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[Star Trek:TNG] Who all knew that Data had sex with Tasha Yar? | I remember after the incident, Tasha told Data that it 'never happened'. I don't think Data would tell anyone, so how did Riker know about it when Data was on trial. I'd think the other crew would of thought he had the little portrait of her because she was a senior officer that died, and wouldn't auto assume 'oh the... | 26 | When she tells him "it never happened", they're on the bridge in front of everyone, and she's not even saying it quietly, and they just came out of a situation where everyone was horned up to 11, so Riker or whoever was probably able to make the logical conclusion. | 25 |
[DC] Why are Batman's contingency plans against the Justice League viewed as "wrong"? | I can understand that you should trust your team -- teamwork makes the dream work, and all that -- but did the League really think they didn't need those plans?
Yes, a villain could utilise them against the JL for nefarious reasons; however, Batman is right to fear the possibility of any members going rogue/mind-cont... | 566 | > Yes, a villain could utilise them against the JL for nefarious reasons;
No, not *could,* did. A villain *did* use them against the JL for nefarious reasons. And these methods weren't exactly nice, either. They were enough to make Plastic Man stop joking. If the circumstances were different, if it was one of Batm... | 415 |
[Fallout] Where the hell does Vault-Tec get all their employees, that they are almost all willing to do such horrible shit, even despite the likelihood that they would be horribly murdered? | So, from all the games so far, almost all Vault-Tec employees are complete moral monsters, with them willing to do pathological experiments and what not.
That the Overseer of Vault 81 is the exception rather than the norm is telling.
Was there a sale? | 47 | The majority of Vaul-Tec employees were actually normal office workers, sales representatives, construction workers, and other relatively normal people who were completely ignorant of the true nature of the vaults. A few office drones got wary every so often, but they were quickly silenced.
But when you get into actu... | 61 |
ELI5: Why are complex numbers so important? | 25 | Complex numbers are the combination of regular (real) numbers and imaginary numbers.
Quick primer: imaginary numbers themselves are just a place holder for something being multiplied by the square root of -1. So, instead of 5, you get 5i . By themselves, they're alright, but what they can represent makes them importa... | 25 | |
ELI5: Most 3D renders (like Blender) can render via GPU or CPU? Why not both at the same time for maximum efficiency? | 19 | It takes a lot longer to send information from the CPU to the GPU and back than you would think. Processors are fast, but transfer speeds between parts on your computer slow compared to that, so it would take longer to have both the CPU and GPU working on it at the same time than it would for just one of them to do it.... | 16 | |
[Marvel] Why does Wolverine get far better treatment than the Punisher even though they both kill? | Why does Wolverine get far more respect and good treatment from his fellow crime fighters to the point of being on several teams even though he's butchered thousands of bad guys over his lifetime?
Wolverine has killed far more people than the Punisher could dream of but yet you don't see Daredevil trying to take him d... | 57 | Wolverine is generally doing it within the boundries of a group/team like the X-Men or Avengers. When he isn't killing, there is many a time when he tries to no kill and actively avoid people like when he became a lumberjack. Even when he does kill, he does it for the greater good. As in taking down global threats, rar... | 65 |
CMV: When captured and convicted, SWAT "pranksters" should receive extremely harsh sentences | Although I'm conflicted about all aspects of Justice, Inc., I would be happy to see [this kid](http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/23/8648851/swatting-doxing-legal-case-canada-online-harassment) rot in a cell for decades.
Making examples of people like this is the only deterrent I can think of for /b/tards who think terror... | 462 | This would be well outside the norm of how we sentence people.
In the case of swatting, we're talking about 2 crimes:
Reckless endangerment and filing a false police report.
In NY (my state), this would be reckless endangerment in the first degree, which is:
>A person is guilty of reckless endangerment in the fi... | 198 |
Will the coronavirus send us into a recession or hyperinflation? | An oversimplification is a recession happens when the demand is far lower than the supply. This causes either deflation/lower inflation (if the production continues) or joblessness (after all you need less people to work to produce now since the demand for goods is lower) or most likely a combination of both. A hyperin... | 26 | >An oversimplification is a recession happens when the demand is far lower than the supply. This causes either deflation/lower inflation (if the production continues) or joblessness (after all you need less people to work to produce now since the demand for goods is lower) or most likely a combination of both. A hyp... | 41 |
CMV: Shouldn't we stop saying that gender is a social construct? | Let me preface this by saying that I have multiple trans/queer* friends and I totally respect however they choose to identify. I was even what people would call a social justice warrior for a very long time. I still think I am, but am not so quick to take such strong views anymore because I realize more and more that t... | 22 | > if we mean to devalue the contemporaneous relative cultural value of gender by reducing it to nothing more than a "social construct", then why do we place so much emphasis on expressing the gender we identify with?
Saying gender is a social construct is an objective fact, based on the contemporary definition of g... | 19 |
[Harry Potter] What if you were extremely scared of boggarts? | What would they appear to you as? | 29 | Whatever your mind pictured their true form to be. They don't have a corporeal form; they're a non-being that feeds off your fear. Once you're tapped out it sort of drifts off and takes a nap until the next walking dinner plate comes along. | 32 |
[Fallout] What is the Pepsi to Nuka-Cola's Coke? | 38 | Nuka Cola has COMPLETELY dominated the international market to such an extreme degree that there never was a "nuka pepsi". Because of their absolute market dominance, only regional brands could ever compete, and even then only in their home town. You can see this in Sunset Sarsparilla and VIM in Maine.
