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Why did Acemoglu never win a Nobel Prize in economics? | I feel like almost every topic on development he is the leading name, and his works seem disruptive.
Are there some specific reasons? Is it probable that he is going to be laureate soon due to his contributions? | 30 | Laureates generally tend to be older and prizes tend to take their time. Card, one of last year's laureates, won the prize for work that in part goes back to the 90's. Not to mention that you of course always have to pick someone and at the same time forego picking everybody else who's also an excellent candidate.
Tha... | 56 |
If we were to build the Voyager space craft today would it be orders of magnitude better than the 1977 version or are there limitations (e.g. power source, propulsion, sensors, etc) that keep us from really improving this design? | 2,808 | I imagine the instrumentation would be fantastic! one drawback, however is that voyager took advantage of the "grand tour". the planets had lined up nicely as to allow NASA to plot a course with several "gravitational slingshots" to accelerate the probe beyond escape velocity. we won't have another planetary arrangemen... | 1,584 | |
Why do I sometimes lose weight on days when I eat much more than I should have? | I've been trying hard to lose weight - and succeeding. I've lost more than forty pounds over the past five months, since I started running and eating right. Yesterday I ate waaaay too many calories, and it wasn't a workout day. But when I woke up this morning, I had lost two pounds! This isn't a unique experience. It ... | 21 | There are a lot of short term factors that case your weight to fluxuate beyond your core weight loss, your water content in particular.
If you drank a lot and ate a small amount of high sodium foods, you would would have been overhydrated for your weigh in.
Then the next day, you eat a lot, include some diuretics, th... | 11 |
ELI5: Mitochondrial Eve - How can it be that we are all descendant from a single person? | If the population at the time of Mitochondrial Eve was ten thousand people, how can all the other lines of descendants disappear, and how can we know that they did without testing every single human alive? | 25 | Mitochondrial Eve isn't a real single person, it's a concept for a theoretical person, but the actual person isn't known, and would constantly change with time. It's not really useful to think of it as an actual person. | 12 |
ELI5: why does eating human flesh lead to "the shakes"? | For the record - I'm not planning on any crazy dietary changes. I just watched The Book of Eli and it's mentioned repeatedly, I'm curious as to what the correlation is. | 31 | Kuru is a real life disease caused by a prion transmitted through consumption of infectious brain matter.
It was first noted in Papua New Guinea in the 1950s and 60s and has largely remained only in that area due to endocannibalistic practices. They eat their dead.
Eating the flesh of a person who wasn't infected wit... | 25 |
[Mathematics] Probability Question - Do we treat coin flips as a set or individual flips? | /r/psychology is having a debate on the gamblers fallacy, and I was hoping /r/askscience could help me understand better.
Here's the scenario. A coin has been flipped 10 times and landed on heads every time. You have an opportunity to bet on the next flip.
I say you bet on tails, the chances of 11 heads in a row is 4... | 1,996 | Before the coin is flipped at all, the chance that it will come up heads 11 times in a row is 1/2048 (not sure where you got 4%). However, as you gain information, the probabilities of various outcomes will change. For example, the probability of getting tails 11 times in a row is also 1/2048 before you start flipping,... | 3,178 |
[The Expanse] What's going on in the rest of the Solar System? | I'm using the TV series as my basis for this as I have not read any of the books.
The action and intrigue seems to focus solely on Earth, Mars, and the Belt. What about the rest of the Solar System? Does humanity have a presence beyond the Belt, on moons such as Europa and Titan, which I would imagine are prime candi... | 36 | ~45 million live around Jupiter, with the largest colonies on Ganymede and Callisto. Ganymede's magnetosphere helps shield it from radiation, making it a prime location for growing food and having children.
The Saturn system has a population of ~20 million. Titan is known for its amazing dome resorts. Phoebe is a p... | 27 |
According to the theory of relativity, when I fly in a plane time goes a teeny tiny bit slower. When I go back to the ground, do I sync back up like setting a watch or have I "lost" time? | I do not know too much about the theory of relativity and the concept of time (although I'd like to think I do) but I find it extremely interesting. Please feel free to tell me I am looking at it the wrong way or have it plain wrong. | 97 | Well actually when you fly in a plane time goes a teeny bit *faster* than for people on the surface. If you were travelling in a fast car, then yes time would go by more slowly, or you would have *more time*, i.e. your time would be dilated. But the fact that you're on an airplane puts you farther out of the Earth's gr... | 58 |
ELI5: Churches, chapels, cathedrals and basillicas- what's the difference between them all? Is it denominational? Architectural? Size based? | 24 | A church is a place of Christian worship. A cathedral is a type of important church where you'll find a bishop, who is in charge of many priests. A basilica is a Catholic church which has been granted that title by the Pope because it has some special historical or architectural significance.
A chapel is a smaller pla... | 31 | |
Did/do insects evolve faster than say, an elephant with a much longer lifespan? | 23 | In general, yes. The more number of generations you can fit inside a span of time, the more chances of random mutations you get.
This is why microorganisms can evolve to a certain antibiotic resistant strain quite fast (there also other ways to gain resistance, mutations are one of them.) | 27 | |
What would average life expectancy be if there was no healthcare? No doctors, hospitals and modern medicine. | 44 | You would end up with a number that is a little misleading. You know how people say the Romans only lived to 35? The number of young person deaths skews the average way lot. At a guess, in an otherwise-stable society, without doctors, hospitals, and medicine? Plenty of people living into their 60s, lots of people not l... | 64 | |
CMV: Bitcoin investing is a ponzi scheme | I think bitcoin investing is a ponzi scheme.
Wikipedia's definition of a ponzi scheme is: a fraudulent investment operation where the operator generates returns for older investors through revenue paid by new investors, rather than from legitimate business activities... Ponzi schemes rely on a constant flow of new inv... | 18 | It's not a ponzi scheme, because there is no central operator. A ponzi scheme requires a central operator fraudulently misrepresenting the nature of a venture.
