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ELI5: which bodily processes are first to shut down as a result of under-nutrition? And what is the progression from there? | 91 | The body shuts down pretty much from least vital to most vital. The first system to shut down is the reproductive. Then the digestive, then organ failure. If you make it to organ failure, you are probably at the heart failure stage.
| 54 | |
What purpose does leg jiggling/bouncing serve? | 239 | There is no clear answer to this question. However, there are some who hypothesize (myself included) that "leg jiggling" *does* serve a purpose. We understand that persons with attentional deficits have an underactivation of certain brain networks. Meaning, those brain areas don't activate at the same level as they ... | 104 | |
[Warhammer 40,000] Would a chapter serf worship the Emperor? | I know that it's considered unusual for brothers of Adeptus Astartes chapters themselves to worship the Emperor as a divine figure: "Grandpa, not God", as a guy in my gaming group put it. My question is, would a *serf* of a chapter likely share this belief due to the "command environment", or would they probably still ... | 17 | In most cases, serfs who are brought into a chapter are also inducted into their specific customs. Since most marines do not hold the Emperor in a specifically divine light, their serfs also hold the same belief. Although given that serfs are unaugmented humans walking amongst the Emperor's finest servants, they could ... | 18 |
[Superhero] Any advantages of having a cape? | 19 | It makes you seem more imposing. Draws attention away from civilians. Superman uses his to steer. Batman uses his to glide. It also conceals his body language and makes him seem creepier than he actually is. | 26 | |
[The Culture] and [General Fiction] - Which societies have a higher standard of living for the average citizen than the Culture? | 26 | In the culture you can have your head knocked off by a freak accident of industrial machinery then have stealth drones fly in out of nowhere to take your head off to be attached to life support while they regrow you a clone body, all before your head hits the ground.
That's a pretty impressive social security safety ... | 35 | |
ELI5: If Google Maps uses location data from android phones to predict journey times how does it know the difference between those on a bus and those in a car as they share the same road? How does it arrive at the different estimates for car and bus journeys of the same route? | 23 | Google knows where bus stops are. Based on that, it's not difficult to pick out which android devices come to a complete stop at specific intervals along a journey, and can therefore be used to calculate a base time along those routes. | 16 | |
Dear r/askscience: there's no need to tag "evolution" onto the end of every biology-related question. | Evolutionary explanations are often the best and most interesting, but most of the time I feel like people tag that onto the end of their question to add some formality or forced intelligence onto the question. This isn't necessary. If you're curious what causes morning wood, just ask "hey guys, why do we get morning w... | 76 | I also would like to add that not everything exists because of some evolutionary advantage. Many things are not genetically encoded or biologically innate, and many people ignore the fact that for human behaviors, cultural forces, which changes far more rapidly, might play a far greater role than evolution.
Likewise, ... | 25 |
CMV: A minimum wage that is directly linked to the cost of living/living wage for an area would solve many issues that come with minimum wage increases | So, the main thing I see when the topic of a living wage comes up is that companies will just jack up the prices to compensate for the lost revenue, which then negates any increase in wages.
However, a minimum wage that is directly linked to what the living wage is for the area that the business is located would make ... | 23,793 | It’s not that companies increase prices with an increase in the minimum wage, it’s that landlords increase prices. Rent is not a fixed price like goods and most services are - it’s highly flexible based on demand.
You would create a feedback loop - minimum wage goes up, rent goes up, so minimum wage goes up again beca... | 1,682 |
Can insects cross breed like mammals? | Like when a horse and a donkey make a mule or a lion and tiger make a liger | 163 | Yes. Speciation is complicated for all animals, and hybrids are not always sterile, leading some to see it as a vital source of new species. From "Specialization Speciation and Radiation" ed Tilmon, "Hybridization is common in Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and occurs in more than 15% of all species."
20 year mu... | 48 |
Why is the civil/tropical year shorter than the sidereal year? | On wikipedia ( the german one though ) it says it is due to the precession of the earth, but why ? | 89 | The tropical year is about 20 minutes shorter than the sidereal year.
Precession is the Earth slowly rotating around its axis. That rotation takes about 26,000 years. So in one year it completes a 26 thousandth of the rotation.
If you divide a year by that 26,000 you get about 20 minutes.
So the tropical year is bas... | 15 |
If increased kinetic energy = perception of heat/high temperature, why does using a fan to blow around air (increase kinetic energy) cool us down? | Rather than some mind-blowing physics, I'm expecting this to be more of a common-sense kind of solution, but I've been stuck puzzling over it for a while. | 36 | Fans cool in two ways. First, they increase the rate of evaporation of water from your skin. The heat of vaporization of water is quite high, and this reduces the temperature of your skin. Second, if the air temperature is less than 37C, your skin transfers thermal energy to the air molecules. The speed of the wind... | 35 |
Why and how are archeological sites determined to be mostly religious in nature? | In doing research for [this AskReddit post](http://redd.it/xxtif), it dawned on me that the majority of ancient buildings we find are deemed as temples. To my limited knowledge on this topic, I believe it is because of the etchings of animals/figurines, the shape of the building and the great (economic and labor) costs... | 371 | There's a joke in archaeology; if you can't explain it, it probably has religious significance. (I think that there's an theist logic joke in there somewhere).
Really though, impracticality, centrality, as well as the imagery, shapes, and costs are important factors. Typically, there will also be use-wear in practica... | 238 |
What makes a gene dominant or recessive? | What is the difference between a dominant or recessive gene? I know that dominant genes prevail over recessive ones and this is also the stuff I find on the internet. But I can't find an explanation of what makes a specific gene prevail over other ones in the fist place. | 124 | It depends on the details of what the gene does and how each allele (different version of the gene) works or doesn't work.