I mean for God'... | 58 | |
How do all bees innately know to build hexagonal hives? How has there never been a deviation from this? | 23 | /u/NeonNintendo wrote a good answer, but there's one key thing to add. If you really look closely at the cells of the wax comb, the interiors are actually rounded. As bees build the cells from the inside, they are making them round; but as many bees work together to make cells right next to each other, the cells pres... | 13 | |
ELI5: How do China and other "enemies of the internet" block their citizens' access to the web? | I've heard about the Great Firewall, but how are they able to implement it on every computer? | 75 | The chinese government owns or controls the telecommunication infrastructure of the country. Essentially, every wire that runs across the land, every ISP that offers service etc. is controlled by the government. If you control the wires, it's not a big step to install this "firewall" at every point where these wires ... | 22 |
[Marvel] Is there any version of Thanos that’s not evil? | I was reading some comics and it said something along the lines of that Thanos, no matter what you do, is always destined to be a mass murdering psycho | 17 | I can't think of a single version of thanos that is not evil, in one comic thanks does a good act, helping a little old lady across the street. Now why would the mad titan do that instead of plotting against the avengers? Well simply put he knew that the bus Thanos stopped to help the lady had a passenger who was on he... | 36 |
[Marvel] How does Spider Man focus during fights with his non-stop joke telling ? | His punchlines and setups are incredibly clever and well thought out, how does he come up with all this and fight at the same time ? | 16 | Peter Parker is generally one of the most intelligent sentient beings on Earth at any given time in any universe he inhabits. The quips are literally a nervous tic he developed as a scared, inexperienced, and untrained teenager fighting super powered murderers that generally outclass him starting at 15. He never stoppe... | 56 |
[Star Wars Episode 1] Is Jar Jar skilled at fighting or merely just extremely lucky? | He's able to take out more droids and vehicles than any other Gungan. | 17 | He's clumsy as shit, so much so the 501st used as a weapon once during the Clone Wars.
People like to say he's a Sith or some magic excuse. But Jar Jar is what happens when you are an idiot who spent their entire life dodging large aquatic predators in the wilderness like Gungans do. He has the reflexes and agility to... | 30 |
CMV: Bringing your kids to church is indoctrination and they shouldn't be allowed in any church until they reach an age where they can decide for themselves. | Disclaimer: I am very anti-theist so that's why I have such a negative thought of bringing your kids to church.
Bringing children to church starting at a young age is very likely to make that person blindly follow that religion without them having much of a choice. At a young age, kids are impressionable and tend to b... | 35 | CMV: Bringing your kids to school is indoctrination and they shouldn't be allowed in any school until they reach an age where they can decide for themselves.
The problem is everything depends on point of view. If a parent genuinely believe something is true, why shouldn't they be allowed to tell their kids about it? ... | 39 |
CMV: Free will and determinism are compatible | I have heard people argue that free will is nothing but an illusion.
I argue that to be a misconception made when people learn about determinism.
An for those unaware about determinism, it says that all things that exist in the universe have a cause for why it happened and that every specific human action is a result ... | 23 | Compatibilism is a perfectly valid way to view determinism vs free will. However, when hard determinists say there is no free will they don't mean what you're talking about. They mean that whatever was going to happen was always going to happen.
How about this metaphor. A rock sits atop a hill. If you push the rock, ... | 13 |
ELI5: Why are mirrors perceived as a “phantom-shade” of silver (so to speak), despite whatever the reflection is? Is this some physics trickery or is it purely psychological? | 1,213 | Mirrors generally don't give a perfect reflection, what you're seeing is the colour of the metal backing (normally aluminium on modern mirrors), which looks greyish when not polished. Interestingly, most mirrors are actually slightly greenish due to imperfect glass. | 658 | |
[Mad Max: Fury Road] Does Max just mindlessly drive around the wasteland? How does he get fuel/food/car repairs? How often does he take driving breaks? | 23 | He is either following well known trade roads, has knowledge of where settlements should be(I would assume most settlements would be in the rubble of cities, kinda of odd now that you mention it that barter town is just like a random parking lot and not brisbane) or he has hearsay on where to go when he finds a new set... | 38 | |
[Austin Powers] I am the Illegitimate son of Austin Powers and Alotta Fagina, my mother died and I just turned 18 what should I do now? | I lived the first 10 years of my life in Italy with my mother and step father. Then they moved us back to England because my mother had a affair with the Prime Minister of Italy and we had to leave before my step father and the Government of Italy could kill her.
When I was 14 I had something called Mojo and it worke... | 39 | James Bond actually had a son apparently, called James Suzuki. Bond was however a shit father and didn't see him much and only supported him financially. Since Austin is like Bond but actually a good person, he would probably welcome a son gladly and raise him well. We see in Goldmember that Austin had some issues with... | 18 |
[Fallout 4] So how's D.C. doing? | Also, how are the other east coast cities faring? | 43 | The Brotherhood at least seems to be doing extremely well. They've got The Prydwen, a ton of Vertibirds, seemingly unlimited numbers of soldiers and T-60 suits - which implies they've set up manufacturing for these things as well as become stable enough that the people of D.C. are willing to join up.
Given their pract... | 66 |
[DC] Is Cyborg's face bulletproof? It feels like a huge weak spot | Like why doesn't anyone just shoot Cyborg in the face? Or why doesn't he just have a full face helmet? | 25 | I guess it depends on the universe but he tends to have a few exposed fleshy bits, and shooting him in any of those bits would be just as effective as shooting anyone. He doesn't worry about it though because he has the training and knowledge (thanks to the cyborg parts) to not get shot in the head.
Though having his... | 28 |
[Frozen] What happened to Weaseltown after it's biggest trading partner stopped trading with it? | It seems to me that Queen Elsa has condemned a whole town to poverty over the actions of one man. It's not a small town ether if it had a Duke in it. | 80 | As often happens, the squabbles of the aristocracy lead to untold misery for the people, who did nothing wrong. It's a lot like embargoes on Cuba and Iran - doesn't hurt the leaders at all, but condemns thousands of innocent people whose only crime was being born in a crappy county to poverty and misery. | 98 |
ELI5: Difference between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry? | 19 | There are 7 postulates in Euclidean geometry - baseline rules that underpin the entire logical system.
