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I understand the concept of how ray-tracing works, but what was changed to make it work in real-time on graphics cards? | Lots of parallelism. GPUs can do billions of math operations every second. Ray tracing is just a bunch of math operations. You can divide and conquer up parts of the screen to be operated on by different cores. Most GPUs don't really support real-time ray tracing though, relying on using some tricks to get 'good enough... |
Why do routers wear out? | TLDR: Low quality parts and heat damage Consumer grade electronics are not built to last, they are built to be cheap to make. They frequently use lower grade electronic parts compared to what we see in business class routers which makes them more susceptible to failure. Most of them are also passively cooled, meaning t... |
Why tap water is drinkable only in some countries but not all? | It's not even okay to drink across rich countries like the US. When the water table is polluted, or your infrastructure is using lead or broken, etc, it is unsafe to drink. |
Why do video game cutscenes usually look much better than the actual games? | They were pre-rendered. The idea here is that because the cutscene will be static, it won't change or alter depending on gameplay, they can pre-record it, taking much more time to finish it and make it look better than a scene that has to be made on the fly based on your inputs. Like if you're doing normal gameplay, th... |
Why does healthcare is the USA differ from most western countries? I don't think any European country practice healthcare in the same manner. Why is there such a big difference? | Very much oversimplified, in Europe, the government sees it as one of their main tasks to ensure that businesses don't trample on the rights of the citizens. In the US, it's the other way around. |
Can a magnet create light? | I think this is more suited for r/askscience This is a theory and as such can't be have definite explanation |
If the IRS already know how much you owe, why do you have to do your taxes yourself? | For future reference, questions about the US are generally better in r/askanamerican. Also, since this is in the news it could be considered a current event, and that's not allowed on ELI5. In any case I removed this, and I saw you got your answers. It's basically lobbying, same as why we don't have universal healthcar... |
How do shows like Planet Earth and Our Planet get shots of animals without disrupting their natural habitat? | Many times they have cameras disguised as natural elements . As for shots of predators chasing prey without a shakey cam..its either probably a powerful camera on a vehicle that's giving animals their distance, or like you said, a drone. Back when my parents were young, they did use to fake this type of footage. Which ... |
What is the difference between a Data-Driven and a Rule-Based process? | A Rule-Based process is Data-Driven, but not all Data-Driven processes are Rule-Based. For example, think of a process that sorts IP packets. It might be Rule-Based, all packets addressed with Port=25 go to the mail server. The rule is explicit, and it uses part of the data to control the decision. On the other hand, s... |
How do whales avoid suffocation when they vertically sleep underwater together? | Whales and dolphins have the ability to sleep with only one hemisphere of their brain at a time. This is literally sleeping with one eye open. The other half stays awake and controls the need to surface and breathe every so often. Cetaceans may also sleep fully on the surface. Their reflexes are such that they won't br... |
why in moments of extreme fear or anxiety, you may get a metallic/bloody taste in your mouth? | Kind of unrelated but sometimes I get a weird metallic feeling on the sides of my tongue and I swear to God it's somehow connected to my feet. I don't think it's anxiety related because I don't I have anxiety. I've never come across anyone who has experienced the same thing. I'm curious. |
Why don’t we eat bacon from other animals such as cows or sheep? | You do, the part of belly bacon on a pig is a different cut of meat on a cow. On a cow it's the plate and flank primal cuts. Being a different kind of animals it has different muscles and hasn't been selectively bred to be as fatty as a lard hog. Short ribs are kind of sort of similar blend if meat and fat. |
How were firearms mass produced before 18th c.? | People were hired as gunsmiths and made them from scratch, there'd be no other way than to build them yourself. |
If lead based paint is so bad for you, how come lead pipes are occasionally used in plumbing. | Lead pipes aren't used anymore, for obvious reasons. If you have lead pipes in your drinking water system you should have the water tested and, if necessary, replace the pipes. |
Why is drinking distilled water bad? | Distilled water is lacking all minerals. Minerals that your body has and needs . Those minerals are hydrophile, which means, they really like to bond with water. So if the water you drink has no minerals, but the water in your body has minerals, then those important minerals may be washed out of your body by something ... |