For example, lactose intolerance happens when _neither_ of your two genes for making lactase are functional in adulthood, so a single lactase-persistence allele will be dominant over a normal lact... | 65 |
If there are stick liquids and sticky solids, are there any sticky gasses? | 292 | Molecularly, yes. Different gases have different binding affinities to different surfaces. Binding very weakly is called physisorption, binding very strongly so there’s nearly a chemical bind is call chemisorption. How sticky the gas is depends on the gas and the surface it’s sticking to, just like liquids and solids. ... | 250 | |
Do all flying insects share one common flying ancestor, or did flight evolve multiple times in the different insect families? | 87 | > Insects were the first group of organisms to take wing and their flight appears to have evolved only once.
Wheat and Wahlberg. 2013. Phylogenomic Insights into the Cambrian Explosion, the Colonization of Land and the
Evolution of Flight in Arthropoda. *Systematic Biology* 62(1): 93 - 109. | 62 | |
[Avatar] Why is it that some Benders don't need to move to Bend? | 53 | Bending is all about the manipulation of the flow of chi within the body and using it to affect the outside world and the element(s). The various bending arts and styles help to focus the chi into doing specific things, depending on the movements of the body.
Some particularly powerful benders, however, have such con... | 43 | |
[Mass Effect] How powerful is the Citadel Council? | It seems that they have direct control of C-Sec, but outside of that, aren't the individual Councilors more like representatives of their respective governments, and if so, wouldn't every decision of the Council have to be ratified by the individual government leaders? | 15 | The Council's decisions do not bind the individual governments, you are correct. The weight of a Council decision comes in the form of pressure from the other Council species. Though the asari are old and strong, though the turians have an incredible fleet, though the salarians have sneaky ways to accomplish things, th... | 15 |
[Pippi Longstocking] How did Pippi managed to get to Sweden with her horse in the first place? Didn't she got shipbroken in the pacific? | 19 | Pippi's father had disappeared at sea and her mom was dead so the ship's crew sent Pippi to her family home at manor of Villa Villekulla because they thought that the sea was not a suitable place for a child growing up without parents. | 17 | |
ELI5: Why do cut apples, pears and other fruits become brown and mealy on the surface of the cut when left untouched for a while? | 58 | Its because the flesh of the fruit oxidizes. Oxygen from the air interacts with the fruit. Its not unlike how metal will oxidize (rust).
Oxygen is actually a fairly dangerous and destructive element. The skin of the fruit protects the meat from oxygen (among other things). | 47 | |
[Battlestar Galactica 2003] Where do Cylon Centurions store their ammunition? | They have three collapsible, projectile guns per hand, and can appear to continue firing for extended periods of time. Close examination reveals the guns to be relatively high caliber as well. The newer toaster models are rather thin and don't appear to have external ammo storage. | 33 | There are few pictures of the back of centurions. They do show a large cover on the upper back, leading to the thought that some ammo could be stored here- where there is interior open space between structural components of the torso. Depending on the interior of the abdomen, more could be stored here. Think of a belt-... | 12 |
[Star Wars] What would Palpatine have done had Count Dooku killed Anakin and Obi Wan in Episode 2? | It seemed like Palpatine had been grooming Anakin since episode 1 to be his apprentice, but Dooku wasn't in on this plan. In episode 2, Dooku nearly kills Anakin and Obi Wan were it not for Yoda appearing just in time. How would Palpatine have proceeded were Yoda to arrive too late? | 114 | Continue training Dooku whilst making moves on Mace Windu. Anakin's death would be a pitty, like the deaths of all of Palpatine's apprentices. but Palpatine can move on. The real tragedy with employing Count Dooku as his apprentice is just how old Dooku is. | 102 |
CMV: Most people who complain about online dating would have equally little success before it became a thing. | I've seen more and more people recently (both among my friends and people online) complain about how hard it is to date in this culture of online dating. I'm going to lay out my understanding of the main arguments, and why I think its sort of nonsense. But please CMV!
 
The main arguments seem to be:
1. Con... | 28 | But your original statement is wrong. People who complain would have had MORE success before online dating BECAUSE people would have less options. People are forced to date people in their general area, who happen to work with them or show up at a bar at the right time.
People who hate online dating are having less s... | 14 |
[Mass Effect] Why do the Reapers harvest all sentient life every fifty thousand years? | 65 | It's not *all* sentient life, just the ones that have reached a certain level of technological advancement.
According to the Reapers, they do this to prevent organics from creating AI that will start a robotic revolution and kill all organic life. | 118 | |
Why are bruised spots on fruit sweeter than the rest of it? | 36 | Bruising on fruits occurs because parts of the fruit cells' cell wall are ruptured, releasing the enzymes. This causes accelerated ripening, a process that involves breaking down enzymes, but more importantly, hydrolyzes storage polysaccharides. Those polysaccharides convert to smaller sugars (glucose, fructose, sucros... | 57 | |
[Futurama]Why does everyone in the year 3000 have such an incredible knowledge of the 20th century | I understand why they might know about the major events (some presidents, wars) but how do they know about all the pop culture that they reference? | 45 | The second coming of Jesus destroyed all video tapes on earth, all that was left was print media.
The longest lasting print media was glossy magazines since newspapers and books generally disintegrated or rotted. This resulted in the only "history" available being tabloids and propaganda material.
People read this ... | 50 |
how does over-the-horizon radar work? bounces off the ionosphere like shortwave radio? | or what? | 1,087 | In short, Yes
You just need tremendous transmitter Power and an ultra sensitive receiver. That's why they do NOT use the same antenna but are spatially separated. The intense transmitter Signal would spoil the receiver in the vicinity. You also need to check the state of the Ionosphere by sending a beam straight up an... | 485 |
ELI5: Every time I buy pre-sale concert tickets, or log on immediately during public sale times, I always get terrible seats, even when using the "Best Available" option and searching for the highest price. How are other people getting their good seats closer to the stage? | 111 | A lot of seats are already accounted for even before they go on sale. You've got VIP seating, tickets that are given to various local radio stations, internet sites, magazines, etc., for contest giveaways. You could potentially have corporate accounts that get a block of seats automatically for events.
