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How many antacid tablets would one have to consume to lose stomach acidity? | If antacid tablets (like tums, for example) are used to treat exceptionally low stomach pH, then I figured they must be able to raise the pH of a healthy person's stomach as well. This got me wondering how many antacid tablets it would take to raise stomach pH so much that food becomes undigestable, at what pH that wou... | 36 | Stomach pH doesn't have a whole lot to do with digestion. There will be some enzymes that do not work as well in the stomach but digestion happens primarily in the small intestine which is a more neutral pH. The acidity of the stomach is primarily a defensive mechanism to destroy bacteria that are ingested. | 11 |
[MCU] What exactly is the difference between Thor's "realms" and Doctor Strange's "dimensions"? | 53 | I think the 9 realms are all actually physical locations/planets in our dimension, just really far away.
The dimensions in Dr. Strange are not located in our concept of "space," meaning you couldn't reach them even if you had a spaceship that could travel between galaxies in an instant. They are *beyond* space as we p... | 91 | |
[DC/marvel] What would Batmans contingency plans for the avengers be? | like this could be fun | 197 | Captain America - Despite its odd qualities, his vibranium shield is susceptible to magnetism. A powerful electromagnet nearby can remove it from him immediately. He is a master combatant and tactician, and in Olympic level health, so attempting to take him out in any prolonged attack gives him too much time to mount a... | 146 |
[Warhammer 40k] As a human, if I get a girlfriend, will I certainly become corrupted by Slaanesh? | Exactly how dangerous? Is it like a maybe thing or do I need to be into some fucked up, kinky shit? If I am not overindulging, will I be fine? Will recreative sex lead in my soul being torn out of me, or is that just the eldar?
EDIT: Really loving the in universe first person answers. I'm already pretty decent on lore... | 19 | You know how you sometimes want something even though it's bad for you? Like chocolate, maybe a lot of chocolate?
Slaanesh is all about overindulgence. It doesn't have to be sex. Some people seek adoration, some people seek wealth, some people pursue gluttony. It's all about the vices that matter to you.
And Slaanesh... | 37 |
CMV: Reality TV should not be a thing and is just exploiting unintelligent humans to make themselves unattractive and complete imbeciles | At least in Australia, reality tv like Married at First Sight and The Block have become a breeding ground for people who want more Instagram followers and not the people it was created to target like people in financial struggle and people who struggle to find love.
I'm not entirely sure who's in the wrong here, whet... | 243 | However stupid or incapable or pathetic you feel, these shows show you people that are worse for you to make fun of and feel better about yourself. That is their purpose, not some experiment, or helping those people in any way.
And by the way, none of it is real. Random people causing drama is not because they suddenl... | 37 |
ELI5: Why we're supposed to drive with one foot instead of both | (I drive an automatic, not entirely sure what the protocol is for manuals)
Anyway, when I started learning how to drive, two feet just felt completely natural to me. I mean, two feet, two pedals, makes perfect sense. I have an accelerator foot and a brake foot. Contrary to what some people may think, no, my brake foot... | 16 | When driving two footed, if your right foot is on the gas and you need to brake NOW, the instinct is to slam both feet down, but car engines almost always overpower car brakes, and so you will keep going, or best case slow down much more slowly than you would otherwise.
For manuals you always use the left foot for the... | 25 |
ELI5: Why do all the countries in the world use the same number system, but different languages? | 31 | Do you mean the written numbers? Or do you mean the base of the number system?
The Arabic numerals were created in India and then everyone else borrowed them because they worked really well or they didn't already have a number system of their own. They replaced Roman numerals because Roman numerals are clunky. But not... | 13 | |
ELI5: What causes the shower to make that high pitched screech when you turn up the heat a bunch? | 20 | Bernoullie's principle states that a faster moving fluid is at a lower pressure than a slower moving one, so the speed of the water through the pipes lowers pressure enough for the hot temperatures you're requesting with the shower knob to turn some of the water to steam which is then heard as a screech. | 10 | |
Why don’t we use salt water for toilet water? Wouldn’t it save millions of gallons of freshwater? | 287 | Saltwater is more reactive and corrosive than fresh water, for one. Harder to maintain, I'd expect.
Also, you would still want fresh water to your house for showering and cooking, so you'd have an additional set of pipes running to each building. | 435 | |
Are cells from an elephant the same size as cells from a mouse? | Or do cells, like say skin cells, etc, scale with the size of the animal? | 35 | Nope, cells don't increase in size as animals get larger. The main exception is nerve cells--some nerve cells stretch from head to toe, and thus must be longer (but not usually fatter) in larger animals. | 15 |
Effects of muscular overweight | I tried google, but I didn't find any anwer. I was wondering what are the effects of being overweight when the weight is caused by muscle mass. Bodybuilders sometimes have a BMI of over 30 which makes them obese in the ordinary sense, but they have body fat percentage as low as 7 %.
What are the differences or the sim... | 39 | BMIs are about as useful as nose length in determining health. The similarities are that both eat a lot and the difference is that one is healthy and the other isn't.
>BMI of over 30 which makes them obese in the ordinary sense
No, in the useless BMI scale sense. They are not obese. | 10 |
[W40k] What happens if I, the average smhuck, dies? | 20 | Assuming you're human and not a Chaos worshiper, your body just rots and your soul gets ripped into the Warp and is used up (eaten) by a deamon.
If you do follow Chaos, your soul will just get eaten by your favorite deamon.
An iff youz a Shotta boy, Mork 'n' Gork eatz youz! | 27 | |
ELI5: Why is coffee/pepper that you grind at home better than coffee/pepper ground at the factory? | Would people be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test? | 37 | Coffee, pepper, and many other spices have very volatile oils that evaporate fairly quickly after their outer shells/skins are broken. So the closer to end use you put off the grinding of the spice the better it will taste and the more of those oils you consume. Grinding them in a factory means you lose a lot of those ... | 40 |
[Fairy Tail] How is it that every fight ends in the female wizards clothing just barely covering the important bits? | I mean most anime are pretty bad about this but I feel like Fairy Tail is one of the worst. Literally every female character is ridiculously busty and within a few minutes of fighting their clothing is in rags. How is that even possible in universe? | 28 | Magic used to protect the body only extends outwards to things your mind is very strongly attached to keeping safe. Most of your clothing does NOT fall under this protection, but the parts barely concealing your decency do fall under this protection, purely because the wizard's mind thinks those parts are important.