Bitcoin investing may be a bubble and a speculative market, but it is not a ponzi scheme. | 25 |
[Bruce Almighty] When Bruce makes Evan say all that weird stuff on air, doesn’t that constitute messing with free will? | 59 | He made him do those things, but not WANT those things. Basically, he can directly pilot someone but not actually change what they want/who they are. Mind rape is an option, but Bruce is generally a good guy and that would cross one of his ethical lines. | 36 | |
If collagen is a protein, and proteins are broken down during digestion, why would collagen or collagen supplements be beneficial? Is it just hype? | Is it more to do with the types of amino acids after breakdown? And would cooking collagen for example in pork crackling matter? | 76 | Eating collagen, smearing it on your face, rubbing it into your hands, does absolutely nothing. When you eat it your digestive system breaks it down into amino acids as with any other protein.
Your body (fibroblasts) synthesizes collagen from amino acids, primarily glycine-proline-X or glycine-X-hydroxyproline. It mak... | 107 |
[LOTR] Does the map of middle earth correspond with any earth topography? | It was mentioned [elsewhere in this sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/3l9j6u/lotr_how_is_it_that_middleearth_has_the_same/) that middle earth is actually just earth. So where is it? | 19 | Presumably the continents changed sometime over the millenia between the War of the Ring and the present day. It would not be the first time the world's geography has changed significantly in a relatively short period of time - the destruction of the Lamps, the war against Melkor just after the elves awoke, the War of ... | 24 |
[Alien Hominid] If the FBI didn't go out of their way to be cruel, vicious assholes to everyone around them, would the Alien have reacted violently to them? Or is the Alien just violent by nature? | I'm just asking because >!a larger, stronger alien is the final boss of the game and as it's fighting the player alien, it looks like the Area 51 personnel are cheering it on i.e. it's friendly towards them. This leads me to the impression that the stronger alien is defending the base and its new homeworld. Maybe be... | 41 | His main goal during the game is to escape, and he's only killing people because they're trying to stop him from leaving. All we really know for certain about him is that he reacts violently to being shot at unprovoked and then kidnapped, which is the same reaction you'd expect out of most humans. | 14 |
Comedians and philosophers | Not all comedians fall in this area but people like George Carlin, bill Hicks and Doug Stanhope come to mind. Although they aren't what we would call intellectuals. They bring up alot of good points and observations in their stand up comedy specials.
Some examples: "shouldn't the long term goal of any society be compl... | 32 | Nowhere, really. Although in the general sense sharing one's thoughts on life and society can be called philosophy, what comedians are doing doesn't have a great deal to do with what modern academic philosophers are doing or the Western philosophical tradition.
In general, for observational comedy to work you need ... | 36 |
[DC] How similar are Kryptonians and Humans, both physiologically and culturally? | 35 | Physically, Humans and Kryptonians only share an outward similarity. Our internal organ structure is wildly different from that of Superman's (he has a bigger heart, additional organs, lots more... tubing).
Culturally, it would depend on which adaptation you're talking about. From what we've seen however, they're all ... | 25 | |
ELI5: Why do some ammo types use caliber (.50, .45, etc.) and some use mm measurements (10mm, 5.56mm, 12.7mm, etc)? | 481 | Those are both caliber specifications. .50 cal means a caliber of .5 inches. Things developed in the US used to use inches for caliber, although there's been a shift in some cases to millimeters (among other things, the US military uses metric these days, as does NATO). | 233 | |
[IT/Mary Poppins] If Mary and Pennywise are connected, why are they so different in temperament? | A popular “fan theory” that I’ve seen around the Internet is the idea that Pennywise and Mary Poppins are actually similar entities (maybe even siblings) and take place in the same universe.
I’m pretty sure that one could poke holes in this idea immediately, but if we take the idea at face value:
Why is Mary good and... | 19 | They are the same entity in two iterations. Good and evil, evil within the good and good within the evil. A schizophrenic tulpa manifesting in the various fields of energy produced by the intensity of childhood emotion. Eventually the thoughtform will gain enough energy and power to manifest as a full physical realm of... | 35 |
ELI5- Tactically, where did the US go wrong in the Vietnam war? | 17 | You're not using the word "tactically" properly. Tactics is the hour by hour planning of a single fight. Wars are only lost tactically if there is a huge pitched battle that crushes an army or navy, like the Battle of Midway or Waterloo.
*Strategy* is the overall planning of a war, from supplies, weapons used, units... | 25 | |
Do the beneficial microbes that live inside me have an "easy life" where they have unrestricted access to everything they want, or do they have to compete for resources like most other life forms on earth do? | I just want to know if I'm being a good host. | 31 | They compete for resources with each other. For example, a person with c dif infection may have come about because the c dif out competed the natural gut flora for resources after an antibiotic killed off the less harmful gut bacteria.
| 14 |
[MCU] Why did Tony Stark recruit Peter Parker and not someone like Luke Cage or Jessica Jones | I understand that Tony Stark felt that Spider-Man could be helpful when he fought Captain America's group, and he was. Being able to hold your own against both Falcon and Bucky Barnes would be no easy task. For Spider-Man it might be, but his lack of experience makes him vulnerable.
Tactically speaking it would make ... | 128 | Peter Parker is more malleable as compared to older people with powers. Stark likes control. He may not be able to control the others you have mentioned..but he can control Peter. Also, because Peter is young, he has time to learn and train. Spiderman is also very versatile compared to many other heroes. He is super st... | 187 |
On Diamond Princess researchers found coronavirus RNA 17 days after the ship was vacated. Does this suggest that we can get Coronavirus from surfaces up to 17 days later? | In this study, the CDC and Japanese officials found that coronavirus-covid 19 RNA was found in the Diamond Princess cruise ship as much as 17 days after the ship was emptied:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e3.htm?s_cid=mm6912e3_w
The study is summarized in a press report here: http://www.infectioncontro... | 76 | No.
