?

Plague doctors were doctors who would treat diseases like bubonic plague centuries ago. They had a distinctive protective costume that they wore, with a beaked mask full of aromatic herbs, a wide-brimmed hat, and a long waxed overcoat.

Since that time, people have made similar costumes, and many photos of them can be found online, but do any original plague doctor costumes still exist from the times when this costume was actually used by doctors? I imagine used ones might have been burned or otherwise disposed of as an infectious object at some point. I'm curious to see a photo of one, if it exists, rather than just the engravings and drawings I've seen.

For some reason, you can only read the first two lines of a question now unless you click a "show more" link. This change was made a week or so ago I think and it can prevent people from noticing that there is more description in the question. The "show more" link doesn't even appear until the page is fully loaded. Why has this change been made?

I took a screenshot of a particularly egregious example of this bad design. I had to click 6 times to read everything where before I would have been able to read it all without clicking on links.

http://imgur.com/e3NYtut

I have a 1982, 1 oz, $50 Canadian maple leaf coin that says 999 on it. I see the price of gold is currently $1381 per ounce and I'd like to get as much money as I can for my coin.

I don't have any papers or anything with the coin to authenticate it, it's just a gold coin in an old plastic pouch.

What's the best way for me to sell this coin? How much can I reasonably expect to get for it?

Here's a photo of the back of the coin:

http://imgur.com/iWrKrTn

I made a mistake when answering a question, but my answer was quickly selected as the best answer. I'd like to add a comment correcting the mistake, or edit the answer. But the comment option seems to be greyed out.

This is the question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201401...

Basically, I wrote:

So Earth has a diameter over five times the surface area of Pluto.

I meant to write:

So Earth has a diameter over five times the diameter of Pluto.

Chris Hadfield is back on Earth, and, thanks in part to his great participation in social media, I've read some articles about how weak he's become after five months in space despite all the exercise he did while aboard the ISS. He's mentioned being unable to drive safely or take a shower standing up, among other issues. This was his third spaceflight, so he must be well-acquainted with these problems by now. My question is, what is involved in the physical therapy required to bring astronauts like Hadfield back to a high level of physical fitness?

http://freefall.purrsia.com/zu/ffskates.gif

I came across this today. It's a webcomic that shows a neat physics trick that could be done in a ring-shaped space station like the ones depicted in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Basically, the space station rotates to provide artificial gravity through centrifugal force. If you stand still while wearing roller skates, you'll start to move through the station in the direction opposite of the space station's rotation. Your apparent weight will decrease until you're floating off the floor, having stopped relative to the station's rotation. You will then move weightlessly around the ring-shaped part of the station to the amazement of everyone constrained by the artificial gravity.

I got my eyes checked today during a physical and I learned that I have 20/13 vision. How common is this level of visual acuity? I mean as a percent of the population.

I collected a few of these claims that I found on Yahoo Answers, which I'll reproduce below. Are these people getting their news about what "NASA says" from any one particular source that claims to speak for NASA? We had plenty of that all through December and I'm wondering if it's one place that's deliberately making stuff up and misleading people. Maybe a TV show?

I found these by searching for "NASA says":

..............................................

“I heard NASA said aliens cut grooves into sections of pavement so our tires would resonate harmonically as they rolled over the grooves. The sound of our tires is the aliens!”

“I read that NASA says that a massive solar storm will cripple our electric grid in December and cause mass chaos.”

“…someone said that NASA said a solar flare will destroy the earth and end civilization, but I watched a youtube video about a NASA worker saying nothing will happen. Who is telling the truth?”

“So do you believe in the whole 2012 "Worlds gonna end" thing? How theres going to be like a solar storm? i kinda do? like even nasa said it”

“Why is it that NASA warned us about solar storm in 2012? I'm not very well educated about space and stuff but I saw a warning from NASA saying that we'll possibly have a solar storm that is life threatening...

[…]why would NASA try to cause a hype about something that could "never" happen?”

“My wife said there would be an asterode hitting earth, and we were worried so I asked God through prayer. My pastor in the next day's sermon mentioned Revelations 3:25 and that is about the destruction of Earth. We took this as a sign and we are prepared to evacuate (although I don't know were, NASA said the asterode would be REALLY BIG :( so I don't really know)

Can anyone in the field of science help me?”

“What do you think about the Asteriod hitting earth in 2029? NASA says they can deflect it if it gets too close, what do you think?”

“So everybody is talking about how nasa said were gonna go into darkness for 3 days on the 21st of December yadadada and i wanna know if this is true or not.”

“NASA says that the entire Earth will be plunged into complete darkness during December 25th to 27th 2012. Do you think electricity would work you think this was true. Or its not worth worring as it is a hoax. What do you think?”