... | 35 |
CMV:I want to undergo gay conversion therapy | _____
I am a male teenager who has maybe accepted that they are homosexual. Recently, gay conversion therapy is becoming banned in a large number of locations and this concerns be because I worry that I will not have the option available to me. A part of me wants someone to try to convince me that it's okay but I reall... | 30 | Gay conversion therapy has never been about making men less attracted to other men and more attracted to women. Rather, it's focused on getting people to NOT ACT ON their desires. The focus is on "You'll always have this temptation and you'll always have to fight it."
If you want a way to not be gay, it can't help. ... | 44 |
ELI5: Why do soft baked goods go hard when they get stale, and hard baked goods go soft when they're stale? | 12,642 | Harder baked goods absorb moisture over time because they start out dry compared to the moisture in the air and become softer as a result.
Softer baked goods that already have moisture in them which is used chemically to make their gel-like structure instead lose moisture over time (since there's less moisture in the ... | 7,285 | |
[DnD] What would happen if you put a Bag of Holding inside of a Bag of Holding? | 31 | Under the old rules, an earth-shattering kaboom as both bags are destroyed. The explosion is so powerful it rips a whole in the fabric of space and time sucking everything in as a desperate attempt to patch the rift. Fortunately, it is a localized effect. Especially as rift usually closes very quickly. | 39 | |
[The Thing] 27,000 hours to take over the world? | Blair's computer simulation projects that once the Thing reaches civilization, we have about 27,000 hours (3 years) before everyone is assimilated.
Granted, the simulation is done on a crappy 80s computer, by one very paranoid scientist, in less than a day. And there's no real way of predicting such a thing anyhow, it... | 19 | It's not just the humans that will be assimilated, it's also every other animal that share the planet with us. If the Thing assimilates one rat, the entire ecosystem will soon be assimilated including migratory birds that will spread the Thing to other Eco-systems. If it was smart enough to plan, it could spread around... | 17 |
ELI5 What are gamma values in pictures and why does it affect png (aka make it worse than jpeg?) | 21 | This comes from the days when computers were much slower and monitors were huge and heavy boxes with thick glass on the front of the screen - the CRT, or cathode ray tube, uses intense electromagnets to shoot tiny bits of stuff at a screen that glows when hit by this stuff. That's how it makes colors and pictures, by c... | 22 | |
[Star Wars] Why don't Jedi, Sith, and other force wielding factions use shields in one hand and lightsaber pikes in the other? | I realize there's Darth Desolous but he was an isolated example more than anything in the galaxy.
Not only could you have a good defense, but the pike would give you a massive range advantage.
In my time researching ancient fighting styles of planets across the galaxy, I came to one frank realization; Swords are fran... | 23 | Spears and similar pole-weapons have some very strong advantages in massed combat, but in duels are relatively easy for skilled swordsmen to counter. Once you are inside the reach of the sword, all advantages from the spear disappear, and are replaced with some notable disadvantages. There is a reason why, traditionall... | 31 |
ELI5: What does Canada's recession mean, exactly? What makes it different from the economic recession of the USA a few years back, and what does it mean for the average Canadian? | Referring to [this](https://news.yahoo.com/canada-officially-recession-first-half-2015-131114485.html;_ylt=AwrC1ClGpOVVGS0A6AzQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBybGY3bmpvBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--) article by Yahoo. Thanks for any explanation. | 79 | I don't know about the average Canadian, but Alberta has been experiencing steady lay-offs since oil dropped, and all forecasts predict more. That said, it's not like the situation is going to affect the other parts of Canada any more than any other region of the world that relies on oil for every-day transportation, i... | 52 |
[General] Who’s the luckiest character in fiction? | 306 | Gladstone Gander, Disney comic universe. Able to coast by on supernatural luck where things always go well for him.
Donald was once mad at a casino owner for getting Scrooge to become a gambling addict. He send Gladstone into the casino and bankrupted the place in an hour. | 323 | |
How do our ears know where sounds come from? | All sounds enter our ear canal...how can the brain distinguish where it comes from when they all hit the ear drum? | 18 | Yeah having two allows you to pinpoint left vs right. Up vs down (and left vs right really), comes from developmental learning. Specifically, the different shapes of the outer ear cartilage will reflect sound at very slightly different frequencies (and wavelengths). Your mind learns to associate these tiny differing fr... | 34 |
ELI5 How do we build in the middle of the ocean? | How do we build in the middle of the open sea? Do we have to find a more elevated spot to lay the foundations?
ELI5, if you wanna explain it like I'm 25 that's cool too. | 16 | We usually don't. If we're building anything out there, it's probably some sort of oil rig like "building" that floats. Usually the bottom of the ocean is too far down to build on, and even if you could build on it, it's squishy mud that won't support the weight.
In places we do build, it's usually shallow enough to d... | 13 |
CMV: There is no point in awarding a medal of honor to a dog. | As some might have heard, a military dog who lost a leg when sniffing out a roadside bomb has been awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross after serving in more than 400 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since the introduction of the medal in 1943 it has been awarded to 31 dogs, 32 Second World War messen... | 21 | Medals are partly for the person/animal who wins them, but they are also for everyone else. It allows leaders to reward those who exemplify great values, and it's inspirational for the general public. The Make-A-Wish Foundation helps dying children, but it also feels good for everyone else to help those children. Givin... | 17 |
ELI5: Why is carbon fiber often used as a stick to hit objects in sporting goods | Things like Badminton rackets, Tennis rackets, golf clubs, softball bats and hockey sticks. I know its light and all but what are the other reasons why is it used as a stick to hit objects? Can someone give me a detailed answer?
