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what's the difference between a forest and a wood? | They're used interchangeably a lot. You'll get different answers from different resources, but the general consensus seems to be that woods are smaller than forests.
> A wood is an area covered in trees, larger than a grove or a copse. A forest is also an area covered in trees, but it is larger than a wood
> The U.S. National Vegetation Classification system differentiates them according to their densities: 25 to 60 percent of a a wood is covered by tree canopies, while 60 to 100 percent of a forest is canopied. | [
"Wood is divided, according to its botanical origin, into two kinds: softwoods, from coniferous trees, and hardwoods, from broad-leaved trees. Softwoods are lighter and generally simple in structure, whereas hardwoods are harder and more complex. However, in Australia, \"softwood\" generally describes rain forest trees, and \"hardwood\" describes Sclerophyll species (\"Eucalyptus\" \"spp\").\n",
"Woodland is defined by Chambers English dictionary as \"land covered with wood\" i.e. dominated by tree species. Forestry is defined as \"1. the science and art of planting, tending and managing forests; 2. Forest country\". This implies that forests have been planted by mankind for a variety of purposes, but mostly for exploitation for timber and pulp for the paper industry. The majority of Forests in Wales were planted by the British Forestry Commission, a UK government agency. Since 2016 the Forestry Commission in Wales has been taken over by Natural Resources Wales (NRW).\n",
"A woodland or wood (or in the U.S., the \"plurale tantum\" woods) is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of primary or secondary succession. Higher density areas of trees with a largely closed canopy that provides extensive and nearly continuous shade are referred to as forests. \n",
"Timber means trunks and branches of trees, whether standing or not, and all wood. This definition includes the full range of wood products; all categories of saw logs, veneer logs, pulpwood and firewood.\n",
"A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or forage for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in form of firewood or charcoal) or the finished structural materials used for the construction of buildings, or as a raw material, in the form of wood pulp, that is used in the production of paper. All other non-wood products derived from forest resources, comprising a broad variety of other forest products, are collectively described as non-timber forest products (NTFP). Non-timber forest products are viewed to have fewer negative effects on forest ecosystem when providing income sources for local community.\n",
"Wood is a product of trees, and sometimes other fibrous plants, used for construction purposes when cut or pressed into lumber and timber, such as boards, planks and similar materials. It is a generic building material and is used in building just about any type of structure in most climates. Wood can be very flexible under loads, keeping strength while bending, and is incredibly strong when compressed vertically. There are many differing qualities to the different types of wood, even among same tree species. This means specific species are better suited for various uses than others. And growing conditions are important for deciding quality.\n",
"Processing and products differs especially with regard to the distinction between softwood and hardwood. While softwood primarily goes into the production of wood fuel and pulp and paper, hardwood is used mainly for furniture, floors, etc.. Both types can be of use for building and (residential) construction purposes (e.g. log houses, log cabins, timber framing).\n"
] |
Are there any good source material on the Warsaw Ghetto to be had online? | Many of the relevant primary sources wont contain the those specific details in an aggregated way. There are a few great examples of diaries and reports coming from the Warsaw Ghetto. The statistics you are looking for would likely come from secondary sources.
One great example is the Stroop Report. This is written by a commander (Stroop) and it documents the suppression of the uprising. I've included a link to the National Archive where you can get the the full report [here](_URL_1_). This document was used in the Nuremberg Trials.
I would recommend you check out the [Yad Vashem site](_URL_2_). That is the Holocaust Museum in Israel. They have spent a lot of time collecting primary sources, photos, personal accounts etc, about the Holocaust of the Jews (Shoah). I've linked to the overview of the Warsaw Ghetto, but check out the digital collection at the top.
A last little tip is diaries of the time. I don't know where you're located, or which libraries you have access to but here are a few WorldCat records for some notable ones: [The Warsaw diary of Adam Czerniakow](_URL_0_) and [Scroll of agony, the Warsaw diary of Chaim A. Kaplan](_URL_3_).
Hope this help.
Source: I'm an academic reference librarian and Jewish history specialist | [
"Engelking's book \"The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City\" (2009), written with Jacek Leociak, provides detailed maps of the ghetto so that readers can locate the streets and former community structures. Michael Marrus described it as \"a stunning work, one of the most important books on the history of the Nazi Holocaust\".\n",
"Together with Barbara Engelking, he published the book \"The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City\", which first appeared in Polish in 2001. It focuses on the Warsaw Ghetto and its almost four-year history. According to a review in \"\", the work is \"a unique and detailed monograph that gives the reader an insight into the daily life of Jewish inhabitants of the closed district\". At 800-pages, the book details \"the institutional structure of the ghetto, its relations with the Nazi government, important social institutions, and the economic and community life of the ghetto population,\" amounting almost to an encyclopedia. A review by the Jewish Book Council finds \"The Warsaw Ghetto\" to be an \"encyclopedic and impressive work\" that does not make for an easy reading, but provides a rich and comprehensive portrayal of the life and fate of the ghetto community.\n",
"Other historical sites are referenced during the book including Izolda’s brief stay at the Viennese Gestapo, The Hotel Metropole. It is here that she learns of the Warsaw Ghetto and is taken away to Auschwitz as a Jew, most likely taking place around early 1944, between the time of the Warsaw Uprising and the hotel’s destruction. \n",
"The Warsaw Ghetto Museum’s mission includes “the dissemination of knowledge about the history of the Warsaw ghetto being a crucial part of the history of The Holocaust as planned and executed by the German Third Reich”\n",
"From November 1940 until March 1942, the building was within the Warsaw Ghetto borders. It hosted the headquarters of the Jewish Social Self-Help, a staging point for Jews forcibly resettled from Germany and a storage unit for furniture stolen in the ghetto. The edifice endured the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising, although it sustained damage. The Library’s collections were looted by the Germans. Some were restored after the war (according to other sources, the Library had lost all of its stock, i.e. 40,000 units).\n",
"The Warsaw ghetto is described by Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground who worked for the Polish government-in-exile, and Franz Grassler, a Nazi administrator in Warsaw who liaised with Jewish leaders. A Christian, Karski sneaked into the Warsaw ghetto and travelled using false documents to England to try to convince the Allied governments to intervene more strongly on behalf of the Jews.. In The Karski Report (2010), Jan Karski also tells how he travelled before the end of the war to Washington and spoke personally with then-President F. D. Roosvelt about how to stop the genocide, without any success. The reason why that interview was not included in Shoah is still unknown.\n",
"BULLET::::- Diane Plotkin, \"Smuggling in the Ghettos: Survivor Accounts from the Warsaw, Łódź, and Kraków Ghettos\"; in: \"Life in the Ghettos during the Holocaust\", ed. E. J. Sterling, Syracuse (New York), Syracuse University Press, 2005, pp. 84ff. .\n"
] |
we do we instinctively grab a part of our body after it is hurt? | A) instinct. To protect it from further damage (if the damaging agent is ongoing) or to prevent bleeding and such.
B) pain. Our brain knows that pressure sensation blocks pain sensation from experience. So we reflexively grab the injury site because it alleviates the pain.
Edit: English and clarity | [
"Bring the victim into a sitting position, making sure that both legs are free. Approach him from behind, putting both your arms under his armpits. Both your hands then grab one of the lower arms of the victim with all fingers and the thumbs being placed on top of that lower arm and parallel to each other (so called monkey grip, ). This avoids injury to the ribs of the victim by the thumb of the rescuer. The victims arm should now be horizontal and pressed across his chest. Gently lifting the upper body of the victim by the grabbed arm and supporting him with your thigh, you can now drag him backwards. The victim contacts the ground with buttocks and legs, which are not \"soft parts\". If a second rescuer is available, he can carry the legs.\n",
"Penetrating trauma is an injury that occurs when an object pierces the skin and enters a tissue of the body, creating an open wound. In blunt, or non-penetrating trauma, there may be an impact, but the skin is not necessarily broken. The penetrating object may remain in the tissues, come back out the way it entered, or pass through the tissues and exit from another area. An injury in which an object enters the body or a structure and passes all the way through is called a perforating injury, while \"penetrating trauma\" implies that the object does not pass through. Perforating trauma is associated with an entrance wound and an often larger exit wound.\n",
"Injury, also known as physical trauma, is damage to the body caused by external force. This may be caused by accidents, falls, hits, weapons, and other causes. Major trauma is injury that has the potential to cause prolonged disability or death.\n",
"Essentially our bodies act as physical manifestations of past conflicts. The physical effects that violence inflicts upon our bodies are allowed for the characterization of the surrounding conflict which was participated in. Our bodies tell us the human interaction enacted and the course of the conflict, whether one side was dominated in regards to another, based on physical evidence. As Callow states, \"Permanent wounds such as scars or missing body parts convey messages about the success or failure of casing wounds to one another...and the military success of the individual who carries out such acts.\"\n",
"An important reflex initiated by cutaneous receptors and pain receptors is the flexor reflex. This reflex mechanism allows for quick withdrawal of the body parts, in this case a limb, from the harmful stimulus. The signal travels to the spinal cord and a response is initiated even before it travels up to the brain centers for a conscious decision to be made. The reflex circuit involves the activation of the Group III afferents of pain receptors due to a stimulus affecting the foot. These afferents enter the spinal cord and travel up to the lumbar region, where they synapse an excitatory interneuron. This interneuron excites the alpha motor neuron that causes contraction of the thigh flexor muscle. Also, Group III afferent travels up to L2 vertebra, where they branch onto another excitatory interneuron. This interneuron excites the alpha motor neurons, which then excite the hip flexor muscle. This synchronized communication allows for the removal of the whole leg from the painful stimulus. This is an example of the spinal cord circuitry coordinating movement at several joints simultaneously. In addition, during flexor reflex, when the knee joints and hip joints are flexed, the antagonist extensor muscles must be inhibited. This inhibitory effect is achieved when Group III afferents synapse inhibitory interneurons that in turn synapse the alpha motor neurons innervating the antagonists muscle.\n",
"A person may also perform abdominal thrusts on himself by using a fixed object such as a railing or the back of a chair to apply pressure where a rescuer's hands would normally do so. As with other forms of the procedure, it is possible that internal injuries may result.\n",
"They can apparently cause major problems for people undergoing medical operations, as \"pain, an anaesthetic or a serious accident cause him to change to the other area with a shocking impact on the other body. The other body quite commonly dies or is deranged by the sudden impact\". This gives the patient a repressed feeling of having died and leaves him \"very, very badly disturbed\".\n"
] |
Following the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, were there any cases of slave-owners attempting to continue the practice illegally? | It was less a few dark corners, and more a concerted effort by large swathes of society, who attempted to keep slavery alive in all but name. Here is the Fourth Circuit discussing some of this history:
> The South was far from wholly reconciled to the abandonment of the system of forced labor that contributed significantly to the economic success of its agriculture. *See* [R. Fogel and S. Engerman, *Time on the Cross* (1974)](_URL_1_). Many planters felt strongly that they simply could not work their fields without compulsory service. *A Georgia Leader on Reconstruction and Conversation of Alabama Planters* in *R.N. Current, ed., Reconstruction [1865-1877]*, at 39, 46 (1969). Moreover, the war-torn South had large numbers of homeless uprooted people who today would probably be characterized as refugees but were then commonly seen as roaming, "dangerous" vagrants.
> Some local authorities responded by permitting employers to engage laborers on a basis that essentially bound the worker for life. [C. V. Woodward, *The Strange Career of Jim Crow* 23 (3d Rev.Ed.1974)](_URL_6_). Many states enacted so-called "Black Codes" that severely restricted the freedom of the former slaves and provided tough criminal sanctions for those who violated their "labor contracts" with employers. [J. H. Franklin, *Reconstruction After the Civil War* 48-50 (1961)](_URL_4_); [J. L. Roark, *Masters Without Slaves* 139-40 (1977)](_URL_3_).
> ...
> In [*Bailey v. Alabama*, 219 U.S. 219 (1911)](_URL_7_), the Supreme Court held invalid an Alabama statute that prescribed criminal penalties for laborers who breached their employment contracts without satisfying debts owed their employer. The statute established a presumption of criminal intent to defraud the employer by the fact of the mere breach of the contract. The Court ruled that the statute effectively required compulsory service impermissible under the thirteenth amendment because the compulsion inherent in the threat of criminal sanctions was as strong as that inherent in the use of physical force.
> In [*United States v. McClellan*, 127 F. 971 (_URL_0_.1904)](_URL_2_), the district court refused to quash an indictment that charged several defendants with the sale of a man into forced labor, holding that the [federal statutes] broadly regulated behavior of this type and were neither unconstitutional nor were to be confined to the narrow circumstances of the particular evils which they were intended to redress.
[*United States v. Booker*, 655 F. 2d 562 (4th Cir. 1981)](_URL_5_) (some citations omitted and some spacing added). | [
"Proponents of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution knew that without legislation that codified the 13th Amendment in the form of laws and statutes along with law enforcement agencies to uphold the laws, there would be no true end to slavery, and this is the reason for the inclusion of Section 2 of the 13th Amendment authorizing Congress to establish laws upholding the amendment. The federal government also sent troops to the south to provide protection to the former slaves who were still living among their former captors.\n",
"Proponents of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution knew that without legislation that codified the 13th Amendment in the form of laws and statutes along with law enforcement agencies to uphold the laws, there would be no true end to slavery, and this is the reason for the inclusion of Section 2 of the 13th Amendment authorizing Congress to establish laws upholding the amendment. The federal government also sent troops to the south to provide protection to the former slaves who were still living among their former masters.\n",
"The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was added to the United States Constitution and ratified on December 6, 1865, making slavery and the trafficking of Humans in America illegal.\n",
"Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor, particularly in the South. In contrast to the other Reconstruction Amendments, the Thirteenth Amendment was rarely cited in later case law, but has been used to strike down peonage and some race-based discrimination as \"badges and incidents of slavery.\" The Thirteenth Amendment applies to the actions of private citizens, while the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments apply only to state actors. The Thirteenth Amendment also enables Congress to pass laws against sex trafficking and other modern forms of slavery.\n",
"The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, and authorized Congress to enforce abolition. Though millions of slaves had been declared free by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their post Civil War status was unclear, as was the status of other millions. Congress intended the Thirteenth Amendment to be a proclamation of freedom for all slaves throughout the nation and to take the question of emancipation away from politics. This amendment rendered inoperative or moot several of the original parts of the constitution.\n",
"The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, and, after one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on January 31, 1865. The measure was swiftly ratified by all but three Union states (the exceptions were Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky), and by a sufficient number of border and \"reconstructed\" Southern states, to be ratified by December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed it to have been incorporated into the federal Constitution. It became part of the Constitution 61 years after the Twelfth Amendment, the longest interval between constitutional amendments to date.\n",
"Shortly after the Union victory in the American Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress and ratified by the states in 1865, abolishing slavery. Subsequently, many ex-Confederate states then adopted Black Codes following the war, with these laws severely restricting the rights of blacks to hold property, including real property (such as real estate), and many forms of personal property, and to form legally enforceable contracts. Such codes also established harsher criminal consequences for blacks than for whites.\n"
] |
In medieval and pre-modern times, political entities made marriage pacts between heirs in order to secure peace. Often times, this didn't last for more than 20 years, if not even less. Why did they even bother? | Twenty years of peace is much better than no peace at all. Twenty years is enough time for a generation of young men to forgo military service, time to build infrastructure, time to consolidate power, and time grow a treasury.
There are also plenty of examples of peaces that last longer than twenty years, or even result in permanent peace and consolidation. The nation of Spain was formed from [the union of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon](_URL_0_), a union that was set in motion when Isabella of Castile, the future queen, married Ferdinand the Catholic, a future king of Aragon. Their grandson Charles V and great grandson Phillip II would later become kings of a united Spain. James the VI of Scotland similarly oversaw the personal union of England and Scotland when he inherited the crown of England, becoming James I, in 1603. England and Scotland would later formally join together to become the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.
Your question also implies that it is particularly unusual for a peace treaty to last less than twenty years. There are numerous examples of more modern treaties that did not maintain peace for much longer than twenty years. There were only twenty-one years between the World Wars (1918 to 1939) and only twelve years between the Gulf War (ended 1991) and the Iraq War (began 2003).
