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How are police sketch artists able to draw people relatively accurately based on descriptions?

It's something of an open question whether they are all that accurate. Often they are accurate only in the gross details (hair colour, large nose, etc) and aren't otherwise recognisable. It's quite rare for a suspect to be identified purely on the basis of an accurate sketch, though.

Why do most song lengths seem to fall between 2 and 4 minutes?

Much of the answer has to do with the length limitations of vinyl 7" 45 rpm singles, which for many years were the primary means of promoting a single song. You can only fit about 3 minutes of music onto a 45 rpm single. So historically, if you wanted to write a hit pop song, you had to keep it under that length. More here: [Why Are Songs On The Radio About The Same Length?](_URL_0_)

What is that falling feeling you get in your stomach when you go down a hill in a car or rollercoaster

Did you ever jump into a cool swimming pool or river or something, and notice after five minutes or so that it's no longer cold? That's because your body 'gets used' to things after a bit. Your body is used to gravity (and in fact evolved to take advantage of gravity). So you don't even notice that your insides... and the content of your insides, are all under one gee of gravity, because it's always been that way. But get on that roller coaster (or even a really fast elevator) and you're exposed to sometimes-more, sometimes-less gees of gravity that make your innards heavier or lighter, as well as anything in them. So you have upward pressure in your belly region and throat and their content when you round the crest of a big hill at speed, and downward pressure when you hit that curve at the bottom. And the best your brain can translate that to is a falling feeling.

Why is the sea made out of salt water?

Almost all natural water contains salts and other minerals including rivers and sweet water lakes just in different levels. Rivers flow constantly so the salt they pick up from the ground does not have time to build up to the point where it tastes salty. But oceans and lakes get all of this salt poured into them by the rivers where it builds up until even we can taste it. Some more info: _URL_0_

What do investment bankers actually do? Goldman Sachs, etc.

treedick is speaking about regular banks that give loans..not investment bank. Let's take Goldman Sachs' Investment Banking division Basically, they underwrite securities. Facebook is going public, they go to an investment bank to help them raise capital. Investment banks are financial intermediaries.

Why is it okay to say racist things about white people and sexist things about men but not the other way around?

If you want the actual explanation for why some people say this, it is the following: People *claim* that it isn't actually racism because racism = prejudice + power. So if you are a historically disadvantaged group (therefore less power), nothing you do can be racist. It can be bigoted, intolerant, or ignorant - but not *racist*. Does it make much sense? No, I don't think so. If you want equality, practice equality. Pretty simple. But that is how people try to justify it, anyway. You also have a non-trivial amount of people who just hear "blacks can't be racist" (or whatever group you want to use) and go around using that to justify obviously racist/sexist actions without understanding the "justification" at all.

What is bad about universities like the University of Phoenix and DeVry?

They admit anyone who has (or can borrow) the money to pay them, regardless of whether they are ready or able to do the coursework. They provide subpar education at excessive cost. Their graduates tend to find themselves not particularly employable, and in a lot of debt.

How do wireless speakers work?

Just like radio. There is a transmitter and a reciever. In the case of Bluetooth, the transmitter is something like a smartphone. Then the speaker recieves the signal, and amplifies it.

how do people deep fry ice cream? Wouldn't it melt?

First of all the ice cream for this is frozen at extremely cold temps, then it is quickly battered and fried, so while the ice cream softens up a little....it is still plenty cold.

Why does my nose get runny when I eat/drink something hot.

Spicy foods irritate the mucus membranes in your head and lungs. Your body reacts to this by making you create mucus, to coat and protect you from whatever may be causing the irritation. You also tear to protect your eyes, which drains into your nose, exacerbating your snot nose. You can also sweat because your body thinks it's overheating, and is trying to cool itself down. I always put some hot sauce on my food and over time you gain a sort of resistance. Can be a fun way to win bets.

Someone dies before they get a chance to retire. What happens to all of their social security benefits?

Immediate family of the deceased are eligible to receive the deceased benefits under certain situations, in part or full. Kids get less than spouses. When an unmarried, no kids, divorced, or already widowed person died, the payment liability disappears. The gov doesn't have to pay anyone.

Is Magneto (from X-Men) good or bad?

Think of Magneto (and Charles Xavier) as ideologies. X-Men has always been a metaphor for people who are different, marginalized, etc. Thinking back to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960's (when X-Men was created), you had people advocating non-violent protest (Martin Luther King Jr.) and you had people who were, well, not necessarily violent, but definitely more militant (Malcolm X). Both had more or less the same goals, but their methods and messages were different. Charles Xavier is MLK, Magneto is Malcolm X. They did have to write things in to make Magneto be more towards the "bad" sides when talking about mutant superiority (which is subjective), which isn't related at all to civil rights, but the Professor and Magneto started at the same point and diverged.

Why does Bayern Munchen/Munich have the 2 names, and which one is "correct"?

Bayern is English for Beieren. Beieren is a province located in the south of Germany. Munich is English for München. München is a city located in the province of Beieren.