Edit: Is tensile strength an important factor to making these sticks if so why?
Edit: Sin... | 8,327 | Carbon fiber is light, but strong. If your Hitting Thingy is heavy, then you'll get tired much more quickly from swinging it around. If your Hitting Thingy is weak, then it'll break from you hitting things with it. Carbon fiber solves both of those problems. | 6,585 |
Why does the morning sky look so different from the evening sky when at any given moment it seems like the same thing; the sun close to the horizon? | 463 | Largely it has to do with the water content in the sky. In the morning the moisture content is greater at ground altitude wheras during the day the sun's heat removes that moisture giving the sunset a more "dry" sky. So the different colors are determined by low atmospheric water contemt. | 615 | |
ELI5: Why does water form into droplets as its smallest unit? What's special about that specific size? | 64 | Surface tension causes drops to take a shape which minimizes their surface area per unit volume. It starts as a sphere, because that's the most effective shape, and then it's pulled into a droplet by air friction as it falls. | 17 | |
[Harry Potter 2] How would looking at the Basilisk kill a person? What kind of death would it be? | 32 | It's so instant that you don't even realize you've died. Moaning Myrtle basically tells us this. She was crying in the bathroom, looked up, saw a pair of yellow eyes, and then the next thing she knew she was dead. No pain or anything, and it happened instantly. | 79 | |
[The Witcher] What was Geralts's childhood like? | In greentext format if you might feel so inclined | 34 | > Be baby Geralt
> Be daddy's surprise when he comes home
> Be given to witchers cause daddy's a cheap ass and didn't pay
> Get witcher training
> Be ten
> Drink some dank herbs
> Drink danker herbs
> Be whitey mcpaleface with cat eyes
> Learn to make dank ... | 55 |
ELI5 why babies are born all messed up when a a brother has sex with a sister? Like an inbred child? | I just saw a post that had a picture of a pretty fucked up baby and it said "this is what happens when you knock up your sister"
Well I never really knew why that happens, can someone explain? I remember hearing how it's because of certain genes. | 16 | What you're talking about is "deadly recessive" genes.
Sexual reproduction (rather than asexual reproduction, where a creature does not need a mate to create an offspring) has one big advantage: it combines the DNA of two different creatures.
So let's say there's a recessive gene in your DNA. It's not a good gene, i... | 29 |
Why are hydrogels used in tissue engineering, what is the main advantage over just sterile water? | 28 | Some context would be helpful, as this is a vast field. Some important aspects:
- Hydrogels have a shear modulus and don't drip away, in contrast to water.
- Hydrogels can have a stiffness and viscoelasticity that's tunable in situ, unlike water.
- Hydrogels may contain electrolytes to maintain isotonicity with phys... | 35 | |
ELI5 why does the same temperature feel warmer outdoors than indoors? | During summers, 60° F feels ok while 70° F is warm when you are outside. However, 70° F is very comfortable indoors while 60° F is uncomfortably cold. Why does it matter if the temperature we are talking about is indoors or outdoors? | 6,438 | The sun provides (at peak) about 1300 Watts of heat per square meter of area. So, even in the winter when the sun is lower (therefore the angle of incidence is lower, and less heat will be absorbed) you could still be getting a few hundred Watts of heat just by being in the sun. Quite honestly, 60 F (15C) and direct... | 4,253 |
What's the best explanation for the meaning behind this famous Nietzsche quote? | "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
The first sentence is fairly straightforward but I've long thought about the second one and have struggled to understand it. Thinking maybe I don't understand Nietzsche... | 46 | Nietzsche, like Hegel, is interested in the dialectical nature of the self, how the self and its other mutually inform one another. It is not possible to quarantine yourself in an absolute manner from what you are setting yourself against (though it's a huge psychological temptation). There is always the risk of becomi... | 68 |
ELI5: Why does "rapid rehydration kill"? | I am reading a book about the nuclear bombs thrown on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During the blast, the heat skyrocketed and this caused survivors to lose most of the water in their bodies. As a result, they felt extremely thirsty yet they would die when they drank.
Did they die because they drank? The book says "rapid r... | 647 | Alright, think of it this way.
Your cells are little sacs containing a bunch of solutes, like sodium and electrolytes. When the water-solute balance in your body is off (because you've drunk more water than your body can handle), the cells attempt to compensate by absorbing water from outside the cell (osmosis). The c... | 450 |
Could a planet orbit the sun on a vertical plane as opposed to the horizontal plane of the other planets? | I am not sure of terminology, but assuming that all the planets are on the same horizontal plane could another planet orbit on a vertical plane? | 141 | Bet of a mess here so I'll make a bit of a tl;dr top-level response:
1. Planets form in a flat plane because they all form from a disc of gas.
2. But if you somehow got a planet in vertical orbit *after* the gas disc had dissipated, it should continue quite happily, and there are indeed small objects in the solar sys... | 57 |
ELI5 What level of play can be expected from a Chess Grandmaster? | I know they're super good at chess. But can someone explain the type of thinking or styles of play that might come from a grand master (and you wouldn't see in players that aren't quite as good)? | 37 | The difference between a good player and a grandmaster is the difference between tactics and strategy.
Games between good players are generally decided by tactics. Some common tactics are forks (attacking two pieces at once), discovered attacks (moving a piece so the piece behind it can attack), and pins (holding an ... | 39 |
After death how long do processes like digestion or cell regeneration continue to go on and what ultimately stops them? | I would imagine that the processes don't stop immediately. | 2,909 | In short, what ultimately stops cell processes after death is lack of oxygen. Without oxygen ions to fix electrons on the cellular level, cells are unable to function or reproduce, and they begin to decay.
