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Is it possible for a planet to consist solely of liquid as opposed to a solid or a gas? If no, why not?

Yes, Jupiter might even be one. Even if it is not then other gas giants could be formed by gravitational instability in which there is no solid core (at least at the early stages but there are processes which may form one later).

what’s the difference between forging and casting metals?

Forging involved hammering soft heated metal into the shape you want. Casting is pouring liquid metal into a mould and letting it cool.

How did the role of the artist differ before the Renaissance and during the Renaissance?

I wouldn't say that, even by the High Renaissance, artists had that much freedom over their subject matter. It was still very much a matter of the patron's (whether it be royalty, church, or private) will. The more well-known artists had a bit more input (I'm thinking, for example, of Titian and his portraits for the Spanish kings), and certainly more freedom to choose and be exposed to a wider range of possible patrons, but they weren't truly able to just paint for the sake of it - that shift was still another couple of hundred years away. Everything had to be created for a purpose. In terms of patronage, the addition of private citizens (usually middle and upper class) as patrons to the standard patronage of church and royalty coincided with the rise and growing wealth of those classes. You have to remember that at this point, art museums - and publicly accessible art in general - weren't concepts. Art, for a private citizen, was a status symbol: something that the church and royals had had for centuries, that now they could too. The growth of private collecting & commissions also benefitted the artist because citizens tended to have more wide-ranging tastes than the royals or especially the church, based both on personal taste and current fashion, thus giving the artist a bigger scope in which to work, as well as another means of making money. The financial aspect of private patronage is one reason that it really flourished in Italy and the North - in a country like Spain, for instance, the financial gap between the royals and their subjects was so wide that there was barely a middle class, let alone one with the disposable income to spend on art. So I'd argue that it wasn't really that the role of the artist changed all that much; rather, the *perception* of the artist in society, and the function and purpose of art itself, that benefited most from Renaissance ideals during the period - he was gradually elevated from a craftsman to a serious and in-demand professional, who had access to an ever-growing pool of patrons and ideas than his predecessors. I really recommend Jay Levenson's *Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration* as a starting point if you're interested in this subject / period. Ann Harris also has a really interesting text on the same topic, but it deals with the period just after the Renaissance.

what are the horizontal part (sleepers?) of a railway track for? and why can some sections of track not have them

They hold the rails at a fixed distance - without them, the trains would push them apart. If the railroad is built on concrete or other solid material (e.g. a railway crossing, or railroads in cities) then they're not needed because the ground provides enough stability. If the ground is soft, they also keep the rails from sinking in because they have more surface than the rails.

why do android phones get slower over time even after a factory reset?

This is just speculation tbh. Over time, the same applications on your phone consume more resources. This is because the rate technology improves is swift, and application devs are constantly keeping up. So say an app is currently built to run well on a phone with 1GB RAM. When phones with 2GB RAM become the norm, app devs feel comfortable giving their app a larger footprint on available resources. But your phone still has 1GB. And the app and the OS both have progressed to being comfortable using more resources than before. Hence the difference in performance. Edit: Apparently this has been asked before and the answer is flash memory degradation

when a computer says "scan and repair"; how does it repair?

One other thing is repair tools are designed to implement a set of fixed “scripts/instructions” known to solve common problems. You can consider the scan and repair program to be a collection of known fixes that attempt to run and repair your system. Sometimes these tools can be helpful, sometimes they are not able to resolve the issue as it is dependent on the people writing the program to include the necessary bug fixes or configuration fixes.

judges and what happens to them after their rulings are repeatedly overturned.

Alright, I'll try my best to explain it. First of all, law is a murky subject. There are many ways the same piece of law could be read by different people. Often the judge who has his opinion overturned read the law different than an appellate judge, but once the appellate court rules on it, the trial judge now has a framework for how to handle similar cases. Cases are not overturned that often. The vast majority are not, because most topics in our legal system have been ruled on by appellate courts or set forth in clear terms by legislatures. There are review boards in most states, but they only step in when Judges do off the wall things, that have ZERO basis in law. Most of the "bad" rulings you describe actually have some merit in the law as written, but lay people don't know the law like people trained to do so. Judges who make "wacky" rulings can be impeached. I recall a case of one judge in Georgia with no prior legal training who made rulings based on his judgment instead of the law. He was impeached, and I believe sent to jail for a few days. EDIT: I looked it back up. He did have prior legal training, but apparently had forgotten all of it when he became judge. He had no handle on basic legal concepts. For instance, he offered in Court to let a woman off a parking ticket if she paid him. The thing to remember is this: Judges in appointed positions are trained legal professionals with years of experience (in most cases) and their judgments are based on law, whether you like them or not. Most "bad" rulings come from areas with elected judges, because anyone can register for the ballot without any training(varies by locale). This usually happens in uneducated, conservative areas, where people vote a party ticket.

- does gritting the road harm the environment? surely a massive increase in salt would alter the natural soil composition and harm the surrounding area/ecosystem?

It does, yes, and for the exact reasons you mentioned too. The problem is, that the best alternative to salt is to use sand instead, but that doesn't get rid of the ice and also has to swept away again once the weather got warmer, which in turn makes it more expensive.

Why don't animals like dogs and cats recognize and understand what music is?

i used to play guitar when i was younger, and my dog would sit in front of me like she was listening. not sure why though...

If gravity is the effect of space-time being stretched, wouldn't an object's angular momentum generate gravitational effects?

Yes. This is mainly a thing for spinning black holes, although the gravitational effects of the Earth's rotation has been measured by a very precise satellite experiment called [Gravity Probe B](_URL_0_). However, this isn't the reason for prograde orbits, that more has to do with angular momentum conservation and the initial conditions of planetary systems.

Why was the Qin more effective than the other Chinese states during the Warring States Period?

Qin was more effective from the middle Warring States onwards. They weren't always more effective. That being said I would say the reasons are: 1) Qin's land was fertile. It wasn't (originally) as populous, but Qin took over the heartland of the Zhou when the Zhou moved east (the event that ushered in the Spring and Autumn period). The Wei river valley was fertile and not hemmed in all sides by hostile states but had places they could expand into. When they go campaigning on their Eastern borders, they don't have to worry about another state taking advantage and attacking from their west (something other states had to put up with all the time) because there was no state on their west. I also read (but for the life of me can't remember where I read it from, might have been Cambridge's History of China) that they also embarked on huge irrigation projects of dikes and canals to make their lands even better and efficiently transfer goods. 2) Legalist reforms. Throughout the Warring States period, all the major players tried to concentrate power in the hand of the state/ruler and take it away from the aristocrats that made up the charioteers of the Spring and Autumn period. The Qin, on advice of Shang Yang, did this most completely. They adapted a very regimented society of five/ten mutually-responsible households (if one commits a crime, all are punished). All middle-men and aristocratic standings were (in theory) abolished. There was (in theory) no hereditary titles except that of the King, and everything was to be done by officers on the state's payroll. Society was to be structured around nuclear families of farmer-soldiers. There was to be no large family groups, and the entire population was to be available for military service. This allowed the Qin to mobilize its resources for war more efficiently than any other state. Fun fact. If you go read legalist writings by Lord Shang and especially Hanfeizi, it reads like a checklist of what Big Brother is like from Orwell's 1984. The difference is Orwell says this is bad for the people, while Hanfeizi says it's good for the state/ruler. 3) Qin's successful conquest/colonization of the Sichuan basin really tipped the scale towards their favour with the addition of the vast and incredibly fertile Sichuan basin into their realm for the state to exploit, population to expand into, and to farm.

how to win radio station call-in contests?

If its a small station call just before the end of the announcement, if its a large station call as soon as possible. At a small station the announcer answers their own calls, at a large station a producer or panelist will answer the phone. Source I work in Radio.

why certain fruits and veggies taste crunchier after they're chilled

the fibrous cell structures within the plants become more rigid when they are cold. that rigidity gives them additional "crispyness." it is similar to if you were to take a foam bed and turn the heat off in the room. the bed becomes much firmer.

Does the shape of a lightning bolt have an effect on the sound of the thunder?

The jagged and irregular shape of a lightning bolt is one thing that causes thunder to rumble. Different points all along the lightning bolt are different distances from your ears and thus the sounds arrives at slightly different times. If a lightning bolt were perfectly straight, for example, you'd hear a big boom but it would be uniform in intensity for its duration (discounting effects of distance on sound intensity). A forked bolt would make a sort of ka-boom sound as the two separate forks of the bolt create sound waves that arrive close to each other but not at the exact same time (at least in most cases, you could prove mathematically that at a point equally spaced from each fork, the sounds would constructively interfere to create a louder boom, however it's pretty unlikely that you'd happen to be in the exact spot where this happens).

it's said that a single strand of dna contains roughly 4 megabytes of information. how exactly do they know this and how are bytes convertible to something physical like base pairs?

A bit is a binary digit. A byte is an 8 digit number, in binary. In decimal, a ten digit number could represent a high count of something, or each digit could have it's own significance. For example, in a telephone number, where it really just represents what button to press. It's conceivable that every two digits could combine to represent something. Kind of like the first three in an American phone number represent a region. DNA is made up a discreet number of pairs of bases, no? The are four bases that bind in two different pairs. Even if it matters which is left and which is right, relative to something arbitrary (for instance the pairs of the entire preliminary length of the strand), it's all powers of two. So in the case of DNA it would be pretty simple to convert to bits and bytes. Without even knowing specifically how many kinds of bases there are, or whether the chirality matters, as long as everything must pair up, each pair is represented by a strict number of bits, with no waste. I.e., if there are 4 bases I'll call a b c and d, but the pairs only form like ab and cd, then that's either 0 or 1 in binary. One digit covers all those possibilities. If chirality confess into play, so that relative to the first ab or cd, you can have ab ba cd or dc, then there are 4 possibilities, which are entirely grasped by two digits with no wasted digit. By waste I mean, imagine if you had 5 possibilities. That would require 3 digits, but wouldn't use all the combinations of those 3. Although, even if the third digit is used, and a little bit a waste, it would still factor correctly into an amount of dat a, so that's somewhat moot.

why if the distance between two objects can always be halved, do they ever touch other?

In theory if you keep cutting the distance between two objects in half, they will not meet. I'm not sure what you are asking about though. Here's a little joke that is very relevant: A mathematician and an engineer are both told they can half the distance between themselves and a beautiful woman as many times as they want. The mathematician responds: "I'll never get to her." The engineer says: "I'll get close enough..."

why do the facebook accounts of dead people or people who have not logged on in years all of a sudden start spamming sales for sunglasses?

My guess is since the password never changes anymore some bot brute forces the password and takes over the account.

why are some fairly modern commercial aircraft built with propeller engines instead of jets?

Propeller aircraft are usually less expensive for the same size and slightly more fuel efficient, although slower. Makes for a compelling argument for shorter routes without high demand, and some airlines such as Silver run almost exclusively propeller aircraft.

Was homosexuality bad in the eyes of old celtic/Norse beliefs?