The controversy surrounding the 2000 election (George W. Bush vs Al Gore)

It was an extremely close race, the deciding state being Florida. 537 more Floridians voted for Bush than for Gore, but across the board, in the entire country, Gore got more of the popular vote. So the supreme court made the decision that since Bush won Florida, the deciding state, by a margin of 537 votes, that Bush had won the presidency. Somebody Correct me if I'm wrong please.

What's the difference between a flash drive and external hard drive?

An external hard disk is called as such because it utilizes a Hard Disk Drive (HDD). One of these drives has a metal platter with different magnetic sections, called sectors, that are read by a small magnetic sensor called a head on the end of an actuator arm. Many people are now moving over to flash storage, however, which is what a flash drive utilizes and thus is named for. Flash storage does not contain moving parts but rather is similar to a large grid of capacitors and transistors that are used to keep data. It is faster to access than an HDD because you do not need to wait for the disk to spin to the correct location. It can decay, however, unlike an HDD. The more an area of flash is written the more it wears out and eventually it will fail.

Why are colleges and universities so different from each other (Yale vs a local community college) but all of the information taught in school is the same for their respected fields ?

I studied physics at a reasonably high-ranked school, and I can tell you definitively that 90% of what I learned that actually stuck was from working with other students, not from lectures. The caliber of fellow students is hugely important in my opinion, and you simply get better students at better schools. I also contest your statement that the information taught is the same. With better professors and better students, more can be covered in the same amount of time, so subjects can be taught more completely and more thoroughly.

How do various worms dig into people, and how do we not feel it?

they normally enter through food when they are very very small. alternately there are some parasites who can enter through cuts that already exist in the skin.

why are transgender issues suddenly all over the place?

Causes are fashion for many people. And transgender issues are currently the most fashionable. I say this as someone who fully believes that trans people deserve equality and freedom from persecution, but also as someone who recognises that people clearly bandwagon.

How can clams grow shells?

In a very similar manner to how humans grow bones and teeth. They capture the elements they need to form them from their environment, and react them together in such a way as to deposit a solid mineral in the places they need it.

Black athletes with hyphenated names

No I meant why is it so prevalent in black athletes. I know about hyphenated names with divorced parents. I want to know why it seems to only occur in black athletes and not in other races IN SPORTS.

I had a fruit fly wander into my microwave and I decided to nuke him for 3 minutes, for science of course, and in the end the little bugger flew out. How is this possible?

1. The insect is too small to act as an efficient receiver of microwave energy. 2. There area areas within the machine that get far less energy, and (by moving from hot to not-hot areas) the fly can seek them out.

what is "old man" strength?

Nobody's mentioned this, so I figured I'd give my $0.02. Old man strength is typically from those who have been performing some form of physical labor for a long time, and have such developed incredible grip strength. This is the part that /u/WOT_IF_UR_LEGS is talking about where it feels as if they can crush your hands. Additionally, what they may lack in raw power, they make up for from years of lifting heavy objects and have developed a proficiency in it so that they may look a lot weaker (old man) than they really are (strength).

Why Do People Have Fetishes?

There's not really a 100% established answer for why, or what causes people to have fetishes. The more common explanations are a result of conditioning and psychological development. Conditioning is where a non-typical object, body part, or act is associated with sex by pairing it with typical erotic stimulation, either visual, audio, or physical. So for example someone could develop a sexual fetish for women in boots by watching porn where women are wearing boots, or just by touching themselves in an arousing way while looking at the boots themselves. Psychological Development suggests that the roots for sexual fetishes often develop during childhood. It can arise from things such as social taboos, if it's forbidden or frowned upon to show a specific body part (such as calves) then maybe seeing a naked calf when you hit puberty could be considered arousing.

I've been without an internet connection since June 12th. What's going on in the world?

Most major stuff has already been covered but: *The largest Ebola outbreak ever is going on right now

Why is a mouse more accurate than a joystick on a controller

Because with a computer mouse you move it exactly X distance on the table so the cursor moves Y distance. With a joystick, you essentially 'toggle' the cursors movement in any given direction, for a certain length of time, until the cursor reaches what you need. It's also less accurate because you're dealing with a fixed joystick instead of a mouse that you can move all the way across your desk if you wanted to. This is my interpretation of it, anyway

When was the last time in human history it would be more common to see someone walking barefoot than with shoes or sandals?

It was common up until the 1950s in the south for children to go without shoes. It is still somewhat common in regions with lots of creeks.

Why do some drinks seem to pass right through you whereas plain water is retained?

The sugar and electrolytes in Gatorade and other sports drinks actually increase how much water you absorb into your blood stream. This can be perceived as too much fluid and your body will try to get rid of it if you aren't actually dehydrated. Normal water, on the other hand, lacks the sugar and electrolytes that promote water absorption so it stays around in your gut longer.

How does a disease make a comeback like Ebola or the Bubonic plague have recently?

Ebola has no cure, or even a real treatment. It never really went away. It's just that humans aren't commonly exposed to it (it probably normally lives in bats), and when they are it tends to kill quickly enough that it burns itself out. So you see a series of fairly quick and nasty outbreaks in the areas in which infected bat populations come in contact with humans, in west and central Africa. Plague is different, in that it's curable with antibiotics. It lives in various rodents, and occasionally breaks out because it too has never really gone away. If it happens in a richer country, it's usually dealt with pretty easily. Isolated cases pop up in the US and Canada now and again, incidentally.

