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Why is gun control such a controversial topic in the USA when the rest of the world sees it as a no-brainer? | [
"It is because the 2nd amendment to our constitution says that it is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. \n\nThe controversy is in the exact wording of the amendment. Gun control activists think that it only applies to state militias, while gun groups say it is an individual right. \n\nThe supreme court ... |
How are address numbers of businesses and houses determined? | [
"You mean the house numbers?\n\nIt depends on the country. Standard practice in the US, for example, is that blocks are numbered from one end of the road to the other, and houses within the individual blocks are numbered sequentially; so a house number like 2404 means \"block 24, house 4\". Odd-numbered houses are ... |
Why does a song sound different when you hear it on the radio compared to listening it on e.g. a CD on the same speakers? | [
"It's mostly dynamic range (how loud or soft something can get). We measure changes in volume in dB. Our ears have a dynamic range of about 120-130 dB, so we can hear the difference between loud and soft pretty well. Commercial CDs have a dynamic range of 96dB, which is close enough to the human hearing to be comfo... |
Why isn't an asteroid wobbly like jello? | [
"I just saw a talk by Neil Degrasse Tyson on this issue. Asteroids are non-Newtonian solids. The may very well behave like jello. They might be a hard, solid rock, but they may also be a collection of small rocks that are held together by its own weak gravity. We simply don't know with any given asteroid."
] |
why is it it so hard to create a weapons system that can intercept an inter continental ballistic nuclear missile? | [
"Note the full meaning of \"ICBM\": it means that the missile has an initial boost phase where it fires rocket motors, during which the missile is over friendly territory. This phase lasts only a short period of time; far too little to allow a conventional missile to get to it from friendly territory.\n\nAfter th... |
What are some positive and negative impacts of Sweden's healthcare system on business? | [
"I don't know much about Sweden, but let me talk about the NHS (the first Nationalised Healthcare System). That's the UK's sytem, and is similar, as far as I'm aware, to Sweden's.\n\nPositives for general people\n\n- Everyone has access to healthcare. Like absolutely everyone, from the Prime Minister down to a home... |
What safety measures are on gas tanks to prevent them exploding when a car is on fire? | [
"Usually seal them so oxygen cannot get to the gas and contribute. \n\nOn a science note, gasoline vapor is explosive and flammable, not so much liquid gasoline. So as long as the gas is condensed into a liquid and kept contained, it's quite safe. Which is also why you should never take the nozzle out of the tank i... |
If we are not designed to eat meat, why did so many ancient people eat meat? | [
"We are physiologically designed to eat meat, but not exclusively meat, as part of a balanced diet.\n\nI'd be more worried about an appeal to nature being used as a legitimate argument in a philosophy class.",
"I feel that her argument is based on a false premise.\n\nVeganism is a cultural product of a society th... |
FGM, how/why does it kill a woman's sex drive? | [
"I'll assume you're a guy & you've played with your penis before.\n\nYou know how that spot at the head of your penis the the most sensitive? You've got that \"**OH YEAH!!**\" spot and the rest is just \"*that's nice...*\"?\n\nFor the female, the clitoris is their \"**OH YEAH!**\" spot. If you damage or remove ... |
What is the economic explanation to why the government cant run the economy? | [
"Hey, welcome to socialism. \n\nReally, it depends on what you mean by \"better\". Less regulated industries are often more efficient and produce more wealth period. More regulated industries are less efficient and produce less wealth, but distribute it more evenly and without exploiting workers. Healthcare is ... |
Why does the body feel hot when it's actually freezing cold? | [
"To add onto Amrikaayi's explanation:\n\nWhen your body detects cold levels that it feels might threaten your life or safety, it will divert blood flow away from areas of less importance towards your internal organs that you need to live. Your blood carries with it heat that's generated by your organs and keeps you... |
why are most people left or right handed? What stops us from all being ambidextrous? | [
"All of these responses are terrible. \nThey are all guesses, none of them explain why a toddler shows a preference, or why ambisinister is also a thing. \n\nHowever, this question has been asked several times before (although the ELI5 entries are similarly useless): \n_URL_0_ \n_URL_1_ \n_URL_2_ \n_URL_3_",
... |
Why is everything that touches raw meat contaminated, but the cooking utensil I'm using is okay to use from start to finish? | [
"I always assume that cooking utensils AREN'T safe to use from start to finish.\n\nAbout 2/3rds of the way through cooking, I usually switch to a new (clean) spatula. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I've done that for probably 20 years.\n\nNot sure it's really necessary, but as long as I'm going to running the dishwa... |
Why do some online magazines/articles not have the date? Why do some of them hide it? | [
"I feel that the suggestion you provided is already a good answer but I will just say that not including a date also allows them to repost it to the top of their feeds without looking like they are reposting."