EDIT : u/sunagainstgold's answer on [homosexuality and its perception in medieval Scandinavia](_URL_0_) is certainly interest you on the other part of your question. We have litterary evidence that ancient Celts (i.e. more or less people we would call Gauls) practiced homosexuality, to the point it was considered one of their positive qualities by Aristotle. > \[...\] *and yet among the barbarians, a female and a slave are upon a level in the community, the reason for which is, that amongst them there are none qualified by nature to govern, therefore their society can be nothing but between slaves of different sexes. For which reason the poets say, it is proper for the Greeks to govern the barbarians, as if a barbarian and a slave were by nature one.* (Politics, I, > > *So that in such a state riches will necessarily be in general esteem, particularly if the men are governed by their wives, which has been the case with many a brave and warlike people except the Celts, and those other nations, if there are any such, who openly practise pederasty* (Politics II, 9) u/cleopatra_philopater wrote [an answer that is necessary](_URL_1_) to understand what Greeks saw in participating to homosexual and pederastic activities : an initiation of the youngest, wild and "desiring" members of the upper society by older, experienced and guiding mentors. For Aristotle, it was the marking of a comparatively well-regulated and "not that Barbaric" society. Ancient Celts, however, seems to have overdone it in the eyes of the Greeks as Diodorus Siculus > *Although their wives are comely, they have very little to do with them, but rage with lust, in outlandish fashion, for the embraces of males. It is their practice to sleep upon the ground on the skins of wild beasts and to tumble with a catamite on each side. And the most astonishing thing of all is that they feel no concern for their proper dignity, but prostitute to others without a qualm the flower of their bodies; nor do they consider this a disgraceful thing to do, but rather when anyone of them is thus approached and refuses the favour offered him, this they consider an act of dishonour.* Actually revealing in penetration? Boys serching actively for partners? Lack of a natural desire for women as a "settled" man should have? *Threesomes*? That won't do at all : for Diodorus, regardless of their qualities, these are the displays of a deeply disordered people just as human sacrifices are. This reputation of Gauls is echoed by Strabo as common knowledge. > \[...\] *one of the things that are repeated over and over again, namely, that not only are all Celts fond of strife, but among them it is considered no disgrace for the young men to be prodigal of their youthful charms*. (Geography, V, 4) Evidently, Gauls had a different approach on sexual practices among men than Greeks, even if it was still marked by intercourse between older mentors and wild youth. Unfortunately, there are no Celtic sources on this; obviously the lack of written litterature in ancient Gaul prevents a direct understanding, but the lack of pictural sources that we could interpret are an additional problems : Gauls didn't represent themselves, except relatively uncommon hieratic fashion, and sexual depictions are usually subtle. Still, we can draw something more than their immediatly descriptive meaning from Greek texts : at the partial exception of Strabo (who might have borrowed elements from Poseidonios as much from other authors), their perception of Celts was importantly drawn from the form of contacts Greek had with them. In the IVth to IInd centuries it was often as warring bands, either raiders or mercenaries, whom practices including sexual were thus displayed and known to Greeks (earlier mentions of Celts, from the VIth to the IVth centuries are silent on this topic). We'd be thus allowed to preserve a strong association with pedagogic practices comparable to Greek pederasty, as Aristotle understood it. We know that warfare was central in Gaulish public life : the social class Caesar describes as equites are determinated by their capacity to wage war as part of the mobilised troop and thus taking an active part into religious rites, political activity and social status among their peers on which personal prestige played the main part until the Ist century BCE. The importance of clientelization and personal relations in the make-up of the *pagus* (the supra-tribal entity from which troops were gathered and mobilised) would have impressed the pedagogic initiation including warring but also social mentorship and sponsorship that would have included gifts, equipment and sexual intercourse; making fully realized men out of "boys" able to participate to public life as peers; something that could be part of a larger set of practices in Indo-European peoples (altough certainly not limited to them). In Gaul, it appears from sources that young children weren't fully considered part of the overall social sphere : Caesar inform us that it is innappropriate for a Gaul to bring his child with him, and young children aren't properly buried but cast away in some ditch except in the context of important lineage where they were groomed into a future social role. As such, a pubescent male is immediatly taken from childhood to active initiation, instead of it being a "gateway" of sorts as in Greece;which might have added to the confusion and reprobation from Greeks, but also something that might have well blurred the distinction between "sexually-ehanced" initiation and sexual intercourse among peers, both probably participating from the same set of practices, eventually removing these from strict pederasty and associating virile and social binding among warriors. The active part taken by the youngers is interesting as it is uncommon and a shocking behavious for Greeks : it might be interpretable as understanding warfare itself as both central for Gauls but as a "special" sphere too. War and mobilisation were made under the auspices of standards taken from sanctuaries, among them the boar-standard or the beastly carnyxes, which had a military and religious meaning : the boar in particular is particularily present in this context while rare in coinage or other displays (where horse are far more common along with cervids).Likewise, Cernunnos as the torque-bearing god and association to cervids could be less a master of nature (and even less a "god of nature") than master of the wild whom initiated warriors (the representation of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron being associated with a possible symbolical representation of initiation) could drawn from altough being "harnassed" by the god trough torque-giving. There's an impression that warfare, decidely distinct from the "normal" sphere (which, incidentally, is governed by women in time of wars, at least for what matter the political management, as accounted by Plutarch), where the wilderness of young men could find an outlet in aggressive warfare and sexuality along older patrons, or as part of a "troop of young men" (or *männerbund).* Would these practices have been maintained outside warfare? That's possible but sources are lacking and interpretation of what is at disposal is limited. Warfare being the natural and recurring lifestyle of warriors, we can speculate that there were more than enough occasions to practice something that might have been situated between accepted bisexuality and ritualized pederasty. Were these practices accepted outside warriors? Opposite stances had been supported and argued, from these being limited to a ritual and "special" context, to Gaulish culture being essentially accepting of bisexuality. Absence of sources (either positively or negatively pointing this) prevent any form of certainty in spite of enthusiastic support for the latter, such as Celts being considered as "sin-free" and "taboo-free" (e.g. Pierre Godard) \[EDIT : We have nothing, on the other hand, on feminine homosexual intercourse or relationships. It was pretty much a non-topic for ancient authors, who focused on a warring elite they were more likely to met with in Gaul or elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin.Altough Gaulish women in particular, and Celtic women in general, seems to have beneficed from a higher status and more agency in public life than in Greece or Rome, we're badly informed on their everyday or public life itself and it is often in relation with how it differed or completed masculine spheres. Even comparatism with other mythological or historical sources (notably medieval Irish and Welsh ones) doesn't give much which could be the sign lesbianism wasn't acknowledged in ancient Gaul either\] What we can say, however, is that Gauls were apparently less uptight than Greeks in their sexual approach (some Gaulish names or surnames have possible explicit translations, such as Tarcondimotus, litterally "his head is like a d\*\*g"), and seems to have, in a context of social upbringing and perpetuation of a male elite, not only tolerated but actively practiced it. * *Dictionnaire de langue gauloise - Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental*; Xavier Delmarre; éditions Errance; 2003 * *Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens*; Bernard Sergent; Payot & Rivages, 1996.

how were languages created? did we just get better at grunting?

Yes, we got better at grunting. But to say "developed independently all over the world" is a bit misleading. A group of people that speak A all lived together, but then some moved away and over time the languages changed, and now you have two different languages, A and B because they were so far apart geographically they couldn't keep eachother up to date. French, english, spanish, german, all have similar origins, so they were not independent in the beginning. It is not like different languages spontaneously happened. The language's change is very much like evolution of the species, and in essence there was no "creation" for languages either. Radical changes take a LOT of time.

why does your average sport player not get the serious injuries commonly suffered by professionals?

Probably just because professionals do it way more often and probably way more intensely than you. Lots of high school sports players get injured frequently.

Does the amount or heaviness of the falling rain affect the sound of thunder?

heavy rain (heavy water) adsorbs sound energy a at a rate √3 x F greater than light water (deuterium). thunder is mostly in the 20-50hz range, so at 100% relative humidity , we might expect thunder to be heard at about twice the range in light rain

When we talk about previous ice ages, how widespread was the cold? Did it cover the whole planet?

Aren't we still technically on an ice age by some definitions?

how do usb/hdmi/displayport keep getting faster?

Improvements in various things. For example in HDMI the speed increase is associated with a higher clock rate. Much like faster processors increased in Mhz, and into Ghz. HDMI Max Clock frequency to Data throughput - HDMI 1.0 - 1.2: 165mhz = 4.95Gbps - HDMI 1.3 - 1.4: 300mhz = 10.2Gbps - HDMI 2.0: 600mhz = 18Gbps - HDMI 2.1: ?? Spec not out to public or vendors yet, [here is some speculation though](_URL_0_). This increase in clock speed is kind of like increasing the speed limit on the road. If the speed limit goes up from 25mph to 50mph, twice as many cars can go down that road. There are various reasons that increasing the frequency of the signal is difficult, and just gets harder the higher the frequency gets. Sometimes bandwidth increases come from adding pins/wires. This is like adding another set of lanes to that 25mph road. More lanes, more cars.

how is work outsourced to other countries without massive outrage from the outsourcing country?

I grew up in northern Indiana. Many people were upset when the steel industry started moving jobs over seas. The thing is it was a slow process. They did not do it all at once so it was not as noticeable. Also a lot of people did receive compensation for losing there job. An example would be being able to retire earlier with full benefits.

Is there chemisrty in degenerate matter?

I'm not sure if I understood correctly. But you can find [degenerated matter](_URL_0_) - or fermion gas - in white dwarfs for example. And of course there are processes happening inside these stars that may create/change/destroy this fermion gas.

gene mapping, and the human genome project.

**TL;DR - I freaking love biochemistry and explaining things** ******** **Explained Simply** You have DNA, which is a mixture of 4 chemical "bases", known as Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), Thymine (T) and Adenine (A). DNA itself is made of two long strands (*double stranded*) with Cytosine binding to Guanine, and Thymine binding to Adenine. Thus DNA is a long length of C-G and T-A links. Because of this, we only need to look at one strand of DNA to know what the other strand looks like. When we map a gene, we break down the gene into the DNA strands and try to determine the "sequence" of one of them - that is, which bases are present, and in what order? Each base can bind a specific chemical, which usually fluoresces when a specific light is shone on it. In the end, we have a large length of DNA to which we can work out it's complimentary second strand. When you have a lot of genes together, they can form a chromsome. They need some help from other chemicals, such as histones, but basically a chromosome is a large number of genes together. Most people have 23 copies - or 46 chromosomes. The reason you have copies, is that you have one set from your mum, and the other from dad. As well as this, one set of them are your sex chromosomes - which are known as either X or Y. If you get two X - you're a girl. If you get an X and Y - you're a guy! You can't get two Y's - but you're clever for thinking that. The Human Genome Project was an idea set forth in the 1990's which had the aim of characterising and sequencing every gene in the human body. That meant taking all the DNA from a person, and using the process described above to work out the sequences. In the end, about 20,000 to 25,000 genes were discovered, but we don't know what half of them do! It's like knowing that one gene can contribute to the colour of your hair, but if you have that gene and it's identical to your friend's gene, it doesn't mean you'll have the same hair colour. Other methods of gene mapping depend upon your knowledge of biochemistry. Essentially you can do what's called a "shotgun" sequence approach, where you take a gene, isolate the DNA within it and then copy it a lot. It has recently gotten a LOT easier to copy DNA (look up a process called Polymerase Chain Reaction). Then you break all those DNA copies up in different places, and then see where each bit of the DNA matches up with other parts - kinda like break 3 or 4 rulers into pieces and then matching up based on the number of centimetres they have. Once you've determined the overlapping, you can "walk" your way from one end to the other, working out the bases as you go, using chemicals. ******** **ELI5** What colour hair do you have? Is it the same as your mothers? Does your dad have the same colour eyes as you? What about your best friend? All of these are because of your "genes". Genes are the little things inside of you that make you different from everyone else. Genes themselves are made up of DNA. A while ago, a couple of clever fellows made a model of DNA. Their model used four letters: C, G, T and A. DNA is a whole bunch of those letters mixed up in a long, long row - and if you have enough of them, you can make a gene! When we want to "map" a gene, we have to work out the long sequence of letters (What were they again? C, G, T and A!), which is very specific! First, we have to take out the DNA from you. Don't worry - you have a lot of it! Then we cut it up and add some colours. Each colour will find a letter (C, G, T and A) and stick to it! Then we work out which letters are next to each other, until we reach the end of the gene. In the 1990's, long before you were born, some people decided to work out the DNA sequence of every gene in everyone's body! They took some DNA from a lot of people, and did exactly what you just learned. Guess how many genes there were? OVER 20,000! Some of these genes will decide what colour hair you have, or your eye colour. Some may actually help you be tall, or short, or big, or small.

What occurred in Luxembourg and Liechtenstein during the World Wars?