For some cells that require constant oxygen (such as neurons) this can happen almost immediately (within minutes... | 1,550 |
ELI5. When hooved animal's hooves are left untreated they over grow and become unhealthy. Does this happen in the wild? | 25 | Unlikely. A hooved animal in the wild gets to run around on dirt, rock and gravel, so that naturally wears down the hoof. A bit like how if your dog is outside a lot, you don't have to clip its nails nearly as much as an inside-only pet, because its claws get worn down by the patio, sidewalk, gravel etc.
Those rescue ... | 41 | |
CMV: I believe that, in certain cases, capital punishment shouldn't have to be humane. | It probably goes without saying that I support capital punishment, if not in practice then at least in principle.
More than that, I find the outcry sparked from the botched executions of rapists and murderers to be somewhat ridiculous. I find nothing ethically wrong with subjecting a condemned man to some measure of s... | 25 | Capital punishment does not exist to get vengeance. It exists to remove criminals from society's burden, permanently. In this sense, it's the same as keeping someone in jail forever, you're just keeping them out of society. None of that justifies torture or cruel execution.
| 38 |
[Star Trek] How do Borg assimilate non-humaniod species and other species which needs very special living conditions into the Hive? | 28 | Borg drones can apparently survive in highly inhospitable conditions. In First Contact, we see human Borg drones operate on the outside of the Enterprise without apparent extra equipment. So the cybernetic augmentation can probably keep most drones functional in the same environment.
Otherwise, they might assimilate t... | 26 | |
ELI5: What is the psychological reason why people who are close affectionately poke fun at each other? | Why does my best friend and I greeting each other with "what's up you fuckin' slut" draw us closer? By all accounts it doesn't make sense. | 26 | Aggression is playfully used right across the animal kingdom, so it is probably an inherited way of forming a relationship - some tropical fish (ciclids) fight through mouth-wrestling, and when a male and female are evenly matched, instead of the weaker fleeing from the stronger, they become mates for life and proceed ... | 25 |
I believe the act of sex is given far too much credence by society and the power it is given over our lives is detrimental to us all - CMV | The idea of making this post came to me when I was looking through an AskReddit post about sex (one of millions), where as usual, the topic of virginity came up. The term Virgin is a bizarre concept - we are defining somebody by something they *haven't* done. It would be like if we had a regularly used word for people ... | 523 | It is given so much power because, biologically speaking, it is the driving force of life. Our genetic code screams for us to have it as we just organisms who exist sheerly to pass on our genetic material | 149 |
[Attack on titan] Could barbed wire work against titans? | Seems like it could be a cheap and safe way to slow and bring down titans, specially the smaller ones.
Maybe the wire would have be stronger than the one intended to stop humans. | 37 | Could be quite a good tactic, but you have to remember Titans are often quite bulky and big monsters that blunder headfirst towards their targets.
You'd likely need multiple rows of barbed wire reinforced several times and secured *strongly* to prevent the first 6m Titan from simply stumbling into it, getting wrapped ... | 30 |
CMV: I feel it's my responsibility to report cheating/infidelity to the wronged party in most every circumstance, because if I was being cheated on I would want people I know to do the same for me. Change my view. | My opinion stems from an idea that I've encountered a long time ago, being that "If your partner was cheating on you, wouldn't you want to know?" I feel like most people would want to be aware of a partner's infidelity rather than not, because it empowers them to act on the situation. Being in the dark leaves them tota... | 64 | First, you're making an assumption that sexual encounters outside the relationship are cheating. Some people have open relationships. Some people with open relationships keep quiet about it to their friends and family because *it's none of their business*.
Second, and more importantly, you are not privy to their i... | 18 |
How does eye color change? | I know that some people have eye colors that change noticeably and that children may have blue eyes that change color as they get older. How/why does this happen?
Edit: Also please answer kwagener's potential color changes "Mine go from dark brown to bright green depending on the mood I'm in" | 41 | It's not that the amount, or color of, pigment in the iris changes, but as the iris dilates and contracts, the pigment becomes concentrated or spread out, changing the perceived color. There are also differences in perceived color depending on the type and intensity of the light source.
As for babies, some are born w... | 24 |
CMV: America is already a police state, the public just hasn't admitted it yet. | Edit: I think I may have overestimated the problem, due in part to my sources, and in part to my zealousness. Many comments so far have pointed out that even if all of this were true, it would not constitute a police state. I'm willing to give quite a bit of ground on that phrase, as I likely used it without thinking i... | 350 | In a police state everything you describe would be the norm, not unusual circumstances.
Can you show that what you're using as examples (without citation) are in any way common enough to be considered anything other than exceptions to the rule? | 93 |
CMV: Education in the US should be tailored to top performers and not bottom performers. | Note: This is mainly talking about grades seven through twelve.
Education in the US is too focused on teaching to the bottom and middle parts of the class. Teachers move too slow for the students who are actually competent, which leads to them getting distracted. This is something that happens all throughout school fr... | 20 | I agree with your subject, but not at all with your implementation. Competition is unnecessary and counterproductive. It seems like you're mostly talking about STEM, so I'll focus on that too.
Competition is incredibly rare in actual STEM work, whether it's in industry or academia. There's just no need for it. The pr... | 12 |
[Star Wars] Why does Kylo Ren wear a mask? | 32 | A mask in that style seems to be a standard part of the uniform of the Knights of Ren, which is the Sith group that Kylo Ren is formally a part of, and operates on the orders of Snoke, alongside the First Order.
As a bonus, Kylo/Ben is trying really hard to emulate Darth Vader, so a mask is pretty essential piece of w... | 71 | |
How does a hot object like metal or magma produce light? | From my understanding, something has to be changing chemically to produce light, but a glowing hot steel rod or magma produce light by just being physically hot. How does his work? | 63 | This effect is called blackbody radiation. One aspect of temperature is the random vibration of atoms. Sometimes this vibration results in an electron in the atom being bumped to a higher energy state, which also slightly cools the atom. When the electron falls back down to a lower energy state, it emits light at a spe... | 51 |
CMV: A characteristic of a sophisticated justice system is that it be as "outcome-independent" as possible | The punishment should fit the crime, not the outcome of the crime.