Plus, many scal... | 74 | |
[Game of Thrones] Since Starbucks is confirmed to have an outlet in Winterfell, what other franchises can be found in Westeros? | I'm pretty sure there's a Long John Silver's in the Iron Islands. Dorne probably favors Taco Bell. | 917 | Lyft and Uber are making good money driving people across Westeros at ridiculous speeds, thus explaining how certain characters are able to get from Kingdom to Kingdom seemingly overnight.
Every KFC in Westeros has been destroyed by the Hound. | 734 |
CMV:Apple computers are inferior in all ways and are only a expensive fashion trend. | I currently hold Apple in a low position due mainly to how I've disliked Steve Jobs seeing him as nothing more than a good marketer with deceptive and dirty tactics.
* I disagree with it being in any way better than other operating systems(Linux, Windows).
* Having a mac laptop doesn't make your work of better quali... | 153 | >I disagree with it being in any way better than other operating systems (Linux, Windows).
MacOS is fully POSIX-compliant. This means that it's going to interoperate with most other operating systems in a consistent way, and programs developed for MacOS will be naturally more portable to other POSIX-compliant or mo... | 89 |
[Genetics] A and B are identical twins. C and D are identical twins. A marries C and B marries D. A and C have a kid, B and D have a kid. If I tested the DNA of A/Cs kid, would it show that A/C are its parents as well as B/D? | 715 | Variation in crossing over in the production of gametes would lead to differences in the genetic makeup of child A/C and B/D. However, since the parental or recombinant gametes could be the product of either couple, there's no way to detect paternity (assuming there are no significant epigenetic changes in any of the p... | 305 | |
How do we know for sure that there is molten lava in earth’s core? | 21 | Earthquakes and some other events like nuclear weapon explosions set off seismographs. These record the pattern of the ground waves that reach it. Earthquakes create 2 different kinds of waves which travel at different speeds. Sometimes the direct line from the seismograph to the event goes through the earth. When this... | 11 | |
What equipment or arrays have been proposed for astronomy outside of Earth, using coordinated multiple devices? An array of optical telescopes? An array of rods on the lunar surface for radio astronomy? Or other equipment spread through the solar system? | 15 | So what you're mostly getting at is called interferometry, where we combine signals from multiple telescopes to get a higher resolution image. The further apart the telescopes are, the higher the resolution you get, so putting telescopes in space seems like a good way to maximise your resolution. The famous black hole ... | 16 | |
ELI5: How is a film that is filmed at a certain resolution remastered to 1080p/blu-ray? | I feel like this is an odd question but I was curious as to how its done because you can't really re-render the film at a higher resolution without losing quality. | 18 | Because film is/was much higher "resolution" than digital, we just never had a way to display it before. Now that we have HD televisions and monitors, and Blu-Ray, they can re-scan the original film negatives (assuming they still have them) and get the newer versions. | 16 |
ELI5: How did mountaineers prove they reached a summit before the days of cameras and selfies? | 900 | Alpine and mountaineering clubs in Europe placed small vaults with rubber stamps and pads on the summits of mountains. When climbers summited a mountain they stamped their climbing “logs” with that mountains particular stamp to demonstrate/prove their success. Way cool that. | 1,629 | |
ELI5:How does aging meats and things like cheese work and not just make them rot and gross? | 48 | The facilities used for aging meat are kept at very certain temperatures, humidities and so forth to discourage the growth of unwanted cultures, bacterias, molds while optimizing the growth of preferential cultures, molds, and bacterias.
Many kinds of cheese are sealed in a combination of cheese cloth and wax, which o... | 21 | |
ELI5: Why do foods such as salsas and soups tend to taste better after they've been refrigerated overnight? | I made salsa on Monday, tasted it, and thought it was OK. A night in the refrigerator really brought out the flavor. It's almost like the ingredients mingled somehow to make it taste so much better. | 18 | You've pretty much got it.
When you combine a bunch of ingredients in a flavored liquid, at first the flavors of the liquid will either just coat the pieces or barely penetrate the surface. As you let it sit, the flavors penetrate deeper into each piece of food, and each ingredient starts to give up its own juices to ... | 13 |
[Gorillaz] How is Plastic Beach Inhabitable? | How the hell did Gorillaz live on Plastic Beach for so long? It was a floating trash dump farther built as far from land as possible, yet still is able to support the band and the collaborators in enough comfort to record music. How are they getting food, electricity, and water to support them all? Furthermore, how ha... | 20 | iirc Murdoc had it built from all the plastic floating in the ocean - as such, the building material would be relatively clean, as any organic matter would have been stripped by oceanlife and of course salt water acts as a purifying agent, so Plastic Beach wouldn't have been dangerous to live on
>food/electricity/... | 17 |
ELI5: Why does cooked food offer more calories than its raw counterpart? | 9,644 | The heat from cooking partially breaks down the food making it easier to extract the calories of the food. So since you use less energy to get the energy from the food you net more calories.
Also cooking methods often involve adding things like butter that give them more calories. | 9,744 | |
ELI5- How are we able to send and receive data so fast through space from places as far as New Horizons reached at Ultima Thule? I understand there is a massive signal station, but 4.5 BILLION miles away? HOW. | 38 | All of this transmitted data is in the form of electromagnetic radiation (i.e. "light") that literally travels, at well, the speed of light, so even very long distances can be covered in very little time. There is also relatively little interference in outer space, so it doesn't take a terribly strong signal to cover a... | 48 | |
ELI5:How does Snapchat not get in trouble for hosting child porn on their servers? | 17 | There's a law that exempts companies that allow users to upload content from being liable for the content they host that is uploaded by users. So if someone sends a snapchat containing illegal images, Snapchat isn't liable for hosting the image since they don't check individual images. If they discovered something ille... | 17 | |
ELI5: Why do you get really bad cramps before diarrhea? | Also, why is it that sometimes while you're pooing you get sweaty and clammy and the feeling that yep, I'm about to die? | 80 | That's your large intestine muscles contracting to try and move the poop along. This is thought to be controlled (at least somewhat) by stretch receptors in the gut.