1/2 **Luxembourg, First World War** Luxembourg was [invaded and occupied by Germany](_URL_0_) during the First World War. Being able to move their army through Luxembourg, as well as Belgium, was a key part of the Moltke-Schlieffen Plan. On 1st August 1914 the Germans violated Luxembourgish neutrality by using Troisvierges Station in the north of the country and taking control of the telegraph posts there. The Luxembourgish prime minister, Paul Eyschen, telegraphed Berlin, asking what was happening. The German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Gottlieb von Jagow, responded that there must have been a mistake, and that Germany would respect Luxembourgish neutrality, as had been affirmed at the 1867 Second Treaty of London, providing that France did the same. On 2nd August 1914 Germany launched its invasion of Luxembourg, crossing the Moselle (which the border between Germany and Luxembourg follows, excluding a little bit of Luxembourg near Vianden which is east of the river) at Remich and Wasserbillig, and moved on the capital, Luxembourg City. The Luxembourg Army, consisting of 400 mostly ceremonial troops, were ordered by the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Marie-Adélaïde, not to resist the Germans. At 17:00 a telegram was sent to the Luxembourgish prime minister in which the German government apologised for the invasion, which they said was necessary to protect German military and railway interests, and that Luxembourg would be fully compensated by the Germans for any damage. At the end of the day a fight between German and French troops broke out at Petit-Croix, on the western border of Luxembourg. On 3rd August a further telegram was sent, claiming the occupation to be temporary, that the rights of Luxembourgers would be respected, and that France had caused the invasion by sending 650 troops on bicycle into Luxembourg before the invasion. This claim seems unlikely, though possible, and was denied by the government of Luxembourg. 3200 Luxembourgers had left the country before the invasion, and most of these volunteered within the French army. 2800 of these were killed in the course of the war. During the occupation, trees were pulled down in Luxembourg City in order to improve the line of sight for using machine guns, should the Germans have needed to defend Luxembourg. Orchards and farmland were dug up to locate bunkers and gun emplacements. Luxembourgish workers were made to work for the German war effort. In order to prevent trouble brewing among the local population, 'preventive arrests' of possible dissenters were made - it seems that the German secret police had been active in Luxembourg before the war. Most of these prisoners were taken to Trier, just across the border into Germany. Luxembourg was kept under martial law, and there were restrictions on travel, free speech/press and rationing. The country was used by the Germans as a logistical support centre for the German army, and Crown Prince Wilhelm, who was a general in the army, had his headquarters at Luxembourg's second city, Esch-sur-Alzette. One of the major events during the occupation was a strike by iron miners on 31st May 1917. As a result of the British naval blockade on Germany, Luxembourg had become very important to German iron production, and contributed one-seventh of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's pig iron. Generalmajor Richard Karl von Tessmar put down the strike, and arrested the ringleaders, who were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Had Germany won the war, it has been argued that she intended to annex Luxembourg. There is some evidence to support this. The Septemberprogramm, a draft of German war aims, stated that Luxembourg was to become a member of the German Empire, and this has been used by historian Fritz Fischer in *Germany's Aims in the First World War* to claim that it was German policy to annex Luxembourg. General Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf, Chief of General Staff of the Ottoman Army, also talked of annexing Luxembourg. The Septemerprogramm was never official policy, however, and Bronsart von Schellendorf's statements should not be seen as representative of German policy makers' opinion. As it is, no serious attempts were made to annex Luxembourg during occupation. On 6th November 1918, Richard von Tessmar announced the withdrawal of German troops from Luxembourg. After the armistice, on 18th November 1918 it was decided that General John Pershing's US Third Army would move through Luxembourg to take up their occupation of the Rhineland, which they did the following day. The American troops were greeted by the Luxembourgers as liberators, and on 22nd November the German army completed its withdrawal from Luxembourg. **Liechtenstein, First World War** Officially Liechtenstein was neutral during the First World War, and did not have a standing army. Unlike Luxembourg, its neutrality was largely respected. Liechtenstein was closely tied to Austria-Hungary, however: since 1852 Austrian customs officials were in charge of collecting duties at border crossings; since 1872 the Vienna-Zürich train line which passed through the country had been under the control of the Imperial Austrian State Railway; since 1880 Austrian diplomats were able to represent Liechtensteiner interests abroad. As a result, the Allies saw Liechtenstein as being so closely integrated into the Austro-Hungarian economy that it too was subjected to embargo by the Allies. This caused hardships in Liechtenstein, and the Allies even denied the Swiss their requests to send food to the principality. As a result, after the armistice and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Liechtenstein concluded much the same treaties (customs, consular etc.) with Switzerland in the place of Austria, and adopted the Swiss Franc, which is still the currency today.

why is snow soft

Moisture in the atmosphere is water vapor. When the temperature is low enough, the molecules of water condense but also freeze simultaneously in ice crystal structures rather than forming together into a water droplet THEN freezing (which would obviously result in hail). These ice structures are much less dense than actual chunks of ice, and when they fall to the ground, they stick to each other rather than compress and merge (that is, until they're compacted forcibly together, or melt is warmer surface temperatures).

How much more or less brutal were the Germans in Russia than the Russians were in Germany at the end of world war II?

The German occupation was significantly more brutal, considering Germany suffered some million or so civilian casualties from all military actions (including those of the western allies,) compared to the 8-12 million inflicted in the Soviet Union. The Russian occupation is, I feel, often played up due to the political concerns of the time. Yes, there are accounts of rapes by Russian soldiers, but there are also accounts of Soviet troops handing out food to orphans. The thing is, the Russian plan wasn't to murder 2/3 of the German population. The Nazi plan for Russia was to do just that. The Soviet high command issued orders against rape and murder, although depending on commander this was sometimes not enforced (as in all the allied armies.) It may have been more of a problem for Soviet forces, but then, virtually every Russian soldier would have personally known somebody who had been killed by the Germans. The difficulty in finding good sources on this issue is that it has become highly politicized. It's difficult to find a middle ground between "the Russians were barbecuing babies in the street" and "glorious Soviet soldiers were all angels and did nothing but help the German civilians." The truth is probably somewhere inbetween. However, I do firmly believe that the "Stalin's army of rapists" line can be firmly dismissed as Cold War era propaganda. This is not to say that the Soviet occupation was not brutal and that rape did not happen, but the scale which is hinted at (but seldom given a hard number,) in English sources is probably exaggerated. Sadly, it would be difficult to exaggerate the horror of the holocaust in Russia.

why do motorcycles redline at ~14 k rpm, but most everyday cars redline at ~7 k rpm

Small parts can move faster, and motorcycle engines usually have a short stroke. They are generally optimized for maximum horsepower, while car and truck engines place a greater importance on torque at low RPMs for moving heavy loads from a standstill. Modern sportbike engines are also significantly more advanced that automotive engines, due to looser regulations and a horsepower war that's been going on for decades. Hardley-Davidsons only rev to 6,000, by the way, but their V-twin is based on an engine design that was obsolete in the 1940's. They ride like a truck on two wheels though...instant torque.

How long could a person survive eating only human flesh?

I realize this shouldn't be a top-level comment, but since no one's posted I will. I went to the wiki page for rabbit starvation syndrome, and it said it was from a lack of fat in your diet. Humans are pretty fatty, so it shouldn't be a problem.

why do people cook with alcohol, is it just for flavour, if so then can't you just use non-alcoholic substitutes?

One thing to note about cooking it off properly is that alcohol (specifically ethanol, for context) has a much lower boiling point than water. Thus, the ethanol boils and evaporates off earlier and more completely than water. So if your food is cooked properly, it would be highly unlikely that any ethanol would remain.

what kind of video editing software to big movies such as harry potter use?

Final Cut X is actually not Final Cut 10, just "X". It is a dumbed down, consumer version of the glorious Final Cut 7 which Apple abandoned years ago, which was used on many feature films. The old standard, Avid, is still a big one. However, Adobe Premiere is taking its cut of the cake as it has improved considerably over the past few years and its excellent integration with After Effects and other Adobe software makes it a pick of choice. Edit: _URL_0_ According to this interview Harry Potter movies are edited in Avid.

why do i sound on pitch when i'm singing but when i listen to a recording i'm horrible?

As a Singer (opera, rock, pop, choral) I love answering this because It's a struggle I have had constantly. Nobody can be actually tone deaf or you wouldn't be able to ever hear a tune or inflection in peoples voices, But when you are singing along with a track or with an instrument you are also hearing the instrument or track you're singing with. This is why you often see singers plugging one ear so they have a register of what they actually sound like listening with their inner ear as well as the perception of how their voice bounces around and mixes. If you cover your ears and sing you will have a more accurate Idea of what you sound like (I'm sorry for shattering the illusion). To improve your singing you can probably take lessons that teach you how to match pitch without the aid of covering your ear as you learn what your own voice truly sounds like and have outside input as to when you are singing correctly. Hope this helps!

With all this fear mongering about Ebola, how about facts. How could a virus like Ebola become airborne, what mutation would be necessary?

It is difficult to say specifically for ebolavirus. To know precisely which mutation would be necessary to confer airborne transmission would require gain-of-function experiments such as those conducted on the H5N1 avian flu. ([source](_URL_1_)) This kind of study is basically forced lab evolution: site-directed mutagenesis is used on the virus followed by multiple passages of virus in hosts with desired traits selected, in this case airborne transmission. Such experiments are controversial and quite dangerous as we would be making a virus *more* transmissible. There was a [recent AMA](_URL_0_) in /r/science about this issue. The H5N1 flu study showed that 4 different point mutations in the H5N1 genome were seen in all the successfully transformed mammal airborne flu viruses. These four mutations affected receptor binding (virus binds to upper airway epithelium), replication, and glycosylation (the attachment of sugar chains to surface protein that may change the virion's ability to get into water droplets). ([source](_URL_1_)) Whether these changes are applicable to ebolavirus is not known. The thing is: there is little selective pressure for ebola to develop such mutations; ebola is spreading just fine in the populations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, with basic replication numbers (average number of secondary cases an infected individual can cause) of 1.71, 1.83, and 2.02 respectively. ([source](_URL_2_)) Anything over 1 is enough to cause an epidemic. And ebola is primarily a blood/fluid-borne pathogen, so most favorable (for the virus) mutations that ebola would undergo would likely be within that existing transmission framework rather than toward developing a novel transmission route. That is not to say that these fears airborne ebola are totally without basis. Viruses mutate very quickly even within one host. An epidemic with exponential growth like the one going on in W. Africa right now has the virus passaging through thousands of hosts, increasing the probability of novel mutations/adaptations being selected and further passaged. If the response/containment situation does not improve over there thousands of hosts will become tens of thousands very quickly. ([source](_URL_2_))

regarding nasa's new "warp" discovery: how does a warp open?

I think you're confused. Nasa's newest piece of technology is the EMDrive. It doesn't create warp bubbles but years ago some guy in a garage said "hey, I can accelerate this thing without using propellant!" but was treated as some crazy dude in a garage. Not too long after China, I believe, verified and ran their own tests, and came to the same conclusion as garage dude. Eventually NASA took notice and lo and behold, it worked for them too but they do not know why. It is now undergoing more rigorous testing. So in short the EM drive accelerates without using fuel, just electricity, which is huge for space travel. There is a theoretical warp drive though but it requires negative mass and is still very theoretical.

how is it that otherwise seemingly normal people can become so invested in a sports team that they're willing to make it a huge part of their identity, up to the point of rioting should their team lose?

I did research on this in college for psychology. Turns out the more invested in outside events, especially sports the lower the self esteem of the individual. Now having a healthy relationship with a sports team is ok and being happy or disappointed when your team wins and loses is ok, but the people that get truly upset and it ruins their day or week, those are the ones who have the lowest self esteem. They are not happy within themselves and invest part of their identity in the team. As in their teams success also reflects on who they are as individuals. Basically they don't have anything good per say going in their lives and their team is the only thing that makes them feel like they are a success. You will see this pattern in every ethnicity, age and economic range, although it tends to be more pronounced in lower income and blue collar workers.

why are there hd versions of tv channels? why not just replace the original channel with the hd version?

> Surely if something is in HD, it was recorded that way originally. Correct. > If its just a rip off thing It's not a "rip-off" thing. It's a "people are willing to pay less for standard definition, and more for high definition" thing. > wouldnt it be a good idea to make laws banning this practice? No. Telling a company "you can't charge different amounts for different products" is generally an ill-conceived way of writing laws. It limits consumer options. The result would be "well, I guess the cheaper version is going away then, and we're only going to charge the higher price for HD channels".

why is it called a 'cold' when you're body is actually hot?