The full virus particle is made of a lipid shell studded with proteins, which harbors the viral RNA on the inside. Only intact viral particles can infect the body's cells. That's why you should wash your hands with soap - soap destroys the lipid shell.
The only reliable way of detecting intact viral particles (e.... | 79 |
[Marvel] Can weapons forged in Asgard hurt Ghost Rider | Because from what I know, only weapons forged in Heaven and a small niche of other things can finish Ghost Rider. I know Asgard isn't Heaven Heaven, but I mean it seems holy? | 21 | Depends on the continuity. Sometimes Ghost Rider is able to stare down galactus, other times he's a punk who can get taken down by conventional super strength punches.
In general though, something like Mjolnir would probably be able to harm Ghost Rider, but a generic Asgard-forged sword would probably just sting a ... | 26 |
ELI5: What is the "gamey" flavor of wild meat? | 8,514 | The gamey flavor in certain meats can be due to various reasons. It usually is attributed to fats and fatty acids, the animal's diet, muscle use, sex hormones, exsanguination procedures utilized, and carcass handling.
Many of our domesticated animal species are fed out on grain based/corn diets, which changes the fla... | 4,804 | |
ELI5: Why does shaking a match put out the flame? | 53 | When a simple flame on a match or candle is burning, what's happening is that gases released by the heat of the flame are rapidly oxidizing, creating heat, and causing more gases to be released, etc. etc. The whole process relies on the heat produced by the oxidizing gases being next to the object that's burning long ... | 55 | |
I believe the "we are all equal" rhetoric for equal rights for races/sexes is damaging to the movement because it falls apart when we aren't. CMV. | It is simply true that everyone isn't equal. Some people have biological advantages w.r.t. intelligence and physique.
The reason I get behind equal rights is simply because I think everyone deserves equal opportunity in spite of their talents.
I'm not even claiming that I know the truth of how equal people are, but ... | 24 | They're talking about equal *rights*, not talents or capabilities, and they're talking about *groups* not individuals. The meaning of "we're all equal" is closer to "within any sizeable group you can define, you'll find the full spectrum of human capability." The "we're all equal" rhetoric is about preventing people fr... | 26 |
ELI5: What is that stitch-like feeling we get in our stomach after running? | 28 | No one really knows for certain exactly what *it* is. Some theories are that it's a spasm in the diaphragm, others suggest it's an irritated parietal peritoneum, which is a thin membrane that lines abdominal and pelvic cavities, and then there's also suggestions that it might come from excessive stress on the spine.
W... | 26 | |
ELI5: Why does winRAR say it has a 40 day trial yet, never runs out? | 87 | winRAR lets you continue to use it even after the 40 day trial has ended because that's the best way for them to make money.
If winRAR really only had a 40-day trial, and you had to buy the program after that 40-day trial, less people would use winRAR and therefore it wouldn't be as well-known, therefore less people w... | 77 | |
Why do commercial aircraft fly against the jet stream? | I've noticed (in the USA) that flying from west to east is significantly faster than flying from east to west. This is because of the jet stream. For instance, flying from Philly to Denver will take about 4 hours and the aircraft will manage a ground speed of about 440mph at 36,000 feet. From denver to philly take... | 28 | Many of them do depending on the air streams for that particular flight. However weather and other air traffic will dictate the altitude and course that particular aircraft takes. For instance an aircraft heading west might be scheduled for 27,000 feet but half way through its journey there may be a storm that would cr... | 20 |
[General Zombies] Do Zombies poop? | No, seriously. If we are to get to the science behind it, all organisms need to gain energy from other substances. There has to be a conversion process. Conversion process causes by products, in the case of animals, fecal matter.
So... Do they? | 24 | Whatever they eat simply collects in their digestive tract and stays there until it bursts. There is no conversion process because it is not required. A zombie no longer "grows" after it is created. New muscle is not created, new skin does not grow, etc. | 25 |
[The Matrix] What's the official story given about people who are freed from the Matrix to the other people still in it? | Are they declared dead, missing? Are they erased?
Is there a body? | 23 | Morpheus and Trinity are known as terrorists. The official story is likely that the person joined a terrorist organization with cultish insular secret practices.
Which honestly isn't too far from the truth. | 31 |
[MCU] The best minds on Earth use every resource available to build the most advanced spaceship they can. How does it rate on the intergalactic scale? | The Iron Man suit is basically a cute toy compared to the tech Rocket Raccoon is familiar with, but that's just the work of one dude using the materials he can get (which is admittedly a lot).
So let's say that Tony Stark, Shuri, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Peter Parker, even Doctor Strange all come together and pool thei... | 71 | Well, Tony invented a space-time GPS that can hop anywhere in time and space by navigating the quantum realm..so along with Hank and his Pym particles, the Wakandan's ship design and vibranium, they should eventually have an interstellar vessel that can travel to anywhere in the universe almost instantaneously. The Rho... | 72 |
CMV: Western countries should invest in and subsidize their own semiconductor producing industries | Admittedly, I do not know much about the complexities of such matters, so my mind could easily be changed.
TSMC, a Taiwanese company, has a monopoly on most of the world's most sophisticated semiconductor research and production facilities, which the world's electronics industries depend on.