Under normal circumstances a group of muscles contract when stretched by solid poop, the poop moves down the tube, and then that group of muscles relaxe... | 98 |
ELI5 If some contraceptives stop your period, what happens to the egg? | Can your uterus just keep it to use later in life? Would you never go through menopause? | 82 | Unfortunately no, you don't get to keep the eggs that you aren't ovulating. Basically, your ovaries still select an egg and begin forming a follicle to ovulate the egg, but without the correct hormones the follicle doesn't mature and finish the process.
You still lose eggs, those eggs just don't get a chance to be ... | 66 |
Understanding of language by a computer, couldn't we make it work through linguistics? | Let's first define understanding of language. For me, if a computer can take X number of sentences and group them by some sort of similarity in nature of those statements, that's a first step towards understanding.
So my point is
-We understand a lot about the nature of sentence structure, and linguistics is pretty a... | 25 | There's a lot more to language that people realize. Assuming we're dealing with just text, parsing is only around 85% accuracy these days, maybe pushing 90%. Dealing with speech, etc. is far more complicated.
To make matters worse, there is no agreed-upon model of grammars -- there are a range of models some of which ... | 28 |
Why is smiling used to indicate happiness? Why couldn’t frowning indicate happiness and smiling indicate sadness? | What is the evolutionary reason for these? Also, why does eyebrows up indicate surprise and eyebrows down indicate anger? I guess asking such questions is asking how a language got started because that’s all these facial gestures are is a language, right?
Would it be possible to teach a kid to smile when they are sad ... | 47 | I dont think there would be any reason for smiling to be happiness. It probably just started that way and worked so it never changed. Also its not a learned behavior its a biological one people will just smile when they are happy even if they have never seen a smile before. | 31 |
ELI5: What's wrong with high fructose corn syrup? | 317 | It's more a problem with fructose in general. When your body absorbs sugar, it can do two things. It can process the sugar immediately for energy or it can store the sugar for later as glycogen (a sort of compressed version of sugar).
When cells are processing the sugar for energy there are a few checkpoints where th... | 228 | |
When beryllium-16 decays and produces 2 neutrons simultaneously, what happens to that dineutron? | When beryllium-16 decays and produces 2 neutrons simultaneously, what happens to that dineutron?
What is holding the neutrons together? Gluons?
Do the neutrons separate and undergo beta decay? | 16 | The dineutron immediately splits apart into two neutrons. The dineutron is an unbound resonance, which decays on a timescale of 10^(-22) seconds.
The neutrons are held together momentarily by the residual strong force. At the lowest level, from QCD, you could say that this force is a result of gluon exchanges between ... | 20 |
How much do the different disciplines of science work together? | Thats my question. I'm not a academic and I don't have any insight in the science- and research-system, so I hope someone of you can help me.
Do scientists from different disciplines work together? Like maybe neurobiologists and physicists or sociologists and psychologists?. Or do they tend to stay with their kind? | 21 | Sure we do. There are varying levels of working together
* Collaborations (I'll do the simulation, you do the experiment, let's publish together)
* Special centers (Bring together all the people needed to work on solar cells - physicists, chemists, material scientists, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, etc. an... | 12 |
[ELI5] India's Caste System and why it's important | 16 | Indian society used to be separated into castes, meaning that you are born into your job, and that job defines your place in society. Social mobility was non-existent. The priests were at the top, then rulers and soldiers, then artisans and craftsmen, then manual laborers, then finally "untouchables".
This system ... | 24 | |
[Marvel Comics] Reed Richards has 18 Doctorates and yet goes by Mr. Fantastic whereas Victor von Doom was expelled before he even completed his first undergrad. How can he call himself a doctor? | 144 | Doom also claims to have multiple doctorates, probably all from the University of Latveria
When you're the authoritarian dictator of an entire country you can issue yourself as many doctorates as you want | 167 | |
I believe that it is extremely, extremely, extremely unjust for the media to follow a court case, provide a perspective on it, and show the face of the person on trial. Please somehow CMV. | I could not feel more strongly about this. It is absolutely ridiculous that a person before they are innocent or guilty has their face shown to the public and therefore associated with a crime.
It's completely ridiculous and mind numbingly preposterous to think that a possibly innocent man accused of rape has their fac... | 903 | There are two arguments against your position, which may change your view. Firstly, publication of who has been accused of a crime can allow other victims to feel like they can come forward. In the UK, the most prolific paedophile for decades was a 'well-loved' celebrity called Jimmy Savile. He operated with impunity f... | 239 |
CMV: There is no good reason (without political bias) for the continued use of the Electoral College system | There have been several pro-electoral college posts recently, so I thought I would try my opposite opinion and see if anyone can convince me to change my view.
In my opinion the Electoral College system has no benefit for America today. If the majority of the population votes for a given candidate, that candidate sho... | 31 | > Republicans in California or democrats in Alabama don't really have a meaningful voice in presidential elections. Going to a pure popular vote would fix this.
You know what else would fix this? States allocating their electoral votes by congressional district.
Individual states have the power to do this now. ... | 17 |
[Harry Potter] Even with Magic, how long did it take to repair the castle after The Battle of Hogwarts? | 16 | Probably not long. Maybe a hour or two for all the specific stones to be magic back in place.
