Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
If CRISPR changes the DNA of a cell, how does it change the DNA of an entire body?	[ "There's a few ways, but it's all about how you deliver the gRNA and the Cas9 protein and your repair DNA (these are the components required to use Cas9 to cleave a certain site in the DNA).\n\nIf you modify germ cells (like egg or sperm cells), then any progeny from these cells will have the modification in all ce...
How does Rita's water ice (or Italian ice for you non philly people) afford to give away free water ice every first day of spring?	[ "Because frozen water is hilariously inexpensive compared to what people will pay for it.\n\nSide Note: Water ice....", "They do this as a marketing tactic. Frozen desserts are mostly consumed during the spring and summer (at least outside the home, like at a water ice stand).\n\nBy offering free product on the f...
Why does the loss of blood result in the 'pins and needles' sensation?	[ "It doesn't. A limb falling asleep isn't caused by a loss of blood flow. It's caused by pressure being applied to a nerve, causing it to stop working. So signals don't make it from that limb to your brain. \n\nWhen the pressure is relieved, the nerve can start sending random signals as it gets back into equilibrium...
How factorials of non-whole numbers work	[ "It doesn't. There's no such thing as a factorial not defined on integers. There is something called the Gamma function, which has the property that Γ(x)=(x-1)! whenever x is a positive integer, and it's nicely behaved, so it seems like a natural way to generalize the factorial function to real numbers. \n\n*edit...
Why does a sunburn not hurt for several hours after actually being in the sun too long?	[ "As your body's response, capillaries open up, allowing more blood to the affected area. This aids in the healing process but also makes the area feel warmer and more tender. However, the response isn't immediate, taking the noticeable few hours before the inflammation sets in.", "Sunburn is a misnomer, it isn't ...
What would happen if you placed a spherical magnet on a flat magnetized plane?	[ "I don't think there is enough information here. A flat magnetized plane isn't really a thing. \n\nDo you mean that the whole magnet is the flat top of the N side of a large magnet that extends below it? In that case the sphere would orient itself so that the south side of the sphere were pointed at the N plane. ...
do pups in a litter all share the same DNA like human twins?	[ "They are more like fraternal twins, so they have as much in common genetically as normal siblings. Dogs release multiple eggs during ovulation, whereas humans usually release only one, which is why multiple births are the norm in dogs and not humans. It's also possible for there to be two or more fathers to a litt...
why do old people talk so slowly?	[ "I can't speak specifically about old people speech patterns as there are many physical reasons they may speak slower, but I know this about myself: \n\nI actively TRY to speak slower and more deliberately as I age. It allows me to think about what I am meaning to say, and breath naturally while speaking. Rapid c...
The half-life of a drug	[ "Drugs affect the human body by binding to protein receptors (either to turn them on or turn them off). And one drug molecule binds to one drug receptor. The more drug molecules you have in your body, the more protein receptors are bound, and the stronger the drug effect.\n\nHowever, for some protein, you need to...
Why do gay guys sometimes have higher pitched voices?	[ "Normal Distributions.\n\nAs a population, men have a spectrum of voice pitch.\n\nAs a population, straight men have a spectrum of voice pitch.\n\nAs a population, gay men have a spectrum of voice pitch.\n\nYou've got observation bias.", "For the same reason that straight guys sometimes do.", "One thing that is...
Why is heroin so addictive? What does it do to the brain? Can anyone explain the feeling?	[ "The human brain has a natural set of hormones that are used to moderate pain and emotional responses called endorphins, the opium poppy based drugs imitate the actions of endorphins, that ease pain and induce and pleasurable sensations. The most potent of the naturally occuring \"opiates\" is morphine. Hold that...
Even with enough sleep, why am I still tired if I stay up late or wake up early?	[ "Sleep cycles can play a factor but if youre getting enough sleep (~8hrs/night), you should be hitting about two sleep cycles. I think the reason you're still tired if you wake up early is because its still dark outside. This might seem counterintuitive but it makes sense when you consider your pineal gland. The...