Have you noticed that you *feel* cold when your running a fever? It's sometimes called "the chills". Part of the sensation of temperature is the *difference* between the room's temperature and your body temperature. When your body is hot (without clear causes such as exertion), the room feels colder. The term cold describes how the patient *feels*. They feel like the room's cold and they want a blanket even though they are running a fever.

factorials

You're counting how many ways you can arrange things. Say you have 4 cards. How many possible ways can you order those cards? There are 4 possibilities for the first card, 3 for the second, 2 for the third, and one for the last (whichever one is left). 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 4!.

why are some noises "louder" than others?

You are probably experiencing the effect that things sound louder when there is a drastic change in volume level from before to during the sound. Bangs of doors tend to go from quiet to loud really fast, while shouting is consistent.

why do batteries have a 'use by' date, and what could be the result of using it after that date?

Because there's a chemical reaction going on all the time inside the battery, it can burn itself out if not used for a certain length of time.

why is jimi hendrix considered one of the greatest guitar players?

Jimi Hendrix is considered a great guitar player because he reinvented how the guitar was played. He invented a style that influenced just about every rock, blues and jazz guitarist that came after him. His technical skill wasn't the greatest, but his creativity and style has proven to be extremely influential--even nearly 50 years after he got his start! For example, he was known to use hammer-ons and pull-offs: a style that made Eddie Van Halen famous. He played loud and distorted, which was influential to the hard rock and heavy metal bands that came in the 70's. His wah-wah sound went on to influence guys like Steve Vai. He even had a session with Miles Davis, making him popular with fusion guitarists such as Al DiMeola. In short, he was highly original and influential.

How are Tourniquets usually removed if they have been on for a while but so that the limb can still be saved?

In a operating room, slowly so as not to cause bursting of capalaries(sp?). Up to 6 hours from initial application of the tourniquet the limb can be mostly saved (depends on the damage done) this is from memory from military training.

david camerons deal with the eu

Cameron told the EU he would stop promoting a "Brexit" if they made reforms in 4 certain areas. Yesterday Donald Tusk (president of the European Council) released a draft trying to find a compromise between Cameron and the EU. Here's what these 4 demands are, and the EU's response to them: **1. Demand**: Citizens of the EU coming to work in the UK shouldn't be able to apply for important social advantages to accompany their wage for their first 4 years. Also, those workers should no longer be able to send child support to their overseas families. **EU response**: London will be allowed to pull an "emergency brake" if it experiences an extraordinarily large influx of workers from other EU-countries. To do so, they'll have to alert the European Commission to their social security, labour market or social services being under pressure. With a majority vote, the other EU-members can then allow the UK to limit these services for up to 4 years. However, during those 4 years the emergency brake has to be gradually loosened, and the new system only applies to newcomers. Also, an EU-citizen working in London will still receive child support if their child is staying in their home country. In calculating the exact amount of child support, the standard of living in the country in question must be considered. **2. Demand**: Cameron wanted black-on-white that the principle of an *ever-closer union* would not apply to the UK. He also demanded that national parliaments could draw a 'red card' for European legislation they feel is best decided nationally. **Eu response**: According to Tusk, the 'ever-closer union' is about improving trust and understanding between the European peoples, not about political integration. Because of this, it can't be the basis for expanding EU legislation. The draft also states the UK doesn't need to strive for further political integration, which is legally binding. Also, if 55% of national parliaments protest against an EU law within 12 weeks, it will be put up for discussion by the national leaders. **3. Demand**: Cameron wants the EU to recognize itself as multi-currency, and that centralisation for the Euro should never apply to non-euro countries. Also, taxpayers from non-euro countries should never financially support operations within the eurozone. **EU response**: Laws concerning the monetary union will not be binding for non-euro countries, and they won't have to support operations within the eurozone. However, the EU will not be explicitly multi-currency. Also, non-euro countries can't form an obstacle for integration within the eurozone. **4. Demand**: Cameron wants the EU to be more competitive, which would lead to more jobs and growth. **Eu response**: Tusk says he'll be committed increasing competitiveness, and the burden on companies (especially gmo's) will be lessened, but no detailed policies have been mentioned. And that's about the gist of it. Cameron mostly loses out on the first demand, which it what the papers comment on the most.

What Medieval War Strategy Book Should I Read?

I recommend the following five works as the rock on which to build your understanding of medieval warfare. They are not all easy to read, *Warfare in Medieval Europe 400-1453* is particularly dense, but they will all add to your understanding of the subject. In general, the newer works supersede the older works when it comes to facts, so when there is a contradiction, then the newer work is usually the correct one. I don't believe that this is always the case, but this usually comes down to differences of opinion, not fact. If you only read one of the books, then *Medieval Warfare* will provide the best overview, though I disagree entirely with Timothy Reuter's section of the book. * *History of the Art of War, Volumes 1-3*, by Hans Delbrück, for insight into infantry and cavalry dynamics, how to use topography and logistics to examine the veracity of battle accounts and various useful miscellaneous pieces of information and primary source quotations. * *The Art of Warfare in Western Europe During the Middle Ages*, by J.F. Verbruggen for detail on the psychology of medieval warriors. * *War in the Middle Ages*, by Philippe Contamine for some of the societal aspects of warfare. * *Medieval Warfare*, edited by Maurice Keen for early medieval Scandinavian warfare, warfare in the High and Late Middle Ages, equipment, sieges, naval warfare, use of mercenaries and the effects of warfare on civilians. * *Warfare in Medieval Europe 400-1453*, by Bernard and David Bachrach for how to use primary sources, logistics, finance and Carolingian and Ottonian warfare. If you want a look at the mind of the medieval warrior, the primary sources are excellent for this. Jean de Joinville's *The Life of Saint Louis* and Geoffrey of Villehardouin's​ *On the Conquest of Constantinople* are two valuable looks into the mind of a medieval knight. For a look at the kinds of questions and moral dilemmas medieval warriors had, then Christine de Pizan's *The Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry* has a large section devoted to both the questions and answers of this nature, as well as being an important source on early 15th century warfare. **Edit:** I've just now been reading *Bloodied Banners: Martial Display on the Medieval Battlefield*, by Robert W Jones, and I think this would also suit your needs, as it delves quite deeply into the psychology surrounding arms and armour and their effect on opponents.

why is pneumonia diagnosed with an x-ray?

On X-ray, things that are not dense (like air) are dark. The radiation passes right through air and none of it is "blocked" on the way to the film. When no X-rays get blocked, the film is black. Things that are white on X-ray are white because they "intercepted" all of the radiation. As an example, check out the first film in catdoctor's post. Metal (the pacemaker) is extremely dense, and as such it "blocks" the radiation from reaching the film. This leads to a negative space on the film in the shape of the dense object. An object's relative white/black-ness on X-ray tells you relatively how dense it is. Pneumonia is a manifestation of infection in the lungs. Your body deals with infections by "cordoning off" the area via positive pressure (fluid) and antimicrobial cells (like white blood cells). This dense area of cells and fluid creates what is known as a consolidation. Because consolidations are dense and confined to one part of the lung, they show up "whiter" than normal lung tissue on X-ray. Incidentally, consolidations are one of the things a doctor is checking for when they are doing that tapping thing (percussion) on your back and chest. Normal lungs are full of air (black on X-ray) so they have a reverberation to them like a drum. A consolidation caused by pneumonia would cause a dullness on percussion that you can hear and feel (and subsequently see on X-ray).

Do people digest less when they have the runs?

You lose a lot of nutrients when you have 'the runs' mainly because bacterial infections which cause the symptom of 'the runs' alter cellular pathways such as the cAMP pathway in gut epithelia, which in the short form, leads to efflux of water out of your cells and into the lumen (hole) of your gut. This 'washing out' effect aids in the movement of bacteria out of the host and also moves nutrients along with it. Mainly though your body loses electrolytes and water. So drink plenty of isotonic drinks and water.

Bremsstrahlung and General Relativity: Does a charge resting on the surface of earth emit radiation?

It depends on the frame of reference. A charge at rest on the Earth does not appear to radiate as seen by other at-rest observers on the Earth, but a freefalling observer would see a charge-at-rest radiate.

what is smoke, exactly?

Steam, unburnt gases, particles of ash.

Do light particles weigh anything?

No, photons are massless. However, massless particles can still have momentum and exert a force. In the case of the sun and the earth, this pressure is between 4.5 and 9 micro-Newtons per square meter (4.5 if photons are absorbed entirely, 9 if all photons are reflected, in reality the value will be somewhere in between). That is approximately equivalent to the gravitational force of 0.5 to 1 microgram of mass spread out over a square meter. For the entire earth, this adds up to anywhere between about 5.5 * 10^8 (550 milion) and 1.1 * 10^9 Newton, which, according to Wolfram Alpha, is about one tenth to one fifth of the total force exerted by the water on the walls of the Hoover dam.

why does time go from 11 am to 12 pm and vice versa?

AM stands for ante meridiem and PM stands for post meridiem - before noon and after noon. Noon is the point at which the sun is highest in the sky. In the AM, the sun is rising. In the PM, it is setting.

Are there any disagreements between English and U.S historians on any facts/aspects of the American Revolution?

This is an interesting question and something that people have been wondering about for a long time. Before I can answer it, I feel like it is worth disclaiming that I am not British, in terms of national origin. I am American, was educated from elementary school through my graduate program entirely in America, so when I speak here, I am talking about what academic historians say about the American Revolution on the university level stage. I have no knowledge what schools, books, or teachers say for students beneath college level. Fortunately, since the American Revolution is something studied globally, I’ve studied historiographical debates of modern and previous historians in Britain, and I will be happy to discuss that here. Overall, the majority of historians who studied and reported on the American Revolution currently have no major conflicts with American historians who study the same time period, but this is not true for all of the last two centuries. The first person to tackle this question was British historian Richard Middleton, who conducted research and wrote about it in his article, [“British Historians and the American Revolution”](_URL_0_) . His article mainly seeks to study what early British historians said and reported on the American Revolution. I feel obligated to point out that in these early days of the discipline of academic history scholarship, being objective was not something that was desired. Early historians, generally speaking had very little problem with letting their biases show. This drastically changed during the middle of the 20th century, as historians sought to become more objective in their study and reporting of history. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of British scholarship in the first century and a half after the American Revolution took place was mainly focused on British perspectives; such as British politics and economics during that period. Americans, especially during the 19th century conducted a lot of history related to the biographies of the "Founding Fathers" and also many sub-topics within the war itself (like military history of the Continental Army). Far fewer British historians studied American perspectives on the war, such as the Continental Congress, the Founding Fathers, or the Contiental Army. Middleton noted that many British historians were British apologists, who did side more favorably with the British Crown's decisions during the war and were very critical of the rebelling colonists. This article does a few interesting things, first it accounts for a history of early British Historians who studied the American Revolution and notes that some of the early historians from the late 18th century were in fact more favorable in their views of the rebelling colonists, but they were the minority. Historians tended to be torn between two radical positions in the U.K. One historian, Sir George Otto Trevelyan created a three-volumne account of the American Revolutionary War between 1874 and 1880. Trevelyan, a liberal, reported that the first twenty years of King George III’s reign was a period of regression for English laws and and rights. His writing reflects that the Americans were justified in overthrowing the British government, calling the Americans “law respecting people, who did not care to encroach on the privileges of others and liked still less to have their own rights invaded.’ [Middleton, 50]. This created one of the first historiographical debates in this particular field, with other men, like William Massey and William Lecky arguing for the traditional “Tory” view of the war. Where Trevelyan came down hard on royal governors and British officials in America, historians like Lecky was much more gentle on them, saying that they were just loyal men trying to fulfil their duties to the King. [Middleton 51]. Ultimtely, Middleton noted a few key differences between these earlier types of scholarship between American and British scholarship on the war: > From this study of British historians and the American Revolution, one or ore general conclusions can be drawn. In the first place, there has bee na curious dichotomy between scholars on both sides of the Atlantic as to what actually constituted the Revolution. Most British writers do not appear to consider it to be properly underway until the fateful year of 1775, while for most American writers, it was then merely a matter of dotting the ‘i’s’ and crossing the ‘t’s’ on the declaration of independence [sic]. There has also been little attempt to understand the revolt of the thirteen colonies by analysis of their social, economic, or politiocal development, lines of approach for so long popular with the American historians. [Middleton, 58] Historians during the 20th century, especially in the post World War II era appeared to settle more soundly into the more objective approach to history. Middleton spoke also of, at the time of the publication of that article in 1971, how there was a revival of the British study of the American Revolution during his present because of the infusion of American culture, history, and politics that exploded in those preceding decades. [Middleton, 56] In recent history, the vast majority of historical scholarship that has come out (at least as what I’ve seen and studied] has not conflicted with the current consensus of scholarship coming out of the United States. Some British historians, like Stanley Weintraub’s *Iron Tears* has [pointed out some differences that he sees in views of the American Revolution](_URL_1_), but nothing really seems too far out that it would conflict with what other historians would say. For instance, he shows that from the British perspective, the “taxation without representation” rallying cry of the colonists was a bit weak of an argument from the British perspective because many of the Englishmen living in England were not represented in Parliament either. (His book though more-so focuses on how the Average person in Britain felt about the war, rather than focusing on Historians studying that period). Overall, modern scholarship between historians of the United States and Britain tends to add to the historical conversation in general on this topic, rather than causing conflict between them. Historians will disagree in every field, it's why consensus does not have the same power as a fact, but there isn't anything fundamentally different between scholarship coming out of the U.K. versus what is coming out of the United States or other countries. Edit: fixed typos

- how does the body fight infections not in the bloodstream such as respiratory infections?