I can try to include better sources if asked, but I don't think anything I've said here is controversial. | [
"Regionally and across the time span of the Middle Ages, marriage could be formed differently. Marriage could be proclaimed in secret by the mutually consenting couple, or arranged between families as long as the man and woman were not forced and consented freely; but by the 12th century in western canon law, consent (whether in mutual secrecy or in a public sphere) between the couple was imperative. Marriages confirmed in secrecy were seen as problematic in the legal sphere due to spouses redacting and denying that the marriage was solidified and consummated.\n",
"Thus, with few local exceptions, until in some cases long after the Council of Trent, marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties. The couple would promise verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or witnesses was not required. This promise was known as the \"verbum.\" If freely given and made in the present tense (e.g., \"I marry you\"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense (\"I will marry you\"), it would constitute a betrothal. One of the functions of churches from the Middle Ages was to register marriages, which was not obligatory. There was no state involvement in marriage and personal status, with these issues being adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts. During the Middle Ages marriages were arranged, sometimes as early as birth, and these early pledges to marry were often used to ensure treaties between different royal families, nobles, and heirs of fiefdoms. The church resisted these imposed unions, and increased the number of causes for nullification of these arrangements. As Christianity spread during the Roman period and the Middle Ages, the idea of free choice in selecting marriage partners increased and spread with it.\n",
"Arranged marriages across feudal lords, city states and kingdoms, as a means of establishing political alliances, trade and peace were common in human history. When a king married his son to a neighboring state's daughter, it indicated an alliance among equals, and signaled the former's state superiority. For example, the fourth daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria-Hungary, Marie Antoinette, married the dauphin (crown prince) of France, who would become King Louis XVI.\n",
"In Europe, the practice was most prevalent from the medieval era until the outbreak of World War I, but evidence of intermarriage between royal dynasties in other parts of the world can be found as far back as the Late Bronze Age. Monarchs were often in pursuit of national and international aggrandisement on behalf of themselves and their dynasties, thus bonds of kinship tended to promote or restrain aggression. Marriage between dynasties could serve to initiate, reinforce or guarantee peace between nations. Alternatively, kinship by marriage could secure an alliance between two dynasties which sought to reduce the sense of threat from or to initiate aggression against the realm of a third dynasty. It could also enhance the prospect of territorial acquisition for a dynasty by procuring legal claim to a foreign throne, or portions of its realm (e.g., colonies), through inheritance from an heiress whenever a monarch failed to leave an undisputed male heir.\n",
"Marriage alliances were common among medieval royalty: they led to political alliances and peace treaties and allowed families to stake claims of succession on each other's lands. In March 1159 it was arranged that Richard would marry one of the daughters of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona; however, these arrangements failed, and the marriage never took place. Henry the Young King was married to Margaret, daughter of Louis VII of France, on 2 November 1160. Despite this alliance between the Plantagenets and the Capetians, the dynasty on the French throne, the two houses were sometimes in conflict. In 1168, the intercession of Pope Alexander III was necessary to secure a truce between them. Henry II had conquered Brittany and taken control of and the Vexin, which had been part of Margaret's dowry.\n",
"With few local exceptions, until 1545, Christian marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties. The couple would promise verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or witnesses was not required. This promise was known as the \"verbum.\" If freely given and made in the present tense (e.g., \"I marry you\"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense (\"I will marry you\"), it would constitute a betrothal.\n",
"In pre-modern times, it was unusual to marry for love alone, although it became an ideal in literature by the early modern period. In the 12th century, the Roman Catholic Church drastically changed legal standards for marital consent by allowing daughters over 12 and sons over 14 to marry without their parents' approval, even if their marriage was made clandestinely. Parish studies have confirmed that late medieval women did sometimes marry against their parents' approval. The Roman Catholic Church's policy of considering clandestine marriages and marriages made without parental consent to be valid was controversial, and in the 16th century both the French monarchy and the Lutheran church sought to end these practices, with limited success. \n"
] |
What happened to German and Italian volunteers in the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War after they were disbanded in 1938? | I gave a relatively brief answer to this [here](_URL_0_), focusing more on the Germans (for whom I had a relevant source handy). If I get the chance later today, I'll try and expand on it! | [
"The Yugoslav volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, known as Spanish fighters (, , / \"Španski borci\") and Yugoslav brigadistas (), was a contingent of volunteers from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that fought beside the Republican side (in support of the Second Spanish Republic) in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). An estimated 1,664 \"Yugoslav brigadistas\" fought in the war, out of whom c. 800 were killed in action. According to the Spanish statistics, 148 Yugoslav volunteers received the officer rank during the conflict.\n",
"In connection with the 70th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, Dufek and two other surviving Czech volunteers of the International Brigades were personally received by the Czech Minister of Defence Karel Kühnl and thanked for their contributions in the struggle against fascism.\n",
"A year later, the Spanish Civil War erupted and many German Communists volunteered to fight. Goldstein soon joined them. When the Second Spanish Republic collapsed in early 1939, Goldstein escaped across the border into France. As return to Germany was impossible, he was interned and held in Camp Vernet.\n",
"The International Brigades (IB) were volunteer military units of foreigners who fought on the side of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The number of combatant volunteers has been estimated at between 32,000–35,000, though with no more than about 20,000 active at any one time. A further 10,000 people probably participated in non-combatant roles and about 3,000–5,000 foreigners were members of CNT or POUM. They came from a claimed \"53 nations\" to fight against the Spanish Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco and assisted by German and Italian forces.\n",
"During the Spanish Civil War Italian pilots fought alongside Spanish Nationalist and German Luftwaffe pilots as members of the \"Aviazione Legionaria\" (\"Aviation Legion\"). This deployment took place from July 1936 to March 1939 and complemented an expeditionary force of Italian ground troops titled \"Corps of Volunteer Troops\". In Spain, the Italian pilots were under direct command of the Spanish Nationalists and took part in training and joint operations with the pilots of the German \"Condor Legion\".\n",
"In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Italians from the Corpo Truppe Volontarie began to serve in mixed Italo-Spanish Flechas (Arrows) units where the Italians provided the officers and technical personnel, while the Spanish served in the rank-and-file. One, the Flechas Negras Mixed Brigade \"Black Arrows\" first served in Vizcaya from April 1937.\n",
"During the Spanish Civil War, a battalion of the International Brigades is cut off without water or ammunition. The commander, Major Bolaños, requests his commissar, the German Heinrich Witting, to select five volunteers who will remain in the trenches and hold off the enemy, while the battalion retreats across the Ebro River. Witting chooses the Frenchman Pierre, the German Willi, the Pole Oleg, the Spaniard José and the Bulgarian Dimitri. In addition, the Soviet radio operator Vasia stays behind to handle communications.\n"
] |
What (if anything) did Native Americans think lay beyond the Pacific and Atlantic oceans? | The desert people of the American Southwest generally understood the concept of oceans as not being fundamentally different from a large lake or stream. Among the [recorded] creation myths of the O'odham peoples, at least two contain gods or demigods turning small rivers into vast oceans, splitting apart the original peoples of the Earth, although the survival of remote peoples is left ambiguous. One of these stories later goes on to discuss the people who survived the flood on the other side of the ocean, who were conveniently white-skinned. Another passage from the same source states that another group of people over the ocean were in fact dark brown. Both of these groups were the result of mistakes in creation, after which the perfectly colored Hohokam groups were created. As prophetic as these may sound, our one source of these tales was recorded from a drunkard by a priest in the 1930s. Given that it is the only semi-complete history of the O'odham remaining today, we have no means to determine how far back the individual elements go.
Among the Hopi and other Puebloan peoples, we have an understanding that the oceans were not the complete end of land. At the very least they understood that people lived in the islands off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts from trade with groups living nearer to the sea.
Both groups had an accurate understanding of the geography of their continent between the oceans and an understanding that humans could live on the water as their neighbors did. It's not impossible that they conceived of other lands similar to their own across the water, which was understood to be similar to a large river or lake. The stories we have hint at this understanding, but the near-complete absence of historical records about the O'odham and Yuman people make that suggestion speculative at best. The situation among the Puebloans is little better. While they clearly understood the concept of sailing quite well, the myths make scarce mention of foreign lands that would not have been visible from shore.
Bahr, Donald M., et al. *The short, swift time of gods on earth: The Hohokam chronicles.* Univ of California Press, 1994.
Courlander, Harold, ed. *The fourth world of the Hopis.* UNM Press, 1971.
| [
"The Pacific recognized: Europeans knew that there was a vast ocean to the west, and the Chinese knew that there was one to the east. Learned Europeans thought that the world was round and that the two oceans were one. In 1492 Columbus sailed west to what he thought was Asia. When Pedro Álvares Cabral, en route to Asia via the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, reached Brazil, in 1500, the true extent of the Americas began to become known. The Martin Waldseemüller map of 1507 was the first to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans. This guess was confirmed in 1513 when Balboa crossed Panama and found salt water. The Magellan expedition of 1519-22 proved that there was one continuous ocean from the Americas to Asia. The Diogo Ribeiro map of 1529 was the first to show the Pacific at about its proper size.\n",
"The western coast of the New World – the Pacific Ocean – was only discovered in 1513 by Vasco Núñez de Balboa. But it would take a few more years – Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of 1519–22 – to determine that the Pacific definitely formed a single large body of water separating Asia from the Americas. It would be several more years before the Pacific Coast of North America was mapped, dispelling lingering doubts. Until the discovery of the Bering Straits in the 17th century, there was no absolute confirmation that Asia and North America were not connected, and some European maps of the 16th century still continued to hopefully depict North America connected by a land bridge to Asia (e.g. the 1533 Johannes Schöner globe).\n",
"Ancient Polynesians and others who inhabited the tropical Pacific before the Europeans arrived, knew of and feared the hurricanes of the South Pacific. They were keen and accurate observers of nature and developed various myths and legends, which reflected their knowledge of these systems. For example, the people of Mangaia in the Cook Islands had over 30 different names for the wind direction including Maoaketa, which indicated that a cyclonic storm existed to the west of the island. During the 1700s, Captain James Cook conducted three voyages within the Pacific Ocean and it is thought that he didn't collect any information about or experience any tropical cyclones. European's that followed Cook soon realised that the South Pacific was not free of hurricanes and were the first to publish accounts about the systems.\n",
"Apparently among most map-makers until that time, it was still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the Indies of Asia. Thus some believe that it is impossible that Waldseemüller could have known about the Pacific, which is depicted on his map. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorized that Waldseemüller incorporated the ocean into his map because Vespucci's accounts of the Americas, with their so-called \"savage\" peoples, could not be reconciled with contemporary knowledge of India, China, and the islands of Indies. Thus, in the view of Whitfield, Waldseemüller reasoned that the newly discovered lands could not be part of Asia, but must be separate from it, a leap of intuition that was later proved uncannily precise. An alternative explanation is that of George E. Nunn (see below).\n",
"In 1513, there were an estimated 700,000 Native Americans living in the region making it the most populated area of North America. In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo of Spain and his crew were the first European explorers to land on this coastal region in the present day San Diego Bay. The first permanent European settlers of the Southern California Bight led by Juan Pérez arrived in 1769 on the San Antonio. The Spanish government had planned a three-part occupation plan to check the Russian’s settlement in Alta California. The Chumash Indian tribe occupied the coastal region of Southern California for thousands of years prior to the arrival of international explorers.\n",
"Spanish explorer Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific from America in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. He named it \"Mar del Sur\" (literally, \"Sea of the South\" or \"South Sea\") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian (\"Spanish\") expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519. Magellan called the ocean \"Pacífico\" (or \"Pacific\" meaning, \"peaceful\") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the \"Sea of Magellan\" in his honor until the eighteenth century.\n",
"With the realization that the Americas represented regions of the Earth of which the Europeans were not aware earlier, there arose intense speculation over the question whether the natives of these lands were true humans or not. Together with that went a debate over the (mis)treatment of these natives by the Conquistadores and colonists.\n"
] |
Is it possible that in the distant future, an organism that exists right now on Earth, will evolve to the point that it can be considered intelligent life? Which animal comes the closest? | > Is it possible that in the distant future, an organism that exists right now on Earth, will evolve to the point that it can be considered intelligent life?
Yes, it's possible, but by no means is it a sure thing. Evolution doesn't have a goal in mind, nor does it have specific end points that are inherently better than others. Evolution adapts to the environment, and what works works, what doesn't dies off.
> Which animal comes the closest?
We have a difficult time defining intelligence *within our own species*. The difficulty goes up astronomically when you look at other species.
Are you talking about technic intelligence? It's unlikely anything in the ocean will ever develop technology (at least, as far as we can tell - without fire lots of tools are going to be difficult to make).
Social intelligence? Well, insects seem to have a big advantage there... but they're probably a ways off on the tool front.
etc, etc, etc.
You see the difficulties? | [
"It is possible that even if complex life is common, intelligence (and consequently civilizations) is not. While there are remote sensing techniques that could perhaps detect life-bearing planets without relying on the signs of technology, none of them has any ability to tell if any detected life is intelligent. This is sometimes referred to as the \"algae vs. alumnae\" problem.\n",
"A study published in 2017 suggests that due to how complexity evolved in species on Earth, the level of predictability for alien evolution elsewhere would make them look similar to life on our planet. One of the study authors, Sam Levin, notes \"Like humans, we predict that they are made-up of a hierarchy of entities, which all cooperate to produce an alien. At each level of the organism there will be mechanisms in place to eliminate conflict, maintain cooperation, and keep the organism functioning. We can even offer some examples of what these mechanisms will be.\" There is also research in assessing the capacity of life for developing intelligence. It has been suggested that this capacity arises with the number of potential niches a planet contains, and that the complexity of life itself is reflected in the information density of planetary environments, which in turn can be computed from its niches.\n",
"Scientists have not uncovered any evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Although absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, Mundane science fiction writers believe it's unlikely that alien intelligence will overcome the physical constraints on interstellar travel any better than we can. As such, Mundane science fiction writers imagine a future on Earth and within the solar system and believe it's highly unlikely that intelligent life survives elsewhere in this solar system.\n",
"A common objection to evolution is that it is simply too unlikely for life, in its complexity and apparent \"design,\" to have arisen \"by chance.\" It is argued that the odds of life having arisen without a deliberate intelligence guiding it are so astronomically low that it is unreasonable \"not\" to infer an intelligent designer from the natural world, and specifically from the diversity of life. A more extreme version of this argument is that evolution cannot create complex structures (see the Creation of complex structures section below). The idea that it is simply too implausible for life to have evolved is often wrongly encapsulated with a quotation that the \"probability of life originating on Earth is no greater than the chance that a hurricane, sweeping through a scrapyard, would have the luck to assemble a Boeing 747\"—a claim attributed to astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and known as Hoyle's fallacy. Hoyle was a Darwinist, atheist and anti-theist, but advocated the theory of panspermia, in which abiogenesis begins in outer space and primitive life on Earth is held to have arrived via natural dispersion.\n",
"There are many alternative scenarios that might allow for the evolution of intelligent life to occur multiple times without either catastrophic self-destruction or glaringly visible evidence. These are possible resolutions to the Fermi paradox: \"They do exist, but we see no evidence\". Other ideas include: it is too expensive to spread physically throughout the galaxy; Earth is purposefully isolated; it is dangerous to communicate and hence civilizations actively hide, among others.\n",
"The hypothesis concludes, more or less, that complex life is rare because it can evolve only on the surface of an Earth-like planet or on a suitable satellite of a planet. Some biologists, such as Jack Cohen, believe this assumption too restrictive and unimaginative; they see it as a form of circular reasoning.\n",
"Those who think that intelligent extraterrestrial life is (nearly) impossible argue that the conditions needed for the evolution of life—or at least the evolution of biological complexity—are rare or even unique to Earth. Under this assumption, called the rare Earth hypothesis, a rejection of the mediocrity principle, complex multicellular life is regarded as exceedingly unusual.\n"
] |
How much can you learn from someone's genome? | Well this is fun, we literally just covered this kind of stuff in my advanced molecular biology course.
Your genome will contain variation depending on genetics that has been passed down from your parents. You may be homozygous for 11 copies of a short-tandem repeat (STR, 2-3 'letters' repeated over and over again in the sequence) where I will be heterozygous for 13 and 8 copies. Your "DNA fingerprint" that the FBI uses involves these regions, when the areas that contain them are amplified by PCR, they show up as different lengths.
Furthermore, there are single-nucleotide-polymorphisms (SNPs) where you may have an A where I have a C (or C-A or T-G or T-A...you get the point). There are also "indels" - insersions or deletions relative to one genomre or another. These can serve as markers for disease or other traits, especially if they occur in protein coding genes. There are a very very large number of these variations, and I could predict (not even close to 100% certainty, though) some traits about you as well as heritable diseases you may carry. The debate on nature/nurture is how certain could I be given your genotype?
[This database](_URL_0_) is called Online Mendellian Inheritance in Man and catalogs diseases/traits and contains a *wealth* of SNP and indel data about them. Doing some mining, you can find tables like [these](_URL_1_) that will list all known variants for a gene and link to more information about them. This example is the Von Willebrands Factor, mutations of which cause Von Willebrands Disease which is a mild bleeding disorder. I don't know your background, but this site contains a lot of very technical information.
You may have heard of [23andMe](_URL_2_) which is a commercial service that will assay your genome for specific markers as well.
EDIT: If your family has submitted their genomes to a database as well, we could ID them as well | [
"Over the course of the next three years, scientists at the Sanger Institute, BGI Shenzhen and the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Large-Scale Sequencing Network are planning to sequence a minimum of 1,000 human genomes. Due to the large amount of sequence data that need to be generated and analyzed it is possible that other participants may be recruited over time.\n",
"The human genome consists of three billion base pairs, which code for approximately 20,000–25,000 genes. However the genome alone is of little use, unless the locations and relationships of individual genes can be identified. One option is manual annotation, whereby a team of scientists tries to locate genes using experimental data from scientific journals and public databases. However this is a slow, painstaking task. The alternative, known as automated annotation, is to use the power of computers to do the complex pattern-matching of protein to DNA.\n",
"In 2014 the Institute became one of only three organisations in the world – and the only one outside the United States – able to sequence the human genome at a base cost below 1,000 each (the $1,000 genome) when it purchased the next generation of genome sequencing equipment, which is capable of sequencing 350 genomes a week (18,000 a year).\n",
" In 2003, the National Human Genome Research Institute and its affiliated partners successfully sequenced the first whole human genome, a project that took just under $3 billion to complete. Four years later, James Watson – one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA – was able to sequence his genome for less than $1.5 million. As genetic sequencing technologies have proliferated, streamlined and become adapted to clinical means, they can now provide incredible insight into individual genetic identities at a much lower cost, with biotech competitors vying for the title of the $1,000 genome. Genetic material can now be extracted from a person's saliva, hair, skin, blood, or other sources, sequenced, digitized, stored, and used for numerous purposes. Whenever data is digitized and stored, there is the possibility of privacy breaches. While modern whole genome sequencing technology has allowed for unprecedented access and understanding of the human genome, and excitement for the potentialities of personalized medicine, it has also generated serious conversation about the ethics and privacy risks that accompany this process of uncovering an individual's essential instructions of being: their DNA sequence.\n",
"BULLET::::- The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs. Whereas a genome sequence lists the order of every DNA base in a genome, a genome map identifies the landmarks. A genome map is less detailed than a genome sequence and aids in navigating around the genome. While working at the National Institute of Health, Craig Venter discovered a technique for rapidly identifying all of the mRNAs present in a cell, and began to use it to identify human brain genes. The short cDNA sequence fragments discovered by this method are called expressed sequence tags. Through his scientific research of bringing the world one step closer to personalized medicine, Craig Venter was listed on Time Magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.\n",
"The human genome consists of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs and is estimated to carry around 20,000 protein coding genes. In designing the study the consortium needed to address several critical issues regarding the project metrics such as technology challenges, data quality standards and sequence coverage.\n",
"The human genome contains an estimated 20,000–25,000 protein-coding genes. The goal of the Gene Wiki project is to create seed articles for every human gene, that is, every gene whose function has been assigned in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Approximately half of human genes have assigned function, therefore the total number of articles seeded by the Gene Wiki project would be expected to be in the range of 10,000–15,000. To date, approximately 11,000 articles have been created or augmented to include Gene Wiki project content.\n"
] |
why are hispanics included as whites in statistical polls instead of being considered their own independent demographic like blacks or native americans? | Hispanic is not a race. It's an ethnicity. There are white Hispanics, black Hispanics, Native American Hispanics, and even Asian Hispanics.