This was inspired this post on the front page: [LINK](http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/2mzuxe/father_throws_chair_at_judge_after_the_driver/)
The judge sentences a driver to 120 hours of community service for running into a family and killing 3... | 39 | >it's very reasonable to say that anyone caught going 40 km/hr over the limit should also be put in jail for blank years. They just got lucky and didn't drive into anyone; the crime is identical
Is the fact of the collision not at least prima facie evidence that this driver was driving recklessly 40 km/hr over the ... | 15 |
"Falsification is Consensual" - What does that mean? | I am reading the book Statistikal Rethinking by Richard McElreath and I came across the statement that falsification is consensual.
What does that mean?
​
I was under the impression that a theory (with assumptions, context and predictions/conclusion/hypothesis) is rejected whenever there is contradicting ... | 25 | Here is some context from the 1st edition of "Statistical Rethinking" (chapter 1. The Golem of Prague, pg. 9-10, section 1.2.3)
"**Falsification is consensual.** The scientific community does come to regard some hypotheses as false. The caloric theory of heat and the geocentric model of the universe are no longer tau... | 23 |
ELI5: Where does the brain generate its ‘current’ to send small electrical impulses to muscles etc...? | 1,104 | There are pumps and gates in your cell membranes, which control the flow of ions. Ions are charged particles (positive or negative), so their movement creates a current and thus electrical impulses.
One example of a pump is the sodium-potassium pump. This pump exchanges 3 Na+ (soidum) ions for 2 K+ (potassium) ions, m... | 456 | |
Why does some spicy food have a delay, whereas with others the heat can be felt immediately? | 83 | Depends on the fat content and oils, aswell as what the rest of the dish consists of and also the fruit itself. Fats and oils can coat your tongue and be a sort of shield. Capsaicin doesnt dissolve well in water, but there are proteins that break it down. Milk for example has proteins that can break down capsaicin, and... | 60 | |
ELI5:What is it that makes Toyotas so reliable even after many years of use? | Large amounts of spare parts made? Manufacturing process? Design differences? | 7,487 | Toyota revolutionized a manufacturing process about 40 years ago that allowed bottom up refinements to address manufacturing issues (the assembly guys on the line can spot an issue and report it up the hierarchy to get it changed, rather than waiting for the managers and engineers to discover issue) and had an extreme ... | 6,723 |
ELI5: Why do some sporting events start at such random times, for example Duke vs. Wisconsin started at 9:18, why not 9:00 or 9:30? | 51 | This is to give the pre show broadcasting team to have time to set up and introduce the game. Additionally, this is a marketing scheme for organizers to earn more money as you tune in at 9:00 PM with a bucket of pop corn and watch 18 minutes of advertisements. | 30 | |
How do services like whatismyipaddress.com determine the physical location of an IP address? | Do different countries have specific ranges of IPs they can use? | 21 | They use a service that performs IP geolocation. The exact location of an IP address is often impossible to determine. Some major ISPs do have hints with regard to the domain names associated with addresses in a subnet. For instance, try looking up you up and then finding the hostname for it. You'll notice some landmar... | 20 |
Could fusion power offset helium depletion? | If we in an imagined future got say 10% of our energy from fusion. Would the helium biproducts be enough for to satisfy our need for helium in science? What about both science and "recreational" use of helium? | 326 | I agree with /u/somedave that the answer is No.
If we met the total energy demands of the entire world with fusion (4x10^20 Joules per year) then we would produce something in the region of 100,000 kg of Helium as a byproduct. Compare this to an annual Helium usage of the order of 10,000,000kg and you see there is no ... | 60 |
Why can't objects be seen if they are smaller than the wavelength you are using? | Is there a physical visualization that can help reinforce this? I'm not seeing the relationship between the wavelength and physical object size.
The wavelength of light is continuous, and describes the E/M vector at a point. So if we have an atom at some position X, and we shoot an infinitely thin beam of visible ligh... | 674 | If you want a really far but easy way to see it, try to find where a grape ( in reality a bacteria) is on a table using a toothpick (electrons), a carrot (visible light), an apple (infrared) and a watermelon (radio).
As long a the wavelength (diameter) of the tool is smaller than the object you want to resolve, you h... | 654 |
ELI5: When you have an itch on your back and someone scratches it for you, why does it then travel to other parts of your back? | 49 | Scientists have known for decades that scratching creates a mild amount of pain in the skin.
Scientists worked out that scratching causes a sensation of pain. This causes the brain to release serotonin is to control the pain. But serotonin activates itch-transmitting cells, making the itch worse
In humans, it is not ... | 16 | |
If your body temperature drops while you sleep, why do you often wake up in sweat? | Are the two related? | 32 | The exactly same (opposite) thing happens when you have a fever- Your body raises its temperature to kill bugs that are infecting you, and the sensation is that you have chills. It might be related to temperature relativity, in that since your body temp becomes a bit lower, the ambient temperature of the room is perce... | 12 |
[MCU/No Way Home] Question about Aunt May. | During No Way Home, it would be Aunt May who would convince Peter to try to help the villains who had come to their world and save them from their deaths. How do the villains thank her for her hospitality? By trashing their apartment and Green Goblin murdering Aunt May in cold blood. In spite of this, even as she lay d... | 309 | I imagine it wasn't the first time she has exposed herself to someone in need and seen it backfire on her. She volunteers at a shelter, and takes the time to talk to and care for the people who use the facility. There must've been many people who were dishonest/shifty/looking to take advantage of her good heart. She's ... | 408 |
CMV: There should be no opportunity to object at a wedding | Weddings are well planned. They don't in general happen on a whim. Even if they did, it seems unreasonable that an objection could not be voiced before or after the wedding. I have never been to a wedding where anyone objected, but if they did, I feel like it would not be useful to the couple and would potentially resu... | 34 | I think the idea is that it’s (admittedly ceremonially) giving any person their absolute last chance to say why these people shouldn’t get married. If they don’t say anything now, then they forfeit their right to complain about it later. That’s the “forever hold their peace” part.