] |
how does drinking diet coke make me fat if it has zero calories and is a liquid like water? | [
"As /u/kuckbaby correctly notes, Diet Coke **will not** make you fat on its own. You saw yourself that it's got zero calories (or, rather, something like 0.1 of a calorie).\n\nThe concept, though, is that it *influences* your other food choices, so you're more likely to get sugary/oily things, and **those** product... |
Why do dogs lick humans? | [
"I'm fairly certain they are interested in the salt buildup on your skin. If you get them a salt rock they'll lick once or twice instead of constantly."
] |
Amps and Volts | [
"Amps are the quantity of electron that move through something per second. If you compare electricity to a river, it's moreless the rate of flow.\n\nVolts are tension, which is a difference of \"potential\" between two points in a circuit. With the same analogy, if you consider a waterfall, the elevation difference... |
Why when we photograph the sky from earth do we see millions of stars that are lightyears away but every picture I have seen taken by astronauts in space the sky is black and starless? | [
"It's purely incidental. You can find plenty of photos taken by astronauts where the stars are quite visible. You just don't see very many, because most photos are taken while a well-lit object is in the foreground of the shot, like the Earth, a spacewalking astronaut, or a piece of the ISS.\n\nUnder these conditio... |
Proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad | [
"For spaceships, people used Navigators to do the calculations. No computer required.\n\nThe rest are just simple technologies without any sort of AI whatsoever.\n\nAs far as I know, the Jihad only ended in the ban of artificial intelligence, but some places took it a lot further to the point of banning most techno... |
Why do some communities Trick-or-Treat on the day before Halloween? | [
"For safety mostly. If you get a lot of people to Trick-or-Treat the day before you end splitting the number of people up over two days instead of everyone trying to do it all at once.\n\nAlso, it allows parent's to take really young kids out without having to worry about asshole teenagers because most of them wil... |
standard deviation -- I've read so many things online but still can't fully wrap my head around it. HELP! | [
"So, if you have a bunch of numbers, you have a concept called the mean - that's when you add up all the numbers, and divide by how many there are.\n\nLike if I got a 6, a 9, and a 10 from three judges, my mean score was 8.33.\n\nThere's also a concept called deviation, the deviation of each number is how different... |
What's the difference in lifestyle between someone who is 'monetarily rich' and someone who is 'asset rich'? | [
"If I inherit a huge house, I may be really rich in assets, but I'd still have no money to spend cos this is an illequid asset, meaning that it would take me a while to find a buyer and get a good price. If I inherit a bunch of stocks or gold etc, I can sell them slowly (or quickly, depending on the market price an... |
What are the main differences between existentialism and nihilism? | [
"Nihilism wasn't really an actual school of philosophy, there may have been some contemporary nihilists who use the label for whatever reason, but historically it was more something you said about schools of thought you disagreed with if you felt that what they claimed as the grounds of truth and/or morality wasn't... |
Why can't I use one credit card to pay off another? | [
"You can. Credit card companies assess a fee for paying off other credit cards. If the fee is less than your total savings from going from a higher-interest card to a lower-interest card, it might make sense to do this.\n\nYou cannot use one credit card to make the payment on another credit card, though. That's ... |
Working class opposition to unions. | [
"In many cases it simply comes down to fear. For example, my father's place of employment tried to unionize. Management started rumors that they wouldn't be able to afford it if a union came in and would have to shut the sawmill down.",
"* Unions take money out of your paycheck (to pay for their services, of cour... |
why cant i feel all the processes occuring within my body? | [