| [
"In January 2016, CUNY sociologist Richard Alba wrote an article in the American Prospect arguing that the way in which majority-minority calculations are made by the Census are misleading. Anyone with any Hispanic, Asian, or Black ancestry is seen as non-white, even if they also have white ancestry. Alba argues that the incomes, marriage patterns, and identities of people of who are mixed Hispanic-white and Asian-white are closer to those of white people than monoracial Hispanics or Asians. Thus, when the Census says that non-Hispanic whites are projected to be less than 50% of the population by the 2040s, people of mixed-race ancestry are improperly excluded from that category.\n",
"Data about race and ethnicity are self-reported to the Census Bureau. Since the 2000 census, Congress has authorized people to identify themselves according to more than one racial classification by selecting more than one category. Only one ethnicity may be selected, however, because the U.S. Census recognizes only two ethnicities—Hispanic and Non-Hispanic—which are mutually exclusive since you can be one or the other, but not both. The Census Bureau defines \"Hispanic\" as any person who has an ancestral connection to Latin America.\n",
"Due to this category's non-standard status, statistics from government agencies other than the Census Bureau (for example: the Centers for Disease Control's data on vital statistics, or the FBI's crime statistics), but also the Bureau's own official Population Estimates, omit the \"some other race\" category and include most of the people in this group in the white population, thus including the vast majority (about 90%) of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the white population. For an example of this, see The World Factbook, published by the Central Intelligence Agency.\n",
"About 41.2% of U.S. Hispanics identify as \"Some other race\" as of 2006, but government agencies which do not recognize \"Some other race\" (such as the FBI, the CDC, and the NCHS) include this group, and therefore over 90% of Hispanics, within the white population. In such cases, such as with the NCHS, separate statistics are often kept for \"White\" (which includes whites and over 90% of Hispanics) and \"non-Hispanic white\".\n",
"3. Methodology. In the 2000 Census, people were allowed to check more than one race in addition to choosing \"Hispanic.\" There was strong opposition to this from some civil rights activists who feared that this would reduce the size of various racial minorities. The government responded by counting those who are white and of one minority race or ethnicity as minorities for the purposes of civil-rights monitoring and enforcement. Hence one could be 1/8th black and still be counted as a minority. Also, because this does not apply to Hispanic origin (one is either Hispanic or not, but cannot be both Hispanic \"and\" non-Hispanic), the offspring of Hispanics and non-Hispanics are usually counted as Hispanic. In 2017, the Pew Research Center reported that high intermarriage rates and declining Latin American immigration has led to 11% of U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry (5.0 million people) to no longer identify as Hispanic. First generation immigrants from Spain and Latin America identify as Hispanic at very high rates (97%) which reduces in each succeeding generation, second generation (92%), third generation (77%), and fourth generation (50%).\n",
"Hispanicity, which is independent of race, is the only \"ethnic\" category, as opposed to racial category, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. The distinction made by government agencies for those within the population of any official race category, including \"Black\", is between those who report Hispanic backgrounds and all others who do not. \"Non-Hispanic Blacks\" consists of an ethnically diverse collection of all others who are classified as Black or African American that do not report Hispanic ethnic backgrounds.\n",
"The number of people counted statistically in demographics will sometimes exceed 100% because some Hispanics and Latinos identify as both White and Hispanic. See Race and ethnicity in the United States Census.\n"
] |
what causes "flashing lights", or blurry vision after strenuous physical activity? | **NOTE**: I am not a medical doctor, and this is not a diagnosis; just the best attempt I can at explaining it.
It's likely caused by the gel inside of his eyes rubbing on or pulling at the retina. If he stood up after a car ride, it can cause a change in blood pressure as well, which would lead to less oxygen going to the brain and some experience flashes of light along with a narrowing of the field of vision. | [
"In some epileptics, flickering or flashing lights, such as strobe lights, can be responsible for the onset of a tonic clonic, absence, or myoclonic seizure. This condition is known as photosensitive epilepsy and, in some cases, the seizures can be triggered by activities that are harmless to others, such as watching television or playing video games, or by driving or riding during daylight along a road with spaced trees, thereby simulating the \"flashing light\" effect. Some people can suffer a seizure as a result of blinking one's own eyes. Contrary to popular belief, this form of epilepsy is relatively uncommon, accounting for just 3% of all cases.\n",
"BULLET::::- Photosensitive epilepsy - This is an epileptic reaction to flashing lights in susceptible persons, which can range in severity from an unusual feeling or involuntary twitch to a generalized seizure. This epileptogenic response can be triggered by lights flashing in the frequency range of 10–20 Hz, regardless of color. While individual light sources used on emergency vehicles generally have much lower flash rates than this, the Loughborough study suggests that such possibilities be minimized. It also notes that emergency workers may report distraction and eyestrain unrelated to epilepsy from working under the lights.\n",
"Rapidly flashing lights may be dangerous for people with photosensitive epilepsy or other nervous disorders. It is thought that one out of 10,000 adults will experience a seizure while viewing such a device; about twice as many children will have a similar ill effect.\n",
"This effect is simulated in another image linked to (\"warning\": the linked image flashes colours very rapidly, which could potentially cause seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy); the flashing is less noticeable when viewed on a television screen.\n",
"Flash blindness is caused by bleaching (oversaturation) of the retinal pigment. As the pigment returns to normal, so too does sight. In daylight the eye's pupil constricts, thus reducing the amount of light entering after a flash. At night, the dark-adapted pupil is wide open so flash blindness has a greater effect and lasts longer.\n",
"Flicker vertigo, sometimes called the Bucha effect, is \"an imbalance in brain-cell activity caused by exposure to low-frequency flickering (or flashing) of a relatively bright light.\" It is a disorientation-, vertigo-, and nausea-inducing effect of a strobe light flashing at 1 Hz to 20 Hz, approximately the frequency of human brainwaves. The effects are similar to seizures caused by epilepsy (in particular photosensitive epilepsy), but are not restricted to people with histories of epilepsy.\n",
"Sometimes strobe lighting can trigger seizures in photosensitive epilepsy. An infamous event took place in 1997 in Japan when an episode of the Pokémon anime, \"Dennō Senshi Porygon\" (commonly translated as \"Electric Soldier Porygon\"), featured a scene that depicted a huge explosion using flashing red and blue lights, causing about 685 of the viewing children to be sent to hospitals. These flashes were extremely bright strobe lights. They involved multiple colors with a strobe effect at about 12 Hz. Although 95% of the 685 just complained of dizziness, some were hospitalized. Organizers later said that they did not know about the threshold of strobing.\n"
] |
if an ambulance on its way to a call witnesses an accident, what do they do? | It depends on the severity of the accident compared to the severity of the call they're en route to. If they see a horrible car wreck, and they're on a call for a broken bone, they'll stop for the wreck and radio in to let the dispatcher know to send out a new ambulance for the initial call. However, if they were on their way to a heart attack victim, they'll likely radio in and request a new ambulance for the wreck. | [
"The refusal of medical assistance, or RMA, ensures the continuum of care that ambulance squads have a responsibility towards. In a typical emergency call, the ambulance service will assess and transport the patient to an appropriate facility. The ambulance squad's duty towards the patient begins with patient contact and generally ends with transfer to the emergency department of the receiving hospital. The call can terminate in other ways; for example an ambulance service may cancel their own services if the patient becomes violent (scene safety), if they are canceled by on-scene personnel (such as the police or, in the case of a MICU service, the on-scene BLS EMT), or at the discretion of the dispatcher (if another ambulance is better positioned to take the call).\n",
"Emergency ambulances are highly likely to be involved in hazardous situations, including incidents such as a road traffic collision, as these emergencies create people who are likely to be in need of treatment. They are required to gain access to patients as quickly as possible, and in many countries, are given dispensation from obeying certain traffic laws. For instance, they may be able to treat a red traffic light or stop sign as a yield sign ('give way'), or be permitted to break the speed limit. Generally, the priority of the response to the call will be assigned by the dispatcher, but the priority of the return will be decided by the ambulance crew based on the severity of the patient's illness or injury. Patients in significant danger to life and limb (as determined by triage) require urgent treatment by advanced medical personnel, and because of this need, emergency ambulances are often fitted with passive and active visual and/or audible warnings to alert road users.\n",
"This can mean that anyone who finds someone in need of medical help must take all reasonable steps to seek medical care and render best-effort first aid. Commonly, the situation arises on an event of a traffic accident: other drivers and passers-by must take an action to help the injured without regard to possible personal reasons not to help (e.g. having no time, being in a hurry) or ascertain that help has been requested from officials. In practice however, almost all cases of compulsory rescue simply require the rescuer to alert the relevant entity (police, fire brigade, ambulance) with a phone call.\n",
"In general, first responders are sent to immediately life-threatening situations such as cardiac arrest. Some ambulance services restrict the type of calls which responders can attend, either through blanket prohibition or by more detailed call screening by the emergency dispatch centre. This is because responders do not necessarily have the levels of training or equipment available to full-time staff, and may arrive on their own, increasing risks. Types of call which responders may not be asked to attend (or be stood down if already en route) include drugs related problems, domestic violence and abusive patients as well as dangerous scenes such as traffic collisions or building sites. In some areas, responders are also not dispatched to paediatric cases, although other areas have this as a main part of their role.\n",
"In the event of this being used for a major incident, the reporting first on scene officer would not usually get involved with the rescue work, but act as a co-ordinator on scene for arriving emergency vehicles. This may be achieved by the first vehicle on scene leaving its lightbar running, whilst all others turn theirs off on arrival, to make identifying the incident officer easier.\n",
"After the patients have been treated and transported, police inquiries may take place. After a full inspection, the vehicles involved may be allowed to be removed from the scene. In severe accidents, special traffic or accident investigation boards may analyze the accident and its consequences, and give recommendations to improve safety in traffic. After the accident, the accident scene should be cleaned. The tram, the tracks and the overhead lines may need repair.\n",
"Calling an ambulance is not a free service. The ambulance will bring the patient to the nearest hospital. An ambulance is manned by two people - a driver and a paramedic. Depending on the medical condition, a Medical Emergency Response vehicle may be dispatched. That is manned by three people - a driver, an ER-doctor and a senior ER-nurse. The ER-doctor will choose the nearest appropriate hospital that has the necessary facilities based on the patient's symptoms and condition, or a hospital in which the patient is under active treatment.\n"
] |
how do i know that i don't have depth perception? | Sure, if you've never experienced true binocularity (brain fusing each eye's image into one that is 3D), you might not realize you don't have it. It's possible to develop that skill so long as both eyes are physically intact and functional and so is your brain. Neuroscience ftw!
A book that discusses this is "Stereo Sue" by Sue Barry about a lady scientist who didn't realize that very thing she was in her 50s and was able to regain it. It's an interesting story! | [
"Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions (3D) and the distance of an object. Depth sensation is the corresponding term for animals, since although it is known that animals can sense the distance of an object (because of their ability to move accurately, or to respond consistently, according to that distance), it is not known whether they \"perceive\" it in the same subjective way that humans do.\n",
"Depth perception results from many monocular and binocular visual clues. For objects relatively close to the eyes, binocular vision plays an important role in depth perception. Binocular vision allows the brain to create a single Cyclopean image and to attach a depth level to each point in it.\n",
"BULLET::::- Depth perception. DP is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions. It is a trait common to many higher animals. Depth perception allows the beholder to accurately gauge the distance to an object.\n",
"Depth perception arises from a variety of depth cues. These are typically classified into binocular cues that are based on the receipt of sensory information in three dimensions from both eyes and monocular cues that can be represented in just two dimensions and observed with just one eye. Binocular cues include stereopsis, eye convergence, disparity, and yielding depth from binocular vision through exploitation of parallax. Monocular cues include size: distant objects subtend smaller visual angles than near objects, grain, size, and motion parallax.\n",
"Stereoscopy creates the illusion of three-dimensional depth from given two-dimensional images. Human vision, including the perception of depth, is a complex process, which only begins with the acquisition of visual information taken in through the eyes; much processing ensues within the brain, as it strives to make sense of the raw information. One of the functions that occur within the brain as it interprets what the eyes see is assessing the relative distances of objects from the viewer, and the depth dimension of those objects. The \"cues\" that the brain uses to gauge relative distances and depth in a perceived scene include\n",
"The acquisition of depth perception and its development in infant cognitive systems was researched by Richard D. Walk. Walk found that human infants is able to discriminate depth well from an \"innate learned\" point of view, they are able to discriminate depth from the age at which they can be tested. However, their visual mechanisms are still maturing. Walk discovered that infants are better able to discriminate depth when there is a definitive pattern separating the deeper and shallower areas, than if either one is at all indefinite, and the depth and distance must be of a certain level of distance in order to be successfully distinguished by the infant. \n",
"From an infant's standpoint, depth perception can be inferred using three means: binocular, static, and kinetic cues. As mentioned previous, humans are binocular and each eye views the external world with a different angle – providing essential information into depth. The convergence of each eye on a particular object and the stereopsis, also known as the retinal disparity among two objects, provides some information for infants older than ten weeks. With binocular vision development, infants between four and five months also develop a sense of size and shape constancy objects, regardless of the objects location and orientation in space. From static cues based upon monocular vision, infants older of five month of age have the ability to predict depth perception from pictorial position of objects. In other words, edges of closer objects overlap objects in the distance. Lastly, kinetic cues are another factor in depth perception for humans, especially young infants. Infants ranging from three to five months are able to move when an object approaches them in the intent to hit them – implying that infants have depth perception.\n"
] |
since oil & water don't mix, how are essential oil soaks helpful? | As far as I know there is no scientific proof that essential oils work anyway, but yes your skin can only absorb so much. | [
"Due to differences in physical properties, oil does not readily mix with water. Many food and non-food systems require stabilization of mixtures of oil and water in order to prevent phase separation. Therefore, additives are used to provide stability. Lactylates are such additives.\n",
"The essential oil is obtained by the steam distillation of ground nutmeg and is used heavily in the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. The nutmeg essential oil is used as a natural food flavouring in baked goods, syrups, beverages (e.g. Coca-Cola), sweets etc. It replaces ground nutmeg as it leaves no particles in the food. The essential oil is also used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries for instance in tooth paste and as a major ingredient in some cough syrups. In traditional medicine nutmeg and nutmeg oil were used for illnesses related to the nervous and digestive systems.\n",
"Oils are often used for applications where water is unsuitable. With higher boiling points than water, oils can be raised to considerably higher temperatures (above 100 degrees Celsius) without introducing high pressures within the container or loop system in question. Many oils have uses encompassing heat transfer, lubrication, pressure transfer (hydraulic fluids), sometimes even fuel, or several such functions at once.\n",
"Infused oils are also used for seasoning. There are two methods for doing an infusion—hot and cold. Olive oil makes a good infusion base for some herbs, but tends to go rancid more quickly than other oils. Infused oils should be kept refrigerated.\n",
"An oil formulation consists of the base or stock oil and oil additives. Most oil formulations contain basic additives and detergents, designed to react with and neutralise acids, preventing damage to engine parts, including corrosion of metal surfaces.\n",
"Essential oil is a side product of distilling \"brinjevec\". As mentioned, it was used to ease menstrual pain, stomach ache or cure digestion problems of children by anointing it around navel and lower abdomen. This oil was sold in the past to local pharmacies mostly in Trieste (Italy) and it is still very expensive (€160 or more per liter in 2010).\n",
"The use of this type of oil is in the process of being phased-in by manufacturers who use compressors in their products. The need to replace the old oils has arisen due to environmental restrictions causing incompatibility of the old oils with the new refrigerants. POE oils are very good solvents and easily dissolve most of the residual mineral oils that they may be replacing. So even though small amounts of the old oil may remain, it won't clog the system. \n"
] |
if a nuclear bomb is dropped on other nuclear bombs that are idle on the ground, will it create a double explosion or do these weapons need to become 'activated' in order for them to be able to detonate? | Depends on a lot of things.
Nuclear bombs work by changing the critical mass of the nuclear fuel. "Critical mass" is the amount of nuclear material you need to have a sustained nuclear reaction. You can artificially make a smaller-than-critical mass into a critical mass in several ways. One way is to cover it with a material that reflects neutrons (which would cause all the neutrons that would've escaped outwards from the material to reflect back inwards, generally used in nuclear reactors and research), but another way is to change the temperature and pressure of the material (which is done in nuclear weapons by using "explosive lenses" which is a fancy way of saying you surround it with conventional explosives).