Such a monopoly guarantee... | 1,289 | Production is not and has never been the problem. Supply is. The rare earth metals necessary for the production of semiconductors and chips are only found in China or Africa. With such a cornered supply and the labor to extract from the earth, there were only ever going to be a few locations these could be made. | 261 |
How do teeth turn yellow? Is it possible to simply brush your teeth for an hour to turn then (very) white? | Damn auto-correct, (obviously) then = them | 2,383 | Dentist here
The outside of your teeth is covered by a structure named enamel which is translucent and thick when you are born. Underneath this is a structure called dentine which is yellow. Enamel does not regenerate over the course of your life and eventually your teeth become yellower as acid's from your diet thin ... | 1,659 |
How do dogs recognize other dogs of different breeds as dogs? | Dogs seem to have the capacity to recognize other dogs that look absolutely nothing like them as other dogs. They will respond by getting excited and barking in a way that they do not respond to other animals including human strangers or other small mammals. It is my understanding that all dog breeds are man-made as a ... | 16 | I wouldn't take it for granted that the dogs actually recognize that the other animal is a dog. A Great Dane doesn't understand that it is a dog and the Chihuahua next door is also a dog in the same way that we do. But it *can* see that the Chihuahua 'speaks the same language'. Body language is how dogs do a lot of the... | 20 |
ELI5: What would happen if the world started spinning in "the other" direction. | 282 | I'll humor you by adding that the earth's water and air components would similarly change, but the moon's spin would not.
You'd completely screw up a number of fish, birds and mammals who migrate based on steering by the sun and moon. They'd get confused and go in the wrong direction.
Ditto those that rely on tides.... | 166 | |
ELI5: Can someone explain why you sometimes break out in sweat before you have explosive diarrhea? | Asking for a friend. | 39 | It's due to a vasovagal response. The Vagus nerve can be stimulated during a bowel movement when you strain. Bearing down can cause the veins in the legs to dilate causing a sudden drop in blood pressure triggering your vagus nerve. Severe attacks can cause fainting. Unless you faint, vasovagal responses or attacks... | 12 |
ELI5: When someone gets punched/slapped so hard that they pass out, what is occurring in the brain that caused them to become unconscious? | 16 | A concussion.
​
A concussion occurs when the brain is rapidly slammed into the sides of skull. This can cause a black-out due to the initial trauma the brain has. If a concussion is severe enough to cause a loss of consciousness, it's actually quite a serious medical condition. | 16 | |
I believe that some redistribution of wealth is a necessary component of a healthy, reasonable society. CMV | I don't believe that spontaneous voluntary charity sufficiently provides the sufficient resources or proper allocation of those resources to aid those in need in a way that we as a society feel would be appropriate. I believe that some portion of the tax collected by any major government should go to ensuring the basic... | 42 | A much more compelling solution to me would be to figure out why we have growing inequality between the rich and poor in the first place, and address the root cause. Government Robin Hood-ery is just an inefficient bandage put on in lieu of curing the disease. | 26 |
[Batman]What sort of crimes does Batman allow? | ​
Okey, let's say Weed is illegal in Gotham and I like to smoke. What would happen if Batman saw me consume Cannabis? Would he beat the ever loving crap out of me or just not care?
What if I like to download music or movies illegally? Will Batman use the Batcomputer to track me down and put me behind bars?... | 15 | Ask yourself: are you hurting anyone (or potentially hurting anyone)? If so he’ll intervene if he finds out about it and doesn’t have anything more important to do. If not at worse he’ll just send an anonymous tip to the GCPD. As for your examples…
Weed: if you’re doing it at home and recreationally you’re fine. The a... | 56 |
CMV: Avoiding partisan hackery does not mean compromising your positions, nor does it mean being some sort of centrist who wants to meet in the middle. It simply means that you shouldn’t allow your position on one subject, dictate your position on another non-related issue. | Your position on abortion policy should not be a good predictor for your position on climate policy.
If I can guess your position on abortion, gun control, healthcare, education, affirmative action, capital punishment, drug laws, minimum wage, free speech, foreign policy, and corporate taxes, simply by you telling... | 1,170 | From what I've seen, people's views on specific political issues are often motivated by more basic views regarding which things are important and how people should interact with society.
"Objective research" doesn't really determine what one's view is by itself; it just provides information *about* the issue. Your ba... | 141 |
What is the philosophical basis for respect of human corpses? Or is it just cultural? | Is there anything philosophically/ethically wrong with desecrating a human body? It feels intuitive that there is, but I am having trouble identifying if the basis and have been unsuccessful in finding one. | 68 | Consequentialist argument: People will be upset by your treatment of the body in unaccepted ways. So, if your treatment doesn't outweigh that in good, it shouldn't be done. And yes, this is based on only certain cultures. If the cultures changed, the judgment would too.
Virtue argument: The way we treat inanimate obje... | 43 |
ELI5: What's the biggest/tallest a humanoid creature(giant) could get on Earth and why? | I've heard that giants the height of mountains are impossible because of something to do with blood circulation? Just wondering how tall they could actually get. | 97 | It depends a lot on how much leeway you allow for the whole humanoid part and how long you want them to last.
The human body-plan is pretty much optimized for the range of sizes that humans actually get.
There are a couple of medical conditions that can induce people to grow taller than normal, but those usually come... | 70 |
[Harry Potter] Is there a wizard jail? | Or do you get sent to Azkaban for even a wizard misdemeanor? | 17 | Hagrid got his wand and magic privileges revoked, Arthur Weasley got fined and his job was threatened.
I think it's just Azkaban for jail, and heavy penalties, sanctions, or social ramifications for the rest. | 38 |
ELI5:Why are many members of Congress (US) so rich? | 15 | because the campaigns to get elected are expensive, it is a job with not much job security, not the highest income but high prestige. so it attracts people that have more money than they need and look for other forms of power/attention. | 16 | |
[Batman] Wouldn't his cape be difficult when getting into the Batmobile? | There has to be times where his cape gets caught in the door or he sits down on it weird where it pulls down on his back. | 79 | 100%, 100% the cape can be a draw back, so many times that cape gets stuck in doorways, crevices, cracks in the wall.
100% of the time that cape causes more trouble than its worth.
But its bullet proof, and that's why he keeps it. | 82 |
Does drinking a large amount of water during or after a meal decrease the effectiveness of stomach acid for digestion? | 923 | Any time you increase the volume of your stomach contents, you increase the surface area on which stomach acid can "work." If it begins to work well--by digesting and emptying its contents--the chemical feedback loop inhibits further production of acid.