"You *are* feeling them. You're just used to how they feel. I guarantee if they suddenly stopped, you'd feel the difference.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
] |
How Does Emulation Work? | [
"Software developer here,\n\nEmulation isn't a 1:1 translation from one CPU instruction set to another, you also have to replicate missing hardware instructions, their side effects, and most importantly, their lockstep timing. The side effects and timing are the hardest part.\n\nYou can write code that emulates the... |
X-rays and Gamma Rays can pass undisturbed or almost, a lot of substances. Regular lenses can bend visible light. what kind of lens, if any, can bend X-rays or gamma rays? Or how do you focus those rays? | [
"What you are asking can be rephrased as if there is a material in which the speed of light for xrays is significantly different from its value in a vacuum, which is required to bend light like a lense does. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. Also, there is no material that specularly (i.e. like a no... |
What differentiates the low-tier pizza chains (Papa Johns, Dominos, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut, etc.) | [
"- They all have different recipes and do not use the same identical ingredients. You could probably identify each one in a blind taste-test, in comparison to other products. \n\n- Little Caesar's is known as the cheap brand and doesn't deliver. \n\n- Pizza Hut started off as a sit-down restaurant/buffet, but has s... |
If fast and slow metabolisms don't really exist, how can some people eat all day and not get fat? | [
"Fast and slow metabolisms do really exist. Everyone is on a spectrum that changes as you age, get ill, etc so there is not just fast and slow but there are difference in peoples metabolisms.",
"There was a study done on this where the participants were all fairly thin people and the study put them on a high calo... |
What exactly does the queen of England do? If they have a PM does the royal family actually run any part of the kingdom? | [
"The Queen must give legislation \"royal assent\" before it becomes law, just like the US President. The difference is that nowadays it's only a formality and she dare not withhold assent.\n\nWhere she does have some vestige of power is when it's time to choose a new prime minister (PM). If the numbers are very c... |
How does scaling to 1440p work?(upscaling/downscaling from 1080p/4K) | [
"If downscaling, you take every 4th pixel to get from 4k to 1080p. If upscaling you make up pixels to go between the existing pixels. This is done typically by averaging the nearby pixels.\n\nObviously 1440 isn't a perfect fraction of 4k, so the math is a little more complicated, but the process is the same.",
"I... |
Why do we (humans) need our food clean and cooked while animals can just eat their food raw and not get sick? | [
"You can eat raw food, but it has to be right after the kill, otherwise bacteria begins to spoil it quickly.",
"Animals have stomachs that process food differently than humans. They are meant to be able to break down a lot more things."
] |
Why cant we feel our organs rubbing against each other? | [
"You feel physical stimuli through ~~pain receptors, called [nociceptors](_URL_1_).~~ nerves called exteroceptors. These come in various types, including thermal (allow you to feel heat/cold), mechanical (allow you to feel stretching/compression/deformation), and chemical (allow you to feel chemical burns, etc). \n... |
Why is contact lens solution so friggin' expensive? | [
"It's a sterile product that people are putting in their eyes. Lots of liability if someone gets an infection.",
"Because people need it and will buy it at any price. Like gas."
] |
Why are the mp3 versions of an album sometimes more expensive than the actual physical copy? | [
"The physical copy take up physical space, so retailers will often discount it more heavily in order to get rid of them. MP3 albums don't have that issue."
] |
Why are Lollipops called Lollipops? | [
"In some old dialects, \"pop\" means \"to slap\". And \"lolly\" means \"tongue\".\n\nSo, essentially, \"slap the sweet on your tongue\".\n\nIt's not entirely certain if this is the real origin or not, but it seems highly probable, given that a sweet on a stick lets you do exactly that."