Neon Genesis Evangelion, original series. From GEHIRN to SEELE, the events of the series and the end.	[ "If anyone is still reading this I'll be leading a panel talking about this at Anime Central in Chicago (2014)\n\nCombining most the discussion into one large post for clarity.\n\n > NGE history\n\nA group of aliens creates a race of bio-mechanical robots to seed the galaxy with life. There are 2 types of these...
Why is America so polarized today? And how can it be fixed?	[ "Basically, society changed in the 1960s as institutions that previously brought people together from varied backgrounds to interact (churchs, clubs, sports leagues) fractured and people sorted into groups of mostly very similar people (not just political groups). \n\nHow many of your friends have different core b...
Why people expect an adult to be able to do something that a child did, only because a child was able to do it?	[ "It's a stereotype because typically your average adult has a wider range of skills than your average child and the 'level' that most children can achieve at a task at a young age is often lower than a 'basic' level for an adult.\n\n\nE.g. the strongest 8 year old in the world is probably weaker than 90%+ of able b...
How someone can describe themselves as Atheist/Secular and Jewish.	[ "Being Jewish can also be an ethnic or cultural identity, in addition to a religious one.", "Judaism puts more emphasis on ritual or action (orthopraxy) while Christianity puts more emphasis on belief (orthodoxy).", "being jewish is a lot like being born into a certain kind of family, how you act, what you do, ...
Why does slice cheese get mold faster than shredded cheese?	[ "Mold requires a few things to grow. The first is a tiny wee little itty-bitty mold spore, and the second is a nutritious perfectly-moist surface, like a hunk of cheese. \n\nThe more surface area on a piece of cheese and the more air it gets exposed to or contact it has with slicing blades and stuff, the greater th...
What happenes in the brain during a seizure ?	[ "The brain cells work by electrical current. A charge starts, and passes from one cell to the next, until the original cell stops firing. \n\nPicture an apartment building. You live in Apartment 3B. Your neighbor in 3A bangs on your wall and yells \"3I!\" So you hollar back, \"Okay!\" and bang on your wall to 3C an...
Where do the bubbles in caffeinated drinks start off? How do they just appear?	[ "We call them \"carbonated beverages\" because they have carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in them. More CO2 can dissolve at higher pressures, which is why it stays in solution while the bottle/can is unopened and therefore pressurized. Once the container is opened, the CO2 begins coming out of solution. \n\n\nAs to t...
Why do certain word/ name pairings sound "better" one way than the other? Example: peanut butter and jelly sounds better than jelly and peanut butter.	[ "only because you're been exposed to pbj more than jpb. maybe pbj is easier to say than jpb?\n\nlet me ask you, which sounds better?\n\ncomputer tv and telephone. \n\nor \n\ntelelphone computer and tv ?", "A combination of things, some of it is familiarity. Some of it is that certain syllables just flow better ...
Why are "Moscow Mules" always served in a copper mug - what is special about the mug?	[ "The reasoning that the mug gets cold is obviously a good thing, but that implies that copper has a very high exchange rate of temperature. It does, that's why they use copper for computer heatsinks. Very good at heat transfer. Which is bad. Your drink will get warmer faster and your body heat will transfer to the ...
If HIV has a 0.11 chance (if circumcised) and 0.62% chance (if not circumcised) of being contracted through sex, why is it such a massive epidemic (at least in western nations)?	[ "Because some people have sex a large number of times.\n\nAlso, because some people use intravenous drugs and reuse the unsterilized needles.", "What I want to know is in what \"western nation\" is HIV a \"massive epidemic\"? Unless we're talking the 1980s before people understood HIV?", "First off circumcision...
Why does orange juice with pulp have the same fiber content as pulp-free?	[ "Fiber is soluble in water (try it with some Metamucil!) and the actual pulp adds an insignificant amount of fiber to that already in the OJ." ]
What is the difference between PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E?	[ "The different versions were optimized for different purposes. Basically, they have different requirements for the information contained within them so that they can be used properly PDF/A was developed for electronic document storage. PDF/X was for graphics and printing. PDF/E was for documents used in engineer...
