post_title stringlengths 5 304 | post_text stringlengths 0 37.5k | post_scores int64 15 83.1k | comment_text stringlengths 200 9.61k | comment_score int64 10 43.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ELI5: How can 100% orange juice have calories but something like flavored sparkling water containing fruit juice have no calories? | Even if the amount of fruit juice in the water is small, it's still calories, isn't it? | 29 | There is sugar in an orange so there are calories in an orange.
The sparkling water might have an sweetener that our bodies cannot digest (= 0 calories), or one that does not need very much to achieve the same level of sweetness that sugar does (<5 calories = 0 calories). | 22 |
How can two images look exactly the same and have exactly the same resolution and metadata but be drastically different sizes? | 23 | Are you talking about different image formats?
Take an image that has a simple white background and white black line across the middle.
A pixel based format would need to store each individual's pixel data at every location.
Whereas a vector stored format just needs to know the instructions of draw a white backgroun... | 15 | |
[Star Wars] What did Sidious think of himself? How did other people describe him, and how did people describe Sidious to his face? | 25 | He saw himself as the culmination of Sith achievement. The smartest, most powerful, most dangerous mastermind in galactic history.
Others, to his face, probably described him much the same, excepting "Sith" for "leader".
Privately, he probably had his detractors - every man in charge does - but the general consensus ... | 27 | |
Identical twins marrying identical twins | Let's just say we have two sets of identical twins, one set of women and one of men. The two identical women marry the two identical men. What is the likelihood that two children, one from each couple, would be identical without being twins? | 275 | Barring mutations and other genetical shenanigans, it's exactly as likely as two siblings born to the same parents being identical, which is to say: very unlikely. The probabililty of obtaining the same chromosomes from each parent is 2^(–46). | 211 |
argument against a priori knowledge | I was reading a paper that says the following:
*"According to one influential argument against the existence of a priori knowledge, there is no a priori knowledge because (i) no belief is immune to revision, and (ii) if there were a priori knowledge, at least some beliefs would be unrevisable."*
Please note I am not ... | 16 | Kant responded to Hume’s argument for the existence of a priori knowledge by arguing that in addition to matters of fact, which Kant calls “analytic a priori” ( all bachelors are unmarried) — there are “synthetic a priori” statements which are derived from the combination of basic concepts; mathematics is synthetic a p... | 10 |
Is it true that America does not negotiate with terrorists? Why not? | This was a question my little brother asked me after watching The Dark Night Rises. | 16 | If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk.
If you negotiate with terrorists, it feeds the cycle that people can manipulate you by being terrorists. Hence you get more terrorists. | 46 |
How would academia change if the same (or similar) brains behind the shift in non-traditional work environments redesigned schools? | [A lot of companies](http://www.incomediary.com/top-20-most-awesome-company-offices) (Google, Facebook, Zappos etc etc) are integrating work and play into the work environment. The basic premise is that this fosters creativity in the workplace.
How do you suppose schools will change if they were redesigned with simila... | 15 | I would counter and say *very few* companies do that. It's a tiny minority of companies in very specialist niche industries.
School is not business, and the aims are different. You are also dealing with young people, not adults. So the implementation would have to be vastly different. Let's also bear in mind that sch... | 13 |
ELI5: If skin doesn't pass the scratch test with steel, how come steel still wears down after a lot of contact with skin (e.g. A door handle) | 9,315 | Can’t scratch is not the same as can’t damage.
Every time your skin contacts a piece of steel, it’s leaving behind oils and moisture.
The oils and moisture can chemically corrode the steel surface ever so slightly, forming iron oxide.
While iron oxide is still harder than your skin, it’s also weak, porous, and britt... | 8,094 | |
[Harry Potter] Was there ever a particular reason given for why Voldemort was so terrified of death? | Was there a traumatic incident during his formative years or something? Or was it just a phobia with no clear source? | 27 | It's not so much that he was terrified of death, but more that he felt he was above petty mortal limitations.
This included the rules around what magic was considered acceptable, all the way to the limitations of a human body. Riddle didn't so much fear death, but rather feared weakness.
