large amount of a drug to create a noticeable effect to you as a person. Imagine, for example, taking just a dip of coffee. It's not enough caffeine to have any significant effect, but there's still caffeine in your body that can be detected fairly easily.

Is the lack of hair on our bodies for the purpose of keeping us warm a way we physically adapted to our technology i.e. clothes?

While the theory presented in this video is not necessarily the most widely-accepted, it is certainly the most compelling case for human ancestry I have encountered. It touches on things like bipedalism, hair, and speech capabilities - all from the standpoint we evolved dwelling on / in rivers. _URL_0_ Edit: For those who do not want to watch the video, the part on hair basically says that because humans were water dwelling species, we "shed" our hair over evolutionary time to become more streamline. The only mammals that are as hairless as us are either aquatic-dwelling, came from aquatic-dwelling mammals, or is the naked mole rate which spends almost all its time underground. We also have blubber-like reservoirs around internal organs for fat storage instead of a more homogeneous distribution, characteristic of mammals spending most of their time in the water or snowy climates.

is there any correlation between quick reflexes and fast twitch muscle fibers?

Short answer: no, there isn’t. Long answer: they have nothing to do with each other. Reflexes are by definition responses to a stimulus performed without conscious thought. Typically they shortcut the brain. Think of your nerves as a two way street with the only place for a car to make a u turn being in the spine or brain. A stimulus would be a car, traveling from say your knee up towards your spine and brain. It will turn around in the spine and be sent back down as an order to stretch out your leg. Fast twitch muscle fibers are the type of muscle fibers used in short but powerful movements. Sprinting vs running a marathon. They exert more easily so your body will usually favor using slow twitch fibers until they become tired and then switches to the fast twitch.