So it’s less about giving an opportu... | 23 |
[MCU] Did Thanos have plans to help a post-Snap universe prosper? | Sure, he rationalises earlier that Gamora's people have naturally enjoyed a paradise and full bellies, but does he really plan to sit back and retire or is he gonna get stuck in and help the survivors? Perhaps that dream of farming is to help bolster supplies? Or is it just for leisure? | 15 | It's just leisure - his work is done, and the universe is better for it, as far as he's concerned. The planets that he's halved have always prospered in the past, so he absolutely believes that the universe will prosper on its own, now that he's given it that little nudge in the right direction.
Thanos has devoted hi... | 26 |
I was zooming around the massive panoramic view of our galaxy (link in comment) and I noticed really bright stars(?) that had black dots in the center of them. What exactly are those black dots? | http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html
EDIT: Just zoom in anywhere and I'm sure you can see a few. There is like a giant black dot in the center of these very bright objects (I assume they're stars). | 18 | Those are "masks". When you point a detector (like those on the Hubble Space Telescope) at the stars, it's designed to pick up really faint objects. So it's very sensitive. If too much light lands on certain pixels on the detector from really bright stars it can do multiple things including 1) screw up your image by... | 18 |
Are the theories put forth in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" widely accepted by science? | I'm just curious. Jared Diamond seems to be making a lot of assumptions about the reactions of the minds of centuries old civilizations to technology such as guns, mounted horsemen, etc. I think the theory seems really clean and solid, but I keep wondering if all these little assumptions are true for certain. | 458 | It would be helpful if you could be more specific about what theories or maybe some examples.
Diamond's main thesis is that the course of civilization was influenced by the starting conditions of geography and ecology. The idea that there are more easily domesticated animals in Eurasia and that the east-west orientat... | 208 |
ELI5: How do you find the line of best fit on a scatterplot? | 24 | There are different ways to do it depending on what you care about most. The most common way is doing a least squares regression. Basically you use calculus to figure out the line that makes the square of the distance from that line to each point the smallest. The math of it is a bit above an ELI5 but you can look ... | 16 | |
[Xmen] How does Wolverine's healing factor work? | Has it been explained in the comics? I've just read that it comes from some dimension(s)?
I've read that a person's metabolism is responsible for all the healing processes and most of it. So how does he have so strong healing enough to cure anything and everything? | 17 | Not explicitly, no. In fact it's been really really inconsistently portrayed over the years.
He once spent a few weeks stuck in the bottom of a boat, he survived by cutting slices of this arm and eating them. So clearly his healing is powered by something other than his metabolism. | 20 |
ELI5: Why is the atomic mass unit definedas "one-twelfth of the mass of one atom of carbon-12"? Why specifically carbon and not just the mass of one proton? | 207 | Because the "mass of a proton" is not as easy to define as you think.
It turns out that if you take apart a carbon atom or really any atom into a bunch of protons and neutrons, the protons and neutrons will have more mass than the carbon atom itself. This is because free protons/neutrons have more energy than a carbon... | 263 | |
eli5 I never wake up at 9am but if I set my alarm for 9am I will wake up a couple of minutes before. how does this happen? | 420 | You body has its own internal timekeeping (most creatures do). In particular there’s your daily ‘circadian rhythm’ which involves two 24-hour clocks in your brain (suprachiasmatic nuclei in your hypothalamus). These keep a steady tempo. Just like a watch, they need to be told what your timezone is so that you can wake ... | 171 | |
[The Walking Dead] What is the state of the rest of the world? The country? | 26 | Small cells of survivors exist all across the world. The United States has collapsed, but many survivors exist in rural america. Some exist in impromptu forts scattered in only the most rural areas of America. The Rocky Mountains, the Nevada desert, the dense marshes of the south and the great forest of the north. The ... | 25 | |
ELI5: My mom has always told me to wash my hands after touching money because "there is a a load of bacteria on them from countless people touching them before". Is there any truth in it? | 238 | Yes, there's a load of bacteria on money.
However, there's a load of bacteria on pretty much everything.
You don't need to wash your hands after touching everything - just avoid touching your mouth, nose, or eyes too much. | 208 | |
ELI5: What happens to sound after the sound is no longer there, it seems to vanish, but where do sounds go? | 34 | Sounds are waves in air. They will slowly disperse and turn into heat after hitting things and being partially reflected and spread out over a wide area.
Imagine dropping a stone into a pond, just like the waterwaves soundwaves will get weaker quickly. | 44 | |
[Jurassic Park] Is there any interest in cloning prehistoric mammals in this world? What about Neanderthals and Australopithecus? | Like the Wooly Mammoth, the Smilodon, the Andrewsarchus, the Paraceratherium, the Embolotherium, the Hyaenodon, etc.
What about Neanderthals and Australopithecus? | 251 | It's considered to have low scientific value. The changes are significant enough to create problems, IE the staff of the Jurrasic World park understood that the reconstructed clones varied greatly in appearance from the originals, and even if they patched those up they'd lack the original symbiotic bacteria, the learn... | 128 |
Do insects get sick? like do ants get colds or do bees get STI's? | 75 | yes. getting sick means you get infected by bacteria or virii or parasites or ... and of course, this can happen to insects, too. however, they have a different response than humans (read mammals) do. you e.g. have increased temperature to support your immuno cells to fight the intruders. this inflammatory response (wh... | 34 | |
ELI5: How do nurses, drug users, etc inject a drug directly into a vein? How do they know the needle tip hasn't gone through the vein or even missed it completely? | I'd imagine most veins are less than 5mm in diameter, that's a pretty small target to land the tip of the needle in. How do they do it? | 10,428 | The "flash". Before pushing in, you draw back on the plunger. If the needle or catheter is in a vein, blood will easily be drawn back into the tubing or syringe and then you can push the medication or fluid in once you see that. If you're not in a vein, you won't easily pull blood out when drawing back. | 6,204 |
ELI5: why , when someone is badly burnt do they die? What causes the body to say ok this is too much- while extremely painful- what's actually causing death in this or similar situations?? | 107 | Burns are extremely good at inflicting lasting trauma that people can't recover from. Basically, there are two reasons:
1. Burns take away skin, which is your most important defense against infection. A third degree burn over any significant percentage of the body will leave you open to massive systemic infection.