Notice in one of the fantastic beasts movies, one of the American wizards does a spell that Magic’s a building back to normal. So stands to reason all the teachers and students would just do a bunch of the similar spell to m... | 20 | |
eli5: what are those rings that form around a mushroom cloud after a nuclear detonation? | i was watching a documentary last night on the development of nuclear weapons and was wondering what those rings that form around the mushroom cloud are. i kind of understand how the mushroom cloud forms, but what causes the big torus-shaped cloud around the mushroom? also, why do some larger detonations see multiple t... | 17 | You're seeing water condensing as shock waves progress through it. At certain distances from the blast the temperature and pressure is just right to form a "cloud" - it's essentially a circular airplane contrail.
There is a lot of dynamic stuff happening around a nuclear detonation which is why different areas of the... | 10 |
ELI5: Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed, and seemingly a life altering illness. Why is it that doctors in the US are so uneducated about it, or taught to dismiss it? | I know quite a few people who suffer from chronic Lyme disease, sadly. The most common issues they all consistently have is; lack of medical professional knowledge about the disease. Is Lyme disease the cause for many other diseases most people aren't aware of? For example: Depression, MS, fibromyalgia, ect. | 16 | Chronic Lyme disease is kind of the flavor of the month for a certain type of personality disorder.
There's no evidence it exists, and since it doesn't exist it's impossible to prove someone doesn't have it. And since it's impossible to prove someone doesn;t have it people who wish to believe they have it can never b... | 11 |
Why are storm clouds darker than normal clouds? | 22 | Storm clouds are denser and thicker than non-storm clouds. Since its denser and thicker, a higher percentage of the light that hits it gets absorbed (as opposed to reflected back to your eye). This makes it look dark. | 20 | |
[Harry Potter] If my Animagus form were a species capable of mimicry (such as a parrot), would I be able to talk to someone on the same level as when I am un-transformed? | The Professor in Transfigurations class had dismissed my question as being silly and irrelevant. | 506 | You would likely need a few year to learn how to use your new vocal chords. The fact that your mind knows what it wants to do doesn’t mean it will happen overnight. The same with flying or cracking a nut with your beak. Just because you have the knowledge doesn’t mean you skip the muscle-memory building | 237 |
How come individual countries in the Eurozone have different inflation rates if all use the euro? Isnt 1 euro 1 euro everywhere? | 25 | 1€ is always 1€, but then $1 is also $1 and a coke still costs more in New York than Alabama.
Inflation differs by state in the US as well. The money supply is not the only influence. The inflation differentials in Europe are bigger than across US states partly because fiscal integration is tighter in the US and partl... | 19 | |
[Mass Effect] If Sovereign hadn't interfered with the geth by creating the heretics, would there be an organic/synthetic conflict? | Sure, the geth had kicked the quarians off of Rannoch, but the entire Morning War was in self defense and they allowed the flotilla to leave unharmed.
For the next couple of hundred years the geth endeavour to build a Dyson sphere, otherwise chilling in space stations and not being hostile, while the quarians won't g... | 22 | Sovereign attacked because the galaxy had reached the end of their cycle. The quarians struggle with the Geth simply proved that this cycle had the same issues as the ones before it. That eventually synthetics will revolt against their created. It was going to happen. Maybe the Geth would feel the need to expand. Or ma... | 16 |
ELI5: What decides if a helicopter gets 2/4/6 blades? | As the title says, why do Hueys have 2 blades, while most others have 4, or the Sea Stallion has 6? And if you put 6 on a 4, does that mean more lift and better performance? | 499 | More blades means that you generate more thrust (move more air) but this comes at a loss of efficiency, more blades means more drag so you need more power. Ideally you want less blades because then they don't interfere with each other aerodynamically.
The problem then becomes the speed of sound. As you add more power ... | 553 |
ELI5: What stops "bad" people from going to "good" neighborhoods to do bad stuff? | You hear a lot about towns where people don't bother to lock their cars or homes. These are also presumably the towns/neighborhoods where there would be goods worth stealing. Is it just a professional courtesy on the part of the thieves? | 38 | "Bad" people will stick out like a sore thumb in a "good" neighborhood.
Better areas will also usually have something like a neighborhood watch scheme where everyone helps look out for each other or it may even be a gated community with round-the-clock surveillance.
Now obviously there's going to be better stuff ... | 40 |
Why haven't the Trojan asteroids coalesced? | From what I understand of [Legrangian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Lagrangian_points_equipotential.jpg) points, the L4 and L5 positions are gravitationally almost flat (although they are still maxima in the potential field). Given the weak destabilizing vectors in this area and the overall mass ... | 411 | the L4 and L5 points are not statically stable, in that sitting at the precise location of the points would hold you there. Rather, they are *dynamically* stable, in that it is possible to be in a (somewhat weirdly shaped) orbit around them.
Hence, everything "at" L4 and L5 is really orbiting around those points, and ... | 58 |
[Endgame Spoilers] Why didnt the New York crew realize... | that Hank Pym was there in New York in 2012? Why dont you just go with Antman, get all the Pym Particles you can get and then go to 1970 to get the tesseract?
If Pym didnt make enough Pym Particles in 1970, what would have they done? | 161 | Pym, if they even know where he is, has been intentionally avoiding anything Avengers shapes in general and Stark shaped in particular. By going back to before Pym’s falling out with S.H.I.E.L.D. At the Triskellion they can sneak around a Hank Pym that isn’t possessively paranoid about his invention.
Also isn’t Pym in... | 196 |
ELI5: I know the Rothschild family is a banking dynasty, but why are they so sketchy and feared to run the world? | 30 | The Rothschild family is Jewish. They were court Jews, meaning that they were the bankers for royalty back in the day. Through this they gained a lot of money, power, and influence.