] |
Why do gymnasts peak in their teens? | [
"Female gymnasts do, not males.\n\nIt's because when girls go through puberty, they tend to get taller, grow breasts, get bigger hips, and gain fat (not necessarily *get* fat, just gain more fat). And all of this happens without really adding much muscle strength. So you might find a 17 year old girl with a boyis... |
the reason why internet is so expensive for North America | [
"Ignoring issues of land mass, the US has almost universally taken a private ownership/market approach to its infrastructure. In many countries \"catching up to the US\" or just everyday politics means there's a lot of national pride so some/lots of infrastructure is nationalized or heavily subsidized. In other wor... |
Mao's infamously catastrophic "Great Leap Forward" | [
"I'm not a student of communism or Marxism or any of the flavors of communism that emerged in the first half of the 20th century.\n\nBut what I can tell you is this.\n\nWhen Mao came to power in China, he had big plans to change his country. For all of it's history, China was an agrarian nation, or farmers my ELI5 ... |
How planes such as the BF109 could shoot through the propeller | [
"The guns firing mechanism is linked to the engine. It only fires at a time when the prop isn't in front of the barrel of the gun.",
"There are two ways. The first is to synchronise the firing of the guns so that they only fire timed when the bullet will miss the prop blades. The second is to let the guns fire co... |
Why our federal court system handles NFL punishments? | [
"* NFL players have contracts, covering, among other things, discipline\n* Brady has a dispute over his contract, whether it's valid, and whether it was followed\n* Handling contract disputes is one of the main things courts do\n* High-value lawsuits between citizens of different states go to federal court",
"> ... |
How did infantry equipped with muskets deal with the loud sound of a musket during a battle. | [
"Same way we did in Afghanistan:\n\nThey sustained hearing damage.\n\nIn the heat of combat you don't really realize how bad it hurts your ears. We never wore ear protection in country because it was uncomfortable and made you less situationally-aware.",
"Infantry formations in the musket and front-loading rifle... |
What is happening when someone "loses their voice"? | [
"Their vocal cords have been damaged so don't function properly.\n\nNot being able to talk is probably also a function of the body to stop further damage and allow your vocal cords to rest/recover."
] |
Why do your fingers "prune up" when in the water for a while? | [
"Actually, I read about this. People with damaged nervous systems don't prune up so it's not just a physical reaction to absorbing water. It's supposed to make it easier for your hands to grip things while wet.",
"To give your hands more grip when your wet since things are slippery when wet. I gotta fill in some ... |
Why do organizations still use 'Use it or Lose it' budgets? | [
"Simply, this is the easiest method of deciding budget for each year for large organizations. Hypothetically yes you can send a representative out to each department to gauge their expenses however to buy qualified persons who has expertise in finances are expensive. So most large organizations use this to \"cover ... |
Why online translators are so terrible at translating | [
"I speak 4 languages fluently and am pretty good(Hold a conversation) at 2 more. Does this mean I never make mistakes translating from one to another? Quite the opposite, each language has its own specific grammar and syntax and they don't always overlap 100%. Now English isn't my first language but this probably l... |
Why does time seem to go by faster when you are drunk? | [
"Time flies by when you're having fun.\n\nAnd don't forget: Having fun isn't hard when you have a library card."