Why do dogs enjoy Tug o' War?	[ "same reason many hunting dogs (especially terriers) love squeaky toys and will shake them mercilessly and pull all the stuffing out.\n\nInstincts. They're trying to brutally kill the fucker.", "I think this is the instinct of cooperatively pulling apart a kill. As you've noticed, they're not really trying to ge...
Why is it that after we crack our knuckles, we can't crack them again until a little later?	[ "When you crack your knuckles, youre popping air bubbles in the synovial fluid between your joints. After you pop them, it takes a few minutes for air to join back up together and form bubbles again, at which point you can crack them again.\n\nAnd by the way, contrary to popular belief, cracking your knuckles doesn...
Notarization/Notary Public	[ "Notary here,\n\nA notary is a person recognized by the state to verify that a person(s) are who they say they are when they sign a document of \"importance\"." ]
What the hell is happening in Yemen?	[ "Yemen has never been a democracy. It has been ruled by the same guy for over 30 years. That guy resigned from presidentship in 2012 after protests. The guy following him wasn't much better in terms of participation. In contrary to the other states on the Arabic peninsula, Yemen is very poor, so the goverment has p...
How do Bush and Obama's policies differ when dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan?	[ "Afghanistan is pretty easy. Both Presidents agree on the basic war objectives - to kill the leaders of the 9/11 plot, destroy terrorist training camps, and demonstrate the consequences for harboring terrorists who conduct an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the US.\n\nBush didn't have an exit stra...
Why do people just watch when something is clearly being done wrong by an authority figure? For example, the recent incident where the doctor was knocked cold on the flight.	[ "There is a common and frequently studied thing called the \"bystander effect\". Basically it states that if someone is doing something or someone is having something done to them, that the larger the crowd the harder it is for someone in that crowd to break the mold and do something to either intervene or assist.\...
Why are female pornstars paid more than male pornstars? Isn't that illegal?	[ "How many beautiful women do you know that are willing to let a complete stranger fuck them in the ass and spray semen on their faces? Now, while you're pondering that I ask you, how many guys do you know that would fuck a beautiful woman they've never met in the ass and spray semen on their face? I believe it all ...
Why do reporters constantly refer to Pres. Obama as Mr. Obama?	[ "This is actually a tradition going back to George Washington. James Madison and the House of Representatives insisted that he use \"mister president\" because they were really wary of nobility and executive power. You know, since they had just fought a war to escape from exactly those problems.\n\n_URL_0_", "I d...
What makes a peanut a common allergen? Of all foods why is it more common to have a peanut allergy?	[ "It's not clear why peanut or tree nut allergies develop. Tree nuts, like walnuts, are another common allergy. At first they thought it was introducing these foods too early and more recently now they tell pregnant women to eat nuts to reduce the allergy. \n\nPeanuts also may not be the most common, but clearly has...
How does video compression work? Why am I able to comfortably stream high quality video while still images take a few moments to load?	[ "In short, most video compression works by storing each frame as a difference from the previous one. You load a picture once, and then just change the pixels that are different in each subsequent frame, thus eliminating a lot of redundant information.\n\n(Is this too ELI5 for you?)" ]
Why water makes your skin dry?	[ "water that comes in contact with skin evaporates and takes with it many of the skin's natural oils. The more frequently that skin comes into contact with water the drier it gets, unless the oils are replaced.", "Tap water isn't just water. They put stuff in there like chlorine and calcium (if it's not in there a...
Why are vegetables "good for you"?	[ "Basically they're an all natural way to get vital vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, & fiber in a low calorie, unprocessed way. \nWith the proper consumption of vegetables and fruit an average adult can forego a daily multi vitamin.", "Whereas meat is a great source of protein, dairy products of fat and sugary ...