At the turn of the 20th century (1900) some Russian wrote The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was a made up book that pretended to... | 23 | |
Why did non-Euclidean geometry take so long to be developed/discovered? | If people were aware the Earth was a sphere and had cartography systems, globes, presumably featuring orthogonal lines, am I missing something our how would it not be obvious from studying a globe for a while that you can have three 90-degree angles form a closed shape?
| 214 | It's trivial to make three 90-degree angles form a closed shape. The problem is doing it with straight lines. To someone who hasn't already thought of it, saying "you can make a triangle with three right angles and three straight lines, if you call a circle a straight line" is about as useful as saying "a horse has fiv... | 141 |
[Fantasy/General] How would magical creatures fare on earth? | Specifically, what would happen if, say, a dragon, chimera, gryphon, unicorn, basilisk, or hydra were put under real world physics? (other creatures would be appreciated, it's for a tabletop roleplay I'm doing that involves the removal of magic from these creature's existence. I know it would probably be horrible and d... | 27 | > Dragon
Flight and firebreathing actually work, if we assume that dragons have internal hydrogen sacs (or other exotic organs). As apex predators, dragons would also have enough mental complexity to be as smart as they are described in literature.
Megafauna and apex predators (c.f. mammoths) have not fared well a... | 19 |
Why does your computer need to restart to remove some programs? What does it do? | 55 | They either have running background services, or use files (usually assembly dlls) that are also possibly shared by other programs.
On restarting, they check to delete these shared files (if they're still locked, they're used by other programs and would thus be left alone) and delete the now not running services. | 42 | |
ELI5: How can evolution of the human race continue now that we have reached a stage in society where nature does not pose much of a threat? | 24 | Evolution always continues. We'll adapt to our environment, even if it isn't "nature", we still have selection, certain people breed more then others, they're more likely to pass on their genes, that's evolution at work. | 17 | |
When a highly poisonous marine organism dies, why doesn't the poison kill all the fish in the area? | The poison has to leak out from the poison sac eventually. Especially when a fish has enough poison to kill a hundred people, wouldn't it be deadly even when diluted by the sea water? | 17 | From a math perspective with no regards to the properties of animals or substances:
Assume a toxic fish can kill 100 adults and it contains 100ml of poison, so 1ml (1/100 of total poison) can kill one person.
If the fish expels all of its poison at once, and it's diluted into a cubic meter of water, there will be 100... | 29 |
[Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker] How did Gannon escape his prison in the great sea? | So as the legend goes, when the people prayed the gods flooded Hyrule and sealed away Gannon and his monsters frozen in time. When Link goes to the temple of time, many of his minions are still frozen as the Master Sword held them in place. So how did Gannon get out of there? | 45 | In the intro it says the seal that imprisoned him weakened over time, so that plus his godly magic probably allowed him to slip more and more. And he is the living embodiment of power in the tri force as well.
Other than that, not really sure haha | 28 |
Why don't bones decompose with the rest of a dead body? Why do we end up with skeletons and fossils after decomposition? | 17 | They do, it just takes longer (to the extent that bone is organic, it’s broken down by bacteria; the mineral portions are chemically degraded). Only a tiny percentage of dead things are fossilized, and they occur in fairly specific conditions (generally, when the body is buried in sediment that blocks out air, preventi... | 42 | |
ELI5: Do people who sing off key hear themselves singing on key? Do they hear other off key singing as on key? | 27 | *Musician
There will be people who do think they're in key but still singing sharp or flat. Sometimes its due to change in hearing from aging but also could just be an untrained/lazy ear.
Theres probably many people who know they're out of key and have no business singing in the first place, but simply don't care be... | 17 | |
ELI5: Why does magnetism seem so similar to gravity? Is there a relationship between the two forces? | 53 | Magnetism is nothing at all like gravity. Like not even remotely similar.
- Gravity is always attractive, magnetism can be either
- Gravity has point sources and can never form dipoles, magnetism only has dipoles and can never have a point source or sinks
- Mass can be stationary and form a gravitational field, char... | 100 | |
ELI5:Axiom of Choice | Trying to wrap my head around this concept. If someone could kindly duh it down for me I would be grateful.
Thanks! | 26 | A "choice function" is a function which takes as input any one of a collection of sets, and returns some element of that set. So if we have all of the nonempty sets of positive integers, we can define the function "f(S) = the smallest integer in S". For example, f({11,12,13}) = 11, while f({2, 4, 6, 8, ...}) = 2. This ... | 10 |
[Culture]Most Humans feel compassion for animals even though we can experience so much more than they can.Most Minds feel compassion for humans even though they can experience so more than us. Why does subliming make people(even Minds)lose their inclination to care about less sophisticated beings? | 32 | A kind but uneducated child, upon seeing a rabbit wounded by a fox, may decide to help the rabbit.
A highly educated, world renowned zoologist, upon seeing a rabbit wounded by a fox, would let nature take its course.
sublimed are no longer bound by things like causality and probability. Its not that they don't care, ... | 33 | |
[Fullmetal Alchemist] Alchemy is pretty strict about equivalent exchange. Where does Alphonse get his energy to function if he doesn't eat? | 56 | SPOILERS
Talking strictly ‘Brotherhood’- It’s alluded to that the reason Ed eats so much food and will sleep for almost entire days throughout the show is because he is sustaining both of their souls. | 103 | |
ELI5: Why is bigamy illegal in most places? | I know that some religions allow men to have multiple wives, but why do most countries ban it? Why I can have multiple stable simultaneous relationships, but I can only marry one person at a time? | 22 | There's a combination of reasons. First, and perhaps most prominent among the reasons in the Western world is that mainstream Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) espouse doctrines of monogamous marriage. Many laws on this type of thing were written with explicitly religious ethics in mind (the late 1800s in th... | 26 |
CMV: Marvel movies would better better for the viewer if they didn't reveal major plot points in the trailer | Example 1 Captain America: Civil War; if they didn't show Spider-Man and Black Panther in the trailer the movie would have been better because you let the viewer be surprised that these characters are actually in the movie.