How do they clean up the lead at gun ranges?

Nowadays that lead is worth good money as scrap. There are guys that come out with some attachment that fits on a tractor that kind of sifts the lead out of the dirt. The gun range makes big money for letting them come take the lead.

why are some people are more prone to insect bites?

I don't know about other bugs but mosquitoes have a preference for type O blood. CO2 also attracts them, and pregnant women exhale more CO2. Also alcohol (as little as 12 ounces of beer) seems to increase their attraction to you; possibly because it raises your body temperature.

Why are timeshares considered a scam?

You basically "Own" a part of a property and you only get to use it a few weeks a year, yet you pay property taxes, upkeep costs and "Association Dues" year round. Most people don't want to spend all their vacations at the same place every year, but if you have a time-share, you're wasting money if you don't use it.

or[5] Electronic Tablets/E-books.

Sounds like you should look at the [Nexus 7.](_URL_1_) Good size for portability, amazing price and three different storage capacities (8GB, 16GB, 32GB), lots of free apps, and it starts at $199. There are plans for an even cheaper $100 8GB version in the future, but that is unconfirmed for now. If that's too small, maybe look at the [Nexus 10.](_URL_0_)

How does an electron microscope work and can it be used on living tissue?

An electron microscope works by passing electrons across the object that it's scanning. Basically, the object is coated with a heavy metal, and the electrons that bounce off get recorded, and it gets put into a computerized image that gets manually colored for effect. Electron microscopes require the object to be placed in a vaccuum, so no, it cannot be used on living objects. Source: Bio student

What's so bad about Detroit?

Poverty Jobs left the city at an ever accelerating pace over the past few years and this has led to lower and lower incomes and, consequently, higher crime and lower property values. As it gets worse fewer companies would think of moving in and bringing back jobs and the situation worsens and worsens. Their economy was heavily reliant on manufacturing and that is the way of the past for this country as factories move to the employer friendly south.

Why can't multi-billion dollar companies have less profit and pay their employees more without wrecking the economy.

they could. but what would be the benefit to the owners of the company by having less profit? what would be the benefit to shareholders who are looking for the company to maximize profits?

Why do animals eyes light up in certain colours when shone at with a torch/light?

Many especialy night active animals have a layer of reflective tissue behind the light sensing cells at the back of the eye. That allows them to caputer more light in their light sensing cells. Additionaly that makes the eyes act as a retroreflector (meaning they will reflect light back paralell to the incomming light) like in the bottom image here: _URL_0_ . The color comes from the tissue that surrounds the lightsensing cells absorbing some of the light.

How come we can land probes on comets and send satellites around the galaxy, but we can't put a high resolution color camera on these devices?

We could now. But this probe was launched 10 years ago, and was designed and built mostly during the 90s.

Why some credit card transactions require a billing address and some only require a zipcode?

CVV codes are not mandatory, it is up to the person/company as to whether or not they want to require it or not. In some cases their Merchant provider will offer cheaper rates on transaction when CVV is used, as it leads to less fraud however some retailers choose not to do that. Many merchants still refuse to include a security code field in their online checkout forms, because they believe that doing so may confuse some of their customers or otherwise put them off and lead to lost sales. It's also a violation of PCI compliance to store CVV numbers, which helps reduce fraud but since the CVV can't be stored it means that the buyer has to have their card with them at time of purchase (again that is good in terms of anti-fraud), but some companies do believe that can hurt sales.

How do gradients work in tatoos

Hi there i tattoo and its exactly how they said. The needles dont need to penetrate too deep and the more times you go over it the darker it becomes you want to go from lightest to dark. You cant take dark back. We water down the black in different amounts or whatever colors and just like water color painting we blend in the shading/colors. White is not the proper way to do a greyscale tattoo. White is meant for accenting and highlighting. Multiple needles at different sizes are also key to this process with the right amount of voltage and speed, and plenty of lubrication for the skin to not be damaged.

How did the russian revolution start?

The Russian Revolution is actually two revolutions, the February revolution and the October revolution (Stalin, btw, was involved in neither). During World War 1, in February 1917, a bunch of workers in Russia started a strike, and basically everybody ended up joining it, including the army and eventually some key figures of the Czar's government. They forced the Czar to step down and give power to the Provisional Government, that was supposed to organize free elections, but ended up being removed from power in November by a group of Bolsheviks, lead by Lenin and Trotsky. The basic reasons were that the Russians were losing WW1, and that there was a lot of poverty and hunger. Also, the Czar was very unpopular because he taxed heavily and was very dictatorial. It turned out that the Provisional Government really didn't do that much better, so that gave Lenin the chance he took to get some support for this second revolution.

How do the water intake on this nuclear plant work? And how this guy managed to go from the inlet to the outlet without a scratch?

Nuclear engineer here. He was sucked from he ocean to the intake bay. At the far end of the intake bay is where the pumps push water through the plant. The intake bay water level is at a slightly lower elevation than the ocean, which created the pressure that sucked him through. He didn't pass through any pumps or the plant, just an intake pump to the bay.

How do the mammals of the ocean hydrate themselves.