Water itself is not a signalling factor for gastrin, which is... | 482 | |
[Disney] [Gaston] I have a few questions about Gaston. | He used to eat 48 eggs every morning. Now he eats 60 eggs every morning. That can't be healthy. Is there any way someone could live like that? Considering the time period he lived in, was he considered a giant because of his size? How did he afford all those eggs? | 196 | An egg has about 78 calories, 6g protein, and 5g fat.
So for breakfast, Gaston is eating 4,680 calories, 360g protein, and 300g of fat. It should be noted that the fat in eggs is one of the good kinds, and that the idea eggs cause high cholesterol has been debunked.
Let's guess that Gaston considered breakfast the mo... | 322 |
Eli5: What does it mean when an autocratic leader falls into a "Dictator Trap"? | 101 | No dictator can be everywhere and do everything.
They depend on people to tell them things, and do things for them.
The problem is that dictators are human, and humans don't like people telling them they're wrong, something they want to do is stupid, or something has gone really really bad.
And when you tell a di... | 273 | |
Are end-stage Alzheimer's patients still conscious? | 15 | this is largely a philosophical question. AD can get to the point (before it outright kills you) where you are unconscious, but there is also the time before then where the patient is not exactly asleep but certainly not there completely either. is that what you call consciousness? what do you base it on? mini mental s... | 10 | |
[Star Trek] How come star fleet headquarters didn't have protection | I was watching Star Trek into darkness I was at the part where khan decided to 9-11 star-fleet headquarters and he just easily does it. In world where starships have shields I would assume that a high profile building would have some sort shield generator. Especially if the one dude think that war is about to happen. ... | 24 | Earth in the 23rd century is literally paradise. Humanity had endured so much war and death just a few centuries earlier that, upon first contact with the Vulcans and the invention/introduction of just a few new technologies, that an entire cultural shift NEEDED to happen. Poverty, disease, hunger and war disappeared o... | 20 |
ELI5: Why was the discovery of zero (or the lack of a concept of zero) by ancient civilizations such a big deal? | I read things like that zero was invented independently in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica, or that the Romans didn’t have a concept of zero.
What does it really mean to have “discovered” zero, and what was made possible that was impossible before? | 43 | It just sort of wasn’t a concept before then. Like, people knew what having 1 apple was like, or having 2 apples, or 3, etc… but no one really thought to define a number that represents “no apples”. If you have no apples, you don’t need to describe the number of apples you have because there are none to describe.
But... | 73 |
What would it be like to swim in a pool on the moon? | Assuming it was inside a pressurized, breathable environment. In terms of the lower gravity, how would the viscosity and buoyancy of the water play a role? Would it be like swimming through syrup? Would we be able to swim more efficiently? | 59 | Actually, and surprisingly, there wouldn't really be any difference at all. First, water is (nearly) incompressible, meaning it would be at the same density on the Earth or on the Moon, and buoyancy is not a function of gravity so you would have to swim just as hard to stay afloat in both locations. The only real diffe... | 40 |
[Star Wars] How do you join the rebels? | Is there like a recruitment center hidden somewhere? | 32 | A lot of times you just get some buddies and start rebelling. Contrary to popular belief, the rebellion isn't one singular entity like the empire. Sure, they've got a central command and fleets but they also span the galaxy. Many rebels are just small cells with little to no contact with command who defy the empire ... | 48 |
CMV: Genderfluidity is anti-feminist and reinforces dated gender stereotypes that other facets of feminism aim to destroy. | First of all, let me establish that I do not deny gender dysphoria. Your body parts do not determine which gender you identify as, and it's perfectly fine to identify as a male if you have a vagina, or female if you have a penis. Or the other way around, of course.
If you don't know what genderfluidity is, it's a form... | 470 | Feminism in general isn't opposed to the attributes associated with gender stereotypes. They are against those attributes being applied to people, by society, based on what sex you were born with, and that these roles are encouraged/discouraged depending on your sex. No (well, few) feminists are going to have anything ... | 93 |
Why do the skulls of dead people retain their teeth instead of loosing them to tooth decay? | 194 | "The short answer is that in order for teeth to decay, pH levels need to be below 5.5. When our bodies are in the ground, our teeth are actually safer from acidic tooth decay – what can be caused by foods like lemons, tomatoes and other highly acidic produce.
Therefore, since the teeth are not repeatedly soaked in aci... | 119 | |
ELI5: Why do electronic screens look like they're having a seizure whenever you take a video or a picture of them? | 17 | Because they are being refreshed a certain number of times per second.
The device you are using to record shoots a certain number of frames per second as well.
The chances of these rates aligning is very small.
Therefore, you might capture empty frames sometimes.
Also, screens are refreshed from top to bottom, or s... | 15 | |
Why does it take so much longer for the eyes to adapt to darkness than to brightness? | 22 | When going from dark to light, all your eyes have to do is constrict the pupils to restrict the incoming light to a range that allows proper vision.
When going from light to dark, 2 things need to happen. The fast step is (like above) dilation of your pupils to their maximum size to allow as much light in as possible.... | 27 | |
As photosynthesis requires light, why aren't plants black to absorb the full spectrum of light, instead of green which doesn't? | I know that plants at the shrub layer in forests and jungles tend to be a darker green to make up for the fact that they receive less light, so how comes every plant doesn't do this then so that they could produce more food?
Edit: Holy crap this is a lot of responses. Thanks so much! And yes I know that plants are gre... | 3,271 | A Black equivalent of Chlorophyll does exist - usually within Seaweed.
This is because most plant life would overheat and their enzymes would denature if they were to absorb all spectra of light - therefore green is the commonly used colour as it reflects mid-energy photons and absorbs high energy (blue) light and low... | 2,902 |
Why do we only see one side of the moon? | Why do we only see the same side of the moon from the earth? Is the reason for this random?