Example 2 Thor: Ragnarok; When you saw the Thor Ragnarok trailer or even first heard that Hulk ... | 2,078 | I find it odd that you think they are "unintentionally" dulling the surprise of the movie. They're doing it on purpose, because it makes *the trailers* more interesting, and generates hype for the movie beforehand.
Take Thor: Ragnarok. When the trailer dropped and Hulk was shown in it, people went *nuts*. Along with t... | 478 |
What might the surface of the moon look like (were you standing upon it) during a "blood moon" like last night? Would the ground have a red glow, or would it be too subtle to notice up close? | 218 | A blood moon is a result of the Earth's atmosphere filtering out the non red light which hits the moon, then bounces back, gets filtered again, and hits your eyeballs. It would be the same color you see, minus about 50-80% redness. The math would depend on the precise moment that you're talking about, because... atmosp... | 40 | |
Given the Skin Effect, why not make wires hollow? | If I understand Skin Effect correctly, alternating current basically flows along the surface of the conducting material. Given this, I assume the reason we need thicker cables for high ampere currents (such as those found on high tension poles) is so that the current has more surface area to travel along and it would a... | 18 | For very thick conductors, we do make them hollow. But most electrical signals go at 60 hz, which is very low, and so the skin depth is very high. The skin depth for copper at 60 Hz is about 8 millimeters, so it's not worth making them hollow unless the radius is much greater than that. | 42 |
[Song of Ice and Fire] As smart as Rhaegar was said to be, and given that he'd previously been sowing dissent against his father, why didn't he switch sides with some of his loyalists when Robert's Rebellion started gaining steam? | 111 | I don't think Robert would have accepted it. First due to not trusting a Targ turncoat, but *moreso* that Robert started the war for Lyanna's sake. The only acceptable outcome for Robert would be that Rhaegar hands Lyanna over, she says Rhaegar never touched her, also says that he protected her from someone trying to r... | 198 | |
[Dungeons and Dragons] With Aasimar being relatively common, just how and when does all this intercourse between angels and mortals occur? | Do angels commonly visit the mortal world in disguise and go out on the town? Or do they visit their god's faithful for the express purpose of breeding angel/mortal offspring? Do angels actually fall in love with really amazing clerics and paladins? And I lean towards assuming the mortal in the situation is almost alwa... | 19 | Aasimar aren't that common.
One of the guides states "Aasimar could live for the whole of their life without ever meeting another of their kind and, as such, were resigned to living amongst other races".
Aasimar also aren't always the direct results between celestials and mortals, more like descendants. IIRC it's un... | 26 |
[Pokemon] why does Giovanni keep Jessie and James on team rocket? | Not only does he keep them on the team, he sends them on special assignments and gives them a ton of resources. In the journey series they literally have a pelipper with a hoard of Pokémon following them at all times… why? Are they super successful outside pikachu catching or something? | 36 | Probably nepotism. Jessie is the daughter of an elite rocket member, while James comes from a wealthy family.
The rest of team rocket aren't brilliant masterminds either. Despite regular failure, Jessie and James show a lot of autonomy in planning and running heists. | 56 |
ELI5 how adverts before YouTube videos never have buffering/loading problems, even on a slow connection. | Just curious, as I'm on a slow connection right now while I'm house-sitting and even short, low quality videos take abysmally long to load while the pre-video spots load instantly. | 31 | It might have something to do with the fact that the average youtube ad is viewed *very* often. Generally web servers (or really most servers) make so content accessed more often is easier to get to. So a really popular video could load much quicker than some obscure video with 50 views, latest back in december. Thi... | 11 |
[Scrubs] If Ted is such a bad lawyer, why is he still employed by the hospital? | 30 | He's cheap. Over everything, we know Kelso wants to keep cost down, and evidently it takes less money to pay the occasional settlement than to keep a proper lawyer on staff, or a firm on retainer.
Also, he functions like a secretary too, thus eliminating another position they'd need to pay. Somebody more competent mig... | 41 | |
[Telletubbies] What exactly are Telletubbies? | Where do they come from? Are they adults or children? What is their purpose? Do they have a back-story?
I've heard some people speculate that they are alien life forms, who have come to Earth or an Earth-like planet. They use their antenna to pick up television broadcasts which they display on their screen-like bellie... | 110 | The Teletubbies actually takes place in a far future nature reserve. Once mankind started to roam the stars, they discovered a race that had evolved completely cut off from any predators. You ever hear of the Dodo? They're flightless, fat, and had no fear of humans, they were hunted to extinction. It wasn't necessarily... | 95 |
ELI5: What is the difference between a bank and a credit union? What are the advantages/disadvantages? | 1,541 | The main difference between the two is how they are owned. Banks are owned by shareholders who each own varying amounts of the bank (depending their investments in to it) and generally work in a way where they want to maximise profit. On the other hand, credit unions are owned by anyone who is involved with them regard... | 654 | |
the λ in Gauss's law | Why is Q/l in the wire Gauss's equation (E=Q/2π .r.l) replaced wit λ wich is the charge per unit length? How is it easier to know the charge per unit length λ than to know the charge Q and divide it by the length of the wire? Can someone please clarify?
Thank you in advance | 16 | That result is for an infinitely long wire of uniform charge density. That infinite length is important, as it provides some of the symmetry necessary to obtain this result.
For such a wire, the total charge is infinite, where as the charge per unit length is finite.
In a real world situation, the field value obtain... | 17 |
[Marvel] If X-23 got pregnant, would her healing factor affect the pregnancy? | A typical healing factor works by accelerating cell growth within the person's body. A fetus is a collection of growing cells. Would a healing factor accelerate a pregnancy in any way?
Would Laura come to term within hours? Would the child develop up until the point where it's capable of surviving outside the womb? W... | 329 | A proper healing factor restores a healthy body. This is why Wolverine does not grow benign tumors which is what growth out of control is.