They have awesome kidneys. The kidneys are able to filter the water to hydrate the body and remove the salt. Human kidneys are not so awesome.

"PTSD is a cultural product" what does that mean?

If I understand this correctly, what its saying is that PTSD only exists as a recognised disorder because of the ability we have to study it. It never used to be recognised. In wars, for example, people would get it and be labelled as cowards, because it wasn't understood what the sufferers were going through. I think its similar to our modern day view of depression. Maybe back in the day, depressed people were seen as someone who just needs to harden up, a bit of a downer all the time. Now, though, we realise its a proper disorder that the patient can't control, as opposed to a voluntary sadness. In the same way, now that we have studying PTSD and its effects, we can recognise it as a disorder, not just someone being anxious and touchy and aggressive.

Why can most things in the body be transplanted, except the eyes?

Whole eyes are really tricky to transplant for a few reasons: 1. The retina dies in only 2-4 hours without a blood supply. The donor and recipient would have to be right by each other. 2. The retina is part of the brain, so if a donor is brain dead, the eye would be dead too. You have to harvest the eye right after the donor's heart stops. 3. You have to connect the optic nerve, which has 1.3 million individual nerves that need to link up. 4. You need to suppress the immune system so it doesn't recognize the new eye as a foreign and attack it. (Although this isn't as bad as for other organs since the eye is generally protected from the immune system.) Actually this stuff isn't that far off. Researchers have already transplanted eyes in mice who survived for 200 days. But they aren't sure how much vision those mice had restored. Still, even 30% vision restored gives people independence and is better than complete blindness.

Weird vibrating eye "trick"

it's called nystagmus. It can appear as a problem for some people, in which it is uncontrolled, but some people are able to do it voluntarily. Other than the obvious vision problems for people who have involuntary nystagmus and can't 'switch it off', I'm not aware of it being a cause of any sort of damage.

Why are highway and street signs usually white text on green (at least in the US)?

You're correct that white and black would provide the greatest contrast, but the primary issue isn't contrast. Highway signs are "retroreflective," meaning that at night, when you shine your headlights on them, the light not only illuminates the sign, but the sign also directly reflects a good amount of that light back at you. Black backgrounds would not be efficient retroreflectors (since black absorbs most light, reducing reflectivity), plus they would be difficult to see at night since the sky is black. Green was chosen since the eye is highly sensitive to green, it is clearly visible day and night, and it is a good retroreflector. Green is a common choice in many countries, including Canada, Japan, China, and Australia. Many European countries opt for blue backgrounds with white text or white backgrounds with black text.

Japanese vs American automobiles

American cars used to be the hallmark of reliability. I think a variety of reasons contributed to the decline of quality in American cars. From an econ/financial perspective it just became too expensive to build quality cars. Labor costs for automotive companies kept going up because unions kept wanting more benefits and higher pay for less work. The companies can't redistribute the extra costs to the consumers because that will just drive them to their competition even faster so they did the only thing they could and cut down on quality.

Why do vehicles that carry a lot of people not require seatbelts?

I asked a school-bus driver once about this, and he replied that kids would use the seat belts as weapons. I, for one, could definitely see my teenage self smacking my seatmate with a seatbelt.

I always hear about spacetime, but what proof do we have that it exists and that all theories based on it are accurate?

There have been [a number of experiments](_URL_0_) that have shown general relativity to be a more accurate theory of gravity than the classic Newtonian model. For example, our GPS satellites have to correct for relativistic effects. The fact that your GPS works is proof positive that general relativity is a thing.

Canadians: What's the political situation with Quebec? What's with the whole "revolution" thing?

Think of a teenager screaming at parents and siblings saying nobody understands me, I'm moving out. Then stays home sulking when they find out they would have to do their own laundry and cooking, and pay for their own groceries. Then says they are staying, but only if they get their own apartment above the garage. Then finally coming out of their room on pizza night, load up their plate, and sits watching tv with the volume up, ignoring everyone else in the family, refusing to share the remote. So, yeah, a passive aggressive teenager.

Are product restocking fees BS or is there some legitimacy to them?

How do you define BS? It costs the business money to have employees around to put the item back into inventory, makes their logistics less efficient, etc. The entire area of return policies is a strange one. Businesses are under no obligation to accept returns for any reason. Anything they do is strictly for marketing or customer retention reasons. How much did the restocking fee affect your willingness to do business with them down the road? Did it affect your initial purchase decision?

Why do you have to get your oil changed after 3 months if you haven't driven 3,000 miles?

And you're told this by people who sell oil. Maybe that should give you a clue. Certainly in modern cars, that should be unnecessary. Edit: Spelling

Computer Graphics Cards

Numbering is just a nice way of differentiating the new cards from the old cards. Occasionally it switches. For instances, years ago, NVidia was making cards with thousand series (4XXX up to 9XXX). Then for some reason, they decided not to do 10XXX and started with hundred series (2XX up to currently 6XX). As for specs, there really isn't an ELI5 answer to most of it. In General, for all Cards, a Higher RAM number indicates a better card (Some higher end GFX cards have 2 GB of RAM [Though its usually listed as 2048 MB of RAM]). As for the Other Specs, AMD and NVidia have diverged in how they make their cards, so there aren't a whole lot comparisons you can make anymore just looking at each cards specs. You could go to a PC Repair shop and ask them to install it for you, though it might run you like $50 or more to have that done.