Cells like neutrophils can leave the bloodstream to fight infections like that. Mucosal sites can also fight infection with a special antibody called IgA.

if muscle growth is them tearing and re-growing tissue, why can't we invent a machine or procedure that artificially replicates this tearing in order to build up muscle mass without actually working out?

[We have.](_URL_0_) It's very painful to have your muscles electrically stimulated to build them up though so it's not wide-spread.

why don't all the mosquitos die out when it gets to cold? do some of them fly south or what?

It depends on the species but they use one or more of three strategies to survive the winter: *Hibernation as an Adult - Females will drop their metabolic rate and survive off stored fat, usually hiding in a hole or something. *Hibernation as a Larvae - Larvae can also go into hibernation, but need to do so in water. *Winter hardy eggs - Adult females can lay winter hardy eggs in moist soil and wait for temperatures to increase and hope water arrives where the eggs were laid. ELI5: they hibernate

Why "666" for the beast? Without a base-10 positional representation system, this number wouldn't look particularly remarkable.

I can't tell you much about the numerological implications of the number and the interpretation of Johannes, but I'm going to say something about Roman numbers that might be helpful: Roman numerals don't use positional notation, but they still represent base-10 - there are symbols for the decimal powers: I, X, C, CD (= later M) and so on, combined with symbols for half of them: V, L, D. Fun fact: the symbols for the half of the decimal powers are simply the letters chopped in half: X > V; C > L; CD > D. DCLXVI (or ΧΞϚ in Greek numerals) when spoken or written out it is *sexcentos sexaginta sex*, *hexakosioi hexekonta hex* in Ancient Greek, (sixhundred sixty six), so it loses none of that remarkableness and in fact has much to do with the number 6. In fact, it allows additional interpretations when written that way, since numbers are written with the same symbols as names are - Johannes remarks that: > ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστί, καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ "for it is the number of a human, and his number is sixhundredsixtysix", one interpretation being that you can reconstruct it into the name of a human. See also /u/talondearg's answer on Greek numbers and the numerological implications.

This question has been stewing for a bit. If a neutrinos pass through our body all of the time, then what happens when one actually collides with the atoms of our bodies?

When a neutrino interacts with a part of our body, it scatters off a proton or neutron in the nucleus of an atom. It will sometimes scatter elastically, causing the nucleus of the atom to recoil and the atom to become ionized. It can also scatter inelastically, producing secondary particles, such as pions, which decay to photons and muons and so on, which themselves can ionize atoms in your body. Ionizing radiation is not good for your body in large doses, but in small doses there is no danger. This very second atoms in your body are being ionized from cosmic rays and various trace radioactive elements, to a degree much larger than due to neutrinos.

how do police evidence videos end up online?

Sometimes leaked but you can usually get them through the freedom of information act unless it is pending investigation or prosecution.

There are Churches older than the Byzantine and Roman Catholic: How does their interpretation of Doctrine and Religious practice differ and why? Did these Churches interact with the Roman and Byzantine Churches further into the Medieval, or did they lose contact?

I hope no one minds an Eastern Orthodox deacon commenting? The Churches you mention are known as the Oriental Orthodox churches, and are not, in fact, older than the Byzantine and Latin churches. In fact, they split off from the Latin and Byzantine Church during the [Council of Chalcedon](_URL_0_) over what today is considered simply a gross misunderstanding. As such, both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are working very hard to restore communion with the Orientals. As far as the theological split goes,it was about the nature of Christ. The Chalcedonian orthodox position on Christ, that both Eastern Orthodox and Latin Catholics hold, is that Christ has a human nature and a divine nature. That is to say, he is fully man, and also fully God. Think of it this way: He's not some specially anointed human, a super-prophet if you will, that just happens to be good at following God's will. He's also not just God walking among mortals, being shielded from the human experiences of temptation or suffering, overpowering evil with his mere presence. No, he's fully man - experiencing all the hardships and sorrows and doubts of human life and death. But also fully God, divine and just and merciful and all that. The Orientals insisted that Christ has ONE nature. But, then, which one? Was he man? Or was he God? If we was man, then it makes no sense to worship him. It invalidates everything from the Nicene creed onwards. But, if he was God, then he knows nothing of what humanity is like. How could He, then, have suffered? What meaning does His passion have, and also his resurrection? It also invalidates everything, from the Nicene creed onwards. It turns out, after so long, that the Orientals have (ahem) clarified their position. Christ is fully man and fully God. It's just that they didn't think these two aspects of him were ever in conflict. That is to say, he was never divided in opinion, the God side wanting to do one thing, and the Man side wanting to do another. So, it's not *really* one nature, it's just that t*he two natures of mankind and divinity are blended into one perfectly* (miaphysite position). The official position today is that the old problem was really just a mistranslation and misunderstanding. Who knows, that might be true - or it may be the greatest retcon in history. I don't know. But, it has allowed both sides of the conflict to make great strides towards unity, at least on the parish level. Many of our priests will now follow a *don't ask, don't tell* policy on receiving orientals into communion because of it, and so will theirs.

How exactly was the French Revolutionary Army able to defend France from being invaded by a coalition consisted of every European country, and also end up expanding French territory?

I'd like to point to [this post I made a few days ago](_URL_0_) for reference. Notably this bit: > All men between the ages of 18 and 25 were to be forcibly conscripted for military service -- all men. Men into their 30's would also regularly volunteer or be called upon as well though. If you were fighting your first few years in the military would be one of utter disorganization and panic. Revolutionary hype would be ripe and you and your comrades would feel it. Any officers living a little too luxuriously? Mob them and send them to the guillotine. Your NCO being a little too harsh on you and your mates? That doesn't sound like liberty or fraternity, I don't like being drilled! You'd probably be part of a mob that killed him or stripped him of his power. It is very likely you would be witness or a participant in the murder of an individual whose only crime was being a bit rich, an aristocratic heritage, or was being a bit too strict with you. > Where you fought doesn't really matter, your life would be hell. Supply issues were rampant as the Royal Armies rather sophisticated supply system would be sacked entirely for being part of the old system. A new administrative service would be created which had a semi-independent status, its *commissaires-ordonnateurs* only responsible to the Republic itself and not the commanders it served. These men, responsible for collecting, storing, preparing, and issuing foodstuffs and clothing along with disbursing money were filled with endless opportunities of larceny. Supplies and cash would frequently vanish before reaching the troops going into the pockets of Revolutionary leaders in Paris. Vincentius Zahn, a pastor in Hinterzarten, watched a French army pass through in 1796 which would be about when the supply issue began to stabilize. So this is the best case scenario you're about to read: > > One did not see [compared to the Austrian army] so many wagons or so much baggage, such elegant cavalry, or any infantry officers on horseback below the grade of major. [Austrian infantry lieutenants had their own mounts] Everything about these Frenchman was supple and light -- movements, clothing, arms, and baggage, In their ranks marched boys of fourteen and fifteen; the greater part of their infantry was without uniforms, shoes, money, and apparently lacking all organization, if one were to judge by appearances alone. . . These French resembled a savage horde [but] they kept good order, only some marauders who followed the army at a distance . . . terrified the inhabitants. > You had no shoes most certainly. The Directory in '95 had to pass a special order just to give all the Officers their own shoes and even that wasn't filled out entirely. Your uniform was nonexistent as is mentioned but just a loose collection of tattered blue or white with the French tricolor somewhere on it if you could manage. You had no regular supply of food from the country itself but had to survive off of war. Most early campaigns you would fight in would not be explicit offensives but 'liberating' nearby towns across the Rhine or in North Italy for supplies. Soldiers had no issue foraging on their own French lands as well. If you were a conscript you would most likely abandon your men while marching through familiar land. Many Divisions would lose half their men on extended marches through attrition and desertion alone. > Artillery and cavalry was restricted mostly to pre-war soldiers who had the training and knowledge to perform those duties. If you were conscripted you were almost certainly put into one of two areas -- light infantry or regular infantry. *Tirailleur* and *Fusilier* respectively. Assuming you did not desert after being thrown into one of these two sections you would get two very separate combat experiences. The post-Revolutionary army was very fond of skirmisher forces for some inexplicable reason. I say that mainly because inexperienced troops are very poor skirmishers. They generally aren't crack shots and flee at the slightest sign of trouble. Yet whole battalions were frequently deployed as entirely skirmishers, a tactic dubbed *"tirailleur en grandes bandes."* If you were part of a skirmisher force you would likely not be thrown directly into the fray. You would be sent on small scale raiding 'missions' with a small number of other skirmisher comrades and an officer as a sort of training exercise. You would raid storage caches or small villages so that you would get used to being under fire in a more controlled environment for your officer to control you. As you would go into battle against a formal Austrian, British, Italian or Prussian army your duty would be constant harassment. > If you were thrown into the fusiliers you would be heavily drilled about formation. The common trope about Napoleonic warfare are two sides standing in line formation staring each other down 50-100 yards apart and shooting at each other. This is a shitty strategy for the French, pardon my French. Line formation is inefficient for untrained conscripts because, like a phalanx, it requires holding formation and firing in concert -- two things conscripts will not be capable of doing on a few weeks of training under heavy fire. The French military doctrine of this time was one of constant attack -- always being on the offensive. It was the only way they would abuse their manpower advantage. You would be organized into a column of just a few men wide and dozens of men deep. You likely would not fire your weapon once or just once in a battle, as you were charging at full sprint into the enemy line. That is what the column provided -- it gave depth to the line, did not require a lot of organization, and was only used as a formality to charge into shattered and notably *thin* lines of the enemy. British, Austrian, Italian and Prussian troops were professional armies and would fight in that line formation. It would not stand up to constant column charges. > How would a normal battle go? Well, again, it depended on your position in the army. Again you were most certainly in the infantry if you were just a farmer. Let's imagine it from the enemies shoes. Swarms of skirmishers would begin to envelop your tight, strictly dressed formations firing from cover in completely disorderly formations. When I say swarm, we're talking 2:1 or 3:1 ratios at times. If you stand still, you will be continuously picked off. If you try to fire on them, you will only hit a few as they were extremely scattered. If you tried to charge them they would drift away, still shooting, and follow you when you try to fall back into your strictly disciplined line. > Eventually your line would be in tatters you, a Brit or Austrian alike, would look up across the horizon. Out of the smoke comes a howling, trampling, massive rush of thousands of men with bayonets extended with the weight of 12 men against every yard of your exhausted line (which were only 3 deep when it all began). Your professional, organized, and chivalrous armies would try their best but they would keep running into issues. A French NCO who was completely outnumbered and outmaneuvered that just failed to recognize his hopeless situation and charged anyway, killing thousands in a last stand. Inexperienced French officers who would show a shocking disregard of accepted military strategy and turn every engagement into a mindless, all out slugfest where fancy tactics and strategy of the non-Revolutionary sides meant nothing and would buckle under the weight of thousands of Frenchmen bearing down on them. > Back to the French perspective. Let's say, somehow, you survive all of this. It's not unreasonable, many did. You did not get poked with a bayonet or shot in a charge or desert your men or didn't get caught hoarding anything. You survived the '90's into 1799 when the Directory would fall. A hundred battles would harrow you. You would time and time again throw the English and Austrians back in particular. What many tens of thousands died of combat many more would die of your governments incompetence. The patriotic enthusiasm you held in '91 seemed immature and stupid to the ragged veterans of 1799. The bands would play the patriotic airs of those first years of revolution -- *Chant du Départ*, *Ah ça Ira*, and the *Marseillaise*. > The bands would play and you would sing, but they would mean nothing to you. You were a professional soldier in a professional army now. You, who fought out of pride and comradeship in '91 had spent the last decade learning to loot and murder to survive and would hold little reverence for any person or any idea and especially for that damn Revolution. Your Generals would be a wolf-breed, disrespectful of authority and independent minded. All of you, officers and men together, were survivors. Men of steel, toughened to all the hardship and conditions of the worst wars in history up to that point, thoroughly fed up with the *gros-ventres* -- big bellies -- of the Revolutionary government in Paris who had used and abused you. You had won dozens of victories and thrown the entirety of Europe onto its backfoot but you had no peace, no shoes, and not a square meal in nearly 10 years. It was this army that would make Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul at the beginning of the 19th century. And this army was comprised of you, dangerous metal which would be forged into the Grand Armée -- the greatest military force the world would ever see. Basically, if I had to make a **tl;dr** of it all? The Revolutionary Armies early on would conscript basically everyone and the more professional, more 'efficient' European armies would simply be overwhelmed. Maneuver and tactics went out the window when you have 3x as many people swarming down on you all shooting wildly into your formation and charging into you, disregarding all casualties. Sheer force of numbers would push the primarily Austrians and British back and allow the French to get early territorial gains in the 1792-1797 First Coalition War. By the time of the Second Coalition War between 1798-1802, the goal was not to reinstate the Monarchy but to just at least contain the French from taking more land and at best taking back some of what they gained. Despite getting many early victories with the help of the Russians, they would eventually back out and the British and Austrians primarily would face the reality -- Napoleon was now in charge and was the military genius he is. At his feet lay a military which had been fighting for a decade straight, easily the most experienced and battle hardened group in Europe. As the rest of Europe was playing catch up with the idea of mass conscripted armies, France had perfected it over the past decade of failure and death and had a horrifying combination -- an experienced conscript army led by arguably the most talented general in history. This would allow them to wage multiple wars of aggression throughout the early 19th century and convincingly win them and conquer most of Europe. ---- Notes: Elting, John, *"Swords Around a Throne: Napoleons Grand Armee"* Rothenberg, Gunther, *"The Napoleonic Wars"*