] |
Rock climbers, how do camming devices work? | [
"they redirect force to increase friction due to their shape. you compress one and shove it in a crack - when you try to pull it out, the pulling force cause the cams to press outward against the sides of the crack. The more weight you put on it, the harder it tries to stay put.",
"The .pdf guides (with image... |
Why are there no top caucasian sprinters in running but many in swimming? | [
"You have labeled this as biology but there is a strong non-biological factor within your question that moves into some potentially controversial territory. I will let someone else address why Caucasians don't seem to dominate sprinting or any race wide genetic factors that could be at play (though I doubt there a... |
Why is the crust of a hearty hunk of bread considered the most nutritious part, when the inside is composed of the same ingredients? | [
"For the most part, this is just a widely perpetuated myth. It's mostly just something parents tell their children so the kids will eat the crust because children are notoriously picky eaters. There's some *minor* evidence that there's a few exotic nutrients that are more prevalent in the crust but it's a recent ... |
Jonestown Suicides | [
"To add to the other answers: it wasn't just a mass suicide, it was also mass murder. Many people didn't want to \"drink the kool-aid\" (which is where that expression started, btw), and they were killed if they refused or tried to escape. \n\nIt was a disaster, lead by a madman. I was 13 when it happened, and I st... |
how did most teachers come to be female when historically women got less education than men? | [
"Traditionally, up until the middle of the 19th century most teachers were male. That's because most formalized teaching was for older students.\n\nAround that time, the concept of elementary aged education grew. Because it was for younger children, there was a perspective that it was considered women's work, as it... |
Moment Arms | [
"Push open a door from the handle. Pretty easy, right?\n\nnow push open a door from right next to the hinge. You need to put in a lot more effort, right?\n\nThe moment arm is the distance between what you're trying to spin something around (e.g. spinning the door around the hinge) and what you're putting the force ... |
If every country in the world has massive debt ranging from multi billions to trillions of dollars and it is still growing each year, how can any country expect to ever pay it off? | [
"No country is expected to pay off their full debt at once. Little parts of that debt come due every day and as long as governments are able to honour the parts of debt that come due + pay interest for all the rest, it's all good.\n\nGreece's big problem is that things put them in a situation where they couldn't ke... |
why does experiencing one or more pregnancies seem to lead to long term struggles with body weight for women ? | [
"I am sure a real doctor will come and correct my language, but to put it simply, hormonal and muscular changes in the body and a lifestyle change generally, all lead to weight gain. After giving birth is is not unusual for the stomach muscles, especially on small women, to be trashed. This means that they l... |
Why Napster got sued but UTorrent and others are still fine? | [
"Napster was one centrally located server whereas utorrent is just an application that you use to connect to any of the millions of torrent tracker servers out there. It's as if there are millions of Napsters out there now instead of just the one. And those DO get shut down, it's just that there's so many of them a... |
What's so special about syrup from maple trees? why aren't other trees used? | [
"You mean you've never had Eucalyptas syrup? It's awesome, but only if you want your pancakes to taste like shit.",
"You can use other trees, but the sap in maple trees has a higher sugar content. If memory serves its around 1.5 up to something like 3 percent sugar. \n\nYou tap the tree for sap, boil off the exc... |
How do companies use derivatives to hedge risk? | [
"The simplest, and oldest derivatives are food futures, as they allowed farmers to hedge the risk of bad years by selling large portions of their crop before it existed. In this case you have a farmer transferring a large amount of their future risk of crop failure to a third party, and generally paying a large pre... |
Why are some YouTube videos not available in certain countries? | [
"Because the copyright holder told YouTube not to show the content in those countries.\n\nMost of the time, it's because they don't have the rights to show it in those other countries. Back before the Internet, distributing music and movies to people took a lot of infrastructure- you had to have the contacts and co... |
Why do politicians who have used marijuana and realize it's not terrible still stand so strongly against it? | [
"It's possible they consider that the minor impact on the individual is not an accurate way to measure the cumulative impact on society.",
"In this world there are three kinds of people: people with guns, people with money, and people who watch television.\n\nWhen the money people and the gun people love each oth... |
Why isn't this Troll Science comic correct? (link inside) | [
"Okay. The picture is misleading. When you subtract the corners of square the perimeter is indeed still 4. And when you continue to subtract the perimeter is indeed still 4. But the problem is with the big sides that still remain. The rate at which the bigger sides get smaller is not fast enough to make a smooth cu... |
Polish Reverse Notation | [
"I'm assuming you are referring to Reverse Polish Notation\n\nOn paper, RPN is just postfix (operator after the numbers) arithmetic read left to right. \n\n2 + 3 becomes 2,3 +.\n\n3 * 5 + 70 becomes 3,5 * 70 +\n\nDo not get caught up with how it looks in this format, it is actually much simpler to think of it as yo... |
What's happening when my brain enters 'auto-pilot' | [
"Its basically due to your body not reviving any stimulus that it perceives as vital/important so your mind processes it, but deletes it immediately, this is very common when performing autonomous skills, which are skills you have mastered and are able to do with very little conscious thought or during tasks you f... |
why are stormclouds gray when normal clouds are white? | [
"Yes, but the reason why it is darker is due to there being larger sized particles in the clouds. As they are getting closer to what we know as rain. This absorbs light differently light differently, thus making the cloud appear darker.",
"It is just water particles, but stormclouds are thicker, and they complete... |
How do social media notifications work for Public Figures and Celebrities? | [
"I know a couple of DJs and they both have their \"public\" account which is managed by someone other than then, and a personal account that they use themselves.\n\nEdit: just to clarify, the 2 accounts aren't really any different (except their \"work\" Twitter accounts are \"verified\"), I mean that they use one f... |
Why are investors will to invest in the Japanese economy where they receive a negative rate of interest? | [
"Many of these investors are people who are dependent on a Japanese government that is not bankrupt. ie: military contractors, private prisons, etc. The amount of money they make from the government dwarfs what they typically pay in interest."