Why is it the iphone (and other smartphones) requires a separate file type for a ringtone instead of being able to use mp3's already on it?

Because that's how they are set up, ringtones are a separate purchase, so they don't want to lose money buy allowing you to natively create a ringtone from song files on your device. There are of course super simple ways to manually make them into ringtones. It's just that when you pay for the song, you are paying for a copy to be downloaded and played, not to be used as a ringtone. I wouldn't mind so much if it was a 49¢ purchase, but the average one is $1.29, the same price as the whole song, while only a handful are 99¢. TLDR: greed

The difference between DVD-R and DVD+R, CD-R and CD+R?

DVD-R and DVD+R are two DVD formats. This means that the way the data is stored on the discs themselves is slightly different. From a user's perspective they both function the same and have almost the same capacity (-R has 7MB more). DVD-R came first and is the "old" format. DVD+R is newer and has some advantages. For example its format is more resilient to errors (can handle more scratches). DVD-R can be read by any DVD player, new or old. However DVD+R can only be read by more recent DVD players. CDs come in only one format.

How can peristaltic movements transport liquids?

Peristalsis works like this: _URL_0_ Stick a drinking straw in a cup full of water, place your thumb over the end of the straw, and lift it out of the water so that the straw is full of water but no longer in cup. Pinch the straw flat with the thumb and forefinger of your other hand up near where your thumb is covering the end and pull down, still squeezing and covering the end with your other thumb. That's basically how peristalsis works. The muscles pinch the "tube" in a small area (be it your esophagus, intestines, etc) and force its contents along with a wave motion. It pinches, pushes a little ways, and releases. The next muscle pinches it again, pushes it a little ways, and releases. This process repeats until the contents get where they're going.

How does the ISS maintain it's altitude without crashing into the planet?

So you know when your throw a ball it follows a curved path down back to the ground? Well the ISS is moving so fast and is so high up that it's curved path equals the curvature of the earth, so it approaches the earth just as fast the earth curves away from it, so the distance between the earth and the station remain, fairly, constant.

what's the difference between an "escort" and prostitute?

Looks price and class. That's it. When you pay for an escort you're paying for "the girlfriend experience" you talk to them eat with them you know go on a "real" date but at the end you know your getting lucky. With a whore your getting some drug addicted pimp abused woman who only wants to get you off as fast as she can so she can fuck some other guy in 10 seconds with out cleaning up. That's the difference.

What is stopping us from just replacing our natural adult teeth with synthetic ones?

Mostly Price. Where I live it costs around £1000-£1500 for 1 dental implant.

Since whales are mammals, and need water to live like we do, how do they get it if they live in salt water, which is bad to drink?

They get it from the food that they eat. Whales, and dolphins, can't starve to death, they die of dehydration first. They do get a little bit from sea water but their kidneys can't remove much salt so if they accidentally drink too much sea water when they eat that could kill them.

How are outside noises able to be incorporated into your dream?

Brains are complex things. While dreaming you are thought to be basically consolidating the memories you want to keep and not keep, and you create scenes in your mind involving things that were important to you recently (consciously or unconsciously). So while your brain is doing all of that, your ears, eyes, nose, and mouth are still wired in. Incoming stimuli from any one of those sensory organs can be implemented into the seemingly chaotic mess of neural activity that we call dreaming.

How does a boat motor work, and how does a small propeller move such a large object?

The small propeller moves a small stream of water, just as wide as the propeller, at a speed that's much faster than the boat moves. This stream of water has more mass than you'd think, because water is quite heavy, and it has a momentum (m • v). All this momentum goes into the boat, because momentum is conserved (the old physics rule "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction") so since the boat has a larger mass it gets a smaller increase in velocity. It's surprisingly effective because well designed boats experience very little water friction, that's how you can paddle a canoe that floats your weight, plus the canoe, plus your stuff.

What is being 'calculated' by supercomputers?

I work at a research university, and system administration of our supercomputers falls under my team's responsibilities. What ours supercomputer do is simulation. They simulate things like chemicals interactions, nuclear reactions, electronic systems, and many other things. In many areas of research, it is a lot cheaper to develop models that can be simulated in supercomputers to test ideas, instead of experimenting with real world systems. Our research groups use their models on our supercomputers to research solar energy, advanced films, water treatment, artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and a lot more. All of this requires a lot of processing power because 1, these are complex models involving the interactions between multiple dimensions of variables; 2, because being able to perform calculations faster means either getting results sooner, or being able to simulate systems in more detail, with better results.

How does Italy regard it's history in terms of their involvement in WW2 different from their "ally" Germany?

Because at one point during the war (1943) the Italian King had Mussolini arrested and at this point Italy was not part of the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan) anymore. Germany, from an ally became an invading force of Italy. Also, the anti-Jewish laws were repealed by the new Badoglio government while the war was still going on. Basically, by the end of the war, Italy was not viewed as one of the 'bad guys' anymore. So while for Germany there were the [Nuremberg trials](_URL_0_), where all the atrocities committed by Germany came into surface, no such trial took place against Italy. So it's a combination of two things: a. Italy probably didn't commit atrocities comparable to Germany; b. any war crimes Italy did commit did not undergo the same level of inquiry of those commited by Germany.