Without those explosives going off (and a few other things I'd guess) that nuclear weapon isn't actually fissile (able to undergo fission). A nuclear explosion above the silo where the bombs are stored is just as likely to vaporize the exposive as anything else, not to mention that unless that explosion is able to actually trigger the explosive correctly it's not going to explode. (C4 and TNT for example are completely safe to burn, and only explode with specific stimulii.)
| [
"Many nuclear detonations have taken place using [[aerial bomb]]s. The [[B-29 Superfortress|B-29]] aircraft that delivered the nuclear weapons at [[Hiroshima]] and [[Nagasaki]] did not lose power from electrical damage, because [[electron]]s (ejected from the air by gamma rays) are stopped quickly in normal air for bursts below roughly , so they are not significantly deflected by the Earth's magnetic field.\n",
"When a nuclear bomb is exploded near ground level, the dense atmosphere interacts with many of the subatomic particles being released. This normally takes place within a short distance, on the order of meters. This energy heats the air, promptly ionizing it to incandescence and causing a roughly spherical fireball to form within microseconds.\n",
"Unguided bombs typically use a contact fuse for detonation upon impact, or some milliseconds after if a penetration effect is required. One alternative is a fuse with an altimeter, to cause an air burst at the desired altitude.\n",
"There are two main considerations for the location of an explosion: height and surface composition. A nuclear weapon detonated in the air, called an air burst, produces less fallout than a comparable explosion near the ground. A nuclear explosion in which the fireball touches the ground pulls soil and other materials into the cloud and neutron activates it before it falls back to the ground. An air burst produces a relatively small amount of the highly radioactive heavy metal components of the device itself.\n",
"During a weapon's crucial triggering phase, explosive charges that surround the nuclear fuel are detonated at multiple points. The result is a shock wave that moves inward (implosion) at supersonic speeds, compressing the fuel to higher and higher density. Implosion ends when the fuel reaches a supercritical density, the density at which nuclear reactions in the fuel build up an uncontainable amount of energy, which is then released in a massive explosion. To make the mockup non-nuclear, a heavy metal surrogate (such as depleted uranium or lead) stands in for the nuclear fuel, but all other components can be exact replicas. Sub-critical masses of plutonium may also be used.\n",
"While this (or any) tactic would be useless for someone at ground zero during a surface burst nuclear explosion, it would be beneficial to the vast majority of people who are positioned away from the blast hypocenter: both the thermal pulse of some weapons and the shrapnel from all weapons (particularly from shattered windows) could be evaded, at least in part. In particular, higher yield thermonuclear weapons have thermal pulses which last for several seconds. By promptly putting something between yourself and the fireball during these crucial couple of seconds, you could avoid or reduce the severity of the burns you would have otherwise received. For those not at ground zero, like a shortened version of the delay between lightning and thunder, there would be a delay between the flash (indicating the need to duck and cover) and the arrival of the blast wave, which will shatter windows turning non-safety glass into missile-like shards, and cause other blast or impact injuries.\n",
"Apart from the intrinsic \"prompt effects\" of nuclear detonations, that of thermal flash, blast and initial radiation releases, if any part of the fireball of the nuclear detonation contacts the ground, in what is known as a surface burst, another, comparatively slowly increasing, radiation hazard will also begin to form in the immediate area.\n"
] |
why do bottles of liquid have a dent/semi circle at the bottom of them? | Its to make the plastic stronger. Without it they would have to add much more plastic to make it stable, which is more expensive. The bottle wouldn't explode, but it would cause the thinner areas to sag and deform. That would increase the chance of it bursting apart when force is applied. But with the divot, that sort of outcome is essentially impossible. | [
"Some cans, such as those used for sardines, have a specially scored lid so that the user can break out the metal by the leverage of winding it around a slotted church key. Until the mid-20th century, some sardine tins had solder-attached lids, and the winding key worked by forcing the solder joint apart.\n",
"This is a list of bottle types, brands and companies. A bottle is a rigid container with a neck that is narrower than the body, and a \"mouth\". Bottles are often made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminum or other impervious materials, and are typically used to store liquids. The bottle has developed over millennia of use, with some of the earliest examples appearing in China, Phoenicia, Rome and Crete. Bottles are often recycled according to the SPI recycling code for the material. Some regions have a container deposit which is refunded after returning the bottle to the retailer.\n",
"Several other types of containers are also called jugs, depending on locale, tradition, and personal preference. Some types of bottles can be called jugs, particularly if the container has a narrow mouth and has a handle. Closures such as stoppers or screw caps are common for these retail packages.\n",
"A related technique, strawpedoing, is used for containers not easily punctured such as a glass bottles. A straw is inserted into the bottle and bent around the hole. When the bottle is tilted, the beverage quickly drains and is quickly consumed. The technique increases beverage delivery since the extra hole allows the liquid to leave while air enters simultaneously through the main hole. The bottleneck, created where air entering the container must travel through the same orifice as liquid leaving, is removed.\n",
"The bottles are made by moulding the pulp of wood fibre which is then pressed into shape. The plastic liner is automatically vacuum formed and inserted into one half shell, another half shell is placed on top and the two are then sealed together. The bottles are designed to easily integrate with existing filling lines.\n",
"A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (clay, glass, plastic, aluminium etc.) in various shapes and sizes to store and transport liquids (water, milk, beer, wine, ink, cooking oil, medicine, soft drinks, shampoo, and chemicals, etc.) and whose mouth at the bottling line can be sealed with an internal stopper, an external bottle cap, a closure, or a conductive \"inner seal\" using induction sealing.\n",
"Because of the seemingly paradoxical nature of the glass (being both extremely durable and extremely fragile), Bologna bottles are often used as props in magic tricks, where the bottle can be shattered by rattling a small object inside it.\n"
] |
the dow futures is reported to have dropped 700 points already. what does that mean for retirement funds, the market in general, etc...? | What u/Chumkil said but it is unlikely to be a long-lasting drop, the underlying economy is strong and, once the excitement has died down, the markets will return to their original state - i.e. rising.
The BBC were talking about this yesterday, apparently these flash-crashes are more to do with computer algorithm trading more than human sentiment. Their analyst's advice to investors was "play the long game and sit tight, use any significant drop to expand your portfolio." | [
"On October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high of 14,164.53. Two days later on October 11, the Dow traded at an intra-day level high of 14,198.10, a mark which would not be matched until March 2013. In what would normally take many years to accomplish; numerous reasons were cited for the Dow's extremely rapid rise from the 11,000 level in early 2006, to the 14,000 level in late 2007. They included future possible takeovers and mergers, healthy earnings reports particularly in the tech sector, and moderate inflationary numbers; fueling speculation the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates.\n",
"On Thursday, November 20 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 445 points in the last minutes of the trading session, closing at 7,552, the lowest point in six years. Shares in Citigroup plummeted another 26%, and shares of other major US financial institutions dropped by more than 10%.\n",
"BULLET::::- On October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at the record level of 14,164.53. Two days later on October 11, the Dow would trade at its highest intra-day level ever, at the 14,198.10 mark. In what would normally take many years to accomplish; numerous reasons were cited for the Dow's extremely rapid rise from the 11,000 level in early 2006, to the 14,000 level in late 2007. They included future possible takeovers and mergers, healthy earnings reports particularly in the tech sector, and moderate inflationary numbers; fueling speculation the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates. Roughly on par with the 2000 record when adjusted for inflation, this represented the final high of the cyclical bull. The index closed 2007 at 13,264.82, a level it would not surpass for nearly five years.\n",
"On Thursday November 13, the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked another dramatic session, with the index (opening at 8,282.66) that after a mixed start tumbled again below the 8,000 mark (to a low of 7,965.42) but then reversed the trend and gained more than 900 points (fourth largest daily swing ever) in less than three hours closing at 8,835.25 with a net gain of more than 550 points (third largest ever).\n",
"BULLET::::- On May 6, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined about 1,000 points (about 9 percent) and recovered those losses within minutes. It was the second-largest point swing (1,010.14 points) and the largest one-day point decline (998.5 points) on an intraday basis in the Average's history. This market disruption became known as the Flash Crash and resulted in U.S. regulators issuing new regulations to control market access achieved through automated trading.\n",
"On October 10, within the first five minutes of the trading session on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 697 points, falling below 7900 to its lowest level since March 17, 2003. Later in the afternoon, the Dow made violent swings back and forth across the breakeven line, toppling as much as 600 points and rising 322 points. The Dow ended the day losing only 128 points, or 1.49%. Trading on New York Stock Exchange closed for the week with the Dow at 8,451, down 1,874 points, or 18% for the week, and after 8 days of losses, 40% down from its record high October 9, 2007. Trading on Friday was marked by extreme volatility with a steep loss in the first few minutes followed by a rise into positive territory, closing down at the end of the day. In S&P100 some financial corporate showing signals upwards also. President George W. Bush reassured investors that the government will solve the financial crisis gripping world economies.\n",
"By market close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 634.76 points (-5.55%) to close at 10,809.85, making it the 6th largest drop of the index in history. Black Monday 2011 followed just one trading day behind the 10th largest drop of the Dow Jones Index, a 512.76 (-4.31%) drop on August 4, 2011.\n"
] |
During the Cold War period, was Able Archer and The Cuban Missle Crisis the peak of tensions? | I would see a distinct difference between "peak of tensions" and "closest we came to a nuclear exchange." The Berlin crisis of 1948 was potentially a higher "peak of tensions" than Able Archer 83, but because the nuclear situation was only one-sided, it is not cited as a "close call." I would not consider Able Archer 83 a "peak of tensions," as it was primarily one-sided, though it was definitely one of the top "close calls." (What made it so dangerous was that the USA/NATO was so utterly unaware of how tense the Soviets felt about it.)
Similarly, there were other "close calls" that were not marked by "peaks of tensions" — such as the numerous "false alarm" scares that the US and USSR both suffered from errors in their early warning systems.
I would disentangle these two categories. What makes the Cuban Missile Crisis so remarkable and interesting is that it is the rare confluence of the two — a peak of tension _and_ a close call. There were many other very tense moments that were not close calls, and many close calls that were not actually peaks of tensions. | [
"After the Cuban Missile Crisis had passed, the Cold War situation kept Fort Stewart in an active training role. During the late 1960s, another developing situation would bring about yet another change in Fort Stewart’s mission. With tensions growing in the divided country of Vietnam, the U.S. found itself becoming increasingly involved in that conflict.\n",
"While the Cuban missile crisis was unique in that it played out primarily between the President and Premier the mobilization of the U.S. Armed Forces to meet the threat was notable. By the time the U.S. and Soviets came to terms on 28 October all of 2nd Marine Division deployed with 40 ships. At Key West MAG-26, and MAG-32 (-) had joined M=Shortly after 28 October the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade was moved east with 18,000 Marines, 20 Ships, and included HMM-361, VMA-121, and VMGR-352. Overall, 400,000 American troops were mobilized to the meet the threat. Forty thousand of those troops were Marines and mobilized in only eight days. The current Commandant of the Marine Corps General David M. Shoup stated: “I couldn't be happier about our readiness in this crisis. This time we not only have been ready, we’ve been steady.”\n",
"During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, McCoy AFB became a temporary forward operating base for more than 120 F-100 Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief fighter bombers and the primary base for U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flying over Cuba. One of these U-2s was shot down by Soviet-operated SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles near Banes, Cuba. Its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., USAF, was the crisis' only combat death. Following the crisis, McCoy AFB hosted a permanent U-2 operating detachment of the 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing until 1973.\n",
"Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia came to a head in October 1962. President John F. Kennedy informed the American public that the Soviet Union had installed missile sites in Cuba from which it could strike the United States. As a result, SAC canceled flying training and increased the size of its ground and airborne alert forces. The wing launched four B-52s on Chrome Dome and Hard Head VI missions, established the Loring Tanker Task Force, and aircraft not supporting airborne alert were put on ground alert. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, wing bombers flew 132 airborne alert missions and its tankers flew 214 air refueling missions, transferring almost 24 million pounds of fuel to the B-52s.\n",
"During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the 435th TFS deployed to Naval Air Station Key West, Florida to carry out air strikes against targets in Cuba in case an invasion proved to be necessary. Fortunately, the crisis was peacefully resolved. Following the crisis, Air Defense Command (ADC) organized a squadron of F-104As at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida to defend against possible intrusions by Cuban fighters. However, the F-104A was armed only with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and ADC began retrofitting its F-104As with Vulcan cannons. During the first half of 1964, while these planes were being modified, the 479th deployed F-104Cs to Homestead to augment ADC's alert forces there.\n",
"In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 2nd Battalion deployed to the waters off the coast of Cuba as part of a task force of 40 ships and 20,000 Marines and Sailors. When the successful blockade terminated on December 3, 1962, the Battalion returned to Camp Lejeune.\n",
"Prior to the onset of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union planned to deploy two regiments with 32 R-14 IRBMs and 16 launchers to Cuba. By the time the United States declared a quarantine of the island, 24 one-megaton warheads had arrived but no missiles or launchers had yet been shipped. The warheads were removed and the deployment of the R-14 to Cuba was cancelled after the crisis was resolved.\n"
] |
what's in artificial food coloring that makes it so toxic to consume? | Food coloring is not considered toxic by most people. From Google:
>
>
> While red dye #2 was subsequently banned from products sold in the United States, many health-conscious consumers continue to avoid foods with other artificial colors or dyes — **even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still considers them safe for human consumption**.
But that doesn't even tell the full story.
Red Dye #2 might have never been particularly unsafe to humans.
>
>
> In 1976, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that, in high doses, Red No. 2 could cause cancer in female rats. The FDA declared it an ingredient non grata in the United States because **although it had never been shown to pose health risks to humans, no one had been able to prove it safe, either**.
But the media painted a scary picture of Red Dye #2.
>
>
> In 1971, however, Soviet scientists announced that Red No. 2 caused cancer. Public outcry in the U.S. against the dye quickly gained such fervor that the Mars candy company temporarily stopped producing red M & Ms despite the fact that they had never contained Red No. 2 in the first place.
Red dye #2 was replaced in America by Red Dye #40, but #2 is still available and considered safe in Europe where one last bizarre fact enters the picture:
>
>
> But in a twist of fate, the European Food Safety Authority recently recommended limiting children's intake of Red No. 40. As a result, while Red No. 2 is illegal in the U.S. but flows freely in the EU, the near-opposite is true for Red No. 40.
You can read more about it [here](_URL_0_). | [
"In response to concerns about the safety of certain food additives, the UK FSA commissioned a study by researchers at Southampton University of the effect of a mixture of six food dyes (Tartrazine, Allura Red, Ponceau 4R, Quinoline Yellow WS, Sunset Yellow and Carmoisine (dubbed the \"Southampton 6\")) and sodium benzoate (a preservative) on children in the general population, who consumed them in beverages; the study published in 2007. The study found \"a possible link between the consumption of these artificial colours and a sodium benzoate preservative and increased hyperactivity\" in the children; the advisory committee to the FSA that evaluated the study also determined that because of study limitations, the results could not be extrapolated to the general population, and further testing was recommended.\n",
"Because many consumers are worried about possible health consequences of synthetic dyes, some companies are beginning to use natural food colours. Since these food colours are natural, they do not require any certification from the Food and Drug Administration. The most popular natural food colours are:\n",
"Although approved to color foods and beverages in the European Union, anthocyanins are not approved for use as a food additive because they have not been verified as safe when used as food or supplement ingredients. There is no conclusive evidence that anthocyanins have any effect on human biology or diseases.\n",
"Widespread public belief that artificial food coloring causes ADHD-like hyperactivity in children originated from Benjamin Feingold, a pediatric allergist from California, who proposed in 1973 that salicylates, artificial colors, and artificial flavors cause hyperactivity in children; however, there is no evidence to support broad claims that food coloring causes food intolerance and ADHD-like behavior in children. It is possible that certain food colorings may act as a trigger in those who are genetically predisposed, but the evidence is weak.\n",
"As the path from producer to market became increasingly complicated, many foods were affected by adulteration and the addition of additives which ranged from relatively harmless ingredients, such as cheap cornstarch and corn syrup, to poisonous ones. Some manufacturers produced bright colors in candy by the addition of hazardous substances for which there was no legal regulation: green (chromium oxide and copper acetate), red (lead oxide and mercury sulfide), yellow (lead chromate) and white (chalk, arsenic trioxide).\n",
"The UK FSA commissioned a study of six food dyes (tartrazine, Allura red, Ponceau 4R, Quinoline Yellow, sunset yellow, carmoisine (dubbed the \"Southampton 6\")), and sodium benzoate (a preservative) on children in the general population, who consumed them in beverages. The study found \"a possible link between the consumption of these artificial colours and a sodium benzoate preservative and increased hyperactivity\" in the children; the advisory committee to the FSA that evaluated the study also determined that because of study limitations, the results could not be extrapolated to the general population, and further testing was recommended.\n",
"Anthocyanins are approved for use as food colorants in the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand, having colorant code E163. In 2013, a panel of scientific experts for the European Food Safety Authority concluded that anthocyanins from various fruits and vegetables have been insufficiently characterized by safety and toxicology studies to approve their use as food additives. Extending from a safe history of using red grape skin extract and blackcurrant extracts to color foods produced in Europe, the panel concluded that these extract sources were exceptions to the ruling and were sufficiently shown to be safe.\n"
] |
why does it feel like your stomach drops when your adrenaline kicks in? | It's related to the fight-or-flight response. Your body prioritizes your extremities and blood is drawn away from "non-essentials" such as the digestive system. This leads to that uneasy stomach feeling you get. | [
"During states of excitement or stress, the body releases adrenaline. Adrenaline is known to cause physical symptoms that accompany test anxiety, such as increased heart rate, sweating, and rapid breathing. In many cases having adrenaline is a good thing. It is helpful when dealing with stressful situations, ensuring alertness and preparation. But for some people the symptoms are difficult or impossible to handle, making it impossible to focus on tests.\n",
"Adrenaline, or other wise known as Epineephrine) is released from the Adrenal medulla. Adrenaline is also released in response to the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system or stress. Adrenal is known as the \"fight or flight\" hormone as rapidly rushes blood to muscles and brain and produce the effects:\n",
"During the phobic response, adrenaline secretion produces a wide array of symptoms which enhances the \"fight or flight\" response. As Garcia-Lopez (2013) has noted, symptoms can include acute hearing, increased heart rate and blood pressure, dilated pupils, increased perspiration and oxygen intake, stiffening of neck/upper back muscles, and dry mouth. Uncontrollable shaking is also common and often occurs prior to the phobia-eliciting stimulus. Symptoms may sometimes be alleviated or mitigated by medications such as beta-blockers.\n",
"The major physiologic triggers of adrenaline release center upon stresses, such as physical threat, excitement, noise, bright lights, and high or low ambient temperature. All of these stimuli are processed in the central nervous system.\n",
"When a stressful situation is encountered, stress hormones are released into the blood stream. Adrenaline is released by the adrenal glands to begin the response in the body. Adrenaline acts as a catalyst for the fight-or-flight response, which is a response of the sympathetic nervous system to encourage the body to react to the apparent stressor. This response causes an increase in heart-rate, blood pressure, and accelerated breathing. The kidneys release glucose, providing energy to combat or flee the stressor. Blood is redirected to the brain and major muscle groups, diverted away from energy consuming bodily functions unrelated to survival at the present time. There are three important axes, the adrenocorticotropic axis, the vasopressin axis and the thyroxine axis, which are responsible for the physiologic response to stress.\n",
"Notable effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline include increased heart rate and blood pressure, blood vessel constriction in the skin and gastrointestinal tract, smooth muscle (bronchiole and capillary) dilation, and increased metabolism, all of which are characteristic of the fight-or-flight response. Release of catecholamines is stimulated by nerve impulses, and receptors for catecholamines are widely distributed throughout the body.\n",
"The symptoms of a panic attack may cause the person to feel that their body is failing. The symptoms can be understood as follows. First, there is frequently the sudden onset of fear with little provoking stimulus. This leads to a release of adrenaline (epinephrine) which brings about the fight-or-flight response when the body prepares for strenuous physical activity. This leads to an increased heart rate (tachycardia), rapid breathing (hyperventilation) which may be perceived as shortness of breath (dyspnea), and sweating. Because strenuous activity rarely ensues, the hyperventilation leads to a drop in carbon dioxide levels in the lungs and then in the blood. This leads to shifts in blood pH (respiratory alkalosis or hypocapnia), causing compensatory metabolic acidosis activating chemosensing mechanisms which translate this pH shift into autonomic and respiratory responses. The person him/herself may overlook the hyperventilation, having become preoccupied with the associated somatic symptoms.\n"
] |
what happens to someone convicted of a felony that is going to die soon? | There are Hospitals/infirmaries in prisons. They'd likely just spend their final time in there.