If the common age of consent in The United States is 16, why is being 18 required to watch adult films?	[ "Federal regulations limit ages on adult films. States decide age of consent. There are several states in the US with consent age of 18." ]
Are there planets in interstellar/intergalactic space?	[ "Yes, and quite a few. It is not uncommon for planetary bodies to get a gravity assisted slingshot out of orbit of their star.\n\nThere are even brown dwarfs and other dark stellar-mass bodies floating around interstellar space (think binary stars where one gets flung).\n\nedit: They are known as Rogue Planets, h...
Why don't we milk pigs?	[ "Although pigs' milk is high in fat (around 8.5% compared to cows milk at 3.9%) and is an excellent source of nutrients, sows are very difficult to milk. They have around 14 teats compared to a cow's four, and they don't take very kindly to having them touched by humans.", "Cows produce more milk than a pig does....
how does extradition from the UK to the US work?	[ "In general for an extradition to succeed, it has to be for a crime that would also be a crime in the UK. It goes via a normal court proceedings and while they won't goes into the nitty gritty details of the case, the court has to be convinced there is a reasonable chance of a conviction. I guess something like a G...
Placebo effect and how does it work? Also, what is the limit of what the body can achieve by truly believing it to be possible.	[ "The Placebo effect is essentially the belief that something will have a positive effect on you.\n\nFor example when you drink a cup of coffee you immediately feel more awake thanks to the caffeine? Well nope, caffeine take approximately 45 minutes to kick in.\n\nThe extent of which the Placebo effect works is pret...
Is Sound Affected by Gravity?	[ "Sort of, but you're probably too dead to notice. \n\nLet's say a tree falls and you hear it. If we could change the amount of gravity between you and the tree would the tree sound different?\n\nProbably not. \n\nGravity can change the density of whatever sound might be traveling through, but in gases like air the ...
How do news sites get their new articles, which are just minutes old, to the top of search engine results?	[ "They don't get them there, search engines are programmed to find news articles with frequent crawls, and put them there.", "Search Engine Optimization or SEO. There're entire companies based on the concept of SEO and even ASO (App Store Optimization). As for exactly how it works, the methods are company secrets ...
If I’m sitting in a car going on the interstate, and I drop a small ball from the ceiling, why does it fall in a straight line relative to me? How come it doesn’t get pulled to the back of the car as it’s in free fall?	[ "Because it's already traveling at the same speed as the car. When it's falling, it's actually falling at an angle compared to the Earth's surface. It would be like if you were sitting on the couch and dropped something and as it dropped it went sideways too really fast. You just don't notice it because both you an...
The difference between YouTube's buffering and loading an image from anywhere else on internet - and why buffering is so much faster	[ "This might not be the complete answer but a part of the answer. Try loading a video in Youtube, and then a video from a website which is not primarily a video-hosting site (Like IMDB). You will notice that the IMDB video takes significantly longer to load for the same quality of video. Google has some amazing comp...
Why are the majority of the tallest buildings in the world located in the Middle East and Asia?	[ "Tall buildings are created for two reasons. One is that there is no space to move out so you have to go up. The other is because people need to prove that they are better than other people. If you have lots of money and plenty of space as some people do in the Middle East then you build to outdo. If you have l...
If an infinitely fast car was on a finite loop, (ignoring physics laws which throw it off the track) wouldn't it just ram into itself? If not, why?	[ "It's a truly meaningless question. An infinitely fast thing is everywhere at once, defying any notion of \"where it is\" or of \"hitting or not hitting\" anything.", "Speed is distance over time. So to get back to the starting point with no time passing you would have to divide by zero, which is undefined in mat...
What to internet speed tests really show you?	[ "90 Mbps means a little over 11 MB/s. (Megabits vs megabytes.)\n\nInternet speed tests show the speed from your computer to the nearest (usually) testing server. It's tested by downloading and then uploading a standard file. That testing server is usually in a big industrial datacenter with really good connectivity...