] |
What is the difference between a "crew cut", "taper cut" and a "fade"? | [
"A crew cut has shortly cropped hair of the same length all over the scalp. With a 'fade' the hair's length shortens from the top to to bottom of the temples until the head is bald."
] |
When your tv doesn't catch a signal, what are those black and white 'dots' that you see quickly moving in the screen? | [
"[TV Static on Wikipedia](_URL_0_)\n\nSimmered down, it's basically all the random signals traveling through the air that the antenna or electronics are picking up, when there's not an actual TV station on that channel. It's random noise that the TV is still trying to interpret into a picture",
"About 1% is radia... |
What would happen if every single redditor would upvote a post? | [
"For every upvote there is an equal and opposite downvote."
] |
why does uncovering blankets from your feet cool you off so quickly? | [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why do my feet get cold and sweaty when I don't wear socks and have them underneath the blanket? ](_URL_5_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does putting socks, which cover around 5% of my body, make me feel significantly warmer? ](_URL_2_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does... |
Why do furniture stores decorate things such as end-tables with thick books? | [
"It's the same reason people will clean or out new furniture in a home before selling it—it's all about staging. It's a mental game, really. If you can make it easier for someone to imagine what a piece will look like in their home, then they *will* imagine what it will look like in their home. If they do that, the... |
[Culture] How did the colonization of Africa make them more vulnerable for HIV and AIDS? | [
"The creation of arbitrary borders set during colonization (or during decolonization) hindered traditional movements of people, including their access to food, water, and fertile land. This has something to do with the rise of a number of diseases...\n\nI can speak to a specific example in Burkina Faso as I worked ... |
Why our bones stop growing after closing of "growth plates", but recovers and can be even lengthen when they are broken? | [
"Bones don't stop growing.\n\nThere's a constant cycle of reabsorption of bone tissue and growth of new bone. This is what allows bones to repair damage done and stay strong.\n\nDifferent bones have these cycles happening at different speeds. Femurs, for example, have slow rates of reabsorption and growth while man... |
Why is circumcision so common in the US, and to a lesser extent, Canada, but is rare or nonexistent in the rest of the Western world and everywhere except the Middle East? | [
"Judaism and Islam are two religions that mandate circumcision.\n\nIn the US and Canada, circumcision was popularized in the 1800s by John Harvey Kellogg, who believed that it prevented little boys from masturbating (and he believed masturbation was harmful to health), and so as a result, many children who have no ... |
Why do people keep their accent years after they've learned a new language? | [
"Language learning is quite difficult. When we're young, we're wired to be able to pick up new words and sounds fairly easily, but we lose this ability over time. A baby learns language by repeating the sounds of the people around it, and this gets internalized as the \"right\" way to make a sound. When we learn a ... |
How autonomous are the "autonomous communities" of Spain? | [
"Think of them like states in the US. Basically thats it.\n\nSource: am Spanish, see my user name",