2.... | 75 | |
I believe that public school teachers in the U.S. should make double to triple their average salary. A large portion of the money for this should be taken from the federal defense budget. CMV | As it is now the average salary for being a teacher in the U.S. hovers right around $50,000, although in some states it's as high as $70,000. Right now I think it's safe to say that teaching is not a competitive market. If you are a really bright student in school, what fields do counselors or advisers encourage you ... | 442 | The only way that doubling the pay of teachers would have any effect was if there was some kind of competitive market for the job AND that market could not be flooded.
The first is currently not true because teachers are not measured or sought after in the same way that engineers, accountants, or other higher dollar... | 127 |
Does a fire apply downward thrust (albeit minor) as a reaction to its updraft? | Even a smallest bonfire has a very obvious, often fast-looking column of air rising up from it, surely this creates *some* thrust, from a technical perspective | 89 | Not so much the fire, but the cooler air next to it. A like volume of hot air weighs less than a like volume of cold air because it's less dense. Hot air rises because it is less dense than the cooler air next to it, much the same way that a bubble rises though water because air is less dense than water.
There is n... | 31 |
Why does majority of software need to be installed? | Is it because of fear of piracy or maybe the software needs to be decompressed? | 21 | It would certainly work to tell the user to download lots of files and have them put them in a specific directories, but it would be a pain. So having a single file to download is nice. This is some sort of archive format. It makes sense to compress it since download speeds are slower than having the CPU run the decomp... | 33 |
ELI5: Is it really possible to be "sleep drunk" when extremely sleepy or tired? If so, what's the cause of the feeling and why does it happen | When I used to work a really early shift, I'd be close to knocked out by 8pm. My boyfriend's told me many times that I, sometimes, say and/do the weirdest things when I'm about to fall asleep. Most of the time I can remember saying or doing these weird things, but it almost feels like they were impulsive reactions that... | 43 | Biologist here!
It very much is!
We call it “sleep amnesia”, and while the process behind it is pretty biologically technical, the jist is:
There are a handful of chemicals and hormones our body ONLY produces while we sleep, as we stay awake longer and longer, our body exhausts its supply and runs out of the stuf... | 41 |
[The Matrix] How did Cypher get in contact with Agent Smith to arrange a meeting?. | This isn't a question about how Cypher got into The Matrix because that has been asked and answered several times before.
Rather the question is how he managed to contact Smith and arrange the dinner with him?.
Did he just jack himself into the matrix and simply waited for an agent to arrive and say "Hey I want to ... | 144 | I just rewatched this and never noticed this before - there's a scene right after Neo leaves the Matrix, where he walks up behind Cypher and Cypher turns and sees him and is super startled! Then theu talk about how the Matrix code is too complicated to visualize on the moniters like the training room, but after awhile ... | 221 |
ELI5: The 11th amendment to the US constitution. | 15 | The 11th Amendment is fundamentally about the legal doctrine of sovereign immunity, which says that a sovereign state can't be held accountable in a court of law unless it consents to be, since it's the source of the law in the first place.
Originally, US states were effectively separate countries, so they had soverei... | 13 | |
Eli5 The sun converts about 4 million metric tons of its mass into energy every second. Does this mean that it's mass reduces significantly over the span of, say, ten years? | 4 million tons a second is a lot of mass to be lost given enough time. Considering the fact that the sun is over four billion years old, does this mean that the sun was physically bigger when it formed?
What about a couple of hundred years ago? Or a few years ago? Could the suns loss of mass imply that it's shrinkin... | 266 | What is "significant" when talking about the reducing mass of the sun? On one hand 4 million tons a second seems significant to us, but the sun is really massive.
Over the course of a year it loses 174 trillion tons of mass. But over the next 5 billion years it will lose 0.034% of its total mass. So yes, it is technic... | 403 |
ELI5: How does computer memory work? | When you physically save a file, like a photo or a word document, how is it physically saved? Where is that document physically? I believe there are two modern memory devices, HDD and SDD, but how do they work? How can a Hard Disk Drive be ‘scratched’ the right way to save my essays? And when I save a file to a flash d... | 18 | What you're talking about is called disk or storage. Memory is a different part of the computer, also called RAM.
With a traditional disk drive (HDD \ Hard Disk Drive) there is a spinning metal disk that is given magnetic charges that represent ones and zeros. Those ones and zeroes can then be read back as data. The c... | 15 |
[Venom] What happens to the host of a Symbiote when it appears around the host's body? | I was watching the Venom trailer and it shows Venom forming around Eddie (I think that's his name) . Is Eddie still conscious in there? Does he essentially become trapped? Is he able to understand what's going on outside of Venom? | 50 | When symbiote merges with the host, it basically both covers the body and suffuses it, including the brain. That's why host can hear symbiote voice in their head all the time, and that's why symbiote hosts can do freaky stuff like stretching and twisting their bodies in inhuman ways - symbiote largely acts as a buffer ... | 63 |
[Family Guy/American Dad] Who's the worse father: Peter Griffin or Stan Smith? | Neither of them are particularly "good" fathers, but compositely(as in throughout all seasons of their respective shows), who is a worse father? | 34 | I’d say Peter is worse. Stan might be bad at times, but at least he isn’t as openly and maliciously abusive like Peter is to Meg. We do get some moments of questionable behavior, but even those tend to come out of a misguided desire to help in some manner,
I.e, bullying Steve to toughen him up, or trying to manipulate ... | 83 |
ELI5 how some people with down syndrome develop a similar appearance | 139 | The politically incorrect, but convenient for this discussion, term for the appearance is 'mongoloid' which was coined because down syndrome sufferers were thought to look like Mongols. A Victorian term for the disorder was 'mongoloid idiocy.' This appearance is one of the defining symptoms of Down syndrome so it is al... | 87 | |
[Doctor Who] Why did the doctor de age and basically become space Jesus when everyone in the world said his name at the same time? | 15 | Because the Archangel Network, a ton of extraterrestrial Time Lord satellites The Master constructed, were merged with the minds of every human on the planet. All of them directing their networked minds toward one person allowed him to use the combined psychic ability of *billions* of people.