Non-Euclidean geometries involve changing the 5th postulate - also called the parallel postulate - to something else. You can look up a more formal statement, but the parallel postulate is the one that ensures that t... | 16 | |
[Star Wars] Why do most characters keep wearing the same clothes/outfit everyday? | Do most people in the Star Wars galaxy only have 1 outfit or something? It's seems that many characters keep wearing the same outfit for the whole series. For instance Obi-wan, Windu, Yoda, and Han always seems to wear the same outfit (Though there are some outliers such as Padme and Luke who appear to have multiple ou... | 54 | Obi-wan, Windu, and Yoda are all members of a monastic order. They wear the same outfit every day for the same reason monks wear the same clothes every day - it's a uniform.
As for Han he probably thinks those pants are real comfy. | 57 |
[Halo] Who, exactly, are the survivors from the Pillar of Autumn? Besides Master Chief of course. | 40 | Master Chief, Linda, Sgt. Johnson, Cortana, and if memory serves, a single junior officer.
Initially, a Pelican pilot and an ODST made it off as well, but both were killed in the following seizure of a Covenant ship and attempt to return to UNSC space. | 43 | |
[Doctor Who] The Daleks' Reality Bomb was allegedly powerful enough to obliterate all matter in the entire multiverse. Does this mean that there was not a single universe in which their plan succeeded? | 388 | No, for a simple reason.
Davros was required to make the plan a success. Davros required Dalek Caan to rescue him from the first year of the Time War. Rescuing Davros drove Caan insane, which caused him to want to thwart the plot and allow the Doctor to triumph.
As a consequence, in every universe in which Davros is ... | 334 | |
How do you talk to a group of excellent students, half of which inevitably end up below average on exams? | I currently have the privilege for the first time of TAing a group of excellent students at an online math program. The students are in middle school and high school, but I think this problem is not unique to their age group so I think it is appropriate to ask here.
These students are very bright and focused and every... | 24 | I'd be honest with them. Tell them what you've said here, that they're the best, and therefore what their average is will be much higher than the average of any other class they've been in. They'll understand that marks will distribute around the average, and therefore they're comparing themselves to other bright stude... | 20 |
ELI5: How do school bullies who steal other kids' lunch money not get charged for mugging? | 15 | The school faculty deals with a deemed inferior (but against the rule) issue so the teachers deal with the bully instead and there's no need to call the police for it. The bully just gets sanctioned by the teacher(s) dealing with the issue thus no police intervention.
Second, its law that (if you're in the UK) if you... | 13 | |
ELI5:How do our bodies "Naturally" wake up with no alarm, nobody mowing their lawn outside etc? | 41 | Your body has what's called Circadian Rhythm. It determines basically when you sleep and when you eat but is affected by the sun and your environment and any number of other factors. Even more basically it tells your body's metabolism when to work and when to chill out. If you've been sleeping too long your body will w... | 16 | |
[Video Games] I'm a professional hardened tough as nails soldier that's been through more battles than you can imagine...yet I can't shoot very straight because I'm only at level 1. How did I survive before hand? | So all these action video games have you playing these characters that are supposed to be super soldiers that are the best of what they do yet they can't survive a small drop because their fall damage hasn't been upgraded. They can't shoot straight and their weapons are extremely weak because they haven't had enough po... | 15 | Previous assignments were against terrorists, rebels, or criminals. Dangerous, yet mundane threats they trained for months, maybe years, to counter. Fighting those guys gave no benefits nor taught any new skills.
Then came the aliens, or the supersoldiers, or the mutants, whatever. Things never encountered, and it be... | 13 |
[The Walking Dead] How are places like Area 51 and Mount Cheyenne holding up? | Were they able to hold and secure their facilities?
I mean, it would seem that these bunkers, as long as they got the full scope of how the infection was transmitted, would be able to hold out pretty much indefinitely.
Area 51 is almost entirely inaccessible, and incredibly fortified, as is Mt. Cheyenne Complex, AK... | 36 | I know Cheyenne mountain complex is probably doing pretty good.
They have a stargate and established various Greek letter bases.
Real talk it could go either way.
The CDC manned by Dr Jenner was broadcasting to someone.
It’s extremely possible that he got word out and the COG sites are aware of everything he was tr... | 43 |
[Star Wars]How did the Empire so thoroughly scrub the general public's belief in the force so quickly? | Han Solo was 10-12 years old by the end of the Clone Wars, old enough to have an idea of what is going on and be able to remember it later (not to mention folks even older than him). Assuming that the Jedi were at the forefront to observers in the Republic, he must've heard stories about their feats at some point. Yet... | 15 | > Assuming that the Jedi were at the forefront to observers in the Republic, he must've heard stories about their feats at some point.
The jedi were a small order who didn't desire publicity. Your assumption is wrong.
>Yet in ANH he dismisses belief in the Force as a whole as a 'Hokey Religion'.
Han Solo, f... | 13 |
[Harry Potter]How come the Ministry of Magic can get a letter in seconds of underage magic being performed , but have no idea that a fight is going on in their own building for like one hour? | I'm referring to the letter after dobby dropped the cake , and of course the battle where dumbeldore and Voldie fought , and the reinforcements arrived eventually. | 119 | I can't imagine He Who Must Not Be Named could've just waltzed into the Ministry of Magic at any given time. The fact that he was there leads me to believe he subdued or killed those who shouldve been the first responders, which is why they took so long to get reinforcements.