why is facebook considered such a large company when it seems like the site itself is dying out?

It might just be regional, because I only know a couple of people who *don't* use Facebook. Facebook chat seems like the primary method of communication for a lot of people, or is at least tied with texting. I also see a lot of people and organizations using Facebook for planning events. I work in advertising and a lot of my clients also have Facebook pages for promoting their brands. Granted, I don't have any hard numbers to back that up so my experience is equally anecdotal, but it doesn't seem like Facebook is in any trouble.

. why can't we fill our coal mining pits with our rubbish? we are taking out one pollutant and replacing it with another.

You start storing waste underground and you need to be damn sure there's no groundwater movement that can leach waste into drinking water. That is not possible in the vast majority of mine systems as the geology which accompanies coal formation trends to be fractured and porous.

what are einstein's two main postulates on special relativity, and what are the relativistic consequences of their effects?

Einstein's theory of relativity states that time and velocity are relative to an observers point of view, or reference frame. His special theory is called such because it deals only with inertia reference frames which are reference frames that have no acceleration or change in gravitational potential. His general theory takes into account acceleration and gravity. Special relativity is fairly easy to understand as the highest level math you need is Pythagoras's theorem. General relativity is a lot more complex math and not ELI5 friendly. Special relativity has two postulates, that the speed of light is constant and that the laws of physics don't change between reference frames. Both of these have been proven true. Using this, Einstein showed that moving observers actually have their time dilation and their length in the direction of motion contracted. So lets talk about time dilation first. Imagine a clock that works by bouncing a photon between two mirrors. We the know the speed of light and we can measure the distance between the mirrors, this means the time it takes for the photon to bounce is easily calculated. Now what if we have that clock moving at a constant speed? Well the path we see the light take is not longer straight up and down, it's [slanted](_URL_2_). Since the light takes a longer path and the speed of the light is unchanged, this means that it takes a longer amount of time to bounce between the two mirrors. Viola, moving objects experience slower time. An important thing to note, because every observe is stationary in their own reference frame, every observer will see everything else as being dilated instead of themselves. So if you're moving, you only experience slower time from someone else's point of view. However, you also see them as experiencing slower time, because to you they appear to be moving. Now lets move on to length contraction. This one is a tricky one to explain. It relies on how length is measured correctly. Basically, in order to correctly measure the length of an object, you have to know the position of both its ends at the same time. This isn't too hard to do, but if an observer moving past you saw you do this they would think you messed up. Imagine you have a rod, and you have two friends at either end. You walk to a point equidistant to them and tell them to record their position at the moment they see you flash a light. Since you're equidistant, the light will reach them at the same time. However, to the moving observer the light won't reach your friends at the same time. They won't be synchronized and they'll see you as getting an incorrect measurement. This leads to one of the last consequences of special relativity, the simultaneity of relativity. Because moving observers disagree on the timing and lengths of things, no two clocks can be synchronized in different reference frames. [Minute Physics](_URL_1_) gives a **very** basic overview. [Doc Physics](_URL_5_) gives a lengthy intro to SR. [Sixty Symbols](_URL_0_) on length contraction. General Relativity is a lot more complex. You need a very good understanding of Calculus, Differential Equations, and Multilinear Algebra to actually do the math behind it. But the gist of it is that a change in gravitational potential and acceleration are essentially the same thing and have the same effects. It also states that objects with mass curve space-time around them. This means that the force of gravity objects feel is actually them just following the curvature of space-time around them. This can lead to a whole bunch of wacky effects like gravitational time dilation, gravitational redshirting, and black holes. [Gravity Visualized](_URL_4_) [Sixty Symbols](_URL_3_) on Special and General Relativity.

why in the military do some people get the best medical care in the country at places like walter reed while other military personnel and veterans get awful horrible care at va hospitals?

A lot has to do with where and when your injured. Active duty and in combat: If it's sever enough you'll go to Walter Reed, otherwise you'll be in a different military hospital, some excellent, some okay, and some barely passable (just like any large dispersed group). No longer active duty but with service related injuries, you go to the VA. Now imagine the differences in both numbers of patients and age/health of those patients. Military hospitals will generally see younger people with acute issues (broken leg, arm blown off, a cough, etc.) Where as VA hospitals will see older parents with chronic conditions. Plus there are millions more veterans then active duty service members. It's not a surprise the VA has issues since they are almost always underfunded and over worked.

Is a rain (snow?) of carbon dioxide possible in Antarctica?

It's cold enough, but there is very little CO2 in the atmosphere. You can't look at the sublimination point at 1 atm because the partial pressure of CO2 is much lower. The low partial pressure of carbon dioxide would cause it to subliminate in this environment--some molecules are freezing out, but at the same time others are sublimating and there is no accumulation.

what is web api and what is it used to accomplish?

An API is a defined way for one person's code to interact with another person's code. "Web API" means an API that uses the standard systems of the world wide web to interact with each other. For example, you can see reddit's API documentation [here](_URL_0_). It's a list of web addresses you can go to and give certain information, and reddit will respond with the information you're asking about.

What are ideal situations for the creation of stalactites or stalagmites?

Quite a lot has been published and I'll list some papers below which will be of interest to you but essentially, everything comes down to a chemical equilibrium between carbonate and calcium^i ions on one side, and calcium carbonate (limestone), water, and CO2 on the other (e.g. see [here](_URL_0_)). What this means is that to maximise the rate at which we're producing limestone, you want to maximise the concentration of the reactants (carbonate and calcium ions) in your water, and minimise the amount of carbon dioxide (by increasing the rate at which it degasses). This last point is important - you do not want to be using an airtight container because this will allow CO2 to accumulate within the chamber. The rate at which CO2 outgasses from your water depends on the CO2 concentration in the air, which means if CO2 is allowed to build up within the chamber, you are throttling the rate at which CO2 can outgas and hence your speleothem (the technical term for a carbonate structure that grows in a cave) growth rate. When you are preparing the water the speleothem will precipitate from however, you want the opposite to be true - rather than getting CO2 to outgas, you want to get as much CO2 in it as possible. We can use this information to understand why natural speleothems grow in caves (as opposed to random voids in rock^(ii)) in the first place. Respiring organisms in soil release lots of CO2, which dissolves in groundwater to form water high in CO2 (which reacts with the water in further equilibrium reactions to form carbonate and bicarbonate ions). This water is acidic, and is therefore able to dissolve calcium^i containing rocks, providing the source of calcium ions for carbonate precipitation. However, because the CO2 concentration within the soil is so high, rapid carbonate precipitation does not occur. It is only when this water finds its way into a cave, which is ventilated by air from outside so is able to maintain a comparatively low CO2 concentration, that CO2 is able to outgas from the groundwater. This triggers CO2 concentration. In terms of how to maximise your artificial speleothem growth rate therefore, you want to get as much carbonate and calcium ions in your source water (for instance by dissolving calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide under high CO2 conditions). You then probably want to maintain a relatively high drip rate (to maximise the ion delivery to your 'cave') but maintain a low CO2 concentration within the 'cave' to encourage carbonate precipitation. There are also a number of other factors that affect speleothem growth rate, for which I would suggest you have a read through some of the following papers: Genty _et al.,_ 2001. _ Intra- and inter-annual growth rate of modern stalagmites_ Dreybrodt 1999. _Chemical kinetics, speleothem growth and climate_ Banner _et al.,_ 2007. _Seasonal Variations in Modern Speleothem Calcite Growth in Central Texas, U.S.A._ ^i This works for certain other elements as well such as magnesium, but here I'll stick to calcium for simplicity. ^ii Although this also happens.

How has modern infantry equipment evolved?