"I am not Spanish, though I am in the process of getting Spanish citizenship and I have lived here for many years.\n\nThe most important point is that some autonomies are more autonomous than others. It's not a fed... |
The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq | [
"Soviet comrades invade Afghanistan. \nWe invade to fight Soviets.\nAfghans are like wtf.jpeg\nTaliban fights Soviets too; funded by us.\nTaliban decide they don't like us there either.\nWe overstay our welcome.\nThen Bush did 9/11. (Obviously)\nWe invade Iraq because wmd's. \nSurprise surprise no wmd's. \nMfw Viet... |
Why are peanut allergies one of the most common? Why not any others? | [
"I find that hard to believe, to be honest. Do you have any data for this? I found something completely different. [AAAAI data](_URL_0_) \nI'm guessing your question revolves around the fact that you hear a lot more about peanut allergy, because that happens to be a violent one. Most of the allergies, which can ra... |
Why do smartphones use chips that have several cores (6 to 8) clocked at low speeds (1.8 to 2.3 GHz) whereas desktops use chips that have fewer cores (2 to 6) clocked at high speeds (3GHz and up)? | [
"Mostly power considerations. First, keep in mind that the cores typically found in a smartphone are not equivalent to the cores found in a desktop system. They tend to be smaller and lower performance. So you can have a processor with 8 ARM cores in a smartphone that is significantly smaller than a processor in... |
How does it work in America when someone doesn't have Health Insurance? | [
"I'm an \"uninsured\" Californian who was recently run over by a truck. Ambulance, 2 operations, countless MRIs and X-rays, 9 day stay in the ICU, lots of pills, physical therapy, follow ups, and outpatient gear (back brace, cane, etc). Ballpark estimate was a half million dollars, roughly $30 of which will be out... |
Why do movie studios care if I pay for Netflix and use a VPN to change my location? They are getting paid either way. | [
"The problem is that when Sony released a movie in Australia, it formed a contract with a studio in Australia to do that. So that studio owns the right to distribute that movie in Australia. If you use Netflix and a VPN to access the U.S. version of Netflix, you're cutting out the Australian company that actually o... |
how do mobile phone/ any battery work | [
"It's a chemical reaction that's basically reversible. Add electricity, and the chemicals enter a state that we call \"charged,\" where they can react and, in the process, generate electricity. Add a demand for electricity, and the reaction begins, releasing that electricity."
] |
Why we can't clone a dinosaur | [
"Any DNA that's found would have degraded to the point that it wouldn't be possible to start. \n\nAlthough, crocodiles haven't changed much, so cloning a crocodile would be about as close as we could get to that.",
"The DNA has decayed. The fossils are too old.\n\nCloning wooly mammoths, saber tooth tigers, etc. ... |
When you delete a picture or empty the trash on your computer, where do the files go? | [
"The space the files occupy is simply marked as being available again, and if you put new files on your computer, it may writing over that space. The files aren't actually removed until they're written over by new files. This is how programs that recover files that were deleted work (they find those areas flagged... |
Why does Kazakhstan play in european football championship qualifiers when it's not a part of Europe? | [
"While the exact border between Asia and Europe is not universally agreed upon, the Ural River is commonly used for that border.\n\nParts of Kazakhstan lie west of the Ural River, and thus are in Europe."