The Operation Teapot video is one of the craziest things I've seen. What exactly am I seeing?

> but what are the "eruptions" coming from it? Was it detonated in the air? It was detonated on the top of a tall tower. The "eruptions" are the guy-wires that stabilized the tower being boiled into gas and plasma from the light of the explosion before the blast wave proper reaches them.

How does bioluminescence work?

Chemical reactions but instead of releasing (like most of them) heat as energy, or even electricity they release photons aka light

I read on reddit to get rid of a persons hicups ask them when are they going to pay you back for money they owe you when they really dont owe you. I tried it and it worked why?

I once had someone cure my hiccups by asking me "Hey, what color is eggplant? Do you see anything eggplant colored in this room?" I looked around intently and couldn't find anything, and I told him no. He then asked me if they were gone, and sure enough, totally cured. I think something about the act of suddenly focusing on something else entirely had something to do with it. Maybe someone asking you for money you owe them has a similary effect?

How can they clone living animals?

Well, most people use the word "clone" to mean something other than it actually is. I blame the popular sci-fi use of cloning to refer to creating an exact duplicate of a person, along with their memories and personality and such. In real life, cloning means to take the DNA of an animal, and create a new baby animal with the same DNA. So it's more like creating a new identical twin baby of the original creature, and not at all like creating an exact copy of that creature.

the difference between shampoo, conditioner, body soap, 2-in-1 and 3-in-1.

Shampoo is a type of soap designed for your hair. It gets grease out of your hair. You should only shampoo your head. Don't put shampoo on the ends of your hair if you're a girl, it's too harsh and will damage your hair. Conditioner puts the life back in hair after being shampooed. It moisturizes it. Body soap is a soap designed for your skin. It gets dirt off your skin. You can't just wash dirt and grease off with water because water and oil don't mix. Soap is an "emulsifier" it means that it makes it so water can wash away oil. 2-in-1 is conditioner and shampoo mixed together. So you only have to use one product to wash your hair. There's a lot of rumors that it's bad for your hair. From what I've learned, if you have very fine hair then it's better to not use a 2 in 1. But most hair works just fine for a 2 in 1. 3 in 1 is shampoo, conditioner and body soap all mixed in one. Guys usually use this. You can literally put it on any part of your body.

how does your brain decide you like/dislike a certain song? What influences that? And why do we all like different songs?

Basically, it comes down to sensing versus perceiving. Generally everyone senses the same things the same way, from vision to taste, excluding those with sensory deprivations (colorblindness, deafness, etc.). Perceiving is a different story. It's all in your head. We attach meaning to different sensations. Like when you see your SO and get happy if you're in a great relationship. Basically you attach meaning to different sounds you hear. People tend to like major keys that are consonant, but of course not all because different people attach different meanings based on their experiences! Hope this helps, this is the first ELI5 explanation that I've done! Feel free to ask further questions!

How do LED thermometers work?

Op are you talking about Laser Temperature Guns/thermometers?? (That tell the temp after pointing the device and laser at an object) If you are: the laser doesn't have anything to do with the temp, it just aligns the sensor that is located right next to the laser on the front of the device.

How is the 3D effect created in movies?

You need a second camera that is filming from a slightly different perspective, just like humans can see in three dimensions because they have two eyes set slightly apart. (In computer animation you can arbitrarily create a second perspective on a scene, so it's easier but it still requires extra rendering to produce the film.) You play back footage from both perspectives at the same time, but the viewer wears polarized lenses which filter the image so that the left eye sees one thing and the right eye another. You may recall older 3D using colored lenses for the same purpose. You can also process a standard film to give it computer-generated 3D effects. This is a lot cheaper than filming a real 3D movie, but the result tends to be ugly.

Why is sleep so comfortable shortly upon waking(especially when you have work/school/etc)?

When you wake up in the morning, you get something called sleep inertia. It's the groggyness you feel up to two hours (usually half an hour) after you have woken up. It's a "false" kind of sleepy, which makes you want to stay in bed. This combined with how comfortable your warm, soft bed is, makes it so darn hard to get up. _URL_1_ _URL_0_ edit: a word.

What would happen if an asteroid the size of the moon hit the earth?

The asteroid that may have been responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs had a diameter of about ~~170~~ 10-15 km. The moon has a diameter of about 3,500 kilometers. I'm not a scientist so I won't pretend to tell you exactly what will happen, but I think that it goes without saying this would be a catastrophe unlike anything seen before.

My grandparents live in a small town, where all of the older residents have a land line number that begins with the same three numbers. Why is it the same?

Jesus christ, are you trying to make us feel old, OP? That's how ALL land line phone numbers used to work. If there was less than 10000 lines, they all belonged to the same exchange. You'd get 555-0000, next person got 555-0001, next person got 555-0002. You kids and your cell phones and skype and hoola hoops and pacman video games and Zima...

Why Nuking a asteroid that is headed for Earth is not a good strategy.