How do glasses make you see better? | Great minds think alike. Ahoy, fellow redditor. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [How do glasses make people see better? ] ^1. [ELI5: How do glasses work? ] ^1. [ELI5: How do glasses work and what kind of wave do they use? ] ^1. [ELI5: How do glasses/spectacles work? ] ^1. [ELI5:How do gla... |
why is the center of the earth so hot? Is it due to friction? Is every planet this way? | The earth contains some radioactive materials, like uranium and thorium. These slowly decay over the course of millions or billions of years, giving off heat in the process. At surface level, this doesn't do much. The heat generated by, say, a ton of uranium ore is absolutely tiny and quickly passed to the atmosphere, ... |
How do man-made spacecraft use the gravity of other planets to gain speed? | Really good explanation [here.] Basically you use the gravity of the planet to pull you along its orbit with it and increase your speed .Great minds think alike. Yer not alone in askin\', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How does the gravity slingshot effect work for spacecraft? ] ^1. [ELI5 How do spacecraf... |
How can we 'feel' when someone is looking at us? | We don't. But a large amount of time is in the presence of others and looking at people. More than enough chances for you to both feel it and it be true. |
Why do americans not use contactless cards? | Institutional inertia. Nobody wants to put forth the effort to retrofit existing POS terminals to support it, and they especially don't want to run a mixed environment where two different card readers. For what it's worth, half my cards *do* support contactless payment, I just don't have anywhere to actually *use* the ... |
Why do our brains react so differently to music? | This is also why a lot of the early poems/ballads were put to music. It's easier to remember. & #x200B; Think the entire book of Psalms were originally meant to be sung. |
When you have a head-cold, where does the seemingly never ending supply of snot come from? How does your body make it so plentiful and quickly? | Related, could you lose weight/burn calories in any significant amount via snot production? I see a reply that says they're carbohydrate based.Wow thanks for posting this. I was wondering this same thing the other week but never got around to askingAre there cases of a human suffocating from too much snot production? W... |
How can facts interfere with ongoing prosecutions? | Something I haven't seen covered yet: Facts that the defense submits that the prosecution wasn't aware of. I believe where I'm from, the prosecution is required to inform the defense of all evidence and information it has against the defense, but the opposite isn't true. If the prosecution is building a narrative again... |
What happens to all the bugs in the winter? | It's different for different insects: all life stages - adult, pupae, larvae, egg - can be the overwintering stage for an insect. Mostly this happens in the soil or some other protected place. Or in the case of aquatic insects in the water. |
Why do the roads look shiny when looking at them from far away? Almost like there is water on them. | If you're describing what I think you're describing, I assume this is something that's happening when it's fairly hot, yes? This happens when the surface of the road is very hot compared to the air. This makes the air right near the ground hotter than the surroundings; light travels differently through air at different... |
Why is Notre Dame's football called "The Fighting Irish" when the school is named after a French Church? | University of Our Lady of the Lake)" There is a catholic tradition of dedicating churches, cathedrals, schools, hospitals to the Virgin Mary and other saints Saints etc. So there is a lot of them named Our lady, Notre Dame, St. Mary etc & #x200B; So the universe was founded by a french priest in 1841 and it is dedicate... |
why is it that when youre younger you cry when you suddenly get hurt but as you grow older you stop crying when something hurts you | Quite likely an evolutionary leftover. A young animal that cries out for help to its parents and any other nearby adults when it's in trouble is a lot more likely to survive than one that stays silent. There's less need for an adult to do this though so the behaviour is less instinctive. It, and a lot of other things w... |
Why Dont Homes depreciate the way cars do? | New cars are made every day, but there is a limited supply of land that will never change. If you don't like where your car is parked you can move it, if you don't like where your house is, you can't move it and similarly if you live in a desirable area someone can't move their house next to you, they have to buy one t... |
How do plants go extinct, cant you just plant them again? | Late to the party here but I remember a long time ago I read in a book, . Any ways it talked about how plants are competitive just like animals. They are always adapting and competing against other plants for resources to survive. It's survival of the fittest just like with animals. I realize that only tangentially ans... |