Or they might just be put in with the general population if they don't need constant medical care. | [
"If a person committing a predicate felony directly contributed to the death of the victim then the person will be charged with murder in the first degree - felony murder which is a capital felony. The only two sentences available for that statute are life in prison and the death penalty. \n",
"If a person commits a predicate felony, but was not the direct contributor to the death of the victim then the person will be charged with murder in the second degree - felony murder which is a felony of the first degree. The maximum prison term is life.\n",
"Any criminal conviction registered on the felon’s criminal record is stricken after a certain period of time, depending on the gravity of the offence. In the case of murder, this fact would be stricken from the murderer's criminal record once 15 years have elapsed from fully serving their sentence without committing any other offence.\n",
"A person convicted of first-degree murder will face a sentence of 25 years-to-life in prison, and thus must serve at least 25 years before being eligible for parole. If the murder was committed because of the victim’s race, religion, or gender, the convicted will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.\n",
"In the case of child murder involving rape or torture, the premeditated murder of a state official (since 2011), and terrorism resulting in death, the court can impose a safety period of up to 30 years, or order that the prisoner is ineligible for parole at all, and thus will spend the rest of their natural lives in prison.\n",
"High treason and first degree murder carry a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with a full parole ineligibility period of 25 years. Previously, in the case of high treason or first-degree murder (where the offender has been convicted of a single murder) offenders could have their parole ineligibility period reduced to no less than 15 years under the Faint hope clause. However, this option under the Criminal Code was ended by Act of Parliament, effective in December, 2011.\n",
"A number of prisoners who are unlikely to ever be released or have received very long sentences have declared their wish to die; for example, Ian Brady. At least two such inmates have died by suicide in prison, Harold Shipman and Daniel Gonzalez, and there have been attempted suicides by such prisoners, including Ian Huntley. A number have since died in prison as a result of ill health, including Brady's accomplice Myra Hindley and the \"Black Panther\" serial murderer and armed robber Donald Neilson.\n"
] |
Why can a person safely receive platelets donated by anyone, but can only receive a particular type of whole blood? | Platelets don't have antigens (the things antibodies recognize) on them. What might be a good way to remember this is that they're not made from red blood cells where the ABO blood group antigens are, they're shed from cells in the bone marrow called megakaryocytes.
That's not to say platelets are JUST floating bits of cytoplasm. They've got glycoproteins on the outside to recognize various signals that, if received, may then induce them to release granules filled with clotting factors.
But why don't people have antibodies to these glycoproteins? People have antibodies against certain glycoproteins on red blood cells, right? Yes, they do. However, basically EVERYONE has the same platelet glycoproteins. Developing an immune reaction against them would almost certainly mean death. Super bad thrombocytopenia (low platelets) AND what's basically a bad transfusion reaction, which can kill a person in minutes.
That being said, there are bleeding disorders where people lack some of these platelet factors (von Willebrand disease, for example). That's different from their bodies actively attacking any cell that has them, and they have problems with clotting and blood vessel damage, for the most part. | [
"Most platelet donations are given to patients who are unable to make enough platelets in their bone marrow. For example, patients with leukaemia or other cancers may have too few platelets as the result of their disease or treatment. Also after major surgery or extensive injury, patients may need platelet transfusions to replace those lost through bleeding. Platelets are often life-saving and special in that they can help up to 3 adults or even 12 children. As platelets can only be stored for a few days, regular and frequent donors are in great demand and that is why platelet donors are asked to attend at least 8 - 10 times per year.\n",
"Apheresis platelets are collected using a mechanical device that draws blood from the donor and centrifuges the collected blood to separate out the platelets and other components to be collected. The remaining blood is returned to the donor. The advantage to this method is that a single donation provides at least one therapeutic dose, as opposed to the multiple donations for whole-blood platelets. This means that a recipient is not exposed to as many different donors and has less risk of transfusion-transmitted disease and other complications. Sometimes a person such as a cancer patient who requires routine transfusions of platelets will receive repeated donations from a specific donor to further minimize the risk. Pathogen reduction of platelets using for example, riboflavin and UV light treatments can also be carried out to reduce the infectious load of pathogens contained in donated blood products, thereby reducing the risk of transmission of transfusion transmitted diseases. Another photochemical treatment process utilizing amotosalen and UVA light has been developed for the inactivation of viruses, bacteria, parasites, and leukocytes that can contaminate blood components intended for transfusion. In addition, apheresis platelets tend to contain fewer contaminating red blood cells because the collection method is more efficient than “soft spin” centrifugation at isolating the desired blood component.\n",
"Platelets are the clotting cells of the blood, and when donated, frequently go to cancer patients, because due to chemotherapy many cancer patients are unable to generate enough platelets of their own.\n",
"Besides the main blood donations, known as \"whole blood\", platelets are also collected. As platelets can only be stored for a few days, regular and frequent donors are in great demand and that is why platelet donors are asked to attend at least 8 – 10 times per year.\n",
"Not all platelet transfusions use platelets collected by automated apheresis. The platelets can also be separated from donations of whole blood collected in a traditional blood donation, but there are several advantages to separating the platelets at the time of collection. The first advantage is that the whole-blood platelets, sometimes called \"random\" platelets, from a single donation are not numerous enough for a dose to give to an adult patient. They must be pooled from several donors to create a single transfusion, and this complicates processing and increases the risk of diseases that can be spread in transfused blood, such as human immunodeficiency virus.\n",
"Due to their higher relative density, white blood cells are collected as an unwanted component with the platelets. Since it takes up to 3 liters of whole blood (the amount of a dozen blood bags) to generate a dose of platelets, white blood cells from one or several donors will also be collected along with the platelets. A 70 kg (154 lb) man has only about 6 liters of blood. If all of the incidentally collected white blood cells are transfused with the platelets, substantial rejection problems can occur. Therefore, it is standard practice to filter out white blood cells before transfusion by the process of leukoreduction.\n",
"Donations can also be taken by machines called cell separators, usually in larger blood donation centres located in city centres. These machines use a process called apheresis to collect either blood plasma only, or plasma and platelets, the other blood cells being returned to the patient. Platelets are the tiny fragments of cells in the blood which help it to clot and so stop bleeding, and are used in the treatment of cancer and leukaemia. A constant supply is vital because platelets only last five days once collected. People who give plasma and/or platelets can donate every two weeks, and each donation usually gives two or three adult doses. One adult dose of platelets would otherwise require four whole blood donations.\n"
] |
why don't people get tolerance from orgasms like they do from drugs? | Well you can. Masturbate everyday, and compare it to not masturbating for a month. You do build up a tolerance if you will. It's less intense. | [
"Some forms of sexual dysfunction such as erectile dysfunction can be treated with drugs. Because of their effects, erectile dysfunction drugs are sometimes used for recreational purposes. Many drugs, both legal and illegal, some sold online, have side effects that affect the user's sexual function. Many drugs can cause loss of libido as a side effect.\n",
"Some teachers and practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, Taoist meditative and martial arts say that masturbation can cause a lowered energy level in men. They say that ejaculation in this way reduces \"origin qi\" from dantian, the energy center located in the lower abdomen. Some maintain that sex with a partner does not do this because the partners replenish each other's qi. Some practitioners therefore say that males should not practice martial arts for at least 48 hours after masturbation while others prescribe up to six months, because the loss of Origin Qi does not allow new qi to be created for this kind of time.\n",
"Cross-cultural studies have found that cultures high in Openness to experience have higher rates of use of the drug ecstasy, although a study at the individual level in the Netherlands found no differences in openness levels between users and non-users. Ecstasy users actually tended to be higher in extraversion and lower in conscientiousness than non-users.\n",
"Sexual dysfunction or difficulty during any stage of the sexual act includes but is not limited to severe vaginismus or erectile dysfunction, and lack of sensations, desire or ability to achieve orgasm resulting as side effects from medication or illegal drugs. Some antidepressant drugs such as SSRIs can cause difficulty with achieving an erection or an orgasm. Sexless marriages can be caused by post-pregnancy issues and hormonal imbalances, which can be temporary or permanent in nature, or by illness of one or both partners that affect physical or psychological sexuality (e.g., clinical depression of one or both partners).\n",
"This learning process has two parts. First, opiate users must connect their drug withdrawal to their use of the drug, which is something that individuals exposed to opiates in hospital settings are more likely to do. When withdrawal is interpreted as a form of addiction, the perceived (and felt) need for more drugs grows. More recent research has shown that, because hospital patients often associate opiate analgesia with an illness and/or hospital care, and because the drugs cause sedation and other mind-altering effects, patients rarely experience any withdrawal.\n",
"As with other opioid medications, tolerance and dependence usually develop with repeated doses. There is some clinical evidence that tolerance to analgesia is less with methadone compared to other opioids; this may be due to its activity at the NMDA receptor. Tolerance to the different physiological effects of methadone varies; tolerance to analgesic properties may or may not develop quickly, but tolerance to euphoria usually develops rapidly, whereas tolerance to constipation, sedation, and respiratory depression develops slowly (if ever).\n",
"Tolerance, another condition that can arise from prolonged exposure to opioids, can often be mistaken for opioid-induced hyperalgesia and vice versa, as the clinical presentation can appear similar. Although tolerance and opioid-induced hyperalgesia both result in a similar need for dose escalation to receive the same level of effect to treat pain, they are nevertheless caused by two distinct mechanisms. The similar net effect makes the two phenomena difficult to distinguish in a clinical setting. Under chronic opioid treatment, a particular individual's requirement for dose escalation may be due to tolerance, opioid-induced hyperalgesia, or a combination of both. In tolerance, there is a lower sensitivity to opioids, which occurs via two major theories: decreased receptor activation (desensitization of antinociceptive mechanisms) and opioid receptor down-regulation (internalization of membrane receptors). In opioid-induced hyperalgesia, sensitization of pronociceptive mechanisms occurs, resulting in a decrease in the pain threshold, or allodynia. In addition, what appears to be opioid tolerance can be caused by opioid-induced hyperalgesia lowering the baseline pain level, thus masking the drug's analgesic effects. Identifying the development of hyperalgesia is of great clinical importance since patients receiving opioids to relieve pain may paradoxically experience more pain as a result of treatment. Whereas increasing the dose of opioid can be an effective way to overcome tolerance, doing so to compensate for opioid-induced hyperalgesia may worsen the patient's condition by increasing sensitivity to pain while escalating physical dependence.\n"
] |
Is the shield wall fighting depicted on the show "Vikings" historically accurate? | Awesome thank you. I checked the FAQ and totally missed it. | [
"The term dates from at least 1000 AD and derives from Old English roots expressing the idea of a \"shield-troop\". Some researchers have also posited this etymological relation may show the schiltron is directly descended from the Anglo-Saxon shield wall, and still others give evidence \"schiltron\" is a name derived from a Viking circular formation (generally no less than a thousand fighters) in extremely close formation, intended to present an enemy's cavalry charge with an \"infinite\" obstacle (that is, a perimeter horses refuse to breach). Matters are confused by use of this term in Middle English to clearly refer to a body of soldiers without reference to formation, including cavalry and archers. The first mention of the schiltron as a specific formation of spearmen appears to be at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. There is, however, no reason to believe this is the first time such a formation was used and it may have had a long previous history in Scotland, as the Picts used to employ spears in block formation as the backbone of their armies.\n",
"In the battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes in England, most of the Saxon army would have consisted of the inexperienced \"Fyrd\" — a militia composed of free peasants. The shield-wall tactic suited such soldiers, as it did not require extraordinary skill, being essentially a shoving and fencing match with weapons.\n",
"Monty Dobson, a historian at Central Michigan University, criticised the depiction of Viking clothing but went on to say that fictional shows like \"Vikings\" could still be a useful teaching tool. The Norwegian newspaper \"Aftenposten\" reported that the series incorrectly depicted the temple at Uppsala as a stave church in the mountains, whereas the historical temple was situated on flat land and stave churches were characteristic of later Christian architecture. The temple in the series has similarities with reconstructions of the Uppåkra hof.\n",
"Viking: Battle for Asgard is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It was announced on August 21, 2007 by Sega Europe and released in North America on March 25 and Europe on March 28, 2008. The game is based on Norse mythology, where the war between the gods has sparked further conflict in the mortal realm of Midgard, where Freya's champion Skarin must lead Viking forces against that of the Goddess Hel.\n",
"The wall supported a wooden pale and behind it are traces of a military road, which makes it similar to the Danevirke protecting the contemporary town of Hedeby. No Viking Age towns are however known in the vicinity of Götavirke.\n",
"Æthelred returned with his ally the Norwegian king Olaf and reclaimed London. A Norse saga tells of a battle during the Viking occupation where the English king Æthelred returned to attack Viking-occupied London. According to the saga, the Danes lined London Bridge and showered the attackers with spears.\n",
"It has been proposed that the medieval era \"kite shield\" favoured by the Normans was introduced to Europe by the Vikings. However, no documentation or remains of kite shields from the Viking period have been located by archaeologists.\n"
] |
what is the difference between inches, millimeters and caliber when talking about guns? | Caliber is a measure of the internal diameter of a gun barrel. Inches are an SAE unit, and millimeters are a metric unit. Either can be used to describe the caliber, based on the manufacturer's preference. | [
"Modern firearms can be described by their caliber (i.e. their bore diameter; this is given in millimeters or inches e.g. 7.5 mm, .357 in.) or in the case of shotguns by their gauge (e.g. 12 ga.); by the type of action employed (muzzleloader, breechloader, lever, bolt, pump, revolver, semi-automatic, fully automatic, etc.) together with the usual means of deportment (hand-held or mechanical mounting). Further classification may make reference to the type of barrel used (rifled) and to the barrel length (24 inch), to the firing mechanism (e.g. matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, percussion lock), to the design's primary intended use (e.g. hunting rifle), or to the commonly accepted name for a particular variation (e.g. Gatling gun).\n",
"The length of the barrel (especially for larger guns) is often quoted in calibers. For example, US Naval Rifles or larger. The effective length of the barrel (from breech to muzzle) is divided by the barrel diameter to give a dimensionless quantity. As an example, the main guns of the s can be referred to as 16\"/50 caliber. They are 16 inches in diameter and the barrel is 800 inches long (16 × 50 = 800). This is also sometimes indicated using the prefix /L; so for example, the most common gun for the Panzer V tank is described as a \"75 mm /L70,\" meaning a barrel with an internal bore of 75 mm, and 5,250 mm long (17 ft 2.69 in).\n",
"In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre in British English) is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether or not the finished bore matches that specification. It is measured in inches to an accuracy of hundredths or thousandths of an inch or in millimeters. For example, a \".45 caliber\" firearm has a barrel diameter of roughly . Barrel diameters can also be expressed using metric dimensions. For example, a \"9 mm pistol\" has a barrel diameter of about 9 millimeters. Due to the inaccuracy and imprecision of imperial dimensions \"converted\" to metric units, metric designations are typically far out of specifications published in decimal inches. True \"caliber\" specifications require imperial measure, and even when cartridge designations (often mistakenly referred to as \"caliber\") only specify caliber to even tenths or hundredths of an inch, actual barrel/chamber/projectile dimensions are published to at least thousandths of an inch and frequently tolerances extend into ten-thousandths of an inch.\n",
"BULLET::::- 5″ is the caliber of this gun. The term \"caliber\" used here is the artillery caliber definition, and its value is equal to the bore diameter as measured from land to land. (Lands are the raised portions of the bore rifling, between the grooves.) (Note: artillery caliber and small arms caliber are not the same.)\n",
"Regardless of common practice among \"shooters\", caliber refers to specific, precise and crucial bore/bullet dimensions and generic categorizations involving \"caliber\" are of little benefit to the shooting and arms industries.\n",
"While modern firearms are generally referred to by the name of the cartridge the gun is chambered for, they are still categorized together based on bore diameter. For example, a firearm might be described as a \"30 caliber rifle\", which could be any of a wide range of cartridges using a roughly projectile; or a \"22 rimfire\", referring to any rimfire firearms firing cartridges with a .22 caliber projectile. However, there can be significant differences in nominal bullet and bore dimensions and all cartridges so \"categorized\" are not automatically identical in actual caliber.\n",
"The following table lists some of the commonly used calibers where both metric and US customary are used as equivalents. Due to variations in naming conventions, and the whims of the cartridge manufacturers, bullet diameters can vary widely from the diameter implied by the name. For example, a difference of 0.045 in (1.15 mm) occurs between the smallest and largest of the several cartridges designated as \".38 caliber\". \n"
] |
why is hydrogen so common on earth and helium quite rare? | Hydrogen is highly reactive, it bonds to oxygen, forming water. Water is quite dense, even as a vapor, and is therefore quite durable in the atmosphere.
Helium is a noble gas and nearly perfectly inert. Being unbound to any heavier elements, it quickly rises to the top of the atmosphere and is lost to space by various mechanisms.