Deadpool's healing factor may have been screwed up when it developed. It 'set' minor benign tumors on his skin and constantly restores that as its baseline 'healthy body'.
It is... | 210 |
[Stephen King] Which characters in the Stephen King universe can shine? | Does anyone have a list of characters that have the shine? Just watched doctor sleep (underrated movie by the way totally check I out of you get the chance), and that made me think maybe Carrie or John Coffey had the shine. I know all his novels are supposed to take place in the same world so What do you all think? | 40 | Let's see....
- Danny Torrence (The Shining)
- Mother Abigail (The Stand)
- Tom Cullen (The Stand)
- Leo Rockway (The Stand)
- Louis Creed (Pet Cemetary)
- Ellie Creed (Pet Cemetary)
- John Coffey (Green Mile)
- Mike Noonan (Bag of Bones)
- Abra Stone (Doctor Sleep) and every member of True Knot
- Jake Chamb... | 37 |
ELI5: how come my rack light on my ship (Navy) takes forever to turn on when it's dark, but if I flash my phone screen light at it it turns on immediately? | 20 | Probably has a photo sensors to slowly come on when dark to allow yourself to adjust. (In emergency wouldn't want to be temporary disoriented by bright light) vs when you shine your flashlight at it you're tricking it into thinking room is already bright. | 25 | |
[Lord of the Rings] If an orc (let’s say a Mordor orc) was taken in by an Elf family and raised, could it turn out good? | I was just mulling over the fact that the orcs were created by Morgoth and are basically evil by design, through no fault of their own. Just wondered if their nature could be overcome with the proper nurture, and what the results would be. | 34 | Sadly... we don't know. Tolkien died before settling on the origin and nature of orcs. To put it simply: whether they were actual beings with free wills or merely beasts or automata.
If it is the former (e.g. bred from Elves or Men), then certainly you could have a "nice" orc. If it is the latter, then that would depe... | 37 |
ELI5: does writing on your skin with a ballpen damage the ballpen or the ink inside it? Is there something about the oil on the skin that makes the ballpen stop working? | 20 | A ballpoint pen works by having a tiny ball held such that it blocks the opening to a reservoir of viscous sticky ink. When the ball is rotated by friction against a surface the ink will stick to the ball and be dragged out, applying it to the surface.
If you draw on your skin then your oily skin will apply oil to the... | 29 | |
ELI5: Why are you cold and sweat at the same time when you are nervous? | When I am nervous I normaly tend to sweat a lot but at the same time I am freezing. I would like to know what is the process that the human body does to reach this situation and how common this might be. | 114 | you get an adrenaline rush, adrenaline makes your body go into fight or flight mode.
it pulls blood to more important places. you become cold in your hands and feet where it narrows arteries. your glucose processing goes into overdrive to create more energy for the muscles. adrenaline also makes your sweat glands go in... | 57 |
ELI5: Why does the shadow bend as another shadow gets close? | Hey. This is probably third grade physics but could you eli5 why and how the shadow of object A (left) bends slights towards the shadow of object B (right) as I move object B closer to object A?
Here is the gif:
http://i.imgur.com/77eEyf2.gifv
Thank you so much! | 55 | This might not happen so prominently if you had a light source that was a *perfect, ideal single point* from which all light comes.
But you don't, it comes from an area the size of a lightbulb or so. So since it's coming at different angles, while the center of the shadow is pretty solid, around the edges, there are p... | 23 |
[Harry Potter] If fighting a dragon was a challenge in the new, "safer" Triwizard Tournament, what the hell were the old ones like? | Sure they only had to steal the egg but it doesn't take much to get roasted alive doing that. | 381 | You're working from different textbooks here. Madame Pomfrey can regrow your bones overnight. Anything short of fatal and she can fix you up with a wave of her wand.
The difference between the old and new tournaments is now you have a team of expert dragon handlers on hand to step in at a moments notice and medical a... | 267 |
Why does ice bind together in my cup of water? | 309 | It takes time for heat to move around. When you take the ice out of the freezer, it's colder than freezing. When you put it in water, the surface of the ice and the water touching it very quickly reach thermal equilibrium with each other. However, the *interior* of the ice cubes doesn't warm up instantly - that part... | 99 | |
ELI5: Why are older electronics more durable and last longer than newer ones? | Wouldn't it make sense if they kept making them strong? | 17 | As things get more components, they have more potential points of failure.
Imagine an old style coffee maker that just has the heating element in the base that powers the whole thing. As long as that heating coil works, everything works.
Now get a nice fancy coffee maker that has an automatic water dispenser, bean gr... | 26 |
[ATLA] What difference does physical fitness make when it comes to bending? | 39 | Probably the same as any martial art. A weak body Probably coulsnr last long or strike hard. Iron became much stronger after training in his cell iirc
That said skill also seems incredibly important as even overweight and elderly masters can dish out pretty amazing control of their element | 42 | |
[Marvel] Why is Latveria so advanced? | I get why Wakanda is centuries ahead of the rest of the world since their country was literally founded on top of a massive stockpile of vibranium, but what about Latveria? Where do they get their crazy tech from? | 36 | Doom **DEMANDS** you immediately recognize his achievements.
​
but in all seriousness, it's him. The dude was building robots when he was a wee Victor Von Genius, and ever since he's been using his insane genius and limitless resources to advance his country leagues ahead of it's former eastern european n... | 70 |
[Stargate]The novus humans know Canadian/American English from Eli's ancient video lectures, but is that what they actually speak in day to day life? | 29 | Why wouldn't they?
The colony was founded by humans who used those languages. Training videos exist that include examples of those.
Outside of expected linguistic shifts that might occur over the centuries with some words that aren't otherwise explicitly demonstrated the language would be relatively resilient.
For ... | 10 |
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