EDIT: thanks for the quick replies! | 16 | The Moon is tidally locked, so its orbital period is equal to its rotational period.
Because the Moon has some size, the force of gravity felt by the near side of the Moon is slightly greater than that felt by the far side. This causes the Moon to bulge (with one bulge towards the Earth and another exactly opposite, a... | 17 |
What's the minimum size necessary a thing has to be to be seen from the ISS? | 49 | The human eye has an angular resolution of phi =1'=1/60° and the ISS has an average orbit altitude of z= 400 km. So the length l of the object in question is calculated as follows:
tan(phi/2) = l/z so l=400km*tan(0.5')= 58 m. So theoretically, astronauts should be able to see football fields (as a dot). Note that this ... | 45 | |
Quitting your PhD and starting another later in life? | Ten years ago in my early twenties, I started a PhD on a scholarship. I spent four years on it (with a few breaks), before leaving. I don't regret it—leaving literally saved my life, given some significant mental health issues at the time. The area also wasn't an area I loved. I'm now in a much better place than I was,... | 84 | You would definitely have to disclose you previously attended a phd program: to not do so can be considered academic dishonesty and can get you kicked out of a program later on, not worth it. You can also potentially transfer over some course work if its in a similar area. | 65 |
CMV: If a "rising tide lifts all boats" there is no argument against wealth inequality. | I take this sentence to mean, "economic growth benefits everyone." The rich, the poor, and everyone in between.
It is an acceptable outcome if a 5% growth of the economy meant a 5% growth for everyone. Those making $10,000 a year now make $10,500. Those making $1,000,000 now make $1,050,000. Som... | 21 | That saying is not a fact, it is an economic theory. It is also a theory that is not held by those who take issue with wealth inequality. Most who are trying to fight wealth inequality view "rising tides lift all boats" as a fairy tale that the rich use to ease their minds when they see the poor suffering. | 17 |
ELI5: Can dreams actually tell us something or are they just random head-noise | 31 | Don't listen to some of the ignorant comments here. The only truth we know about dreams is that we don't really know what their exact purpose is. There are many interesting theories about it, but the true purpose of dreaming is not yet understood.
That being said, you can definitely choose to find meaning behind your ... | 25 | |
I'm reading about the electrical system of a dual engine aircraft. It says that the maximum load for single generator operation is 400 amps up until 32,500 feet. Then the max is 280 (the max load with dual generators working). Why does altitude matter in the electrical system? | This is in an engine out scenario with only one operating generator. | 21 | The engine produces less power at a higher altitude, because of the lower density. The effect is less pronounced on the apparent propulsion performance because the drag on the aircraft also drops with density (or altitude). | 22 |
ELI5: Why do men start accumulating more stomach fat at around the same age range? | 191 | Generally, as people get older they become less active and eat the same amount of calories or more and therefore gain weight. Men tend to gain more weight around the stomach than other areas as opposed to women who tend to put on more weight on their legs etc.
While, there is some decrease in metabolism with age, its ... | 265 | |
[MCU] Would Sokovia really destroy Earth if it'd hit the ground? | 196 | There'd still be an Earth. Humans just couldn't live on it.
The impact would be akin to one of the extinction-tier meteor hits that happened during the ages of the dinosaurs. The area around the immediate impact would be destroyed, and everywhere else would be under a cloud of dust and debris so thick that the biosph... | 282 | |
ELI5: If one were to strike a billiards ball with the cue ball, and we disregard the deceleration as the target ball hits each bumper as well as other balls on the table, would the ball eventually, but always sink into a pocket regardless of where on the table it went? | I have wondered this for quite some time. My cousins and uncles play often. It is frequently that I see them shoot crazy angles around the table to strike a particular ball, but miss.
Essentially, if we disregard the deceleration due to hitting bumpers and disregard all other balls on the table, would the target ball... | 17 | No, it won't always sink. It's easy to think of a situation in which it won't happen.
If you hit the ball parallel to any side of the table, it would bounce back and forth forever, never entering any of the pockets (unless it was right in front of the pocket already. | 24 |
[Star Wars] Does excess body fat have any detrimental effects to Hutts like it does for humans? | For example Durga the Hutt called himself "His Great Obesity, the Lord Durga" and Jabba was called "The Bloated One" so it seems being fat is preferred for Hutts. | 16 | Being proud of their bulk doesn't necessarily mean that it is healthy, so we can't go based on that alone.
That said, their apparent physiology does seem like it's adapted to having bulk, so it is pretty likely that the large amounts of body fat aren't really 'excess' as they would be in another species, but rather ... | 28 |
ELI5: What happens to the information when you "delete" a file? (Ex. Empty your computer's trash, delete a picture) | 19 | Trash is just a folder where files go when you delete them so that you have an option to restore them if you deleted accidentally, they work just as any other folder. When you empty the bin, the file is really deleted from the file system perspective. Typically the data that were stored in the file is not erased, only ... | 17 | |
Why can you rename, or change the path of, an open file in OS X but not Windows? | 3,408 | The Windows filesystem identifies files by their paths (including the file names)—if you change a file’s path, applications and the operating system will perceive it as a new file with no connection to the original.