What does "serving consecutive life sentences" mean? | > I mean, serving a life sentence mean you serve the sentence until you die right? No. Serving a life sentence means you serve until you die or until you get parole. > So if you got 2 consecutive life sentences, how does that even work? This varies by country but often means you have to wait longer before you're eligib... |
why is it that if you eat a big meal before you drink, you get less drunk. | There are 2 explanations: you can physically drink less, and it hits you more slowly. It's hard to pound a 6pack of beer after eating a thanksgiving dinner. Your stomach doesn't have the capacity for it. Food slows down the alcohol's progress in your digestive tract, so in effect, you're consuming alcohol over a longer... |
How does a processor work with just electrical currents? | I THOUGHT the way they worked was through switches. Computers use binary language so 1s and 0s. So say a switch is up means 1 and down means 0. A processor is just a piece of hardware with tiny tiny tiny switches operated by electrical currents that flip the switches. Technically they aren't switches but rather transis... |
Why does sleeping for too long give you a headache? | It can possibly be caffeine addiction Some people end up with raging headaches if they don't drink coffee for more than half a day Hence with a long sleep and lack of caffeine intake, headache!", 'Some people get headaches when they sleep because they have sleep apnea. Is that a possibility for you? |
Why are the Nordic Countries so well off? | Finn here.It isn't simple, nor for the same reasons as other nords.But after the wars, we pumped up lot of effort and money in to our industries. But we were basically a agriculture society till the 70's. Finland has always had high quality industry and exports. Especially steel and high tech. Good base society with fr... |
How do we know the Marianas trench is the deepest point in the ocean if we have only explored 10% of it? | Short answer: We don't. The Marianas trench is the deepest point recorded as of today Source: _URL_2_ |
Why do all vertebrates that live on land always have 4 legs? | In the early fossil record during the Cambrian period there are many wildly different body plans for animals. Some with five limbs, or even nine. All sorts of wierd body designs are found from that period. Imagine it as sort of a brainstorming session. No idea was to crazy. Then as these new forms spread out, they star... |
What is the purpose for a virus to exist? | Organisms don't always exist to benefit other organisms. Whatever allows it to survive allows it to exist. |
How did I receive a text message that's different from the sender's original text? | ford", and "ire" are treated as one letter. It seems like there were more mistakes on the way than normal. Edit: [here] 's the numberphile video I learned this from |
What is an inner product? (linear algebra) | Vectors are not necessarily a finite list of real numbers, so the dot product is not well-defined for general vector spaces. For example, you can have vector spaces where all of the vectors are functions, and there's not an obvious way of taking the dot product of the vector f = x^2 with the vector g = x^. The point of... |
REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. What causes/is the purpose of our eyes to still move during sleep when the rest of our body is nearly inhibited and our eyes are closed the whole time? | The muscles controlling your eye movements are controlled by nerves that belong to the so-called cranial nerves, which emerge directly out of the brain instead of going through the spinal cord in some fashion or other like the rest of motoneurons. As such the sleep paralysis that happens to all of us in deep REM that i... |
How are woman able to carry up to 5+ babies? | Don't know about 5, but twins normally are born about a month early and are generally ok. I think every time I've heard of large numbers, they run out of room quickly and get evicted so early they can barely survive outside the womb. |
Where do those monster waves in the middle of the ocean come from? | Basically if you have 2 waves of equal size and they meet, you get one wave twice as high. Sometimes a bunch of waves meet up at once and you get a really big wave out of nowhere. We're still not really sure why the waves meet in the first place though. There are a few other things that impact this too.There a couple g... |
Why are public schools in the U.S. free until college/universities? | It's a political decision that was settled in the 1800s. It pretty much came down to, the education that everyone's kids, or at least enough voters' kids, are realistically going to be able to receive before they have to start working is free, and after that, you have to pay into the system to participate– though highe... |
Why is Judas and Pontius Pilate considered evil, if Jesus’s death was part of the God’s plan and someone had to do that anyways? | It is a matter of intention. Judas betrayed Jesus, he betrayed the son of God for money. According to the myth, it work out in the end, but that did not absolve Judas of his betrayal. His intentions were evil. Let's change the story so that Judas shot Jesus in the head instead. However, Jesus defied medical certainty a... |