Why can I hold my pees in for much longer when I'm just lying in bed?	[ "Gravity, mostly! Also, when you are lying in a supine position, your core muscles are not contracting as much as they would be to stabilize a standing position to keep you upright. Both of these things contribute to the \"urgency\" feeling you get when your bladder is full." ]
Why did Google Fiber's replacement "Google Wireless Broadband" fail to expand/develop more?	[ "Google probably realized that it wasn't going to be as profitable as they expected and decided to stop dealing with the hassle that is being an ISP with physical lines to maintain" ]
Why aren't there any normal 5.5% alc./vol beers that are also light in calories?	[ "There is a direct correlation between alcohol content and calories. Calories are units of heat. Alcohol is literally flammable. Your body can absorb a pretty tremendous amount of energy by metabolizing alcohol. The high the alcohol content, the more calories, pretty much as a rule.", "There's more to it than jus...
How do developers make "better" compression algorithms?	[ "The algorithms are usually around for years before they get widespread acceptance. The catch is that better compression algorithms require more CPU time and memory to run.\n\nWhen you see a new algorithm start getting used, that usually just means that modern computers have improved to the point where they have t...
Instructions given to pilot by co-pilot in rally car racing.	[ "I'll break it down in parts.\n\n > 50 flat left easy left maybe 30 long easy left\n\n\n50 means the distance to the next corner, in meters.\n\nFlat left describes the corner itself. In this case it's a corner that can be taken with full throttle. Some drivers use a number system, for example from 1 to 5, where 5 w...
Why does every nightly news report on the major networks run the same stories every night?	[ "Here's pretty much how they pick stories:\n\n1. What can we get from the Associate Press (AP)\n1. Did anyone mail us a VNR?\n1. Is anything important actually happening (this is rare.)\n2. Election? Talk About Candidates.\n3. Relevent Historical Events.\n4. Anything on the Police activity report today? Go stand ...
Why do humans need purified water when animals can drink whatever water they want?	[ "It's a safety thing. You could go drink water out of a spring and probably be fine. Maybe. But you run the risk of the water containing harmful bacteria. It's the same reason we cook most foods but animals eat it raw.\n\nNow, if you had always drank from that pond, your body might have adapted to those bacteria an...
Why are those last few drop's of pee such a relief?	[ "As a male I cannot relate to this, might just be me though. I just never heard of this. \n\nTheoretical I assume it is because of the pressure. When you pee it forces a pressure on your urethra, and the walls expand. When the pressure stops, the expanding of urethra stops, and you feel a relief. \n\nI presume some...
How does clearing your throat work?	[ "Your respiratory system is kind of a paradox. On the one hand, in order to work properly it needs to stay well lubricated. But on the other hand, you can't breathe snot! So your body needs a way to keep things lubed up down there in your chest, while also having a way to get excess mucus out of the way.\n\nEssenti...
Why do Formula One look like super technological advanced driving vehicles, while NASCARs just look like cars?	[ "Nascar and stock car racing evolved out of redneck bootleggers with a carload of moonshine trying (and usually succeeding) to outrun law enforcement back during prohibition. They did this using every day vehcles, perhaps with modified angines and suspension, but they were still \"off the shelf\" or \"stock\" car...
How the body knows when to start digesting food and when the food exits the stomach?	[ "When you eat something, it goes in your stomach. In your stomach, the acids eat away at the food, but not all of your food. Then it gets thrown into your small intestine, the intestines have little things kinda like an antennae which touch the food and go, \"We got food in here from the stomach, bring the chisels ...
Why would Chechen terrorists want to attack the US?	[ "I'm Chechen. It's because those two were fucking idiots that's why. I hope the survivor is interrogated and put to death. They are traitors to the country that took them in, and traitors to every Chechen alive. I'm at work, but if you got questions ask them. As somebody who's fiercely pro-American and pro-Chechen....
Why do we only sneeze while we are awake?	[ "Do we only sneeze when awake? Now I've gotta try to get my family to sneeze in their sleep. For science!", "When asleep, some reflexes don't get transmitted to the brain, including the reflex to sneeze.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)" ]
Why does my body crave exercise even though I hate it when I'm actually doing it?	[ "I believe the body releases hormones that make your physical well being better after exercise and thus not having those endorphins for a while will cause withdrawal like symptoms. They improve your mood, circulation, sexual hormone intensity and also stimulate your metabolism and digestion so that your body is awa...