The OS X filesystem identifies files by an independent file ID, which remains fixed if the file is move... | 2,771 | |
ELI5: How do scientists aboard the ISS ensure no water ingress on electrical equipment? | As the title suggests, I just watched this video [https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/b1dmrl/astronaut\_dissolves\_effervescent\_tablet\_in\_water/](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/b1dmrl/astronaut_dissolves_effervescent_tablet_in_water/)
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And I was curious as to what p... | 72 | They do try to seal up electrical components. Not only from water ingress but also dust. However it is not a much bigger issue on ISS then on Earth and a lot of the equipment they have is regular off the shelf components that you likely have at home. They do have a ventilation system that they have turned on quite high... | 43 |
What happened to the surviving Star Destroyers and Tie Fighters after the second Death Star was destroyed? | Did they flee or was their a longer battle we simply weren't shown? | 21 | Legends Canon
----
Long story short, they scattered. There was a massive performance drop in the Imperial Navy shortly before and immediately after the destruction of the Second Death Star. Some blamed the collapse on a lack of morale--after all, the Battle of Endor saw the destruction of the *Executor* and the Dea... | 25 |
ELI5: What Do Atoms Really "Look Like"? | And what is really happening at the atomic level when two solids 'touch'? | 30 | For something to be visible to us, light would have to bounce off it in to our eyes. Atoms are so small that that model just doesn't work. Photons of light can interact with atoms in strange ways or not at all. For example, a LASER works by bombarding atoms with light so that one of their electrons is temporarily bumpe... | 17 |
Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science | Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small... | 225 | Because space is full of plasma, stars can be charged without totally overwhelming the gravitational attraction between them, because plasma screens electrostatic interactions. With this in mind, what is the upper bound on the charge of a typical star? | 14 |
[Harry Potter] Do Floo Powder and Portkeys have a limiting range? | Hypothetically, could a Floo linked fireplace be put on a spaceship to Mars/space, so that when the ship arrives astronauts and supplies can be ferried across instantaneously? Or through a Portkey linked to the ship/area in space itself? | 33 | Both are unknown.
Portkeys have a global range and so the wizarding community has not seen exactly where its limits lie.
Floo Powder only works within the Floo Network which only comprises Britain. However, as Floo Powder is a trade secret, we simply don't know what its precise limits are. | 20 |
Thesis Defense | Is it typical for your thesis defense to be incredibly brutal? I recently had mine and the presentation went well, but when it came to the q&a portion, it was miserable. They dug in so deep!
Thankfully, I passed and my mentor said that they purposely asked me difficult questions because they knew I could handle i... | 82 | Varies enormously. Not unusual. Also your perspective as the one who was being "attacked" probably made it feel worse.
If your work is published, it's usually not as bad at the defense. Not because they give you a pass for being so good at scholarship, but because you've already been through a rigorous review.
Questi... | 62 |
ELI5: why do mammograms require the breasts to be squished flat when we are able to take X-rays and ultrasounds through fat and muscle masses? | I’ve never had a mammogram so I actually don’t know how it works. Only heard the jokes about how they squish your breasts and that it hurts. We were talking about how men can have breast cancer so why don’t they get mammograms? (Maybe they do). Then we laughed as we pretended to slip a tiny man boob into an imaginary m... | 8,557 | X-rays are partially absorbed as they travel through flesh. They are slightly more absorbed in some lumps, but it's not the "broken bone" sort of X-ray you might be thinking of. To get enough contrast to spot lumps, the X-ray beam needs to be tuned to the amount of flesh it's passing through. That's made a lot simpl... | 4,295 |
[Marvel] How does Latveria military power stack up? | It seems like a small nation but is able to project real terror in the world? What does a Doom military force look like? | 51 | Technologically superior to any on the real world country. Less meat bag troops, but given time doom bots could be made in high enough volume to match the combined numbers of the entire real earth.
Latveria stomps the entire real world unless the militaries are hiding super advanced tech. | 24 |
[borderlands] Pandora seems to be a failed state so i wonder if thiers no government who prints the money and who puts up the wanted poster's? | 75 | Pandora doesn't have its own currency, so no one is printing money. All the cash is offworld money, either and interplanetary standard or whatever the megacorps use to do business with.
As to who is putting up those wanted posters, it's whoever can pay the bounties. Might be a mercenary group, or a corporate bigwig, o... | 68 | |
[Game of Thrones] Why didn't Ned Stark demand a trial by combat? | 109 | Because he took a plea deal. He would confess his treason, and beg to join the Night's Watch. In return, no further punishment would befall his family.
In addition, trials by combat are more associated with the Seven than the old gods. | 163 | |
[Star Wars] What's the maximum length of time someone could be trapped inside a Sarlaac, then be rescued and recover? | After all, the Sarlaac takes 1,000 years to digest, and the victim is kept alive in at least some capacity that whole time, right? Of that milennium-long window, how long does it take before a victim is too far-absorbed to be recovered; would it in theory be possible for someone to live beyond their natural lifespan by... | 35 | What would make you think that they would be alive in there? You don't have to be alive to be digested.
How long you would last would depend on how the sarlacc's digestive system works. For example, if it chews or processes its prey before digesting, you'd last roughly until you got chewed to death regardless of how ... | 15 |
What exactly is a 'rhizome' according to Deleuze and Guattari? | 56 | A decentralized network of ideas, notions, philosophies, actions, human forces, etc. The traditional Enlightenment/Western structure is a tree, where everything branches out of a larger authority. With the rhizomic structure there is no center, rhizomes can multiply and extend. There is no destroying them in the tradit... | 44 | |
[Batman] Where is Gotham City? | I'm pretty sure it's a major hub in the Northeast U.S., but where is it compared to NYC, Chicago and Boston? | 23 | When the Amalgam event happened, two cops-One from NYC, the other from Gotham-, started arguing about where a certain police precint was. Their cities had apparently merged. This makes me feel like they occupy the same geographical space in either universe. | 19 |
Do mirrors reflect only visible lights, or do they reflect light of other frequencies (if so then which types--x-ray, infrared, gamma, etc)? | 337 | Yes and no, a normal mirror reflects visible light and likely near IR and UV, but it's not optimized for anything past that. Mirrors can be made for most forms of light, though it gets far harder the smaller the wavelength gets, x ray mirrors have to be almost edge on to work well, much like how glass becomes more refl... | 85 | |
ELI5, how do chemists extract specific substances from something like a flower? | 50 | Mush flower down with solvent.
Leave solvent/flower mixture. (Solvent extracts a selection of substances)
Remove flower debris and keep solvent/substance mixture.