Right...a lot of this has been covered already in this thread, but I'll add what I know. By "average infantry[man]" I'm going to guess that you're referring to a standard enlisted rifleman. Since the American aspect has been dealt with, I'm going to talk about the evolution of arms and equipment for the two most influential military bodies post-World War II: NATO and the Warsaw Pact. A caveat before I begin: I know the graphic of which you speak, and the one thing it doesn't account for is inflation. That's the important thing here - even though the cost seems to have gone up dramatically in the last 70 years, in adjusted dollar amounts the growth isn't nearly so dramatic. Now, to understand the ballooning expenses of equipping the average rifleman in modern militaries, we have to examine the reasons for which their equipment was changed in the first place. So let's go back to World War II, or specifically 1942. This year is critical for the way modern infantry is equipped, for two reasons: the M1 Garand becomes standardized as the US primary infantry weapon, and the MG42 is put into production. On the surface these don't seem like big events, but looks can be deceiving. The M1 Garand, built by Mr. John Garand of Quebec, Canada, was actually adopted by the US Army in 1936 as their standard weapon, but American isolationism meant that many units hadn't actually been equipped with this rifle by the outbreak of war in 1941. The branch who got the shortest end of this stick was, as ever, the Marines, who were fighting as late as the summer of 1942 on Guadalcanal with M1903 Springfield rifles which, while excellent, were still slow-firing bolt-action rifles, just like those of the rest of the world. Now, hold on, if the rest of the world was using these, what's the importance of changing to a new type of firearm? The truth is, the M1 Garand was a kind of rifle unseen by the rest of the world: it was *semi-automatic*, which meant that every time you pulled the trigger a round would come out the end, and you could pull that trigger up to eight times before ever having to move either hand to reload. This was a huge advantage over the pull-trigger-grab-bolt-handle-work-bolt-close-bolt-replace-hand-pull-trigger tedium of a bolt action rifle. George S. Patton himself called the M1 Garand "the greatest battle implement ever devised by man". To get a sense of how much of an advantage this rifle provided, go watch the ultimate battle of *Saving Private Ryan*. You'll notice that Captain Miller's troops are able to fire a relatively huge amount of rounds as opposed to the Germans, an advantage not to be taken lightly. In fact, the other Great Powers of the war saw this, and by 1943/44 the Soviets and Germans had semi-auto rifles of their own (the G43 and SVT-40). This race for firing speed becomes important in a moment. The MG42, on the other hand, is widely considered to be the first "general purpose machine gun", or GPMG. These weapons form the backbone of modern infantry formations, but in 1942 they were unheard of. Many nations still relied on water cooled machine guns, which required a team of anywhere from 3-5 men to move and set up, and generally they were pretty unwieldy. Some nations had air cooled machine guns, but these tended to overheat or jam a lot. And then the Germans developed a reliable, but more complicated roller-lock mechanism. This system still forms the basis of many modern weapons, but, as you might guess, it's a hell of a lot more precise and involved than your average bolt-action of the period. Back to the race in weapons. At the end of World War II, there were really only three nations left in the arms manufacturing business: Britain, the US, and the USSR. And all of them had captured obscene quantities of German technology, and with that came the brass of each nation dreaming of what kind of applications these crazy-Nazi-science prototypes could have. In particular, two weapons were of keen interest to these men: the Fallschirmjagergewehr 42 (FG42) and Sturmtruppengewehr 44 (StG 44). The former was complicated to the point of ostentation, but the latter was quite interesting, primarily because the Germans had, towards the end, cracked the secret of the modern assault rifle: a medium-sized round fed by detachable magazine into a select-fire receiver. Explaining how far ahead of its time this weapon was is kind of like comparing a Walkman to an iPod: they serve the same basic function, but one is so much more compact and so much more efficient and just so much *better* that nobody ever wants to go back to the old one (hipsters excluded). And this is precisely what happens. By the late 1940s both sides have experimented with the old style of battle rifles with new models: Britain tries one last update in the hopes of reviving its venerable Lee-Enfield, the USSR adopts the SKS, and the US continues with the M1. But this just isn't enough, and in 1947 the Soviets change the game with the AK-47. NATO panics and rushes their new rifle into service; a roughly similar weapon to the Kalashnikov, the FN FAL. Both these rifles are developed fully by 1950, but both take as long as 1955 to be adopted by their developer nations and as long as the 60s for everyone else in their respective spheres of influence to catch on. Only the US resists the trend, sticking with the M14 - essentially an upgraded M1 - until the height of the Vietnam War in the late 60s. But even though expenses rack up on these new rifles, the cost isn't actually drastically higher than it was for the World War II era versions. Where equipment gets expensive is in the new essential equipment for Western infantrymen: body armor. It's good to note that the Soviets never really liked the idea of body armor. They continued to equip their troops with basically a WWII-style loadout: helmet, rifle, clothes, pack, shovel, etc. Their per-head cost for the infantry was never that much, but then again they had so many people to throw headlong into a war that they didn't really care about survivability of single combatants. NATO did *not* have this luxury: it was pretty well realized by the 70s and 80s that if war ever broke out with the USSR, the Red Army was going to come down on East Germany like a steam roller, and that stopping them would require Allied forces on the ground to hold together longer than seemed humanly possible on an equal playing field. So NATO changed the odds and began relying on what we now call the "force-multiplier". This involved increasing both the survivability of individual men and giving them access to ungodly amounts of firepower, namely in the form of fire support. By the time of the Vietnam War, the US Army was investing huge amounts of money into developing technologies like Kevlar and in giving radios to units as small as squads and platoons. It's a small wonder that one of the symbols of the Vietnam War is the napalm strike: units as small as a dozen men now had thousands of pounds of high explosives on call, along with their own personal claymore mines, rifles, sidearms (which is a fancy term for pistols or submachine guns), and assorted other items. Special forces were just starting to get access to early forms of night vision. This trend of giving infantrymen eyes and fists in the sky much larger than his own has been steadily increasing for many years, and coupled with the modern necessities that are protective gear like kevlar helmets and body armor, it is probably one of the largest contributions to increased spending per capita for our riflemen. Now, all that being said, it's probably good to note that you shouldn't trust everything you see on the internet. Even though we do spend more on infantry today than we did three-quarters of a century ago, the real costs in our military are in tanks and aircraft and helicopters and ships and, most of all, maintenance. Good God, most people have no idea how much time and money this last bit really takes. But because military balance sheets aren't public knowledge, we tend to misallocate costs into areas where we only suspect money is going, and this leads to the wildly discrepant figures one finds from a wide variety of sources regarding current military spending. Perhaps we shouldn't try speculating on things on which our frame of reference is quite limited, hmm? This is a very Coles notes version, and I've mostly covered rifles, but feel free to ask about anything else regarding this subject you might be inquiring about. Sources: Far too much time reading about the development of modern military equipment.

Has the Earth expanded over the last 3 billion years and is it still?

The idea that the Earth was expanding (or contracting) as an explanation for common geologic features (e.g. mountain ranges, ocean basins, etc) was abandoned once plate tectonics was developed and provided a more consistent set of explanations that were better supported by data. In the modern, with a variety of tools like GPS, very long baseline interferometry and others, we can directly measure the shape of the Earth and [say with relative certainty that it is neither expanding or contracting](_URL_0_).

Length of Wehrmacht Deployments in World War II?

Well, to quote Kipling: "There is no discharge in the war!" You didn't go on deployment in the Wehrmacht, you were entitled to, under the best of circumstances, two weeks of leave twice a year (for the Field Army/ combat troops) or once a year (for the Replacement Army/reserves, garrison personnel and other non-combat elements) respectively. Other than that, you served until you were either dead or physically/mentally incapable of performing both, front line(KV) and garrison(GV) duties. There were, however, a lot of caveats: There was a certain amount of travel time calculated and added (two days from Russia to western Germany in 1941), but depending on the unpredictable nature of reasons for transportation delays, that time wasn't always enough. So depending on where you were from (leave was always to your home region where you had to "report in" once you arrived), where your unit was deployed, and how the transport situation was (overcrowded trains [transportation towards the front had priority over anything going in the other direction], no available ships, delays due to partisan activity and air raids), you might have considerably less time at home. you could also be recalled early, though that was a measure the regime tried to avoid at pretty much all costs, as it was seen as potentially damaging morale not only of the soldiers, but also on the "homefront". extra vacation time of varying length was given for a host of reasons, among them: * aditional recuperation time from injury/sickness/wounds * getting promoted/ receiving an award/ exceptionally good conduct * family emergency at home (mostly the really bad stuff - deaths, family bombed out, etc.) * reassignment to a new unit/billet all this, of course, operational situation permitting and at the discretion of you superiors - usually your company command. as there was extra vacation time, there were also, of course, blanket cancellations of leave for all units for a fixed time (Urlaubssperre). Almost exclusively for operational reasons, this could result in entire army groups/corps' not getting any leave for well over a year. Oftentimes, this coincided with a general news blackout (Nachrichtensperre), which meant that on top of your leave and rest time being cancelled, there was also no mail to be sent or received. That covers actual leave (Fronturlaub/Heimaturlaub). A different beast entirely was the time spent away from front line duty, either with the unit (refreshment/refitting/training/deployment to a different theater of operations etc.) or individually (assignment to a different unit, hospital and recuperation time, time-limited teaching assignments and so on). Generally, leave was granted liberally and fairly (those who had been without leave the longest would be the next to go on leave), whenever the operational situation permitted it, chiefly for reasons of morale both at home and among the troops. If you didn't fall afoul of the system (revokation of leave was a popular form of non-judicial punishment), and were exceptionally unlucky with your unit/travel situation, you'd seldomly see less than three weeks of accumulated leave time per year, at least until the war started truly turning for Germany - around, say, 1942 or so. Please note that this last number is an educated guess - I've never come across a definitive number, it is my best estimate deduced from a knowledge of the various variables mentioned above and a lot of reading. In the end, it all very much depends on the unit and individual soldier in question. The 4th Panzer Division, just to provide an example, only saw 5 1/2 official rest days on the Eastern Front between June 1941 and March 1942, and the majority of their personnell hadn't been on leave since fall/winter of 1940. At times severe performance issues due to simple burn-out of even the most tried and tested troops were a common theme for combat commanders, especially on the Eastern Front. Sources: Lots of bits and pieces from all kinds of primary and secondary sources, but especially: C. Hartmann: *Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg* K. Richer: *Kavallerie der Wehrmacht* M. van Creveld: *Kampfkraft*

how come after a cia or military operation gets declassified the files say “redacted” for certain things?

Because there are still secret aspects of the file that cannot be revealed to the public. A file doesn't have to be 100% declassified to be "declassified", if that makes sense - it just means that it has to go through the process of being cleared for public release.

how come is it incredibly hard for me to get back in shape at age of 45?

This is going to get removed but here it is: Fiber is the key. Fiber and water. You have to poop a lot. That's it.

god rays; why they give the impression the sun is only just above the clouds

_URL_0_ > Despite seeming to converge at a point, the rays are in fact near-parallel shafts of sunlight, and their apparent convergence is a perspective effect (similar, for example, to the way that parallel railway lines seem to converge at a point in the distance).

why do public domain books cost money on app stores?

If a work is public domain, anyone can take it and charge money for it. Night of the Living Dead is a good example. It's public domain work now, anyone can make a DVD of it and sell it in stores. Most free public domain ebooks are actually scanned and distrusted by volunteers who feel the work should accessible for free for everyone. A larger company may see the same book and charge for it because of a variety of reasons. Maybe their edition has some editorials. Maybe it's got pictures and diagrams. Or maybe they just figure that if they charge for it, someone will buy it even if there's a free version. The interesting thing about public domain work is that you can buy a copy and then distribute it yourself. Completely legal.

How did life evolve to snakes? What was the natural selection?

Snakes share a common ancestor with modern lizards, which was a legged lizard. Apparently some species actually benefitted from losing their legs, which is where natural selection comes in. [Certain modern lizards](_URL_0_) provide good example of what the intermediates must've looked like. These species have already switched to "snake locomotion" while still retaining tiny vestigial legs

what is motivation? i mean what is going on in the brain when somebody gets motivation or has motivation?

A popular model of motivation requires two things: an incentive (something of value), and the belief that you will get that thing. So, what is going on in your brain is an appraisal of value (I want that thing) and an assessment of your ability to do what is needed to get that thing. Goal-setting plays a large role. You don't just "have motivation". You have to have motivation to do something. Motivation has a direction, it's not a state-of-being.

How would the daily life of the common man be different if Einstein hadn't made his discoveries?

A quantum mechanical understanding of materials was necessary to develop the transistor and the entire computer revolution that came from it.

why do the cups of water i set out at night end up with bubbles and a "stale" taste in the morning?

The bubbles have something to do with the oxygen being gassed out especially if the water is cold, since cold water holds more oxygen. And the taste is CO2 being dissolved in the water over the period of time which creates a chemical compound H₂CO₃ - carbonic acid. So the increase of the acid changed the taste of the water.

why can't we upgrade our smartphones like we do on personal computers?

Smartphones are very small. They are built with components that have to fit very tightly together, otherwise there either won't be room inside the case, or the components might interfere with each other, or the heat dispersal won't be effective and the phone will overheat. The same problem applies to laptops too, which usually only let you replace a few components such as the RAM and peripherals. The concept of a [modular smartphone](_URL_0_) is in development, but so far there have been very few practical implementations.

Does a person's body still become rested if only laying down instead of completely asleep?

The effects of sleep are primarily related to brain function, and that recuperation does not happen from just laying down all night. If you actually needed a physical break then that would help (but chances are you probably didn't).

how does sequence and separation of files in the deletion process of the computer work?