Death was the ultimate huma... | 53 |
[Star Wars] Cautious of Kenobi's "more powerful than you could possibly imagine" statement, Vader opts to have his Stormtroopers stun and capture Kenobi. How does this affect events? | Vader: "Your powers are weak, *old man*."
Kenobi: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can *possibly* imagine."
Vader: "Y'know what, as much as I want to kill you, I'm thinking 20 years in hiding Force-knows where could give some credence to that threat."
*Steps back and... | 196 | Luke has no one to train him, and the rebellion puts a lot of resources into rescuing him. Or they consider him expendable and he dies when he death star blows up, since its unlikley he is held anywhere else. If that happens, its possible he becomes a ghost after all, and the story continues as before, just luke is a l... | 146 |
Does the age of the universe (13.7 billion years) account of the time dilation factor caused by velocity of the earth through space relative to a object with zero velocity? | As an object gets closer to the speed of light, there is a time dilation factor, and Earth is usually used as zero. however the earth is moving within space, so does the age of the universe (13.7 billion years) include our time dilation factor? if not,what is the age of the universe for a object with zero velocity? | 24 | There is a reference frame in which the cosmic microwave background is most isotropic, that Earth is moving about 600 km/s relative to. There are no special physics in this frame, it is not preferred, but in it the universe is oldest and that frame is what that measurement corresponds to. However, the difference betwee... | 45 |
Why do stars appear to flicker but planets don't? | Is it because the planet is close and it is much less likely that another object passed in front of it before the light reached us? Or does it have something to do with emitting light versus reflecting light? or something else? | 15 | It has nothing to do with the distance the light travels, because all the twinkling we see happens in the last 50 km the light has to travel. The Earth's atmosphere is solely responsible for twinkling (and is a major advantage offered by telescopes in low Earth orbit, such as Hubble).
The reason stars twinkle and plan... | 15 |
CMV: Not being able to finish his story makes George R.R. Martin a bad writer | A major part of the story is the ending. Endings can make or break stories, and I do think they are difficult to write. GRRM has been putting off ending the Game of Thrones series since he started and has changed the projected amount of books a couple of times. Many people say he knows how he wants it to end, he just d... | 60 | I have a different theory to propose—Martin is a good writer who no longer gets good editing.
Some writers may not need strong editing, but it’s clear that others do, even good ones, especially those whose strong suit is building well developed worlds.
A good editor, especially for those types of authors, provides... | 56 |
ELI5: Is there any evidence to suggest that current animals have evolved to overcome specific environmental challenges due to human intervention? I.E. Roads, Buildings, Pollution? | 20 | Yes, definitely. A very early and popular example are/were moths in Manchester in England. Basically, the moths tended to be the color of tree bark for camouflage, but in the 19th century soot from factories in Manchester caused the trees to be darker in color. Moths with darker bodies and wings skyrocketed in populati... | 15 | |
ELI5: Why do opposite charges attract each other? | 23 | It's not very satisfying but the answer is **because they do**.
Electromagnetism is one of the fundamental forces that holds the universe together. There's not really a "why" involved, it's just how things work. | 20 | |
CMV: It is unreasonable for a gender fluid person to expect me to correctly label them | I feel like gender fluid people are expecting and unreasonable understanding of whats going on in their head.
So if i understand it correctly if you are gender fluid you can from one moment to another change what gender you "feel like" you are? but the problem i see is, that, as someone who is not in your head i have... | 19 | > Our language has a built in binary gender, he or she. Because of the way our language is i need to physically label you as one or the other to stop confusion.
You could use the singular 'they' which is perfectly grammatically correct. That is the non-gendered pronoun.