Nuking an asteroid would be like taping an M80 to a boulder. Some postgraduate students from Leicester University did the math on the asteroid used in Armageddon (awful movie) it would take 800,000,000,000,000 terajoules of energy to blow up that chunk of rock. The largest nuke mankind ever set off only put out 418,000 terajoules of force. To nuke a large asteroid to the point of blowing it up you'd need 1.9 BILLION of the worlds biggest nukes. _URL_0_

Why are Canada Geese called such instead of Canadian Geese?

Because it's their name, not their nationality. If I live in New York, and my name is Bob France, you wouldn't call me French.

With fight or flight, is there an effective way to overcome the freeze response?

Training. Specifically, what is known as "stress inoculation." This is why new recruits in the military have to complete tasks while being yelled at and generally messed with by their instructors- a crude imitation of the stress of combat. It's why high quality police training involves responding to crises amidst all sorts of artificial stressors like simulated ammunition and panicked victims. It's why professional boxers get hit again and again and again long before stepping into the ring. If you are routinely exposed to a certain kind of stress, you can become desensitized to it. Mental armor, so to speak. You can be trained to *act* when faced with stress rather than freezing up.

Did Rob Ford actually help the city of Toronto?

[Here's a good article that goes over the positive outcome for Toronto](_URL_0_) tl;dr: While Ford's campaign was based on "stopping the gravy train", he never found one. Gravy leaked out of small cracks in municipal government. Ford saved $100,000 here and there by combining depts, etc. Didn't see it mentioned in the article, but ~$12mil saved by privatizing garbage collection. Started MUCH needed repairs on the elevated Gardiner Expressway (only highway that serves the direct downtown area). Nothing came out of it thanks to council and provincial government, but Ford was adamant about adding and expanding subway lines.

Why do basements/cellars tend to attract mold and mildew so much?

A cellar is usually colder then the outside as it is kept dark and surrounded by cold dirt. Humidity is based on not only the amount of water in the air but also the temperature of the air. So when air gets down into the basement and gets cooled down its humidity increases. All life needs water to thrive. Basements with a lot of humidity will have a lot more humidity so it is easier for mold to get the water it needs.

Is it possible to have more than one type of flu (bacterial or viral) running in your body at the same time?

Just to clarify a little more... "Flu" does not just mean illness. It is specifically illness caused by *Influenza* viruses. In fact 'flu' is short for 'influenza'. The term "bacterial flu" is misleading because it means a bacterial infection occurring because your immune system has been weakened by the flu virus. So you can't have bacterial flu without having "actual" influenza caused by the influenza virus. So your answer is in your question. You can only have what is confusingly described as "bacterial flu" if you have viral flu. If you're using the word "flu" to describe any illness with similar symptoms then yes, you can definitely have as many infections as you would care to pick up. It will eventually kill you. Immune disorders (like AIDS) are such a problem because you end up with every disease and infection out there and it becomes impossible to stop the sufferer getting sick and dying from any and all kinds of infections.

What is the difference between "Partly Cloudy" and "Partly Sunny" forecasts?

Partly Cloudy means blue skies with some clouds Partly Sunny means a cloudy sky with some occasional sun

When people go outside to take a breath of fresh air, why does that help calm them down?

Going outside firstly removes the trigger and stimulus that's causing the stress - and so they can get out of an emotionally charged situation. Fresh air may also be a change in temperature, so they have a different physical response too, and that may help them breathe deeper, giving the stress hormones a chance to disperse

I just read the Brian Banks story; Why are women who falsley accuse men of rape hardly ever if at all sent to prison?

If they were proved, in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, to have knowingly and falsely accused someone, they do get sent to prison.

What does the term "too big to fail" mean?

It's a commonly used phrase to mean "this company is so big and does so much business that if it were to fail and go under, it would have massive negative effects on the economy as a whole." For example: We have a lot of banks in the US, but we have some *really really big* ones, too. When those banks started to fail, they were big enough that they caused massive, very bad effects to the economy of the *entire country* and frankly even extending out to foreign countries as well. Since those companies are *too big to fail,* the government needed to step in and help them to not fail in order to prevent another Great Depression.

If your voice sounds higher than what it sounds like to you, how can you sing the correct pitch?

Practice listening to yourself and *actually* hearing your own voice. Singing in a small, acoustically live room (like a bathroom) can help. I recommend purchasing some pvc pipe and making a small phone shape so that you can sing into one end and have it projected directly into your ear. I can almost certainly assure you it is not a biological problem.

Why are there no Grape flavored Yogurts?

Chobani made a grape yogurt, but I don't think it sold very well. Grape and yogurt doesn't really mix in a way that is large scale marketable to consumers. Yogurt can be kind of sour, mixing that with grape is not a flavor many people can get behind.

Why is tinfoil (aluminum foil) so heat resistant?

Heat resistent in what way? If you refer to "Why doesn't it melt", simply because it's melting point is incredibly high, much higher than your grill can produce (​(660.32 °C, ​1220.58 °F). If you are instead refering to "Why doesn't it get super hot to the touch" then you're building on a wrong premise: it isn't heat resistant at all and does get hot. It gets just as hot as the food underneath it. However tinfoil is so thin and so large that any heat that it does have dissapitates into the surrounding air almost instantly. Things that have little mass cannot hold as well to their energy as more massive things, and things with large surface area cool down faster than things that have lower area.