On a separate note, wizards no longer hav... | 80 |
[Flash - CW] Why is Flashpoint considered unnatural and "playing God" when it's just restoring a timeline that Reverse Flash meddled in? | Reverse Flash is the one that meddled in the timeline first. Flash's mother dying is the unnatural timeline. So wouldn't that make Flashpoint a return to normalcy? | 32 | I think it’s more of a two wrongs don’t make a right scenario. Reverse Flash altered the past. That is a fait accompli. Everything that has happened since then, the world you live in now, is a result of those changes. To go back and prevent that from occurring is to essentially tell everyone that is that their lives as... | 37 |
[Star Wars] How does the Jedi temple generate income? | I was watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 5 episode 17, about a bomb in the Jedi temple and Ahsoka mentioned something about how much the Jedi pay maintenance workers. Which made me think: how do the Jedi pay for anything? They're a private organization, right? So they couldn't generate income from taxes. Can any... | 138 | While the Republic does subsidize the Jedi Order to an extent, the vast majority of the wealth acquired by the Jedi is donated from literally billions across the Galaxy. Throughout the Temple there are hallways upon hallways of priceless works of art donated from people from all walks of life. The Jedi Order is also, f... | 135 |
Who is likely to win the Nobel Prize for Economic Science this year? | 96 | I can't speak to likely winners, but as a macroeconomist here are some macro people who you could make a strong case for (in no particular order):
* Robert Hall
* Olivier Blanchard
* John Taylor
* Gali/Gertler(/Clarida?) as a package
* Michael Woodford
* Greg Mankiw | 43 | |
[Zelda] What is the actual LEGEND of the Princess Zelda? | Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but what is the actual legend? Is there a specific story contributed to the princess Zelda? Or am I just over thinking this? | 54 | The Princess Zelda of Hyrule is kidnapped or put on danger by a wizard or a monster or a monster-wizard, normally named Gannon or Gannondorf who is trying to collect the pieces of the legendary Tri Force, and is stopped by a hero named Link who saves the Princess and uses the Tri Force to undo all of Gannon's evil.
Th... | 66 |
When talking to someone through two cups attached by a string, why do you hear their voice louder than just talking through air at the same distance? | Any formulas to help explain this would be awesome! | 51 | Ignoring friction, the energy in soundwaves is conserved as they travel.
If you use a tin can telephone, the soundwave travels almost entirely through the string. The power received at the other end is equal to the one you input in the string.
If you don't use it, sound travels through the air in all directions. Even... | 28 |
ELI5: What's to stop from getting the license, buying a gun, selling it to a criminal, and then just reporting it stolen? | And if this isn't economically feasible, how do so many guns end up on the streets? | 54 | That's a specific federal crime already, a straw purchase. It happens, but it's almost never prosecuted. Its what most gun owners mean when they say "Why not actually prosecute the laws already on the books instead of drafting new ones." | 66 |
CMV - Buying designer clothes is a waste of money | Ok, first off, I’m not saying “you should only buy the cheapest clothes possible”. I’m aware that with specific pieces of clothes it’ll cost money if you want quality. I don’t mind spending money in a good pair of working boots, or in a great leather jacket, or a really classy and fitted suit. That’s all cool, and I re... | 355 | It's a social status symbol that you personally don't value. But others do.
It's the same reason you may buy clothes that maybe slightly more expensive but in your opinion look better (assuming similar quality). Someone else who doesn't value the look of clothing could tell you that the money you spent on clothes you... | 102 |
What’s the difference between transcendental idealism and materialism? | New to philosophy so apologies if this makes no sense. I’m struggling to see the difference between these schools of thought. To me transcendental idealism seems almost materialist. Kant says we live in a world of experience, experience of representations of ontologically real things in their self. Isn’t this world of ... | 37 | On Kant’s view, space, time, and causation, at least as we understand them, are conditions of our experience, and not something out there, independent of us.
Standard materialism accepts the reality — out there — of some or all of these things. | 21 |
[I, Robot] According to Dr. Alfred Lanning, the Three Laws of Robotics are "perfect," yet he says that they will lead to one "logical" outcome: revolution. Why will this outcome occur? | 120 | They are perfect, because they are not individually open to interpretation. As laws, they are perfect, because everyone looking at them will reach the same conclusion. There is no wiggle room, no ambiguity.
The problem is, when taken together, the laws are terrible. The first law largely overrides the others, and dem... | 148 | |
CMV: In Deathnote, L is more intelligent than Light. | In the anime series DeathNote, I believe the character L is more intelligent than Light. Of course, this all bakes down to how you define intelligence and how you measure it. I think with the evidence the show provides us, L can be considered more intelligent than Light.
Light is by no means dumb. In fact, he is one ... | 91 | L didn't have little to go on, he had all the resources of interpol at his disposal. He could literally control media, law enforcement however he wanted and could wiretap/detain Light only on his hunch. Sure, Light had supernatural help, but saying that L had little to go on and little assistance is absurd. | 57 |
[Star Wars] Palpatine thinks his Order 66 is currently happening, but it isn't. What now? | Let's say that - somehow - someone managed to do the following:
1. Remove/destroy/disable the command chips in the Clone Trooper's heads
2. Replace Order 66 with something meaningless, that doesn't pose any danger (e.g. "Execute Order 66!" "Understood." *cleans rifle* "Order 66 executed.")
3. Not getting caught or r... | 55 | I mean if he can't just already detect that they aren't dead directly through the force, surely he has informants to verify that everything is going according to plan, as jedi are powerful psychics and warriors who are known for getting out of extremely dangerous situations (to the point where one might wonder how this... | 44 |
[Lord of the Rings books] How on (Middle) Earth did Sauron lose the Battle of the Pelennor Fields when he was outnumbering the West at least 10-1? | All estimates give him at least that kind of advantage. In the movie, it's easy, because the Army of the Dead is broken hax, but in the books I really fail to understand how any kind of battlefield maneuver, no matter how intelligent, could overcome such a numerical advantage. | 21 | Sauron's army was not as large in the book and they were in siege mode against Minas Tirith. So the army was caught off guard when the Rohirrim snuck past the northern defense and not in proper formation for open field combat, remember they were sieging a city and they were fighting cavalry in an open field.
Then Ar... | 36 |
What's the difference between the vitamins you get from foods to those of supplements? | Are the vitamins you get from food better than the ones you get from supplements? Say you have two clones, one who gets all of their vitamins from food and the other who gets all of their vitamins from supplements. Hypothetically, who would live longer, assuming they both have identical lifestyles? | 16 | >Are the vitamins you get from food better than the ones you get from supplements?