Do a certain number of germs need to enter my body in order for me to get sick? | Well, it depends. You immune system will hunt down and destroy individual germs before they make you sick, but if a single manages to multiply fast enough, that will make your sick. The key is that you need enough in your body to start doing damage. Whether that many enter or body, or multiple to that level later, it s... |
Used oil? Why is it considered bad for environment? | Lava comes from the ground too. It's not exactly environmentally friendly, at least not in the short term. This is an example of the Appeal To Nature fallacy. Just because it's natural doesn't make it friendly to life. In fact, if you think about how inconceivably rare it is to find a place in the universe where life i... |
In a church setting, do older people still call young priests "father," and do younger priests call older people "my son" etc.? | It is mostly a Catholic thing. Protestants don't do it because Jesus explicitly said not to. Check Matthew chapter 23 and pay special attention to verse 9. In general, the protestant movement arose due to rising literacy in the population and the wide availability of translations of the bible after the invention of the... |
Why don’t all cars have harness seatbelts like racecars do? | Several reasons * 4, 5, and 6 point harnesses require careful adjustment to fit properly or they will do more harm than good. A 3 point harness will pretty much adjust itself. Ask any new parent who has to learn how to put their baby in a car seat.* They're annoying to put on, partially due to the above need to adjust ... |
Why is there blood outside the veins? | Because it transports nutrients to all your cells. If it stayed in vessels, it wouldn't reach muscle and other cells to do its job. Instead, it goes from large veins and arteries to a sort of middle man called capillaries, which are very tiny vessels. They're so thin that individual blood cells and other substances in ... |
Why aren't plastic water bottles being replaced by canned water? | Bottles can be resealed with the cap, which is more convenient. I've never seen a capped can design so far. |
How do diving birds know how deep the water is so they don't break their necks or legs on impact? | If the diving birds can see the fish they are trying to dive for then presumably they can at least see that deep into the water. The birds then just need to avoid over shooting their prey as visible fish aren't going to be below the ground. |
Why do CPUs and GPUs perform better when cool | Many motherboards will decrease CPU and GPU performance when it gets too hot. This is to prevent damaging the chip. Also, heat will wear the microcomponents inside the chip. However, heat really won't affect the performance of the chip, not regarding the motherboard's automatic underclocking and decrease of using resou... |
Why are fevers a bad thing, if the body gets hot to fight sickness etc ? | Just recovering from a 105.5 fever . Curious why the body goes that high? Like shouldn't it have a limiter or something? Or does it and some bugs override that function? Is it a feedback loop that misses its exit clause? I just reeeaaally want to avoid that experience again.From a medical perspective, fevers are really... |
why does a dishwasher manage to dry everything except for the plastic bowls and plates? | Metal and ceramic items hold heat better which means they have more energy stored in them to evaporate the water. The plastic stuff has the same amount of water on it, it just doesn't have the energy to evaporate it. |
why is it that we never forget how to ride a bike? What's the science behind it? | Once they're moving, bikes are surprisingly hard to tip over. The rotation of the front and back wheels stabilize the bike, keeping it from tipping over. If you were able to keep the handle bars strait, you could push a bike down a hill without a rider, and it would stay upright until it hit the bottom. The biggest obs... |
Why do Marvel movies (and other heavily CGI- and animation-based films) cost so much to produce? Where do the hundreds of millions of dollars go to, exactly? | During the credits pay attention to the different CGI studios. For captain marvel I counted around seven different companies doing CGI. It's a very rough estimate but I think it gives a good sense of scale. There are hundreds of people involved just in the CGI and each of those companies has to turn a profit too. |
How two different DNAs don't mix during blood transfusion causing a person to change biologically due to different genes? | DNA doesn't mix easily just because two cells touch each other. It takes a lot more than that to mix DNA. That's why you don't become spiderman after touching a spider. |
Why do americans refer to people with black skin as 'african-americans' instead of just 'americans' ? | Indian-Americans" and so on. I don't think there's a commonly agreed term for "all Americans of white European ancestry", although "Caucasians" is sometimes used, but it is quite common to hear "Irish-Americans |