Hydrogen is lost over time, but only slowly. | [
"The atmospheric proportions of hydrogen and helium are close to the theoretical composition of the primordial solar nebula. Neon in the upper atmosphere only consists of 20 parts per million by mass, which is about a tenth as abundant as in the Sun. Helium is also depleted to about 80% of the Sun's helium composition. This depletion is a result of precipitation of these elements into the interior of the planet. \n",
"There are nine known isotopes of helium, but only helium-3 and helium-4 are stable. In the Earth's atmosphere, one atom is for every million that are . Unlike most elements, helium's isotopic abundance varies greatly by origin, due to the different formation processes. The most common isotope, helium-4, is produced on Earth by alpha decay of heavier radioactive elements; the alpha particles that emerge are fully ionized helium-4 nuclei. Helium-4 is an unusually stable nucleus because its nucleons are arranged into complete shells. It was also formed in enormous quantities during Big Bang nucleosynthesis.\n",
"Helium-3 occurs as a primordial nuclide, escaping from the Earth's crust into the atmosphere and into outer space over millions of years. Helium-3 is also thought to be a natural nucleogenic and cosmogenic nuclide, one produced when lithium is bombarded by natural neutrons, which can be released by spontaneous fission and by nuclear reactions with cosmic rays. Some of the helium-3 found in the terrestrial atmosphere is also a relic of atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing.\n",
"Under ordinary conditions on Earth, elemental hydrogen exists as the diatomic gas, H. However, hydrogen gas is very rare in the Earth's atmosphere (1 ppm by volume) because of its light weight, which enables it to escape from Earth's gravity more easily than heavier gases. However, hydrogen is the third most abundant element on the Earth's surface, mostly in the form of chemical compounds such as hydrocarbons and water. Hydrogen gas is produced by some bacteria and algae and is a natural component of flatus, as is methane, itself a hydrogen source of increasing importance.\n",
"Alpha decay of heavy elements in the Earth's crust is the source of most naturally occurring helium-4 on Earth, produced after the planet cooled and solidified. While it is also produced by nuclear fusion in stars, most helium-4 in the Sun and in the universe is thought to have been produced by the Big Bang, and is referred to as \"primordial helium\". However, primordial helium-4 is largely absent from the Earth, having escaped during the high-temperature phase of Earth's formation.\n",
"Helium planets are expected to be distinguishable from regular hydrogen-dominated planets by strong evidence of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Due to hydrogen-depletion, the expected methane in the atmosphere cannot form because there is no hydrogen for the carbon to combine with, and hence carbon combines with oxygen instead, forming CO and CO. Due to the atmospheric composition, helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance. Such a signature can be found in Gliese 436 b, which has a predominance of carbon monoxide.\n",
"BULLET::::- Helium (He) exists only as a gas except in extreme conditions. It is the second-lightest element and is the second-most abundant in the universe. Most helium was formed during the Big Bang, but new helium is created through nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars. On Earth, helium is relatively rare, only occurring as a byproduct of the natural decay of some radioactive elements. Such 'radiogenic' helium is trapped within natural gas in concentrations of up to seven percent by volume.\n"
] |
Why do the Russian scientists have to wait till December to study the water they took from Lake Vostok? (Lake under Antartica) | Vostok Station is one of the most [inhospitable places for humans to work](_URL_0_). December is the Antarctic summer, so the weather will be better, temperatures warmer, and up to 24 hours of daylight. | [
"By plan, the following summer, the team was to drill down again to take a sample of that ice and analyze it. The Russians resumed drilling into the lake in January 2012 and reached the upper surface of the water on 6 February 2012. The researchers allowed the rushing lake water to freeze within the bore hole and months later, they collected ice core samples of this newly formed ice and sent to the Laboratory for Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics in Grenoble, France, for analysis.\n",
"Critics from the scientific community state that no valuable information can be obtained until they can test clean samples of lake water, uncontaminated by drilling fluid. Regardless of the contamination issues, in May 2013 the drilling facility at the Russian Vostok Antarctic station was declared a historic monument as \"the result of the recognition of the achievements of the Russian research of Antarctica by the international scientific community, and of the unique operations on opening the subglacial Lake Vostok performed by Russian scientists on February 5, 2012.\"\n",
"In July 2008 both \"Mir\" submersibles began a two-year expedition to Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater reservoir. The expedition is being led by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The group's mission chief said that a total of 60 dives were planned. In July 29, the \"Mir-1\" and \"Mir-2\" submersibles reached the bottom of Lake Baikal, making the 1.05-mile descent. On August 1, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accompanied the dive in the southern portion of the lake.\n",
"One of the key achievements of the university's scientists has been the invention of techniques to drill through several miles of Antarctic ice to reach the sub-glacial Lake Vostok. Professor Nikolai Vasiliev, head of the drilling department at the university, has led the drilling efforts, while scientific research into the layers of ice that cover the lake, the possibility of new forms of microbial life existing in the lake, and a host of other areas of research connected to the lake are based at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the , the All-Russian Research Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean (), the in Moscow, the in Irkutsk and the in Grenoble, France. Lake Vostok is one of the world's most closely watched scientific projects, and the expertise of the Russian drillers, directed by Professor Vasiliev, is recognised.\n",
"With the \"Overflow\" program, scientists tried to reconnoiter the overflow of the cold Arctic ground water over the submarine ridge between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Nine research ships of five European countries took a stake in. This program was repeated at a larger scale: thirteen research ships of seven countries were on its way. Denmark appointed the \"Dana\" and the \"Jens Christian Svabo\", Iceland the \"Bjarni Sæmundson\", Canada the \"Hudson\", Norway the \"Helland Hansen\", USSR the \"Boris Davydov\" and the \"Professor Zubov\", Great Britain the Challenger, the \"Shackleton\" and the Explorer, West Germany the \"Meteor\", the \"Walther Herwig\" and the \"Meerkatze II\".\n",
"The disappearance of the lake was no surprise to the Soviets; they expected it to happen long before. As early as 1964, Aleksandr Asarin at the Hydroproject Institute pointed out that the lake was doomed, explaining, \"It was part of the five-year plans, approved by the council of ministers and the Politburo. Nobody on a lower level would dare to say a word contradicting those plans, even if it was the fate of the Aral Sea.\"\n",
"Russian and French scientists have been carrying out molecular DNA studies of the water from Lake Vostok that was frozen in the borehole, by constructing numerous DNA libraries, which are collections of fragments of DNA that allow scientists to identify which species of bacteria may belong to. Samples taken from the lake so far contain about one part of kerosene per 1000 of water, and they are contaminated with bacteria previously present in the drill bit and the kerosene drilling fluid. So far, the scientists have been able to identify 255 contaminant species, but also have found an unknown bacterium when they initially drilled down to the lake's surface in 2012, with no matches in any international databases, and they hope it may be a unique inhabitant of Lake Vostok. However, Vladimar Korolev, the laboratory head of the study at the same institution, said that the bacteria could in principle be a contaminant that uses kerosene—the antifreeze used during drilling—as an energy source.\n"
] |
I hear a lot about rape from the Red Army in Berlin during WWII. Did the German army (and SS) rape women too? If so, why isn't it talked about as much? | This topic is very well covered in two Russian books: [this one](_URL_3_), called "For What the Soviet People Were Fighting" and [this one](_URL_2_), called "Unknown Faces of War". The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in WWII with the overall mindset of creating Lebensraum and the getting rid of most of the local population (keeping some for slave labour), since Russians, Belorussians, Ukranians and Jews alike were all considered Untermenschen. When the Soviet Army was pushing the Nazis back and liberating captured towns and villages it was very often the case that they were discovered entirely empty. Houses were burnt, wells were filled with bodies and trenches filled with bodies were all over the place.
Rape of the local populace by the advancing Nazis was as commonplace as the fighting itself and in addition to the "unorganised" rape carried out normally, organised brothels were set up to service the officers and soldiers. [Here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_) are fragments from the respective two books which summarise the extent of what was going on. The sources for the books are Nuremberg trial materials and eyewitness accounts from both sides.
EDIT: The following is a particularly telling excerpt: "We went to the village near the town of Gatchina Rozhdestvenno - told who served on the Seversky airport Private Peter Shuber. - We had a mission: to bring the girls the officers. We have successfully carried out the operation, all cordoned off the house. We collected a truckload of girls. All night the girls kept the officers, but in the morning they gave us - the soldiers. In large cities, organized stationary brothels. It was standard practice Wehrmacht. "There were soldiers' brothels," puffs "were called - remember shturmbannfyurera SS Avenir Bennigsen. - Almost all fronts. Girls from all over Europe, of all nationalities, from all camps collected. By the way, an indispensable accessory of a German soldier and an officer were two condoms, which are regularly issued in the army. " But while in Europe the Wehrmacht brothels staffed with more or less voluntarily, on Soviet soil invaders such delicacy is not going to show. Girls and women for the German soldiers for the most part collected by force - a scene that will forever remember the people trapped under the occupation. In Smolensk, for example, women dragged by the arms and hair, dragged on the pavement - in the officer's brothel, organized in one of the hotels. In case of refusal to stay in a brothel followed the shooting. After the Red Army drove the Germans out of Kerch, views of Red terrible sight presented itself: "In the prison yard was found mutilated shapeless pile of naked girls' bodies, wild and tortured by the Nazis cynically."
The way the advancing Nazi army treated the captured territories was known to the people fighting in the Soviet Army, and after the turning point occurred and the captured territories were liberated, the extent of the brutailty only served to increase the anger felt by the Soviets, resulting in the mass rape that occurred in East Germany when the war came there. The Soviet materials regarding the matter are still classified, but the German director, Helke Sander, states that a million women were raped by the Soviets in [this film](_URL_4_). However, reading the accounts of what the Germans did, it's really no wonder that the Soviets responded in kind, and helps explain why Victory Day (VE Day) is marked on a much larger scale in Russia today than in the Western Allied countries. | [
"As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation. Most Western scholars agree that the majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet servicemen, while some Russian historians maintain that these crimes were not widespread. The wartime rapes had been surrounded by decades of silence. According to Antony Beevor, whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that the leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. Some Russian historians disagree, claiming that the Soviet leadership took some action.\n",
"During the war, German women were victims of brutal mass rapes committed against them by Soviet soldiers. Polish sources claim that mass rapes were committed in Polish cities that had been taken by the Red Army. It is reported that in Kraków, the Soviet occupation was accompanied by the mass rape of Polish women and girls, as well as the plunder of all private property by Soviet soldiers. Reportedly the scale of the attacks prompted communists installed by the Soviets to prepare a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin, while masses in churches were held in expectation of a Soviet withdrawal.\n",
"Rapes happened under occupied territories by the Red Army. A female Soviet war correspondent described what she had witnessed: \"The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty. It was an army of rapists.\" According to German historian Miriam Gebhardt, as many as 190,000 women were raped by U.S. soldiers in Germany.\n",
"Although far from the scale of those committed by the Wehrmacht or Red Army, rapes of local women and girls were committed by British troops during the last months of WWII in Germany. Even elderly women were targeted. Though a high-profile issue for the Royal Military Police, some officers treated the behaviour of their men with leniency. Many rapes were committed by men who were either under the influence of alcohol or suffering from post-traumatic stress, but there were cases of premeditated attack, like the assault on three German women in the town of Neustadt am Rübemberge, on 16 April 1945, or the attempted gang rape of two local girls at gunpoint in the village of Oyle, near Nienburg, which ended in the death of one of the women when, whether intentionally or not, one of the soldiers discharged his gun, hitting her in the neck.\n",
"Rapes were also committed by German forces stationed on the Eastern Front, where they were largely unpunished (as opposed to rapes committed in Western Europe)Wehrmacht also established a system of military brothels, in which young women and girls from occupied territories were forced into prostitution under harsh conditions.In the Soviet Union women were kidnapped by German forces for prostitution as well; one report by the International Military Tribunal writes \"\"in the city of Smolensk the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair\".\"\n",
"Rape was a widespread phenomenon in the East as German soldiers regularly committed violent sexual acts against Soviet women. Whole units were occasionally involved in the crime with upwards of one-third of the instances being gang rape. Historian Hannes Heer relates that in the world of the eastern front, where the German army equated Russia with Communism, everything was \"fair game\"; thus, rape went unreported unless entire units were involved. Frequently in the case of Jewish women, they were immediately murdered following acts of sexual violence. Historian Birgit Beck emphasizes that military decrees, which served to authorize wholesale brutality on many levels, essentially destroyed the basis for any prosecution of sexual offenses committed by German soldiers in the East. She also contends that detection of such instances was limited by the fact that sexual violence was often inflicted in the context of billets in civilian housing.\n",
"Rapes were committed by Wehrmacht forces on Jewish women and girls during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939; they were also committed against Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian women and girls during mass executions which were primarily carried out by the Selbstschutz units, with the assistance of Wehrmacht soldiers who were stationed in territory that was under the administration of the German military; the rapes were committed against female captives before they were shot. Only one case of rape was prosecuted by a German court during the military campaign in Poland, and even then the German judge found the perpetrator guilty of \"Rassenschande\" (committing a shameful act against his race as defined by the racial policy of Nazi Germany), rather than rape. Jewish women were particularly vulnerable to rape during The Holocaust.\n"
] |
Do different types of wood have different specific heats? | Wood in general is a very complicated material. The specific heat of any particular piece of wood is going to be dominated by the amount of water in that wood. So it can vary significantly not only from species to species but also within species according to what treatment, if any, the wood has undergone. | [
"The energy content of a measure of wood depends on the tree species. For example, it can range from per cord. The higher the moisture content, the more energy that must be used to evaporate (boil) the water in the wood before it will burn. Dry wood delivers more energy for heating than green wood of the same species.\n",
"The moisture content of firewood determines how it burns and how much heat is released. Unseasoned (green) wood moisture content varies by the species; green wood may weigh 70 to 100 percent more than seasoned wood due to water content. Typically, seasoned (dry) wood has 20% or less moisture content. Use of the lower heating value is advised as a reasonable standard way of reporting this data.\n",
"Thermally modified wood, is wood that has been modified by a controlled pyrolysis process of wood being heated ( 180 °C) in absence of oxygen inducing some chemical changes to the chemical structures of cell wall components (lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose) in the wood in order to increase its durability. Low oxygen content prevents the wood from burning at these high temperatures. Several different technologies are introduced using different media including nitrogen gas, steam and hot oil.\n",
"The primary advantage of hardwoods are that they tend to contain more potential energy than the same volume of a softwood, thus increasing the amount of potential heat that can be stacked into one stoveload. Hardwood tends to form and maintain a bed of hot coals, which release lower amounts of heat for a long time. Hardwoods are ideal for long, low burns, especially in stoves with a poor ability to sustain a low burn, or in mild weather when high heat output is not required.\n",
"Since different species of trees have different ratios of components, various types of wood do impart a different flavor to food. Another important factor is the temperature at which the wood burns. High-temperature fires see the flavor molecules broken down further into unpleasant or flavorless compounds. The optimal conditions for smoke flavor are low, smoldering temperatures between . This is the temperature of the burning wood itself, not of the smoking environment, which uses much lower temperatures. Woods that are high in lignin content tend to burn hot; to keep them smoldering requires restricted oxygen supplies or a high moisture content. When smoking using wood chips or chunks, the combustion temperature is often raised by soaking the pieces in water before placing them on a fire.\n",
"However, wood is an anisotropic material with respect to heat flow. That means its thermal resistance depends on the direction of heat flow relative to the wood grain. While wood has a commonly quoted R-value of about 1.25 per inch (depending on the species and moisture content), that only applies if the heat flow is perpendicular to the grain, such as occurs in common wood frame construction. With cordwood/stackwall construction, the direction of heat flow is parallel to the grain. For this configuration, the R-value is only about 40% of that perpendicular to the grain. Thus, the actual R-value of wood, when used in cordwood/stackwall construction is closer to about 0.50 per inch.\n",
"The EMC of wood varies with the ambient relative humidity (a function of temperature) significantly, to a lesser degree with the temperature. Siau (1984) reported that the EMC also varies very slightly with species, mechanical stress, drying history of wood, density, extractives content and the direction of sorption in which the moisture change takes place (i.e. adsorption or desorption).\n"
] |
why is the greek language used in science so much? | Most of what we consider 'Science' was developed in the European university system post-Renaissance. Since such universities were almost always affiliated with the Church, they created a common course of study that included Latin and Greek.
As a result, while scientists in different nations spoke different native languages, they *all* had familiarity with Latin (and, to a lesser extent, Greek). The Greek *letters* in particularly came to be used for many mathematical formulas because they were distinct from the standard alphabet, but still recognizable. | [
"The discussion on the Greek language question began at the end of the 18th century. Because western Europeans were familiar with, and valued, the ancient Greek language, Eugenios Voulgaris, along with Lambros Photiadis, Stephanos Commitas (1770–1832) and Neophytos Doukas, proposed that the modern Greek language should be archaised and assimilated to Ancient Greek, while his students Iosipos Moisiodax (1725–1800) and Dimitrios Katartzis (c. 1725–1807) preferred the use of the contemporary vernacular language as it had evolved (Dimotiki). This discussion would become crucial when it was to be decided which form should be the official language of the modern Greek state.\n",
"The Greek language holds an important place in the history of the Western world and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes works in the Western canon such as the epic poems \"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey\". Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science, especially astronomy, mathematics and logic and Western philosophy, such as the Platonic dialogues and the works of Aristotle, are composed; the New Testament of the Christian Bible was written in Koiné Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, the study of the Greek texts and society of antiquity constitutes the discipline of Classics.\n",
"Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in other scientific terminology.\n",
"At that period, the Greek language functioned as a \"lingua franca\", a language spoken throughout the known world (for the Greeks and Romans) of that time and, as a result, modern linguistics struggles to overcome this. With the Greeks a tradition commenced in the study of language. The Romans and the medieval world followed, and their laborious work is considered today as a part of our everyday language. Think, for example, of notions such as the word, the syllable, the verb, the subject etc.\n",
"The result has been that with SMG, \"the Greeks of today have the best of both worlds, since their contemporary language offers them potentially the most expressive and productive features of both demotic and \"katharevousa\"\"; and that now \"People can use this language without political implications or personal risk, and the old embarrassment stemming from uncertainty about 'correct' written usage is largely a thing of the past.\"\n",
"Ancient Greek is also used by organizations and individuals, mainly Greek, who wish to denote their respect, admiration or preference for the use of this language. This use is sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic or humorous. In any case, the fact that modern Greeks can still wholly or partly understand texts written in non-archaic forms of ancient Greek shows the affinity of the modern Greek language to its ancestral predecessor.\n",
"Greek becomes the refuge of the vernacular in order to fill those linguistic gaps left by Latin, when the latter could not supply an etymology - this leading Monosini to credit Homer’s language with a series of words that have nothing to do with Greek roots. However, those Hellenic suggestions that Monosini made in his lexicon, one may take them for correct within an Indo-European perspective.\n"
] |
Just finished watching "12 Years a Slave": Was life for slaves in the southern U.S. during the 1800's really as bad as these movies depict? What was the average life like for an average slave on an average plantation? | > but people don't beat their horses to within one inch of their life.
Of course they do.