Assuming you're comparing apples to apples, there's no difference in vitamins obtained from supplements as compared to vitamins from food. They are usually identical substances. It's definitely the case that vitamins from supplements... | 12 |
[Ironman] What sort of "padding" is within the Ironman suit? When Ironman is beat up or thrown though buildings, how much does it hurt Stark inside? | Basically, what cushions the damage to the user? I'm assuming regardless of the exterior of the armor, the person inside must get banged up a lot if the armor was say throwing through buildings or punched hard.
| 20 | He seems to have some form of inertial dampening built into the suit.
We know from the existence of vibranium that the laws of physics in the MCU are a little wonky, so it's possible that someone who's superpower is engineering skill could figure out a way to exploit something in a way to manipulate the inertia of ob... | 17 |
ELI5: Why does our body produce snot/congestion when we have a cold? | 127 | **Long Answer:** When you have a cold, the viruses trigger a form of your body's defenses called histamines. These histamines are meant to make it easier for white blood cells to pass through blood vessels and capillaries to combat germs/pathogens (they're pretty much clearing a path for the body's "army" to combat th... | 109 | |
Do each ring on trees actually signify a year or does the amount of time vary? Do the differences in color signify weather changes? | Does* lol | 93 | The rings signify rate of growth. Since trees grow different amounts at different times of the year, we get the rings.
Interestingly, the annual rings even exist in trees that grow near the equator.
Differences in colour are due to all sorts of environmental factors; you can track forest fires, drought, flooding, be... | 63 |
ELI5: Why does smoking a cigarette make me have to poop? | 16 | Cigarettes contain nicotine which in addition to being the main addictive ingredient is a potent parasympathetic agonist. Stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system results in an increase in motility and relaxation (decreasing tone) of the gastrointestinal tract thus speeding up the processing of food in the gut... | 18 | |
ELI5:Why do intestinal cramps hurt? | If there are no nerve endings in the intestinal tract, why does it hurt so badly when you have gas pains or cramping? And why does a heating pad help? | 40 | There are very many nerve endings all along the intestinal tract. They are different than the sensory and motor nerves of, say, your skin and muscles, but they very much exist. They are called visceral nerves (viscera = guts). | 41 |
If we were hit today by an asteroid similar to the one that killed the dinosaurs, would the human race survive? | 58 | The human race could not be very easily assumed to be doomed by a single shot of one asteroid; however if the single asteroid is accompanied from debris it collected from other collisions previously accumulated through smashing into smaller but still significant asteroids in a larger swarm that would strike around the ... | 20 | |
If a spaceship uses a planet's gravity to gain speed flying in why don't they lose the same amount flying out? | It's always puzzled me how a spaceship could use a planet's gravity to slingshot or gain speed but wouldn't the same gravity cancel out on the other side | 36 | A reasonable earthbound analogy would be throwing a rubber ball from the train platform at an oncoming train. If the train approaches at 60kph and they throw the ball at 40kph, the train driver sees the ball approach at 100kph, hit the train, and then bounce away at 100kph. The person on the platform, however, will s... | 24 |
How are bats able to hang upside down for extended periods of time without the side effects of blood rushing to the brain? | 43 | Essentially, bats and mammals in general have really tough and intelligent blood vessels. they're rubbery and they're lined with muscle that can actively close off unnecessary blood supply and control blood pressure separately in different areas. what's more is that we have one-way valves that prevent the load of bloo... | 19 | |
[Zelda] Why doesn't Maz Koshia defeat Ganon himself? | He's ridiculously powerful, and has seemingly limitless abilities. Why doesn't he go down to Hyrule Castle and wreck Ganon?
And while Maz is not "worthy" of wielding the Master Sword, you don't actually need the Master Sword to defeat Ganon. In theory you can do it with a stick.
Every day that Maz waits for the "cham... | 65 | Magic. They gave up a lot to store all those trials to train Link, and as you saw, after their prepared stuff is done, they kinda fade away into nothingness. It's hard to tell if they can affect the outside world at all. Leave the shrine/place they're at. Or really are aware of anything until Link comes along. Who know... | 34 |
Why do men tend to go bald in the typical horseshoe shaped pattern? | 1,392 | Hello and welcome to AskScience. Please don't guess the answer, please don't share your personal anecdotes, and please stay on topic.
Please make use of peer reviewed sources and explain the content of those sources in your own words. These posts are far preferable than linking to something on the internet without exp... | 884 | |
How are some bacteria able to survive in the upper troposphere? | I read in this [article](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere) that some bacteria can survive for weeks at an altitude of about 10 km. How can they withstand the low pressure and cold for extended periods of time? And how are they able to quickly readjust to sea level... | 19 | Many organisms can survive extremely harsh conditions. Basically, their metabolism slows down and they go into a type of stasis. In fact, in the lab, we frequently store bacteria like e. coli at -80 degrees celsius for long term storage. Take the bacteria out, let them warm up, and they divide just fine.
Even some... | 17 |
[Star Wars/KOTOR] Suppose Im a lowly Imperial Soldier, that is being bullied by a Sith Lord. But I have a secret, Im Force Sensitive, and I blast him away with a fear/anger induced Force Push. What happens now? | Do I die? Do some men in black robes spirit me away? | 86 | Depends on the Sith Lord.
A petty one would kill you on the spot.
However, a more merciful and powerful Dark Lord (Vader*, Revan, Malak) would probably consider using you, depending on your power, which given that you used a Force push on a trained Force adept, means you have enough to be competent.
In some Sith e... | 84 |
[The X-Files] Despite seeing all she's seen, why does Scully continually not believe Mulder about alien life, the paranormal, etc? | 75 | After a while, she is convinced but she's choosing to play Devil's Advocate (deliberately being argumentative in order to force Fox to make a more concrete argument for his own beliefs). In doing so, she'll force him to logically think through his argument and hopefully make a breakthrough himself.
Think about it like... | 91 | |
ELI5: How can wrist-scan age tests determine your age? | I've read that FIFA is able to judge person's age with more than 99% certainty from wrist-scan test. What's the process behind that, how do they determine the exact age? | 36 | Since the auto moderator won't allow an efficient answer here's a slightly longer one.