] |
How do watch batteries last so long when they are powering a tiny motor 24/7? | [
"Your typical watch uses electricity for keeping time with quartz and moving the hands. Both require very little electricity.\n\nThe motor for moving the hands is very very very very weak. Usually motors are built to do really intensive work like lifting a heavy items. The motor in the watch isn't going to lift a p... |
When I drive my car in reverse, why does the engine(transmission??) make this high pitched sound? | [
"When you reverse you use a different type of gear- a *spur* gear.\nA helical gear (forward gear) has teeth cut at an angle to the face of the gear, which makes for a smooth ride/sound.\nA *spur* gear (reverse gear) has straight teeth. Each time a tooth engages on a spur gear, the teeth collide instead of gently sl... |
Why did humans evolve to close their eyes while they sleep? | [
"If you slept with your eyes open, they would dry out.\n\nHumans lack nictitating membranes (second eyelids), so the only line of defense to keeping out eyes from drying out are our eyelids.\n\nAnd, just because our eyes are open when we sleep doesn't mean that we have the cognitive ability to recognize threats -- ... |
Why can't you use the tab key to indent paragraphs on Reddit like you can in word processors? Also why can't you italicize on Facebook? Is there a programming reason why these are problems? | [
"The tab key in a lot of programs is used to move from field to field in the form. This allows you to navigate the page without using a mouse (something many developers prefer to do). You could write your own browser where the tab key indented text, there's no programming reason why you couldn't, but a lot of peopl... |
What are the devices spraying liquid at the launch pad on rocket launches? | [
"[Sound supression](_URL_0_). The noise of the rocket engines is so loud that it could physically damage the delicate parts of the spacecraft if it's allowed to reflect off the pad. So they fill the air with water droplets to scatter and absorb a good fraction of it.",
"That's just water, and the sprayers are jus... |
Why is it that when you look at a dim light through a crack you can't see it? | [
"Here's my answer to the same question that was asked yesterday over in /r/AskScience/ ([link](_URL_0_))\n\n*****\n\nThere are two types of light-detecting cells in your retina: rods and cones (so named for their respective shapes):\n\n* Cones are very good at color discrimination, but aren't to terribly sensitive,... |
Why is it called "Pants/Slacks" when singular? | [
"Originally, pants consisted of two separate pant legs that you would individually pull up your legs. The two legs would then be tied at the waist to keep them up. So the entire garment was plural since there were two pieces.",
"Back in the early days of tailoring, leg coverings were actually made of two pieces, ... |
The fallacy and/or accuracy of the "5 second rule" when you drop food on the floor. Specifically, do germs move on their own and, if so, how fast? | [
"The 5 second rule is not usually applicable. First of all unless you use excrement to clean your floors there is not going to be more germs on a piece of food you drop then your digestive system can handle. And secondly the germs do not move on their own but attach to anything it comes in contact with so the germs... |
Why doesn't everyone take adderall to improve cognitive function? | [
"Adderall is Amphetamine . It's addictive and overdoses can cause death or worse \n\n_URL_0_",
"All this kid had to do was create a 2 slide PowerPoint on Abraham Lincoln. He gave us a 10 page autobiography on Lincoln's role in saving the North. \n\nIn all seriousness just like any medicine you get used to it. The... |
What is the purpose for the base of the lighter part of the nail? | [
"It's called the [lunula](_URL_0_ and it helps the nail retain its structure."
] |
Why don't electrons fly into the nucleus? | [
"Electrons have less mass than protons and neutrons. That gives them a bigger wavelength, so they can't be anywhere more specific than within an electron shell. They do have a nonzero probability of being in the nucleus, but except in the case of certain kinds of nuclear decay, they don't really interact with the p... |
Why did TVs go from squares to rectangles? | [
"There's a video [here](_URL_0_) that goes through the whole history.\n\nTo summarize: movies started using the 4:3 (not quite square) aspect ratio because a guy working in Thomas Edison's lab picked it seemingly arbitrarily. TVs picked the same ratio so they could show movies. \n\nThen TVs became popular and movie... |
Where is the cash that I spend electronically? | [
"Only about 8% of the world's money is actually in physical cash. The rest of it, 92% exists as just numbers on some computer or ledger.\n\nIt seems odd at first, but these numbers on computers are basically just IOU's. If anyone every came and asked to get their money out of the electronic form and into cash, the... |
why is it that some people hate the sound of certain materials (e.g styrofoam or crackling of joints) | [
"Could be a few things. Many sounds that are hated fall in the same range of frequencies that correspond to human screams, which is hypothesized to be an alert mechanism built into our brains (think nails on chalkboard, knife on plate). Also, and I'm not sure how much research has been done, but there are ideas tha... |
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