In the 1930s the WPA interviewed more than 2000 slaves, who describe their treatment in detail. These are available [online](_URL_1_). [Here](_URL_0_) is a selection with brief descriptions of their contents. The first link takes you to a master link of narratives. They're quite brutal. It is not pleasant reading in any sense. Of course, Solomon Northrup's own account can also be found online, [here](_URL_1_) for example. | [
"On November 4, 2013, Cohen published a column about the film \"12 Years a Slave\", in which he wrote: \"Instead, beginning with school, I got a gauzy version. I learned that slavery was wrong, yes, that it was evil, no doubt, but really, that many blacks were sort of content. Slave owners were mostly nice people — fellow Americans, after all — and the sadistic Simon Legree was the concoction of that demented propagandist, Harriet Beecher Stowe.\" Shortly afterwards, on November 11, in the course of a column about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Cohen referred to the recent victory of Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York City and de Blasio's wife Chirlane McCray writing: \n",
"\"12 Years a Slave\" earned $187.7 million, including $56.7 million in the United States. During its opening limited release in the United States, \"12 Years a Slave\" debuted with a weekend total of $923,715 on 19 screens for a $48,617 per-screen average. The following weekend, the film entered the top ten after expanding to 123 theatres and grossing an additional $2.1 million. It continued to improve into its third weekend, grossing $4.6 million at 410 locations. The film release was expanded to over 1,100 locations on November 8, 2013. In 2014, \"12 Years a Slave\" was the 10th most-illegally downloaded movie, with 23.653 million such downloads, according to \"Variety\".\n",
"Life was hard on a 19th-century plantation and the cruel overseer on Crowdy's plantation punished the slaves brutally. Despite it being illegal for slaves to read, Crowdy was a religious and caring man from a young age and learned the Hebrew prophets, especially Elijah. According to oral history Crowdy was beaten by the slavemaster at age 7 for taking too much cornpone from the ration cook to feed his sister. He spent the night locked in a barn for punishment but prayed to Moses to be released from bondage of his captors. Ten years to the day later, in 1863, at age 17, Crowdy escaped from his master after an argument. \n",
"Of the five cabins on site, four were built in slavery times and one about 1900. They have been restored to differing periods: 1850 and other decades after the war, into the twentieth century, as they housed free as well as enslaved workers. The interpretive program reflects African-American history at the plantation, \"From Slavery to Freedom\". Archeological work is revealing more about the lives of both slaves and free black workers, who were skilled gardeners and craftsmen.\n",
"While working on plantations in the Southern United States, many slaves faced serious health problems. Improper nutrition, unsanitary living conditions, and excessive labor made them more susceptible to diseases than their owners; the death rates among the slaves were significantly higher due to diseases.\n",
"12 Years a Slave is a 2013 biographical period drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 slave memoir \"Twelve Years a Slave\" by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. by two conmen in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup was put to work on plantations in the state of Louisiana for 12 years before being released. The first scholarly edition of Northup's memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account and concluded it to be accurate. Other characters in the film were also real people, including Edwin and Mary Epps, and Patsey.\n",
"Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 355 reviews with an average score of 8.91/10, with the site's consensus stating, \"It's far from comfortable viewing, but \"12 Years a Slave\"s unflinchingly brutal look at American slavery is also brilliant – and quite possibly essential – cinema.\" Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 96 out of 100 based on 57 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be \"universal acclaim\". It is currently one of the site's highest-rated films, as well as the best-reviewed film of 2013. CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film an \"A\" grade.\n"
] |
why does sunset time sometimes decrease or increase by 2 minutes instead of 1? | Daylight time changes vary by latitude; in July the North pole experiences 24 hours of daylight while in December it experiences 0, so there must be a change of at least 24 hours daylight time in 180 days, which turns out to average about 8 minutes a day change. At the equator no change is perceived at all (0 minutes per day).
More than that, the *rate* of change varies through the year. At the winter and summer solstices the changes are relatively slow. At the autumn and spring equinoxes the rates of change are at their highest. This is because during winter and summer the earths pole is pointing directly away or toward the sun (depending on hemisphere and season), while at spring and autumn the earths axis is perpendicular to the sun.
As a result the daily change in daylight hours varies by how North or South you are, as well as the time of year. You can explore the range of impact here: _URL_0_ | [
"The time of sunset varies throughout the year, and is determined by the viewer's position on Earth, specified by longitude and latitude, and elevation. Small daily changes and noticeable semi-annual changes in the timing of sunsets are driven by the axial tilt of Earth, daily rotation of the Earth, the planet's movement in its annual elliptical orbit around the Sun, and the Earth and Moon's paired revolutions around each other. During winter and spring, the days get longer and sunsets occur later every day until the day of the latest sunset, which occurs after the summer solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, the latest sunset occurs late in June or in early July, but not on the summer solstice of June 21. This date depends on the viewer's latitude (connected with the Earth's slower movement around the aphelion around July 4). Likewise, the earliest sunset does not occur on the winter solstice, but rather about two weeks earlier, again depending on the viewer's latitude. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs in early December or late November (influenced by the Earth's faster movement near its perihelion, which occurs around January 3).\n",
"Due to a normal atmospheric refraction, sunrise occurs shortly before the Sun crosses above the horizon. Light from the Sun is bent, or refracted, as it enters earth's atmosphere. This effect causes the apparent sunrise to be earlier than the actual sunrise. Similarly, apparent sunset occurs slightly later than actual sunset.\n",
"The time of sunset is defined in astronomy as the moment when the upper limb of the Sun disappears below the horizon. Near the horizon, atmospheric refraction causes sunlight rays to be distorted to such an extent that geometrically the solar disk is already about one diameter below the horizon when a sunset is observed.\n",
"As sunrise and sunset are calculated from the leading and trailing edges of the Sun, respectively, and not the center, the duration of a daytime is slightly longer than nighttime (by about 10 minutes, as seen from temperate latitudes). Further, because the light from the Sun is refracted as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere, the Sun is still visible after it is geometrically below the horizon. Refraction also affects the apparent shape of the Sun when it is very close to the horizon. It makes things appear higher in the sky than they really are. Light from the bottom edge of the Sun's disk is refracted more than light from the top, since refraction increases as the angle of elevation decreases. This raises the apparent position of the bottom edge more than the top, reducing the apparent height of the solar disk. Its width is unaltered, so the disk appears wider than it is high. (In reality, the Sun is almost exactly spherical.) The Sun also appears larger on the horizon, an optical illusion, similar to the moon illusion.\n",
"After sunset the civil twilight sets in, and ends when the sun drops more than 6° below the horizon. This is followed by the nautical twilight, when the sun reaches heights of -6° and -12°, after which comes the astronomical twilight defined as the period from -12° to -18°. When the sun drops more than 18° below the horizon the sky generally attains its minimum brightness.\n",
"Locations on the Equator experience the shortest sunrises and sunsets because the Sun's daily path is nearly perpendicular to the horizon for most of the year. The length of daylight (sunrise to sunset) is almost constant throughout the year; it is about 14 minutes longer than nighttime due to atmospheric refraction and the fact that sunrise begins (or sunset ends) as the upper limb, not the center, of the Sun's disk contacts the horizon.\n",
"BULLET::::- Sunrise and sunset are commonly defined for the upper limb of the solar disk, rather than its center. The upper limb is already up for at least a minute before the center appears, and the upper limb likewise sets later than the center of the solar disk. Also, when the Sun is near the horizon, atmospheric refraction shifts its apparent position above its true position by a little more than its own diameter. This makes sunrise more than two minutes earlier and sunset an equal amount later. These two effects combine to make the equinox day 12 h 7 min long and the night only 11 h 53 min. Note, however, that these numbers are only true for the tropics. For moderate latitudes, the discrepancy increases (e.g., 12 minutes in London); and closer to the poles it becomes very much larger (in terms of time). Up to about 100 km from either pole, the Sun is up for a full 24 hours on an equinox day.\n"
] |
why do humans have fetishes and animals appear to do not? | Depends on what you call a fetish.
Male goats have been shown to like pee play and seeing female goats simulate sex. | [
"This may be greatly affected by masculine people being less inhibited by social norms for expressing their desire, being more aware of their sexual desire or succumbing to the expectation of their gender culture. When feminine people employ tactics to show their sexual desire, they are typically more indirect in nature. On the other hand, it is known masculinity is associated with aggressive behavior in all mammals, and most likely explains at least part of the fact that masculine people are more likely to express their sexual interest. This is known as the Challenge hypothesis.\n",
"Obsessive compulsive behavior in animals, often called \"stereotypy\" or \"stereotypical behavior\" can be defined as a specific, unnecessary action (or series of actions) repeated more often than would normally be expected. It is unknown whether animals are able to 'obsess' in the same way as humans, and because the motivation for compulsive acts in non-human animals is unknown, the term \"abnormal repetitive behaviour\" is less misleading.\n",
"It is often assumed that animals do not have sex for pleasure, or alternatively that humans, pigs, bonobos (and perhaps dolphins and one or two more species of primates) are the only species that do. This is sometimes stated as \"animals mate only for reproduction\". This view is considered a misconception by some scholars. Jonathan Balcombe argues that the prevalence of non-reproductive sexual behaviour in certain species suggests that sexual stimulation is pleasurable. He also points to the presence of the clitoris in some female mammals, and evidence for female orgasm in primates. On the other hand, it is impossible to know the subjective feelings of animals, and the notion that non-human animals experience emotions similar to humans is a contentious subject.\n",
"Stereotypical behaviors in animals are generally thought to be caused by artificial environments that do not allow animals to satisfy their normal behavioral needs. Rather than refer to these behaviors as abnormal, it has been suggested that they be described as \"behavior indicative of an abnormal environment.\"\n",
"Research has proven that non-human animals can and do have sex for non-reproductive purposes (and for pleasure). In 2006, a Danish Animal Ethics Council report concluded that ethically performed zoosexual activity is capable of providing a positive experience for all participants, and that some non-human animals are sexually attracted to humans (for example, dolphins).\n",
"Various explanations have been put forth for the rarity of female fetishists. Most fetishes are visual in nature, and males are thought to be more sexually sensitive to visual stimuli. Roy Baumeister suggests that male sexuality is unchangeable, except for a brief period in childhood during which fetishism could become established, while female sexuality is fluid throughout life.\n",
"The fetish is comparable to the Orisha of Yoruba. A fetish can be God, but also human, plant, animal or material. This depends on the ritual and the situation. In the ritual, the fetish is activated and strengthened. Fetishes may have been special people.\n"
] |
Can you transmit the flu through semen? What about sweat? | It is primarily an infection involving the upper respiratory tract. The virus is primarily shed through coughing/sneezing. The likelihood of semen or sweat containing the virus is low and unless those fluids are inhaled it wouldn't cause an infection. | [
"Semen can transmit many sexually transmitted diseases and pathogens, including viruses like HIV and Ebola. Swallowing semen carries no additional risk other than those inherent in fellatio. This includes transmission risk for sexually transmitted diseases such as human papillomavirus (HPV) or herpes, especially for people with bleeding gums, gingivitis or open sores. Viruses in semen survive for a long time once outside the body.\n",
"Twenty-seven different viruses have been identified in semen. Information on whether or not transmission occurs or whether the viruses cause disease is uncertain. Some of these microbes are known to be sexually transmitted. Those found in semen are listed by the CDC.\n",
"Any sexual activity that involves contact with the bodily fluids of another person contains the risk of transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Semen is in itself generally harmless on the skin or if swallowed. However, semen can be the vehicle for many sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV and hepatitis. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration categorizes semen as \"other potentially infectious material\" or OPIM.\n",
"Some people can develop a sweat allergy. The allergy is not due to the sweat itself but instead to an allergy-producing protein secreted by bacteria found on the skin. Tannic-acid has been found to suppress the allergic response along with showering.\n",
"The evolutionary significance of human underarm hair is still debated. It may naturally wick sweat or other moisture away from the skin, aiding ventilation. Colonization by odor-producing bacteria is thereby transferred away from the skin (see skin flora).\n",
"Bacterial and viral meningitis are contagious, but neither is as contagious as the common cold or flu. Both can be transmitted through droplets of respiratory secretions during close contact such as kissing, sneezing or coughing on someone, but cannot be spread by only breathing the air where a person with meningitis has been. Viral meningitis is typically caused by enteroviruses, and is most commonly spread through fecal contamination. The risk of infection can be decreased by changing the behavior that led to transmission.\n",
"Any sexual activity that involves contact with the bodily fluids of another person contains the risk of transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs/STDs). Semen is in itself generally harmless on the skin or if swallowed. However, semen can be the vehicle for many sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV and hepatitis. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration categorizes semen as \"other potentially infectious material\" or OPIM.\n"
] |
Why are pipe organs used to play songs or jingles at hockey games? | For the same reason that they're used (or used to be used) at baseball games: volume. Even a small hockey stadium is a huge place, filled with screaming fans, and the pipe organ has the oomph to be heard in that environment.
Nowadays, most use "electronic pipe organs." The one in Chicago's United Center, for example, uses recorded pipe organ sound, and cost something near $150,000.
It's not as fun as the one that was demolished with "The Madhouse on Madison," but it still sounds good. | [
"A pitch pipe is a small device used to provide a pitch reference for musicians without absolute pitch. Although it may be described as a musical instrument, it is not typically used to play music as such. Technically, it is a harmonica; however, it lacks many characteristics of harmonicas.\n",
"It is played by blowing into one pipe while using the fingers to cover or uncover holes in another pipe. It sounds similar to modern bagpipes, but not identical. The chanter, on which the melody is played, is actually a double pipe, with six holes on each side; one set of holes is used as the drone, while the other plays the tune in almost the same register.\n",
"Bagpipes are rarely played with other instruments due to their tuning. Most other instruments tune at standard concert pitch which is 440 Hz whilst a bagpipe tunes between around 475 HZ and 485 Hz depending on humidity levels. It is possible to change the pitch by using different chanters and reeds, which is why bagpipes are sometimes used with other instruments however, the pipes sound sweeter when played at the pitch they are supposed to be played at.\n",
"The musical instruments consist of a harmonium, a portable keyboard organ that sometimes serves only as a drone; a long, two-headed South Indian drum with tapering ends (mrudangam); strings of bells worn on the ankles and wrists; and pairs of finger cymbals. A wooden shoe with stilts is used to keep its wearer above the mud during the rainy season, and can be struck against schoolchildren's seating planks to create dramatic clacking and banging sound effects for fight scenes.\n",
"Strictly speaking, sequencers playing pre-programmed electronic drum tracks and electronic or digital drum machines are not electronic drums, because a drummer or other musician is not triggering the sounds.\n",
"\"Playing the Pipes\" is another memory game. Several pipes light up and make different noises in a pattern that builds every turn. Mickey must listen, remember, and repeat what he heard. He can do this by jumping on the top of the pipes and playing the notes back in the proper order. The pipes only play one melody, adding one note after every time Mickey successfully completes the previous one. Difficulty of game play determines the length of the melody. Players must play all the right pipes to receive the item from Huey, Dewey, and Louie. In \"Guess the Tools\", Goofy wants Mickey to guess what tools are in his toolbox. Mickey has seven attempts to successfully guess the tools and their order inside Goofy's toolbox. After each guess, a clue appears telling players how many and which tools you guessed in the correct order. In easier games, the tools turn red or green to denote correctness. In more difficult games, a small quartered square of red and green pieces tells Mickey which ones are right. Players must correctly guess what is in Goofy's toolbox to earn an item from Goofy.\n",
"The earliest known records of multiple musical instruments being played at the same time date from the 13th century, and were the pipe and tabor. The pipe was a simple three-holed flute that could be played with one hand; the tabor is more commonly known today as a snare drum. This type of playing can still be heard in parts of rural France, in England and Spain. An Elizabethan-era woodcut shows a clown playing the pipe and tabor. An 1820s watercolour painting shows a one-man band with a rhythm-making stick, panpipes around his neck and a bass drum and tambourine beside him. Henry Mayhew's history of London street life in the 1840s and 1850s described a blind street performer who played bells, the violin and accordions.\n"
] |
What was the Roman Empire's opinion of the crusades, and how did they feel about the outcomes? | I'm not well versed on their reaction to all of the Crusades, but their opinion of the First Crusade was initially very positive. Emperor Alexius had extracted oaths of loyalty from the prominent Crusader leaders, and promises to restore reconquered territory in Anatolia to the Romans, and this is what happened initially. Alexius gave the Crusader armies extensive supplies for their journey, as well as knowledgeable guides. He sent his navy along the coasts to help them whenever possible, and eventually sent armies in their wake to protect the conquests of the Crusaders (which, naturally, he wanted to see restored to his empire). Cooperation between the Romans and the Crusaders was effective and relation were relatively positive - both parties had the same objectives; to defeat the Seljuks and restore land to the Christians. However, things took a sharp turn when the Crusaders refused to hand over Antioch to the Romans following its capture in 1098. Alexius was understandably angry, since it was in direct violation of their previous agreements.
Things took a further negative turn when the Crusaders revealed their intention of invading the Fatamid Caliphate and retaking the Holy Land. Alexius was on good terms with the Fatamids, since both of them viewed the Seljuks as a more serious threat than each other, and they agreed that it was in both of their best interests to focus their attention on defending against the Seljuks rather than fighting each other. Alexius warned the Crusaders not to start a war with the Fatamids, but they ignored him and marched down the Levant coast. The Emperor was furious and promptly cut off all aid he was giving them, including supplies and naval assistance. For the rest of the First Crusade (which at that point continued for only a few more months) there was no cooperation between the Romans and Crusaders. Alexius saw the invasion of the Holy Land as pointless from a strategic perspective and in nobody's best interests, and quickly distanced himself from the Crusaders and tried to maintain positive relations with the Fatamids, telling them he had nothing to do with it.
The only Crusader state that the Romans had somewhat positive (or at least not overtly negative) relations with was the Principality of Antioch, since its prince, Bohemund, swore fealty to Alexius as his overlord. This took some of the sting off the Crusaders' refusal to hand over the city, although Roman control of the principality was minimal and tensions were always high, since the princes simultaneously were influenced by the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well.