Why do some forms of pain, like stretching a sore back or picking a scab, feel so incredibly satisfying ("hurts so good")? | Removing scabs is part of healing. A giant big crusty scab works well at first to stop the bleeding and keep infection out, but after a while it's size can hinder healing. It itches to signal it might be time to remove it. The new skin under the removed scab is better off exposed so it can grow and the new smaller scab... |
How does a group of animators split the load to produce a uniform film when each one of them draws differently? | Animation is not done by drawing each frame as a picture. Instead the draw lots of bits of picture on clear plastic called cells and then stack them together to make the picture. This lets them reuse backgrounds and such that don't change every panel. For consistency they can have the same person draw one thing for the... |
How do we know thoughts are created in the brain (and not somewhere else)? | In a sense we don't. As others have mentioned, we can see how the brain reacts when we think through MRI and such and we know how certain parts of the brain work and how itnfits together fairly well. For all we know, some kind of undetectable consciousness-thought particle or such could exist, but we don't have any dat... |
What actually happens when we unintentionally start to drift off to sleep but our body suddenly "shocks" us awake? | As far as I'm aware the top comment is bullshit, there's no evidence for any of this. What I heard though which is a theory that actually makes sense is essentially your consciousness still being awake on some level whilst your body engages paralysis for sleep . With your awareness of that sensation of flaccid paralysi... |
Why is it that Netflix wants us to spend as much time as possible on their platform? | I think their goal is more about keeping you coming back to their platform, not necessarily keeping you on the platform for so many consecutive hours. But to accomplish that they want to make sure you have enough material to watch that 1) you can easily justify paying their subscription fee and 2) that you don't feel t... |
Would a bear that's raised domestically, including sleeping indoors, still go through hibernation? | The shortest answer is yes. Animals that hibernate do so in response to both shorter days and colder weather, so any hibernating animal with access to the outdoors and natural sunlight would feel an urge to put on weight, and then fall into a state of torpor, the sleepiness that most of us confuse for true hibernation.... |
if the sun is a giant fireball, why does firelight look so different from sunlight? | The sun isn't a giant fireball. Fire implies combustion, which requires oxygen, of which there is a distinct lack in space. The sun is more like a giant nuclear bomb that is constantly exploding. |
Why do women get sick during pregnancy? | Estrogen can cause nausea for reasons that aren't clesr; levels are higher during pregnancy. Also higher is the hormone progesterone, which can cause nausea due to causing relaxation of muscles in the stomach. Doing so causes the sphincter that golds the stomach opening closed to relax and allow stomach content to back... |
Why does tall buildings have a higher chance to collapse when its not swaying than when it is swaying during an earthquake? | Because brittle materials don't absorb as much energy as ductile materials. When you're in a car crash, you want the car to crumple and deform because that means the energy from the crash is going into deforming the car and not into your body. If the car didn't deform, the energy would transfer to you and, because you ... |
Why does n^0 = n? And if it is because you are not multiplying it by anything, shouldn’t n^1 be n x n? | It doesn't = 0 . & #x200B; n ^2 = n * n n ^1 = n n ^0 = n/n = 1 n ^-1 = 1/n etc |
Why is coconut oil considered healthy, even though it is so dense with saturated fat? | Nutrition organizations, actual medical science places do not say it's healthy. Antivaxxer middle age moms say it's healthy.It’s not. It’s bro science. They are ‘healthier’ than other saturated fats, but it’s still saturated fat and you should limit your consumption of them to reasonable levels. It’s like saying cane s... |
How are people naturally talented without any prior knowledge of their talent? | There are multiple interacting variables here, in many cases with at least some level of genetic involvement. And it's usually not as sudden of a talent as it seems. For example, a kid who's a natural at baseball *probably* has natural affinities in hand-eye coordination, depth perception, reaction times, maybe even a ... |
Why would someone who is removed from life support because of 'brain death' still be receiving pain or anxiety medication up to the time of their death? | Because doctors don't 'really' know what it means to be dead. They have redefined it several times over the years.We can only speculate as to what medical factors lead to them receiving such medication. Removed |
How do shops on etsy sell copyrighted characters from companies like Nintendo, Disney, and Marvel? | It depends. Certain things aren't actually legal to sell, the odd person selling handmade things will get a notification asking them to stop from Disney's legal team though I think most of the time it's seen as so little it's not worth going after people for so it's just ignored. The legal way to do it is to use a lice... |