Psychics and psychic abil... | 25 | |
ELI5: How can both fission and fusion release energy if they are opposites of each other? | 21 | Because in fission you're splitting large, complicated atoms that are held together loosely but release extra energy when split;
In fusion you're forcing together two small, light atoms which release energy when you join them.
If you try the reverse -- fusion with large atoms or fission with small atoms -- you don't ... | 38 | |
Why does any length shorter than a Planck make "no physical sense"? Why can't there be half a Planck? | 246 | There is no reason to believe the Planck length is in some sense the "smallest possible distance". It's just (1) the length you can construct from fundamental constants and (2) representative of the *scale* at which both quantum and relativistic effects ought to apply. | 108 | |
CMV: Germany should not pay any further reparations for WWII damage | Several German politicians from the left spectrum suggest that the German government should discuss paying further reparations to Greece for a forced loan in WWII that was not payed back to Greece.
I maintain that none of the following apply:
- the current population of Germany is responsible for the acts of the thir... | 43 | Germany has already paid its war reparations, which is standard fare for the losing side in European wars.
However some consider the forced loan as actual credit rather than war damages. i.e. it's money that Germany borrowed from Greece, supposedly planning on paying it back. If the current populations of countries ar... | 27 |
ELI5: What does 100% air humidity mean? | So I know that atmospheric air has a little bit of H2O in the atmosphere, which I assume is what air humidity is - the amount of H2O is in the atmosphere. However why is there a "100% air humidity"? Is there just a cap on how much water can be in air? And what happens if you add more water?
And is 0% air humidity lite... | 92 | 100 % air humidity means that there is as much water vapor in the atmosphere as possible. If you add more, it will start to condensate into raindrops. 100 % humidity does not mean that 100 % of the air is water vapor. How much water there may be in the atmosphere varies with temperature and what other stuff there is in... | 107 |
Can stomach acid burn organs? | Since stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve metal, what would happen if the acid from inside your stomach got out? Would it do the same to other organs? | 102 |
Normally, the cells in the lining of the stomach secrete a mucus that protects the stomach from damage from gastric acid. When your body moves your stomach contents (which contains substantial amounts of stomach acid) into your small intestine, your body pretty much immediately neutralizes it with alkaline secretions ... | 80 |
ELI5: How does knocking a person out work? | Something I've always wondered. A good strong punch, a pistol whip to the back of the head, karate chops... How is it all supposed to work physiologically? | 211 | Not a doctor, not a scientist, but it's an overload. When trauma occurs to the brain like that, certain things happen. All of your senses more or less are stimulated by the impact to the tissue of the brain. It's like when you get hit in the nose ans see white for a second, when you get dizzy from spinning around...ima... | 104 |
ELI5 Why when falling, we flail our arms and legs | Why do we flail our arms and legs while in the air falling from a large height? | 78 | I've always believed it was an instinctual response in an attempt to regain balance. Your body doesn't know how far it's going to fall it just knows you are falling and wants to get your feet under your center of mass. | 25 |
Is C a Worthwhile Language? | Hello,
I'm a programmer with a few years of experience across several langs. I mostly work with Rust, but I'm decent at Zig, Lua, Python, Javascript, Java, assembler, and even a little bit of C.
I've been hesitant to go full-in on C because it seems like it's dying out. It's full of undefined behavior, shitty errors,... | 28 | C is not dying out. Not even close. Linux is written and maintained in C, and runs on most of the web servers. And new kernels are actively maintained.
If you want to be a good developer, C is worthwhile to learn. It teaches you the fundamental concepts that you can take to other languages. | 38 |
ELI5: Why can't we breed bees on a massive scale and release them, to help with the dwindling bee population? | Edit: Also, can we genetically modify them to make them more able to survive?
Edit Edit: And make them produce honey faster | 728 | Hi there, PhD student working with honeybees here. First, it's worth noting that honeybees have largely bounced back from the Colony Collapse Disorder (presumably what you're referring to by "dwindling population") epidemic of ~2006-2013. CCD was a weird, difficult problem and we may never truly understand what caused ... | 478 |
How does Avg.costs keep falling as Marginal Costs increase? | Most diagrams I see in my economics books shows that MC cuts the AC from below, I understand that point but how does MC increase as AC decreases, IMO the minimum point of MC should intersect with the minimum point in the AC curve as both increase due to the Law of diminishing returns.
[https://imgur.com/a/N4kM2qW](htt... | 21 | AC includes a fixed cost.
Suppose your cost curve is, for instance, 1000 + Q + 1/2 Q^2 + 1/3 Q^3. This yields an average cost of 1000/Q + 1/2 Q + 1/3 Q^2 and a marginal cost of Q + Q^2. In this case, as Q->0, the marginal cost goes to 0 but the average cost approaches infinity.
One thing to notice is that the ... | 18 |
ELI5: Why do scissors enter 'slide mode' sometimes? | 2,759 | Low friction, very sharp: sschhhhwip ooh baby
High friction, blunt: sshcklaclacklackack ah fuck
Sharp scissors cut with very little force, so there isn't enough energy built up in the pressure of the blade against the paper to rip very far. This keeps the tear immediately next to the blade, so the blade continues to ... | 2,806 |
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