Source: *God's War: A New History of the Crusades* by Christopher Tyreman | [
"Crusades against Christians in the East by Roman Catholic crusaders were not exclusive to the fourth crusade nor the Mediterranean. The sacking of Constantinople and the Church of Holy Wisdom, the destruction of the Monastery of Stoudios, Library of Constantinople and the establishment of the Latin Empire in Constantinople and also throughout West Asia Minor and Greece (see the Kingdom of Thessalonica, Kingdom of Cyprus) are considered definitive though. This is in light of perceived Roman Catholic atrocities not exclusive to the capital city of Constantinople in 1204 starting the period in the East referred to as Frangokratia. The establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204 was intended to supplant the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. This is symbolized by many Orthodox churches being converted into Roman Catholic properties and churches like Hagia Sophia and Church of the Pantokrator, and it is viewed with some rancour to the present day. Some of the European Christian community actively endorsed the attacking of Eastern Christians.\n",
"Crusades against Christians in the East by Roman Catholic crusaders was not exclusive to the Mediterranean though (see also the Northern Crusades and the Battle of the Ice). The sacking of Constantinople and the Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire as a seeming attempt to supplant the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancour to the present day. Many in the East saw the actions of the West as a prime determining factor in the weakening of Byzantium. This led to the empire's eventual conquest and fall to Islam. In 2004, Pope John Paul II extended a formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204; the apology was formally accepted by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Many things that were stolen during this time: holy relics, riches, and many other items, are still held in various Western European cities, particularly Venice.\n",
"The Crusades were very much holy wars waged to maintain Christianity's theological and social control. On their way to conquering the Holy Land from the Muslims by force of arms, the crusaders destroyed dozens of Jewish communities and killed thousands because the Jews would not accept the Christian faith. Jews had to be killed in the religious campaign because their very existence challenged the sole truth espoused by the Christian Church.\n",
"Elements of the Crusades were criticized by some from the time of their inception in 1095. Roger Bacon felt the Crusades were counter-productive because, \"those who survive, together with their children, are more and more embittered against the Christian faith.\" In spite of some criticism, the movement was still widely supported in Europe long after the fall of Acre in 1291. After that, the Crusades to recover Jerusalem and the Christian East were unsuccessful. Eighteenth century rationalists judged the Crusaders harshly. In the 1950s, Sir Steven Runciman published a highly critical account of the Crusades which referred to Holy War as \"a sin against the Holy Ghost\".\n",
"In contrast, historian Bernard Lewis points out that the Crusaders had strong motives to wage the Crusade other than the denigration of Islam. The lands they attempted to recover were the lands where Christianity was founded, including \"the holy land where Christ had lived, taught and died\", and where \"a substantial proportion of the population ... perhaps even a majority, was still Christian\", since \"not much more than four centuries had passed since the Arab Muslim conquerors had wrested theses lands from Christendom\". Rather than the Crusades leaving a psychological scar passed down through the ages among Muslims, the Arabs of the time did not refer to the Crusaders as Crusaders or Christians but as Franks or Infidels, and \"with few exceptions\", the Muslim historians of the time showed \"little interest in whence or why the Franks had come, and report their arrival and their departure with equal lack of curiosity\".\n",
"The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy in Rome, which took place from the end of the 11th century until the 13th century. They began as endeavors to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars.\n",
"The principle of the crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause…. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends…. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion…. The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country.\n"
] |
how are you assigned to classes in college? | You'll talk to an advisor who will give you a schedule based on the program you are enrolling in. | [
"Online courses are typically divided into units of class discussions (ongoing posts of classmate queries and comments), downloadable assignments and quizzes. What students are actually graded on is based on the course and the professor, however, class participation is usually required in the form of threaded discussions. Similar to a traditional on campus course, the content of the course is subject to the discretion of the professor.\n",
"Entry into higher education institutions is normally done through the CAO. In this way, students wishing to enter university apply to the CAO rather than the individual university. Places in courses are usually awarded based on results in the Leaving Certificate Examination or any international equivalent. Each university has a minimum entry requirement, usually requiring a pass grade in either English or Irish, as well as maths. Some also require a pass grade in a modern continental European language (French, German, Spanish or Italian). Each individual course has further entry requirements, for example, science courses usually require a certain grade in one or two sciences. The student must also achieve the number of points required for the course under the points system. However, universities also have systems in place for accepting mature students, and students who have successfully completed a Post Leaving Certificate or Further Education course.\n",
"Exams are taken and administered in a variety of ways. They can be administered \"online\" by using course software with an internet browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, etc.), as a “take home” exam where the exam is printed out and handed in, or \"proctored\" by outside parties, instructor, or the teaching assistant (TA) at a designated location. A 24/7 help desk is also available for both students and faculty.\n",
"Students may take courses from any of the many departments within the College. Each department may offer concentrations, minors, clusters or other degree programs. There are also many interdepartmental programs and students have the option of creating their own courses of study with a special application. The College also offers graduate programs of study in addition to undergraduate.\n",
"Students apply to one or more colleges or universities by submitting an application which each college evaluates using its own criteria. The college then decides whether or not to extend an offer of admission (and possibly financial aid) to the student. The majority of colleges admit students to the college as a whole, and not to a particular academic major, although this may not be the case in some specialized programs such as engineering and architecture and maybe more impacted in certain majors. The system is decentralized: each college has its own criteria for admission, even when using a common application form.\n",
"In that process students have to fill application on-line with uploading of required documents, the web automated software for admission chooses the right college for the student/candidate with reference to the student's marks, reservation category etc.\n",
"Towards the end of their undergraduate education, students are required to develop the Course Completion Paper under the guidance of an adviser to be presented to and graded by a number of professors. In some institutions, students are also required to pursue an internship (the amount of time depends on the institution).\n"
] |
why does throwing an extremely light object, for example a golf ball, strain the arm as opposed to a baseball that is relative in mass? | The same reason you should never dry fire a bow (shooting a bow without an arrow in place). If there is no arrow to transfer the energy of the pulled bowstring, all of that energy will go into the bow itself and can damage or shatter the bow.
Your arm functions the same way as a bow: transfering energy into the ball (arrow). A lighter or smaller ball doesn't require as much energy to launch. If you perform your normal throw on the lighter ball, the excess energy not transferred to the ball will travel back through your arm and can strain it especially if you don't do a full follow-through to help release the energy. | [
"Further refinements to the motion of the ball can be made by taking into account air resistance (and related effects such as drag and wind), the Magnus effect, and buoyancy. Because lighter balls accelerate more readily, their motion tends to be affected more by such forces.\n",
"The swing weight of a baseball bat deals with how heavy the bat \"feels\" when swinging. The swing weight is measured around a certain pivot point along the bat. Once a pivot point is determined (usually 6 inches for baseball bats) the bats balance point, total weight and the amount of time it takes for the bat to swing from side to side like a pendulum are used to determine its 'swing weight', or as some refer to it, its mass moment of inertia.\n",
"Hitters have a wide variation of swings, but in the end staying balanced and having stable posture is the most important aspect of hitting a baseball. If the hitter becomes unbalanced throughout the swing the chance of making solid contact with the baseball is very slim. Once balanced throughout the swing, bat speed comes into the next most important aspect of the baseball swing. The faster the bat speed, the faster the ball will come off the bat. Furthermore, researchers have long established that home run hits are dependant on swing speed. Most notably, one can logically assume that a faster swing will result in the ball traveling farther. A 3-6% increase in bat speed can significantly affect the distance a ball travels after contact in competition (7). In terms of simple physics and mathematics, the conservation of momentum (E1) and a kinematic equation (E2) also reinforces this idea.\n",
"Ball players often experience a \"sting\" in their hands caused by vibrations when the ball does not come in contact with the sweet spot of the bat. The frequency of these vibrations throughout the bat is related to the bending stiffness. Daniel A. Russell of Kettering University has shown that standard aluminum bats have a high bending stiffness that produces vibrational frequencies in the range where most hands are sensitive; therefore, causing more sting. He also has shown that composite materials can lower this bending stiffness without compromising other advantages.\n",
"Howard is credited with inventing the batting \"doughnut\", a circular lead weight with a rubber shell used by batters in the on-deck circle by placing it around a bat to make it feel heavier, so that it will feel lighter at the plate and easier to swing. Its widespread use caused the discontinuation of the practice of hitters swinging multiple bats at the same time while waiting to hit. Howard helped two New Jersey entrepreneurs, Frank Hamilton and Vince Salvucci, to market the bat weight and lent his name to the product.\n",
"In projectile motion the most important force applied to the ‘projectile’ is the propelling force, in this case the propelling forces are the muscles that act upon the ball to make it move, and the stronger the force applied, the more propelling force, which means the projectile (the ball) will travel farther. See pitching, bowling.\n",
"This discussion has neglected energy losses from heat generated in the balls from non-perfect elasticity, friction in the strings, friction from air resistance, and sound generated from the clank of the vibrating balls. The energy losses are the reason the balls eventually come to a stop, but they are not the primary or initial cause of the action to become more disorderly, away from the ideal action of only one ball moving at any instant. The increase in the non-ideal action is caused by collisions that involve more than two balls at a time, effectively making the struck ball appear heavier. The size of the steel balls is limited because the collisions may exceed the elastic limit of the steel, deforming it and causing heat losses.\n"
] |
Why is there so much Carbon-14 in these fossils? | There's a lot of crap on that page.
First, carbon dating doesn't work for things like dinosaur fossils. They're too old.
The number 22,380 has no reference next to it so I'm not sure which reference at the bottom they're referring to.
The premise of the article is that in 2005 a fossil was dated to 20-30k years. None of their references seems to point to this event, nor does Google come up with anything that's not a blog or some anti-evolution web site. Hugh Miller comes up a few times, he's apparently a creationist.
There's nothing on that page that can be responded to without vomiting. | [
"Carbon-14 (C) is a naturally occurring radioisotope, created in the upper atmosphere (lower stratosphere and upper troposphere) by interaction of nitrogen with cosmic rays. It is found in trace amounts on Earth of 1 part per trillion (0.0000000001%) or more, mostly confined to the atmosphere and superficial deposits, particularly of peat and other organic materials. This isotope decays by 0.158 MeV β emission. Because of its relatively short half-life of 5730 years, C is virtually absent in ancient rocks. The amount of C in the atmosphere and in living organisms is almost constant, but decreases predictably in their bodies after death. This principle is used in radiocarbon dating, invented in 1949, which has been used extensively to determine the age of carbonaceous materials with ages up to about 40,000 years.\n",
"Carbon-14, (C), or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples. Carbon-14 was discovered on February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Its existence had been suggested by Franz Kurie in 1934.\n",
"The rate of creation of carbon-14 appears to be roughly constant, as cross-checks of carbon-14 dating with other dating methods show it gives consistent results. However, local eruptions of volcanoes or other events that give off large amounts of carbon dioxide can reduce local concentrations of carbon-14 and give inaccurate dates. The releases of carbon dioxide into the biosphere as a consequence of industrialization have also depressed the proportion of carbon-14 by a few percent; conversely, the amount of carbon-14 was increased by above-ground nuclear bomb tests that were conducted into the early 1960s. Also, an increase in the solar wind or the Earth's magnetic field above the current value would depress the amount of carbon-14 created in the atmosphere.\n",
"BULLET::::- Radiocarbon in ancient coals and diamonds: The authors argued that trace quantities of carbon-14 in diamonds, coals and other ancient rocks indicated that they were much younger than thought, as there should be no carbon-14 left after 100,000 years. However, the levels reported were consistent with levels expected from contamination and other extraneous sources, which are impossible to eliminate even when extraordinary care is taken in handling the samples, and chronologists disregard levels of carbon-14 below 0.5% of modern levels.\n",
"Carbon-14 has a long half-life of 5,730±40 years. Its maximum specific activity is 0.0624 Ci/mmol (2.31 TBq/mol). It is used in applications such as radiometric dating or drug tests. C-14 labeling is common in drug development to do ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) studies in animal models and in human toxicology and clinical trials. Since tritium exchange may occur in some radiolabeled compounds, this does not happen with C-14 and may thus be preferred.\n",
"Carbon-14 is also commonly used as a beta source in research, it is commonly used as a radiotracer in organic compounds. While the energy of the beta particles is higher than those of tritium they are still quite low in energy. For instance the walls of a glass bottle are able to absorb it. Carbon-14 is made by the np reaction of nitrogen-14 with neutrons. It is generated in the atmosphere by the action of cosmic rays on nitrogen. Also a large amount was generated by the neutrons from the air bursts during nuclear weapons testing conducted in the 20th century. The specific activity of atmospheric carbon increased as a result of the nuclear testing but due to the exchange of carbon between the air and other parts of the carbon cycle it has now returned to a very low value. For small amounts of carbon-14 one of the favoured disposal methods is to burn the waste in a medical incinerator, the idea is that by dispersing the radioactivity over a very wide area the threat to any one human is very small.\n",
"The 774–775 carbon-14 spike is an observed increase of 1.2% in the concentration of carbon-14 isotope in tree rings dated to the years 774 or 775 AD, which is about 20 times as high as the normal background rate of variation. It was discovered during a study of Japanese cedar trees, with the year of occurrence determined through dendrochronology. A surge in beryllium isotope , detected in Antarctic ice cores, has also been associated with the 774–775 event.\n"
] |
As the needle approaches the centre of a record, its speed increases, right? Are the grooves cut differently towards the middle of a record to account for this? | The grooves aren't intentionally cut differently, but the wavelength representation is longer near the edge compared to the center because the speed of the track increases from the center to the edge. Since the grooves are cut directly into the recording material, no external adjustment is necessary, since it's always going to be a 1 to 1 correspondence when played back at the same speed it was cut. | [
"Examining a vertically-cut groove along its length reveals a continuous wavy line as the needle cuts at different depths according to the tone and the loudness of the audio being recorded. These grooves show a transition from high to low peak as a smooth curve, giving the characteristic rounded 'hill and dale' effect to the groove, similar to the appearance of many geographic areas.\n",
"Towards the center, at the end of the groove, there is another wide-pitched section known as the \"lead-out\". At the very end of this section the groove joins itself to form a complete circle, called the lock groove; when the stylus reaches this point, it circles repeatedly until lifted from the record. On some recordings (for example \"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band\" by The Beatles, \"Super Trouper\" by ABBA and \"Atom Heart Mother\" by Pink Floyd), the sound continues on the lock groove, which gives a strange repeating effect. Automatic turntables rely on the position or angular velocity of the arm, as it reaches the wider spacing in the groove, to trigger a mechanism that lifts the arm off the record. Precisely because of this mechanism, most automatic turntables are incapable of playing any audio in the lock groove, since they will lift the arm before it reaches that groove.\n",
"On a few early phonograph systems and radio transcription discs, as well as some entire albums, the direction of the groove is reversed, beginning near the center of the disc and leading to the outside. A small number of records (such as \"The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief\") were manufactured with multiple separate grooves to differentiate the tracks (usually called \"NSC-X2\").\n",
"BULLET::::- Gramophone record formats: lateral versus vertical \"hill-and-dale\" groove cutting. When Edison introduced his \"Diamond Disc\" (played with a diamond stylus instead of a steel needle) record in 1912, it was cut \"hill-and-dale\", meaning that the groove was modulated along its vertical axis, as it had been on all cylinders—unlike other manufacturers' discs, which were cut laterally, meaning that their grooves were of constant depth and modulated along the horizontal axis. Machines designed to play lateral-cut discs could not play vertical-cut ones and vice versa. Pathé Records also adopted the hill-and-dale format for their discs, first issued in 1906, but they used a very wide, shallow groove, played with a small sapphire ball, which was incompatible with Edison products. In 1929 Thomas Edison quit the record industry, ceasing all production of both discs and cylinders. Pathé had been making a transition to the lateral format during the 1920s and in 1932 decisively abandoned the vertical format. There was no standard speed for all disc records until 78 rpm was settled on during the latter half of the 1920s, although because most turntables could be adjusted to run at a fairly wide range of speeds that did not really constitute a format war. Some Berliner discs played at about 60 rpm. Some of Pathé's largest discs, which were 50 cm (nearly 20 inches) in diameter, played at 120 rpm. Diamond Discs were 80 rpm. Those makers aside, speeds in the mid-70s were more usual.\n",
"Typically, a new steel needle is required for every record played on an old acoustic phonograph. This is because the record contains abrasive material. In the first few silent tracks this abrasion hones the steel needle to a profile that tracks the grooves properly. The needle continues to wear as it plays the record, so that by the end its diameter has increased to the point where the sharp edges may damage the grooves on subsequent plays.\n",
"The vast majority of records used a standard small spindle hole slightly more than \" in diameter. The only common exception to this is the 7-inch 45 RPM record, which was designed with a center hole slightly more than 1.5\" in diameter both for convenience in handling and to accommodate a very fast record-changing mechanism contained inside a correspondingly large spindle, as implemented in RCA Victor's early stand-alone \"45\" players. The spindle and any records stacked on it rotated with the turntable, so that each waiting disc was already up to speed before it dropped. Large mechanized spindle adaptors were supplied with most multi-speed automatic record changers sold in the 1950s and 1960s, but they were not as fast and efficient. The large hole also facilitates use in jukeboxes, which mechanically place the \"45\" onto a turntable with a conical spindle having a matching diameter at its base, making the placement operation easier, safer, and surer than it was with the small-diameter holes and spindles in 78 RPM jukeboxes. Most 7-inch records in the USA continue to be pressed with a large hole, requiring an adaptor to be used on standard turntables. In other territories such as Europe, 7-inch records intended for home use have standard-sized holes. Many such 7-inch records had a center which could be easily snapped out, yielding a record with a larger hole to be used in jukeboxes or certain record-stacking players; this approach was common in the United Kingdom from the 1950s until the early 1980s, with standard, solid centres becoming gradually more common. Some 7-inch singles in the early-mid-1990s had large holes also, but this was a rarity.\n",
"The mechanism causes the lower portion of the spindle to rotate clockwise like an ordinary record player, while the top half of the spindle rotates counterclockwise to permit the bottom of the record to be played in the correct direction. The spindle contains three sets of retractable claws which hold the records in the upper and lower playing positions, and permit one record at a time to be dropped from the upper to the lower playing position.\n"
] |
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Dataset Card for "lfqa_preprocessed"
Dataset Summary
This is a simplified version of vblagoje's lfqa_support_docs and lfqa datasets. It was generated by me to have a more straight forward way to train Seq2Seq models on context based long form question answering tasks.
Dataset Structure
Data Instances
An example of 'train' looks as follows.
{
"question": "what's the difference between a forest and a wood?",
"answer": "They're used interchangeably a lot. You'll get different answers from different resources, but the ...",
"context": [
"Wood is divided, according to its botanical origin, into two kinds: softwoods, ...",
"Processing and products differs especially with regard to the distinction between softwood and hardwood ..."
]
}
Data Fields
The data fields are the same among all splits.
question: astringfeature.answer: astringfeature.context: a list feature containingstringfeatures.
Data Splits
| name | train | validation |
|---|---|---|
| 226147 | 3020 |
Additional Information
Licensing Information
This dataset is distributed under the MIT licence.
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