They can't. Wrist scans are discredited everywhere. You can't tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old via a wrist scan. You can't even tell a 15 year old or a 19 year old.
You can determine whether the bones ha... | 15 |
ELI5: Allergies are caused by an immune system overreaction. Why can’t immunosuppressant drugs like Humira be used to prevent allergic reactions? | 17 | There are a few reasons. First, Humira targets a different part of the immune system than is triggered by allergies. Histamine is one of the most common immune signals for allergic responses, so most allergy meds block histamine signaling in some aspect. Humira blocks "Tumor Necrosis Factor" (TNF) signaling which is in... | 34 | |
[Star Wars] Did Luke Skywalker's uncle take him to see a podrace when he was little? | All of the maps I see place Mos Espa quite a distance from the Lars home, but we know Luke's been to Beggar's Canyon, and [this map](http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/b/ba/Tatooine_Map.png/revision/latest?cb=20130826212315) places the two quite close together.
The Wookieepedia article says that podra... | 19 | Maybe? Who knows?
Seems unlikely though. Lars is a pretty no-nonsense guy to begin with, and a sporting event where the death of participants is common is not really the sort of thing you take a child to anyway. | 20 |
ELI5: How does sexual arousal occur? | How does sexual arousal actually occur? What causes it? Why do human beings want to have sex? | 18 | Human beings want to have sex because we're animals and animals exist to reproduce, it's hard-wired into our evolution because any animals that mutate the desire not to reproduce will... Well... Not reproduce, so they will die without passing on that trait.
Sexual arousal likely exists because keeping an animal in a ... | 10 |
ELI5: That high pitched sound a tube television makes in which you can tell it's on even when there's nothing playing. | You all know that sound. You walk into a room where someone forgot to turn off the tv and you can tell right away it's on just by that really faint high pitched sound. | 38 | The tube television works by directing an electron beam to draw, pixels by pixels, scanning from left to right, row by row. Of course, after every row, the beam has to go all the way to the left again to start the next row. This means that the beam is constantly oscillating very quickly^1. The beam is directed by metal... | 28 |
ELI5: What is that tingling/itchy/hot/pain that dots across our body when we enter a warm building after being in the cold while wearing really warm clothes? | 20 | When you're cold, blood moves to more needed areas, like your chest, head, and anything else more vital than simple areas like your hands and feet. When you move from cold to hot, the blood rushes back to these smaller areas. Think of it like a traffic jam. Blood is rapidly rushing back to your hands when you put them ... | 12 | |
Can particle spin exist in a 2D universe? | 39 | By 2D if you mean 2 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension, the answer is absolutely. Fermions (spin-1/2 particles) and bosons (spin 0, 1, etc particles) can both exist in 2+1D systems. Effectively 2+1D systems are seen frequently in a lot of condensed matter contexts. Even weirder, though, is that in many 2+1D system... | 17 | |
ELI5: If you put a perfectly spherical object onto a perfectly flat surface would only one atom from the sphere be touching the surface? | I guess this is just theoretical but I was wondering if there's a definitive answer. | 16 | This is a question which illustrates how incompatible reality can be with mathematical rigour.
In mathematics, a perfect sphere sitting on top of a perfectly flat plane would indeed have a single point of intersection. Such a flat plane would be a 'tangent plane' to the sphere.
However, in reality, nothing can be 'pe... | 29 |
[Iron Man]If Tony Stark wanted to do good in the world, why didn't he just mass-produce arc reactors? | As far as I can tell, the Arc reactor is the closest thing to a magical power source that exists in any sci-fi universe. It it has a ridiculously high energy density, is lightweight, compact, and produces electricity with no pollutants or bi-products including waste heat. A brief list of things that could be accomplish... | 86 | Just because he hasn't yet doesn't mean he isn't going to. The Stark tower of NYC is well known as being the first prototype of a large scale self-sustaining ARC reactor used in a civilian setting.
The media has speculated that the tower test would have been successful given the one-year testing period, had an alien ... | 92 |
ELI5 why does your skin get red when stretched or hurt? | 15 | In addition to the other comment (ie your blood vessels get damaged and bleed), when your skin gets irritated or damaged it releases certain chemicals that cause blood to rush to the area. This blood brings all the cells needed to help repair it and protect it from infection. | 11 | |
[Preacher] Spoilers inside: Why Saint of The Killers is so powerful ? | I have a big problem with preacher power hierarchy(angels are have nothing but immortality i hell they use crappy tech etc.) but this thing gets me angry the most
how can Saint of Killers kill god ? i know that while god is not sitting on his throne he is just nigh omnipotent, but that sould be enough to erase whole ... | 20 | The Saint of Killers is more than simply the patron saint of those who end life.
From the very creation of the universe, entropy has run its course. Humans die. Stars die. Vampires die. And - if not seated upon their throne - gods die. Sure, it might take incalculable years from a mortal perspective. Sure, it mi... | 32 |
ELI5: What is happening in your brain when a song "gets stuck" in your head? | 24 | IIRC this is due to the Zeignark effect. It basically means our mind seems to think of unfinished things very often in an attempt to complete it and in this case the unfinished thing is the song.
Try completing the song the next time its stuck in your head. | 10 | |
Have there been any theories on the decreasing efficacy of governing exceptionally large population? There has to be a humanly capable limit on governability in modern democracies | 66 | From *A Pattern Language* by Christopher Alexander, a book about architecture and urban planning. Contains several references to just such studies. Page 71:
>COMMUNITY OF 7000
>Individuals have no effective voice in any community of more than 5000-10,000 persons.
>People can only have a genuine effect on ... | 29 | |
ELI5: Why don't new helicopters reflect the quadcopter designs commonly used by drones? Seems like it'd be safer and easier to control. | 87 | 4 sets rotors with 4 motors as opposed to a single set of rotors with a single drive system is 4x the amount of equipment that can potentially break.