If Matter Cannot Be Created or Destroyed, How is the Universe Able To Keep Expanding?	[ "It's the space that's expanding, not the matter in it. We aren't getting new matter, there's just more space for it to be in.\n\nAlso, matter can be created from energy and \"destroyed\" back into energy. It's the amount of energy in the system that can't change, not the amount of mass." ]
Who takes over essential jobs during a strike?	[ "If you are referring to essential services such as police, firemen, emergency rescue etc, in many jurisdictions it is actually illegal for them to strike. For example in New York State the Public Employees Fair Employment Act has banned all public employees from striking since 1967, and in the UK the 1919 Police A...
The rules of Rugby	[ "I'll do what I can for you here, but there are some intricacies that will probably be missed:\n\nIn general, you can't throw the ball in front of you, only directly to your side or a little bit backwards. This is to make you carry the ball across the field, or even to kick it. This is why you see the team with t...
Why do clothes shrink when you put them in the washer?	[ "thats true clothes shrink in the dryer not the washer. \n\nthey shrink because the moisture leaving the cloth forces the weave of the cloth to tighten together.for natural fibers such as cotton, linen they will shrink when washed then heat dried for the first few washes only then they should wash with little or no...
How is it we can make zero calorie sodas, yet we can't figure out how to make zero calorie beer?	[ "Fermentation occurs as yeast breaks down the sugars in the grain. While we can synthesize things that taste sweet without any calories, we can't change the fundamental laws of chemistry that govern the brewing process, and those laws state that you need fermentation to make beer, you need sugar for fermentation t...
Why isn't tax added on to the list price in the US?	[ "This has been asked before: _URL_0_\n\nBut every time it gets asked again, I appreciate how many people here aren't from the US, which is good.", "Because it looks smaller. \n\nPlus, every state and even county has different tax rates, so in chain stores that could be challenging." ]
How does pain medicine work?	[ "\"Analgesics,\" the technical term for pain relief medications, actually refers to several different categories of medication, each with a very different mechanism of action.\n\nTL;DR: we're not really sure how the most common over-the-counter pain medications work, but have a pretty decent idea how opioids wo...
Why do women still go to Chris Brown concerts while knowing he abuses women?	[ "Because they like the music, presumably. Plenty of people don't change their buying habits just because they don't like what the person they're buying from does." ]
What would be the affect of an asteroid striking the ocean as opposed to it striking land? Would it cause a mass extinction?	[ "It depends on the size of the asteroid, but I assume you're talking about something on the scale of the \"dinosaur killing\" impact which was about 10km (6 miles) in diameter - all units from here on in are metric.\n\nThe asteroid strikes between 11 km/sec and 72 km/sec (typically 17 km/sec) so it punches through ...
How come sometimes lightning seems to crawl across the sky and other times a giant bolt just appears instantaneously?	[ "When it \"crawls,\" you're probably seeing a bunch of near instantaneous small jumps rather than one big near instantaneous jump. \n\nLightning happens when there are big charge imbalances, big enough to overcome the resistance of the stuff between. If a high charge evens out with a lower charge beside it, that ar...
Why does my stomach "growl" when I'm hungry?	[ "Normally, your stomach muscles goes through a process called Peristalsis where it expands and contracts in order to move food around and keep digestion going. From what I understand, when you are hungry your stomach is moving a lot more to get every scrap of food and use it for digestion. This movement is the \"gr...
Why does it seem like more technological change happened between 1900 to 1950 than from 1950 to 2000?	[ "Seriously? Since 1950, we've turned into a computerized society that understands how to manipulate our own genomes, we're building robots and actually getting somewhere (slowly) with AI. There are literally robots wandering around on Mars right now. We are reprogramming viruses to defeat genetic diseases. The ...
If you were to rip out a person's eyeball without snapping the optical nerve, and then made it face the other eyeball (aside from pain and whatnot) how would your brain put together the image?	[ "I assume it would try its best to make \"sense\" out of the information.\n\nYou might get two superimposed images and just see a \"single\" eye.\n\nYou can definitely do this with mirrors and some plywood.", "The fact that your eyes are looking at each other is not the critical part of the experiment, as eye A l...