How exactly does alcohol get you "drunk"

Alcohol is a chemical that affects almost every organ in the human body, but in particular it interferes with the brains' cells abilities to communicate with each other. If you drink alcohol faster than your liver and kidneys can process it, it begins to build up in the bloodstream and hence gets carried to your brain, where it basically blocks some of the normal brain behaviour from occurring. [This paper explains alcohol's physical effects](_URL_0_) in a reasonably simple to understand format.

How do nuclear launch codes work exactly, and can just about anyone use it?

This was covered in part by This American Life recently. _URL_0_ "So, here's the thing about the codes that people don't realize. It's not like he has a piece of paper in his pocket. It's like, here are the nuclear codes. It doesn't work that way. How it works is, there's a military officer that walks around with what's called a Football. That officer, he's got more experience than I do. And at the end of the day, if the president goes off the handle and says, nuke these guys because I don't like them, we're taught, in the military, as officers, that we have a moral obligation to refuse orders that are not moral. So if my commander tells me to do that, and it is not moral, I have an obligation to tell him to [BLEEP] off."

Why do I always wake up early after a night of hard drinking?

It also messes with your sleep cycle. I'm afraid I can't remember exactly how it goes about doing this, but I saw a documentary where the person who the sleep-scientists gave several large glasses of red wine ended up staying in REM and light sleep relatively longer, and only attaining deep sleep for a short time before coming back into lighter sleep at an early stage than normal

Why are porn sites more likely to infect the user's computer with viruses than other sites?

Impulse clicking. People are more likely to ignore warnings to see a naked chick than to read an insurance quote. The are also more likely to be embarrassed about what they were doing and not report it. Scammers know this, are are much more likely to use porn sites to deliver malware.

Why do loud noises seem to physically hurt? Is it all in our brain signals? Do deaf people feel pain from them?

Pain is how our body signals to our brain that we're in a situation that's potentially causing us harm, so we're motivated to try to get out of that situation. Loud enough noises can physical damage your ear, and as a result, we've evolved so that somewhere before the threshold of damage to our delicate ear parts, a loud enough sound will cross a pain threshold. That pain is your ear telling your brain that being around these loud noises is bad for you, and you should try to get yourself away from them before your hearing is damaged.

How do GBA ROMS actually work? How do people recode entire games from Game Boys and DS' to work on the computer?

This is actually very straightforward. The ROMs are basically the software that's usually on the cartridge (or whatever medium). They don't get recoded to run on a PC (or android, or whatever). People use emulators that pretend to be a Gameboy or DS or whatever, and the ROM thinks it's running natively. And you can search to find answers to how emulators work.

How do carnivores like Tigers and Lions get enough nutrient balance by only eating meat?

One, By eating things like blood, skin, organs, bones, etc. Obviously that animal they ate *contains all vitamins and minerals required for that prey animal to live* so consuming all, or most, of a prey animal will include a wider variety of vitamins and nutrients. Humans can do this too, for example fish liver oil, whale blubber etc,. Whale blubber contains high amounts of vitamin C. Two, Different animals have different dietary needs. We primates require Vitamin C in our diets but we can manufacture other vitamins , many other mammals, including cats and dogs, *can actually synthesize their own vitamin C* so it isn't a dietary requirement. Cats require vitamin A from animal sources, they cannot process carotenoids(from plants) into vitamin A. Dogs, and us, can eat a carrot and make vitamin A. Different animals have different needs and different capabilities to manufacture vitamins or to dietary input into essential compounds.

Why does some food get freezer-burned while others don't?

Packaging. I wrap my stuff in plastic wrap, then foil, then a ziplock baggie and I never get it.

Pay-to-play politics

It refers to how big donors get more access to politicians. If the average person contacts a national-level politician, they'll probably get a form letter reply from an intern. If someone who donated $20,000 contacts them, they'll get a call from the politician. High-level appointed positions are often given to big donors. Things like ambassador jobs to Caribbean island nations are one of the more common ones. But high-level advisory and even cabinet-level positions are often given to big donors too.

when I want to type an apostrophe, I would hit the key next to the enter key on my keyboard and get this character ' but why does this alternate character ’ show up in text that I have copied off the web? Are they meant to be used interchangeably?

The prevailing wisdom is ' should be used for feet or minutes, while the curlier ’ should be used as a quote or apostrophe.

Nowadays most money is digital, what prevents a bank to edit its computer records with another trillion $?

Digital money isn't just a number in a spreadsheet, it's an accounting of where the money came from. If there's no log showing that money was debited from one account and credited to another, it's not really there. Banks are regulated, audited, and taxed. Sure, a banker with enough seniority could probably create some fake money, and get away with it for a short time. But they wouldn't get away with it forever, because the numbers just wouldn't add up and before long somebody would figure it out and they'd go to prison.

How and why did the body associate tears with sadness?

Without getting too technical, the short version is: When you are sad, your body released hormones(ACTH and Leu-enkephalin) through tears that can help you feel better(reduce stress and painkillers).