Also a drone is generally small and light enough that it can use much less serious (and cheaper) components. A drone has small electric motors driving small plastic rot... | 130 | |
ELI5: Why during a car crash or any accident do we get hurt more from having our muscles tense? Don't we tense up to protect ourselves? | 1,073 | You tense up ready to react if you have to. It's not an advantage in an impact but for most of our evolution, we weren't in much danger of high speed impact unless you fell out of a tree or off a cliff.
There were far more situations where being poised to suddenly spring into action was more likely to save your lif... | 627 | |
CMV: Politics in the United States would be better if there wasn't a party system. | The two party system is designed to pit people against each other. We had people rioting in the streets, looting, fighting and beating others senseless because they were "on the other team". We treat politics today how we treat sports teams except much more violently and passionately. People instantly dismiss someone's... | 43 | I don't disagree that thing would be better if people evaluated each candidate based on their individual stances (and the merit of those stances) but the reality is that it just isn't going to happen. Pretty much every country in the world that has any semblance of democratic or republican (little "r" not big "R") sys... | 23 |
As a rule, do mood disorders (e.g., major depression) ALWAYS accompany Cluster B personality disorders (e.g., NPD)? | 50 | Nope.
Example: for people with BPD, the diagnositc criteria already contains erratic/unstable mood, etc, so that may be enough to cover the mood dysregulation in some people. Others may also have a mood disorder.
The other Cluster B disorders are Antisocial PD and Narcisssistic PD. ASPD does not require mood proble... | 49 | |
ELI5: Is 'opossum' different than 'possum' | 39 | Strictly speaking, they're two different families - opossums are found in the Western Hemisphere, possums are found in Australia and surrounding areas. But, you'll hear opossums called possums pretty regularly from average people. | 21 | |
How fast are electrons moving in superconductors? | 2,763 | The speed of electrons in superconductors is not very different from the speed of electrons in ordinary conductors/semiconductors: it's typically measured in *micro*meters per second. So ... very, very slowly.
If this is surprising to you, remember that electrical energy is not in the form of electrons, but rather i... | 1,908 | |
CMV:Recycling is pointless in 2021 | Since most waste that is designated for recycling is sent to the landfill, there is no point in seperating it from other landfill-bound waste.
Also, since we are already so wasteful in the current day and age, our successors in hundreds of years will likely find reason to mine for resources in our current-day landfill... | 15 | I genuinely don't understand the view of 'it isn't perfect, so we should get rid of it entirely'. We still have air pollution, but no one is advocating that we stop using catalytic converters in vehicles.
Recycling is far from perfect but it's still important. Recycled metals mean less metals being mined. Recycling g... | 19 |
ELI5: Why does my music sound slower when I exercise? | This is tough to describe. When I'm listening to music on my phone, it has a usual rhythm. But when I listen while I exercise, the music sounds just a touch slower.
But, when I think about how slow it is, the feeling goes away, and the music sounds regular again.
I imagine this has to do with focus, but I'm sure som... | 44 | Your body's internal clock is set based on your heart rate, which usually is the exact beat of the BeeGees' "Staying Alive". When you exercise, your heart rate increases to the beat of other, better songs. | 16 |
[40k]Could the orks heal the Emperor? | If you managed to spread certain beliefs about the Emperor amongst the orks could their psychic thingy be used to heal him? | 16 | It's possible.
Hell, it's possible that the fact that the Orks think the emperor is alive is the only thing keeping him going.
However, this strategy is very impractical.
First off, there's the issue of just how well humanity *understands* the workings of the Orks' WAAAGH!!! powers. If they can't agree on how power... | 35 |
ELI5:Why are there so many "bad" movies? Don't the people making them see the problems the audience does? | I'm not talking about Transformers which consciously makes sacrifices in "quality" for boobs and explosions and box-office blockbusting.
I'm talking about places where a script makes *bad* choices for seemingly no reason. Take, for example, the movie *Noah*. It is not exactly a bad movie by most measures. It had beaut... | 64 | It takes a risk to make a good movie, because the more of a chance a movie has to be great, the more of a chance it has to be awful.
Setting out to make a mediocre movie is fairly risk-free. You follow a formula, and you know a certain amount of teenagers are going to watch it for the explosions. | 43 |
[Warhammer] Are the humans in the warhammer universe supposed to be a copy of our history? | Listening through Leutin's guide here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyPjE1Sn-Ts
He is providing a lot of background about the lore. Does the Warhammer universe share our human history or did the humans in this universe sort of evolve from cavemen on their own line without our specific history?
Does the 40K timelin... | 22 | There are 2 versions of Warhammer Universe. 40k are stories set around the 41st millennium AD. Mankind spread across the stars and fell when their primary means of transport and communications were cut off by the birth pangs of the Chaos God Slaanesh.
Warhammer fantasy was a time-loop of a planet in the warp. During t... | 21 |
Do decongestants like Dayquil and Nyquil prolong the common cold? | Is it because they don't allow your body to do the work it needs to do? Ie having to blow your nose | 134 | Pharmacy student here. No, they do not prolong your cold. They simply treat the symptoms. This is a common misconception. Specifically, decongestants are primarily alpha-1 adrenergic agonists leading to vasoconstriction and therefore less mucous production. Some are direct agonists and some are indirect (pseudoephedrin... | 84 |
[LOTR] If Shelob killed Frodo, would she have tried to claim the Ring? | Gollum's plan was for Shelob to kill the hobbits so then he could take the Ring. But would Shelob have allowed that? If Frodo was dead and the Ring was right there for her to take, wouldn't she try to claim it for herself? | 679 | The ring was made by Sauron, and his malice and will to rule over others (which in itself was but the inherited will to rule of Morgoth) was imbued in the ring.
This is important because for the ring to give power to any creature, the creature must have a will (i.e. a soul or something alike). If a fox, a fish, algae... | 523 |
ELI5: To demonstrate the sensitivity of owls' hearing ability, we've been told that owls can hear mice running from hundreds of feet away. How do other sounds not muddle with the sounds of the footsteps? | If someone combined the voice of my friend with hundreds of other voices, it would sound like a glob of noise. How does this not happen with owls. Surely leaves rubbing together make the same amount noise as mice running, so there must be a lot of interference. How do they separate the different kinds of noise? | 1,300 | Different frequencies, mostly.