Why is it so much faster to cook on the stove than in the oven? | **TL;DR:** The method of the Transfer of Heat. Oven uses hot air to transfer heat to food over time, while the stove heats up a metal surface that has direct contact with the fire. **As a result**, less of the energy from the flame is lost to the surroundings and is more concentrated on the food being cooked. **We** ca... |
How does drinking a glass of water when you wake up help you be more awake, yet doing it before bed helps you sleep? | I don't find either of these to be the case for me. Perhaps you have built up certain associations with bedtime and wake up routines over the years? |
How does a resonator work? | > For example an acoustic guitar. How is it possible to make the sound louder without any power source? You're absolutely right, you can't amplify a sound without a power source. So the common explanation, that the body amplifies the sound coming from the string, is incomplete. What actually happens is that the vibrati... |
People today are able to produce paintings that are indistinguishable from photographs. Why couldn’t artists in past eras achieve this level of realism? | I'd mention that people made very realistic sculptures in the past. [This Roman bust] is very natural, an it tells us that Romans were fully cabable in observing an copying reality in a realistic manner. Today those who make photorealistic paintings specifically aim to make photorealistic paintings. It's a painstaking ... |
Why do people get the urge to destroy things, even their own belongings, when they get angry? | How common is this type of behaviour in people? I've only ever seen someone do this once, when we were both 16. The idiot punched a door because my friend turned him down. Shit was scary. |
Do your emotions affect your memory of certain events? | Yes, emotional moments have an impact on memories, as well as your mindset at the time. For example you remember your wedding day, the anticipation walking down the aisle, the kiss, the vows but you can't for the life of you remember last Thursday. Because Thursday was a low impact day like every other, the cocktail of... |
What is entropy, how do we know how it works and does it have many real life applications? | Wikipedia defines it pretty well: [_URL_2_] . There is even a Intro to Entropy page: [_URL_1_] **.** Read that one to wrap your head around the concept; I will admit that it is not easy. . We know it works because we can measure it: [_URL_3_] Like measurements of temperature and pressure, it always works; the math alwa... |
Why does a fabric appear darker when wet ? | Water doesn't really increase the *absorption* of the fabric, it makes it more *transparent*. When light goes from one transparent substance to another, say from air to glass, part of the light will be reflected off the interface -- if you look at a glass window, you can see a partial reflection of the room you're in. ... |
How did Popcorn become the go-to food for movie theaters? | Street vendors could easily make and sell popcorn -- back in the early days of film, you bought snacks outside of the establishment. It was like a fair. It was also one of the first places with Air Conditioning. You'd buy a snack, go see a film, and just sit in the cold room of wonders."Although early theaters weren’t ... |
How can anesthetic cause death? | Anaesthesia causes death due to one fairly basic principle: Not enough oxygen gets to important organs . This can be due to either a breathing system issue or a blood delivery system issue. Local anaesthetics can mess up the drug delivery system because it can cause your blood pressure to fall, or cause your heart to n... |
Why do most animals have many babies at once but humans usually only have one at a time? | Most of the time it's fairly easy to split animals into one of two types, they are either selected for having a lot of kids and not putting any effort into raising them, or having very few kids and putting a lot of effort into making those few as good as possible. Humans are the second type. |
Why do hard-boiled eggs give off a strong aroma and fried eggs don't? | Hard boiled eggs only smell if you overcook them. Overcooked fried eggs smell exactly the same, it's just easier to overcook a boiled egg. |
Why doctors say in movies certain cases are “inoperable”? What causes issues to not be operable? | Generally, either something that can't be fixed with surgery, or something that has a risk that outweighs the potential gain. For example, if someone has a brain tumor that may kill them eventually, but removing it surgically would almost certainly kill them now, it would be deemed inoperable.Any surgery has risks. Ind... |
Why aren't all rockets launched from the equator? | There's an additional aspect to this that people aren't mentioning, and it involves math. The orbital speed at any latitude is equal to the equatorial rotational speed times the cosine of the latitude. Therefore, as long as you're somewhat close to the tropics, the rotational speed will be almost as fast as the equator... |