If every major country is in billions (if not trillions) of debt, where are they borrowing from?	[ "You can borrow from your own people. The money that is printed is FEDERAL RESERVE (thanks for the corrections) notes--it's technically a debt that the Reserve owes the bearer of the note (but printing money does not technically increase the debt supply--the role of money has changed since fiat currency). \...
Can someone please explain witch craft to me in detail?	[ "Witchcraft isn't a single thing, many cultures throughout the world preform different versions of 'witchcraft'. The term originates from Christianity and related to any religious practice that wasn't Christianity. When Christianity became a dominant religion some cultures retained certain ceremonial practices fr...
WTF is going on with the scoreboard & items??	[ "(x-post from the other thread) \nAlright, I got this. \nSo today, Reddit is a text based Team-Fortress 2, but Orange vs Blue as the colors. \nAll user accounts have been assigned to one of the teams. Evenly split, I would assume. At random intervals, you gain hats in your inventory, much like TF2. You can apply...
How does one go about learning a language when they don't have anyone to speak it with?	[ "There is no way to become fluent in a language without speaking with people who are native to the tongue. That being said I would recommend a free website called Duolingo. You could also try watch videos online in French or reading articles. I am no way an expert but these are some great places to start." ]
Why is it hard to make a fist when you first wake up?	[ "When you go to sleep, in a simplified sense, your brain deactivates your muscles. When you just wake up, your muscles are also beginning to \"wake up\" so it would be hard for you to have total control of them right off the bat.", "When you sleep the brain activates a paralysis circuit (of sorts) so you don't sl...
Why is women’s handwriting generally better than men’s?	[ "This has been asked many times before (don't use reddit's search to check for previous answers, google seach on reddit ... works much better). \n\nWhile there are some physical explanations, like development of motor skills happening earlier for girls... There are also social reasons, like girls being encouraged m...
Why is one side of aluminium foil less shiny than the other?	[ "When the aluminum foil gets really thin, it could be torn by the tension required to further thin it. To prevent this they run it though the rolling machine in two layers. There the aluminum is on the polished steel rollers, it is shiny. The side that's against the other sheet of aluminum is not as shiny. Here...
Why do companies state that your refund would take 5-7 business days to appear in your bank account, when in reality I always get it on next business day ?	[ "It's better to under-promise and over-deliver on services than to over-promise and under-deliver." ]
Magnetos in a Cessena 172	[ "Aircraft use magnetos, which are driven off the engine instead of a battery, making them more reliable at the cost of some performance. Remember, a car with a busted ignition will fail and coast to the side of the road, a plane with a failed ignition will turn into a glider and crash. Think of magnetos as a cran...
If websites like google take a double shot using the CAPTCHA (first makes sure you are not a bot, second using you as a worker to do a job for them by reading let's say a house number that is not legible for a machine), how do they know what is that so-called number?	[ "tl;dr: machine learning\n\nGoogle is running machine learning algorithms on these images to predict what those numbers/letters are. Note that, we are at a point that Google's system can outperform most humans. Anyways, the way machine learning works is essentially training. You tell the algorithm what is right...
Why would females want to follow the religion of Islam when there are clear preachings about them being worth less than a man?	[ "Almost all religions treat women worse than men. Islam, Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism, Hinduism... all essentially identical when it comes to women as far as the respective holy books are concerned. Of course, people pick and choose what parts of the book stop follow and only the more extreme or fundamental foll...
why do downloads start completely over when interrupted?	[ "It's far easier to implement.\n\nEssentially, your web browser communicates to websites using a whole set of protocols. One of them is HTTP. \n\nHTTP has a command called GET. You can use this to retrieve files. Due to the nature of this protocol (which was developed a long time ago) there is no way to GET **par...