Either: add chemical which may precipitate desired substance. (Neutralisation reaction forming substance salt)
Or heat at different temps, evaporating/separa... | 40 | |
[MCU] if Nick Fury is Director of SHIELD why is there even a council of shadowy people? | He even elects to ignore the council’s decisions!
(Also, i haven’t watch the first bunch of MCU movies in a while, i might be missing my own answer.) | 21 | Those shadowy people are the civillian representatives of the governments that oversee shield.
General Mark A. Milley is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the highest ranking person in the military (except the president) but he still needs to answer to Congress. | 34 |
What causes the moon to take on a blood orange colour as it climbs up from the horizon at certain times of the year? | Tonight's moon was particularly large and orange as it rose tonight and prompted my 9 year old to ask a question that I couldn't answer. I thought that I'd reach out to Reddit rather than Google for this "Dad always finds the answer" info. | 18 | It's actually the same reason that the Sun (and especially the sky) may appear reddish during sunrise/sunset: scattering of light! The atmosphere scatters blue light moreso than other colors (this is a property of the gases the atmosphere is made of). When a celestial body is on the horizon, the light coming in has to ... | 15 |
[D&D General]How to deal with murderhobos? | Ok, here's the thing. Last year was the worst harvest the Kingdom have seen in recent times. And with an Undead Horde bearing down from the North, we had to raise taxes on everyone, including the clergy. I've found out the Church hired some murderhobos from the East to deal with "tyrants", namely us. Now, these murderh... | 24 | Murderhobos care only for loot and prestige. Toppling you will give them both. Offer them something richer and stronger to topple, like the Lich Lord of the Church (of course, they don't have to know he's a normal human being) | 33 |
[X-Men First Class] How come Emma Frost seems to outdo Charles Xavier at almost every meeting? | I thought Professor X was supposed to be the most powerful telepath on the planet. Why does Emma Frost, someone Cassandra Nova called "strictly bush league" in another life, manage to outmaneuver him almost constantly until their final confrontation in that house in Russia? | 56 | Because Charles was much younger. He uses his powers mostly to show off and hasn't spent the years he would eventually spend, training and improving his abilities until he became the most powerful telepath on earth.
Emma Frost on the other hand seems to live a life where her powers are in constant use, an excellent me... | 64 |
[Star Wars] Are there any Force/Light Side abilities that someone would lose access to if they gave in to the Dark Side? | 41 | In current canon mind trick maybe. In legends animal friendship, lightside lighting (I don't remember the proper name), and the group ability to take the force away, along with many others could potentially be lost. | 41 | |
ELI5: How does one rationalize the following two statements: 1) Space is infinite and 2) The Universe is expanding? | How is it that something that is infinite can get larger? | 110 | When we say the universe is expanding, we mean that everything is getting further away from everything else (at least before gravity gets involved and pulls nearby things towards each other).
Take the infinite number line, and move the number 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 3 to 6 and so on. The resulting line has the same amount of... | 42 |
CMV: Aang is to blame for the failure of the Day of Black Son invasion | So if you have ever seen the show Avatar the Last Airbender you should know the main character is Aang a person who has control over the element of air and is the Avatar a human who has the ability to learn and master a four of the elements which are Water,Earth,Fire,and Air. One of the Avatars' ace in the holes is the... | 16 | For one you're overestimating the power of waterbenders. What you're describing is a feat that we've nevery seen a waterbenders capable of pulling off. Furthermore, if memory serves, there were not that many waterbenders. Members of the Water Tribe, yes, but not all of them are capable of waterbending.
An Avatar Stat... | 19 |
CMV: Putting deaf and hard of hearing students through the main-stream education system does more harm than good. | First off, let me state that this view stems from personal experience as a student in a school in which deaf and hard of hearing students are put in the same classes as hearing students. My reasons are as follows:
1) Deaf students require an interpreter; this inherently slows down the class. I cannot tell you how many... | 19 | Schools exist not only to teach students the "3 Rs" and other coursework, but to prepare them to function in the world around them. In the "real world", there are people who function differently than the mainstream. Students will have to work with, or at least interact with, non mainstream individuals at some point i... | 16 |
[Marvel/DC] Why is acid always stored in giant open vats? | 120 | The overwhelming majority of the time, hazardous chemicals used in large quantities are stored quite safely; you only really end up hearing about the few isolated incidents where they aren't and some accident results. The fact that they exist at all is a result of substandard working conditions in most low-paying facto... | 96 | |
ELI5 why is smoking bad for you specifically and emotionally what can it do to your body? How long would it take to smoke for it to hurt your body? | 17 | Gonna assume you mean smoking tobacco.
Tobacco smoke contains carcinogenic compounds. These are chemicals that attack the DNA in your cells. 99.9% of the time that just results in the cell dying, and your body replacing it, but a small fraction of cells will become cancerous and start multiplying. Every cigarette is b... | 22 | |
When the Apollo astronauts prepared to leave the surface of the moon, they discarded their EVA life support backpacks by tossing them out of the LM. How did they do this without exposing themselves to the Moon's vacuum? | With the LM's hatch open, its interior held no atmosphere, so the astronauts had to enter with their EVA backpacks attached and operative. Were they able to disconnect them, toss them out, close the hatch, and repressurize using only the residual oxygen in their suits, or did the LM have the necessary hardware to provi... | 21 | They only tossed the backpacks out, not the whole suit. the PLSS backpack was exactly that, a backpack that connected to the space suit via hoses and electrical connections. When inside the LM, the astronauts simply connected their suits to the LM’s life support system, negating the need for the backpack. | 14 |
eli5 Why is it common for people who work manual labor jobs to have their bodies "worn out" after years of work but weightlifters and athletes are considered to have healthy bodies. | 17 | Many manual labor workers suffer from repetitive movement injuries/breakdown from doing the same movements for hours a day for years. Weightlifters and athletes have specific routines and train in a way that helps reduce repetitive stress injuries. Additionally, professional athletes generally retire from competition i... | 73 |
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