Why does heat make popcorn pop? | There's a little bit of water inside of a popcorn kernel. When you heat it up, the water turns into steam which builds up pressure inside and causes the pop as it bursts out. |
What exactly happens when milk goes bad/sour? Would adding fresh milk to old milk delay the process? | The microbes that typically inhabit milk excrete acid as a by-product. This acid is what makes the milk begin to taste sour as the microbes multiply and eat more. This acidity is also what causes the proteins in the milk to clump and begin squeezing fat globules together to form curds, which separates the solids from t... |
Couldn't all animals, with enough time (however long), be domesticated? Why do people seem to insist it would be impossible to domesticate some animals? | It's not that it's impossible it's just not worth the effort. You could domesticate antelope if you put in the effort of building big enough fences and and chased them around to milk them or whatever and it continued for generations. But cows are much simpler because they aren't nearly as active and are easier to contr... |
why our memories comes to us as if we are in 3rd person? | Not everyone has that. I do though so I inquired a bit! Although the eyes can only transmit to the brain what they see directly, the brain creates a mental image of everything around it for you to navigate. That's how some [optical illusions] work. The 3rd person view is likely a consequence of your brain re-creating y... |
if we have a runny nose from a head cold or allergies, how does it stop running while we sleep? | You're probably swallowing it. Do you wake up with a scratchy throat? It's the post-nasal drip. |
What would happen if we tried to throw massive amounts of trash into volcanoes to reduce landfill size? | Also, at the rate we generate trash we'd fill the damn things up pretty quickly. I'd guess that enough trash piled on top of a lava lake would eventually pull the surface temperature down to the point where it would turn solid. Then it would just become a landfill . |
How are we able to "hallucinate" so vividly while reading? It's like half of your brain focuses on reading while the other half plays a movie and somehow it all works. | I actually get frustrated at my inability to visualise what's going on in most books. And I'd say I have a reasonably good imagination, but it just doesn't happen for me. About half way through a book I'll tend to start losing track of who's who, where they are etc. Perhaps it's because I tend to read more complex sci-... |
How dangerous is uranium mining and what are its positives/negatives? | Not very dangerous since U238 has a very long half life, meaning it's not very radioactive. Also, I think it's an alpha emitter , which would mean that it's trivial to shield yourself if required. It's probably much safer than coal mining, for instance. |
What and how causes weather-sensitive plants like the hygroscopic earthstar fungus to react to the weather to open or close? | not a biologist, an engineer here. I think their skin is reacting to humidity. There should be a micro-sponge that expands when absorbing water and pushing parts open. When it dries, it shrinks. I don't think there is any concious activity in plants. |
ELI5: When banks print/make new currency, say they decide to make £1million, how is that broken down into the various denominations? | It isn't much different than deciding how much bread vs beans to buy down at the grocers. You know what your historical usage of them is, so you buy the amounts you think you will need. If your aunt is a bean freak and you know she is coming to visit for a week, you might stock up on beans. And the grocer needs to deci... |
How is 32 bit able to handle 4gb of ram, if 4,294,967,296 is the number of bits? | CPU's don't operate on individual bits within RAM. They read and write entire bytes, and that's why bytes are the ones with memory addresses that the CPU has to work with. With a 32 bit memory space you can give a unique address to 2^32 bytes of 8 bits each, for a total memory capacity of 2^32 * 8 = 2^ bits = 2^35 bits... |
Why do big things like giants,gods,monsters etc. move slower in movies? would that be accurate in real life? | You want a good example watch a child walking casually versus an adult. The kid practically looks like they're sprinting if you look at their legs.It is accurate in real life. If I asked you to throw a punch as fast as you can, and then asked a squirrel to do the same thing, you would punch much slower than the squirre... |
Why is it movie theater popcorn tastes so amazing no matter where you are? | Counter argument: UK movie theater popcorn is the worst.It's always cold, and I'm not sure they add anything to it. |
How come the people need to leave the room when xrays are done? | > I mean like if it’s harmful for them to stay in the room, is it harmful for you/how harmful is it for you? It's harmful to both, but you are getting one x-ray which isn't enough to cause real damage. They give x-rays all day long, and if they were in the room those tiny doses would add up. It's like how smoking one c... |
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