Why didn't the big bankers go to jail after the Wallstreet collapse?	[ "Because the government hasn't believed it can prove violations of criminal laws. Simply issuing an investment that drops in value isn't a crime and proving fraud is hard. It's like the difference between inattentive driving resulting in a collision, and intentionally driving one's car into a pedestrian. It can ...
This is a little late, but explain how wind chill works.	[ "It doesn't get colder with more wind.\n\nHowever, it feels colder. Your body loses heat to the air around it. The wind carries away this warmed air, and replaced it with more cold air so that you can lose more heat." ]
Why do old people's voices change?	[ "True ELI5-Their vocal cords get stretched out.\n\nThere is a surgery that can fix this. I seem to recall seeing an older person who had it done, and it was jarring to hear them with a young voice.", "The pitch of your voice is controlled by muscles that pull your vocal cords tighter when they're flexed. As we ag...
What's different about the air inside a bag of chips from the air outside of the bag, that it doesn't make the chips go stale?	[ "The bag is filled with nitrogen. Because the chips sit in this altered atmosphere, no moisture, no oxygen, and no micro organisms, the chips stay fresh, crisp, and in top quality longer. \nHere's more about modified atmosphere packaging _URL_0_", "Moisture content. As the chips begin to dry out, the moisture ca...
Why aren't you supposed to wake somebody who is sleepwalking?	[ "because of the old wives tale that the trauma would kill them. in fact, you can wake up a sleepwalker at any time to no detriment. it would be just like waking them up from bed.", "That's not true at all. A friend of a friend of mine sleptwalked off his balcony and splattered all over the street last year. It's ...
How does air horn generate such a loud noise?	[ "U/Blesshope is talking out of his ass ,he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Sorry brother.\nThe airhorn uses a diaphragm similar to reed in a wind instrument. The cone is there to amplify the sound/ direct it, but the sound is actually created by vibrations on the diaphragm. \n\n\n_URL_0_" ]
Why is it that most animals can crawl or walk immediately after birth, but it takes human babies months to be able to?	[ "Humans have not had a regularly occurring need to run away from predators since we gained enough intelligence to make fire and spears. \n\nBecause of this, the inability to immediately walk was not evolutionarily selected against, and so traits that improved intelligence and the ability to run extreme distances we...
How did our ancient ancestors in Africa deal with sunburn?	[ "By being black, black people don't burn as easily and since the sun is so bright they don't need the skin to absorb as much sunlight to produce vitamins.", "Black skin is an evolutionary adaptation to deal with intense sunlight. Melanin, the component of the skin that determines your colour, helps to absorb the ...
How does anything exist tangibly outside of the 3rd dimension?	[ "Dimensionality is a mathematical concept. It's used to describe properties of spaces.\n\nIf we lived in a 2D world, we would only be able to perceive lines. Any intersection of our universe with a 3D universe would appear to use as a line. \n\nWe live in a 3D world, so everything we perceive is in 3D. However, we ...
What would happen to North Korea (and subsequently the world) if Kim Jong Un suddenly vanished?	[ "It would be kept silent for weeks at first while they tried to locate him. North Korean news might fabricate some stories about what he's up to here and there, but mostly they won't talk about him.\n\nSomething similar happened last year when he took some time off for his health.\n\nThe entire country would be com...
Why is it good for Canada to get more residents ?	[ "Far from a complete answer here but it has to do with aggregate demand. People come to Canada and need jobs, but they also need to spend money and buy things, like gas, food, housing which gives people who work here already either more business or the chance to have a job they maybe didn't have. It is similar to w...
How did the term "fine" come to mean both something extremely detailed, pure and exact, as well as "just ok"?	[ "These sorts of words sort of go through a cycle of fading in their meaning. Because fine means things like pure and exact, describing something as being \"fine\" means \"really good\". But if we start using that word too much, over time it loses its impact, and describing something as being fine no longer actual...
Why do dogs stare at us?	[ "since none of the comments here are actual answers, i'll try to do my best to explain it.\n\nfirst off, dogs are a result of hundreds of years of artificial selection of wolves by humans. they are bred to do work for humans. naturally, the dogs that took direction from humans better than other dogs would have a hi...

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