> How does the computer decide what to delete first? Typically the delete command will assume that the sequence does not matter, so it just uses the most easily or quickly available one. Most likely, it will just call a routine to list the contents and delete them in that order, and that routine by default lists them simply in the order the filesystem returns them. Probably in the order in which they were added to the directory, but it really depends on the implementation details of the filesystem. > what gives the computer the ability to delete one file but not touch everything else? That's not an ability but a side-effect of the fact that it has to do something for each file, and can only do one (or a few) things at a time.

what is really the difference between high end sunglasses (like ray-bans) and cheap sunglasses (like some from walmart)

When you're 106 miles from Chicago, you have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, and it's dark, cheap Wal-Mart sunglasses just won't do.

if left alone, will the debris in space around earth coalesce into a ring, if so how long 'til it happens?

The manmade satelites that aren't in a graveyard orbit will eventually reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Eventually the ones in the graveyard orbit will too but that will be quite a while. There isn't enough matter currently orbiting the earth to form rings comparable to our solar neighbours, save for the moon. #notascientist

if the earth’s crust is so thin relative to the thickness of the core and mantle, how come we don’t feel all that heat?

"Relatively thin" is still 20-30 miles of rock on average for continental crust. That's a lot of padding between us and the heat.

Do we have any proofs that "Armenian Genocide" was intentional?

In short, yes. [This section] (_URL_0_) of the FAQ may be helpful.

Why were the international soldiers who participated in the Spanish Civil War, to fight fascism, upon return home (to the US and Canada to be more precise) investigated by their nations and not allowed to serve in WWII?

What books or what were you reading that said that? There were definitely soldiers who served the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who then served in WW2 for America. Here's one example: _URL_0_

does the expansion of the universe have any measurable effects on smaller scales?

If by smaller scales you are talking about superclusters of galaxies then yes, there is a small measurable effect. However even the short distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda is too short for the expansion of the universe to be measurable. The gravity between the galaxies is much stronger and drowns out any expansion of space.

why we hear about new cancer treatments, but patients still just get surgery, chemo, and radiation?

Those new treatments are chemo... Not all chemo is the same. We have much better drugs than we did 30 years ago. For example, in 1975, a patient diagnosed with breast cancer had a 75% chance of being alive after 5 years. Today, that's over 90%.

Did Native American tribes who supported the Confederacy suffer any specific repercussions for this alliance?

I touch on the fallout some in [this broader answer](_URL_0_) which may be of interest.

why can we tell if a bill (currency) is fake or not/

Money is like a cake. You have slices of it, and it's delicious. But what's it made out of? Well, there's a tricky question. Eat the cake and find out? You can try. Hell, let's say you do it. You somehow know every single ingredient in the cake. More still, you somehow know the exact measurments. But if you put that all in a bowl, would it make a cake? Well no, there is stirring and preheating and the perfect cook time. Then, getting beyond the basic cooking process, you have butt loads of frosting. And the cake decorator is that guy who can make like, castles out of frosting. Happy baking

why are drug stores selling products that have a disclaimer saying "no approved therapeutic claim"?

The simple answer: There's a demand for said products. There's a demand for those products, even if there is no proof that the products actually work. There are tons of people using treatments that science hasn't prooved to be working (e.g. homeopathy). The other side of the simple answer: Legal obligations. If you sell a non-approved product, you are legally obliged to say so on the label.

why having a diet high in salt is bad for your heart

Simple explanation given to me I'm on a heart medication and diuretic (increased peeing = water and sodium levels decreased in blood) Sodium is a known to cause fluid retention aka the more sodium you take in the more water stays in the body and not filtered out. so high salt = high amount of water in blood. lets say that water changes to 1 gallon of blood will be 1 gallon + water content so lets say 1 gallon of water. Well now your 1 Gallon volume circulatory system now has 2 gallons in it causing increased pressure on veins and making your heart work twice if not three times as hard to pump double the fluid content through your body.

Is there any scientific evidence to prove that each individual perceives everything the same?

Actually, there is very good reason to believe that while there may be some differences in perception from person to person, and large differences when dichromacy or other forms of color blindness is considered, people do NOT see colors very differently from one another. That is, as long as neither one of us is colorblind, I do NOT see red where you see blue or purple where you see green. How can this ever be proven? Lets drop the philosophy 101 crap about there being no way to "know" what's going on in somebody else's head. If you hand out samples of Phenylthiocarbamide to 30 people, and half of them say they taste nothing and half run to the sink to wash out their mouths, I can say say that I *do* know something about what it's like to be the person who just tasted the stuff. Yeah, they could be putting on a show, or I could be a brain in a jar, but that doesn't mean we don't have hard evidence that the people who tasted the chemical felt pretty much the same thing, on the inside, because everything about their behavior and their description of what they tasted matches. That's considered evidence, and for science, that's the best we can ever get. Next, let's consider sound. Is it possible that I could be walking around hearing high notes where you hear low notes? Could my sound spectrum be inversed from yours? No. because there's a smooth transition from beats so low you can tell that it's made of vibrations in the air to a high sharp pitch. It would be impossible to invert it without losing that smooth transition. Colors! As long as your wiring is standard, green acts as opponent to red, red and green combine to make yellow, which acts as opponent* to blue, black is opponent to white, which is hard to distinguish from yellow. There is a structure behind how colors are related to each other, it's based on how neurons are physically connected to each other, and switching any colors would screw up the map. When the map does get screwed up, you can tell scientifically- color blindness tests, for example. (* opponent= stare at one color, look away and see the other) So could I see blue where you see green? Sure, if it's just a change on the margin, and maybe if we did we'd draw the lines this chart a little differently: _URL_0_ . It's a change, but it's observable, not part of the higher mysteries. We'd also draw different charts based on what language we speak. Or what system we were asked to use. In one of my favorite psych experiments, which I learned about in school but can't recall the name of, first one researcher showed that people from an area in Iran whose language described colors differently labeled colors in a completely different way, and therefore must be perceiving differently. Years later, the theory was destroyed when it was shown that anyone could label colors in this unusual way if they were told about the other naming system and asked to use it. oops. But back to your proposition. Could we look at that same chart and see something completely different? Not without being able to to tell. What if your blue was my green and vice versa? We agree there's a big area called blue. It's opponent to the upper left area is called yellow. Now when these two colors are placed next to each other in a gradient, what do we see? With blue and yellow, we see gray, the color of rocks and halfway between black and white. With green and yellow, it's yellow-green, and we do not stop in gray along the way. That's an observable, scientifically recordable difference that would occur if blue and green were switched. Therefore, we can know!

When a computer screen is cracked at one spot, why does the entire screen no longer work?

Pixels turn completely white (transparent) when you switch them off. When your screen cracks a conductor that is wired in series is severed, thus pixels are powered off while background light keeps running. The black blotch is the result of messed up polarizing filter and/or pixels cracking and leaking (thus the name liquid crystal display).

How in God's Name was Prohibition Ratified in the United States?

It's easy to look back and wonder what they were thinking, I agree. Temperance advocates had various advantages. There does seem to have been enormous enthusiasm, a deep conviction among the Temperance forces that banning alcohol would save most families from destruction, enable men to lead productive, long lives, and save huge mounts of money ( at a time when most manufacturing jobs were pretty harsh and life pretty hard, it was also easier to point a finger at alcoholism being a cause of so much misery, instead of questioning if perhaps working hours were too long and wages too low). The movement itself was also tied to Christianity ( ergo, The Women's Christian Temperance Union) at a time when perhaps most Americans' social lives, friends, were tied to belonging to a church ( though some churches, like the Lutherans and Episcopalians, were not keen on the idea). But maybe one of the key political reasons was the strategy developed by Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League to campaign against any politician who did not toe the line and sign onto the Temperance movement. Once political leaders learned that a stellar record of public service didn't matter to the ASL, that they would try ( and often would succeed) in turning out of office any senator, congressman, governor, etc. who did not vote their way, they were immensely powerful. It was the first single-issue advocacy group: decades later Gun Rights and Anti-abortion groups would use the same technique. There was also not a very unified, strong opposition.The brewers and distillers didn't really mount an effective counter-campaign, and people who simply liked to drink did not form into cohesive advocacy groups, either. Okrent: Last Call

How do wild animals get rid of fleas?

Almost every wild animal will host a wide variety of parasites for its entire life. Some of these are relatively innocuous - for example [eyelash mites](_URL_3_) in humans. Some are much [less pleasant](_URL_2_). Intestinal worms are very common - almost universal - in most species of wild mammals. Fleas are the same. In your example of wolves, a pup is likely to catch them from other pack members soon after birth. They will live with these for their whole lives. [Parasitology](_URL_1_) is absolutely fascinating and utterly gross. The deepest truth is that you can't understand any organism on its own - you have to look at the whole environment it lives in, and you will always find parasites. In fact, [there are more parasite species than host species.](_URL_0_) What are you hosting today?

Why didnt the civil war have armor? Wasn't close quarters fighting common?

> **Why didnt the civil war have armor?** The American Civil War did see many experiments in body armor; Bashford Dean in [Helmets and Armor in Modern Warfare](_URL_1_) 58-59 notes: > It is known that breastplates were worn more or less frequently during the American Civil War. In the museum in Richmond, there is preserved such a "suit" of armor, Fig. 15, which at the time of the siege was taken from a dead soldier in one of the trenches. He was shot in the side or back, for the breastplate, it appears, was not penetrated. This armor was of northern origin. Further inquiry shows that a factory for the making of such defenses was established at New Haven about 1862. The metal employed was a mild steel, .057 inch thick, and the "suit" weighed about seven and one half pounds. While no tests of this armor are available, we estimate from the thickness of its metal, assuming that it is a "mild" steel, that it would have stopped a 230-grain pistol ball traveling at the rate of 500 foot seconds. What the American Civil War did not see was formal adoption and issuing of such armor to all troops; and with good reason. The South faced shortages of metal and material throughout the war, and couldn't afford it; the North probably could have afforded it, but it wasn't worth it. To quote [Sarah Weicksel](_URL_0_): > In theory, the vests were appealing. As one soldier wrote: "To be 'iron clad' when the bullets should fly as thick as hail! What more could a soldier ask?" (Walker, History of the Eighteenth Regiment Conn. Volunteers, 21). In actuality, however, the vests proved to be failed objects on multiple levels, ranging from ease of use to their effectiveness. Although advertisers claimed that the vests were "simple" and "light," soldiers found them extremely cumbersome due to their inflexibility and weight. Colonel Charles F. Johnson of New Jersey explained to his wife: "the only objection that I have to them is that they are so confounded heavy for this season of the year" (quoted in Pelka, ed., The Civil War Letters of Colonel Charles F. Johnson, 112). Many soldiers' letters and memoirs recounted the abandonment of bullet proof vests along the march, where they littered the side of the road along with other unwanted gear. [...] The vests did provide some degree of protection, judging from the bullet-shaped dents in surviving vests. But they were ineffective in close combat, and, as Johnson rightly pointed out, wearing a vest could have resulted in an even more deadly wound if a man was shot at close range, whether from immediate impact, or an infection festering around the bits of cloth and metal that the bullet pushed into his body. These are more or less the same issues Dean noted that soldiers and military armorers faced in WWI (and why, he also says, armor was generally abandoned in the first place): against firearms, any kind of body armor that was thick enough to be of any protective value was, generally, too heavy and cumbersome to be born for long, and probably too expensive to equip troops with. > **Wasn't close quarters fighting common?** Not really. While it is true that some fighting did undoubtedly come down to hand-to-hand and bayonet fencing, there were very few bayonet wounds during the Civil War, and fewer wounds from swords, the troops just rarely came in to that kind of contact. Robert L. O'Connell in [Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression](_URL_2_) wrote: > Despite frequent expressions of confidence by commanders on both sides, the bayonet played a minuscule role in the killing during the Civil War. Not only were most bayonet charges turned aside by rifle fire, but even when they did succeed, the defending troops almost invariably ran away before these weapons could be employed.

Why did France grant Monaco independence in 1861?

A very similar question was just asked a few days ago, you may want to search for answers here: _URL_0_