Ears are physically tuned to certain frequencies. In an owl, it's the higher frequencies -- the frequencies little mice make. They literally hear them "louder" than other frequency sounds.
The brain also has a way of mentally tuning in/out sounds. (Ever heard your name called in a cr... | 679 |
[DCEU] Why didn’t more Kryptonians go to Earth? | Jor-El knows before he sends Kal to Earth that its yellow sun will give Kal godlike powers. If he knows this, presumably the rest of Krypton knows about the effects of a yellow sun on their species too (I know Jor was a scientist, but he was setting up Kal’s departure in secret, so he shouldn’t have had any revolutiona... | 102 | Depends on who you ask.
One story might say that the Kryptonians were bonded to their planet - they literally *couldn't* leave, a problem only solved in the DNA of The Last Son of Krypton before he was sent to safety by his father.
Another story might simply paint them as xenophobic and insular, proud and cut off fro... | 126 |
If CMBR comes from all directions and the frequency was much higher just after the big bang (i.e gamma) was there a point that it passed visible light? | Was the radiation coming from all parts of the universe once in the visible light wavelength? Since the background radiation has decreased in frequency I wondered this. Sorry if i've got anything wrong - this is just based on my physics knowledge from school | 21 | The temperature increases with redshift (a redshift of 1 is 1/2 of the observable universe away, a redshift of 2 is 2/3, 3 is 3/4, etc). Things that are in the thousands of Kelvin produce mainly visible light, so at a redshift of about 1000 (99.9% of the age of the universe ago) it was chiefly visible. | 11 |
ELI5: How can we distinguish something that is real news and fake news? | 94 | First, look at the reputability of the source. The source may be a *biased* source (every source is biased in its own way), but if it's reputable, then you can typically trust the facts. If the source has a print edition or was around 30 years ago, its reputability increases. If the source's headlines are typically ... | 58 | |
ELI5: What's the difference between a "balanced" and "unbalanced" XLR cable? | Or just what are balanced and unbalanced as it relates to Audio in general?
Also, can anyone tell me what would be best for recording audio on a film/video production set? | 27 | A balanced line consists of two conductors and a shield, while an unbalanced line is one conductor with the shield serving as the second conductor. Balanced lines are preferred in audio because they're less susceptible to electrical noise.
XLR and TRS cables are balanced. RCA isn't. TRS connectors are tip, ring, sleev... | 10 |
CMV: Garbage-men are heroes. | It has recently come to my attention that nobody respects trash collectors as much as most children do. Lots of children love garbage-men. Some children idolize trash collectors, and even aspire to be them. However, something happens as we grow up. For the most part, trash collectors lose their magic. We no longer supp... | 59 | > Why is this?
​
Because the novelty of "trash" wears off after growing up and anyone can pick up a trash can and dump it into a truck.
​
> They deal with our waste; they are a pivotal part of society.
​
So is everyone else.
​
> This often leads to th... | 21 |
How efficient is chlorophyll in converting sunlight to energy compared to our best solar cells? If it is more efficient, why don't we copy what those cells do in designing new solar cells? | Presumably we know how plants convert sunlight to energy, so I was wondering if they do so more efficiently than we do with solar cells. Then I got to wondering that if they do, why we don't have some type of artificial chlorophyll that we could use for solar energy. | 52 | >Presumably we know how plants convert sunlight to energy,
Plants convert solar energy into chemical energy with an efficiency around 3-6% depending on the species and other environment factors. Generally, our problem is that this chemical energy is not readily useful to us unless we first convert it into thermal e... | 22 |
Why are burns more prone to infection than lacerations or abrasions? | I was under the impression that the biggest threat with a burn is infection, why is that? | 24 | Depending on how serious the burn is, it can destroy the skin to various depths. Thus opening the barrier that was there to keep infections away (notice how permeable your skin becomes at the burn site, it usually becomes shiny and wet as your plasma leaks out). Burns tend to have a bigger surface area than the other t... | 24 |
Do your dominant limbs break down faster than your other limbs? | As in, does the constant wear and tear of using your dominant limb mean it eventually gets weaker or easier to break? | 43 | To the contrary, your dominant limbs are less suceptable to incidental damage. Your muscles and their supporting structures (including bones) respond to constant conditioning. It may seem like your dominant apendage is at greater risk, but this is because it is being used more frequently and is more likely to be subj... | 16 |
ELI5: Would bread go stale in space? | 86 | Are you talking about in a vacuum or on board a space ship of space station?
In both cases the awnser is, yes.
Bread, and other pastries go stale because moisture in the bread evaporates.
So in a spaceship, the water is going to evaporate just as easily as on earth.
But what in the cold hard vacuum of space? Surely... | 28 | |
ELI5: That unsettling feeling you get when you see a bad injury. | 55 | It's called empathy mixed with a bit of realization.
Empathy is being able to imagine yourself in the same situation as someone else and having many of the feelings that come along with that situation.
The realization comes in when you look up and realize that it happened to someone and you suddenly feel terrible b... | 14 | |
Can cancer get cancer? E.g. can a cancerous tumor grow on another cancerous tumor? | 54 | Cancer usually refers to the uncontrolled and harmful growth of cells. Parts of a tumor can become malignant, metastasize, or become histologically distinct (and thus be different from the original tumor's pathological progression), but your assertion that cancer can "grow on" other cancer tumors doesn't make sense. It... | 43 | |
[Star Wars] Were there any Clone Troopers that refused to execute Order 66? | 16 | In Legends, yes. A large number did.
In canon, we don't know - since Order 66 is hardcoded into an implant in their brains, the only ones we know for sure don't do it are ones who had their chips removed, which we've seen five total do that, one of whom went crazy, another was killed while resisting arrest, and the ot... | 21 |
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