> yes i could say some gender neutral ter... | 23 |
[The Avengers] So Loki blows up a police car outside when he's in Germany, and there are a bunch of police cars behind that one. Are the police just standing there watching Loki scream at people? Why aren't they doing anything? | 33 | German police generally aren't the "slam you on the ground and cuff you" type. Or the "shoot you" type. More like securing bystanders and waiting for either deescalation or a SEK (SWAT). And this sounds like a situation to call in the SEK. | 51 | |
What actually kills you when you are dehydrated? | What goes on in your body that causes you to die from dehydration? | 252 | The two most significant issues with severe dehydration are the loss of perfusion volume as well as the electrolyte abnormalities that develop. If someone is hypovolemic enough, they will not be able to maintain an adequate blood pressure to supply oxygen to their organs, which results in multi-organ failure (in parti... | 176 |
[Marvel] How does the public know whether a superhero is a mutant? Why are mutants negatively received anyway, like if for some reason the Fantastic Four are revealed to be mutants would they be negatively received as well? | 72 | Bigotry isn't usually logical. The Fantastic Four are heroes. The X-Men are also heroes, but people often hate them. The thing is, most mutants aren't heroes. Some are heroes and some are villains, but most are just people's neighbors, and they look weird and have weird powers so people hate them. | 81 | |
Are icebergs made of ocean water or freshwater? | 26 | Sea ice is frozen sea water where the salt has been forced out as it freezes. Sea ice can freeze to a thickness of 2 - 3 meters but rarely gets thicker than that. Multi year ice May pile up into greater thicknesses of tilted slabs riding on top of each other to the point that some might call it an iceberg...but real ic... | 45 | |
ELI5:how does a company like McDonald's make their food taste exactly the same on such a large scale? | forgive my ignorance. but a bigmac has tasted the exact same in Maimi in 1999 as it does in LA in 2004. its always the same no matter the time or place. | 396 | Highly controlled food quality, highly controlled cooking process, highly controlled preparation.
That's one of their big selling points as a restaurant. It doesn't matter where you go... the food is the same. Not necessarily good (for you or otherwise) but its the same. A safe bet if you are new to the area. | 300 |
Are any of Einstein's predictions yet unproven, and if so, which would be the most groundbreaking if proven correct? | Over 100 years after they were predicted by General Relativity, gravitational waves were observed by LIGO last year. Are there any more of his predictions floating out there? | 119 | Gravitational waves were only recently detected directly; we've had pretty good indirect evidence for many years.
I would nominate hidden variable theory. Einstein never really accepted quantum mechanics as a fundamental theory of the world, and said that there must be something deeper going on, something which unlike... | 28 |
[ASOIAF] is there still anything alive in Valyria? What possible kinds of stuff, people, monsters and the like could be found there some four centuries after the Doom of Valyria? | 123 | If there weren't, then everyone would try to claim parts of Valyria due to the strategic location of the peninsula remnants. But everyone who sails there (except Jorah and Tyrion, who sailed in the show) doesn't come back.
If the sailors' ships didn't break apart from encountering rogue cliffs hidden in mist and ash,... | 93 | |
ELI5: How can communities where polygamy is common, have a large enough quantity of females when the the boy to girl ratio is around 1:1 ? | I have mostly Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and Muslim communities in my head but i know that there are plenty more that have polygamy as a part of their culture/tradition. | 75 | These communities typically fall into one of two categories:
1) Males tend to have higher death rates than females, likely due to active armed conflict with another group
2) Most males, for one reason or another, are socially ostracized and kicked out at a young age, leaving more women than men remaining in the commu... | 74 |
ELI5 Why I should buy locally? | What are the benefits? | 19 | One of the biggest reasons is that it costs money and fuel to bring things to you...bringing a banana from South America to your local supermarket in New York City before it goes bad means spending a lot of gas. Most scientists are convinced that the Earth is getting hotter due to too much carbon emission, mostly from... | 21 |
CMV: The United States should not have birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants | As the title says I don't believe that the United States of America should allow the children of illegal immigrants to get citizenship, for example "anchor babies". The reason is that people will be much less likely to immigrate illegally and have kids here if they know that those kids will not be guaranteed citizenshi... | 410 | > These people ignore the fact that the parents chose to come here illegally and should be the ones blamed.
Which is why punishing the child is nonsensical. The child was born (and raised) here, they are American by all definitions.
> The act of allowing illegals to have kids who automatically become citizens ... | 430 |
ELI5 What is log and natural log?? | I just don’t get it. From high school til now post college graduate, I still don’t know what logarithms are. | 54 | Suppose we have two numbers, X=2 and Y=8.
Log simply asks: how many Xs we need to multiply together to get Y?
Or in this case, how many 2s do we need to multiply together to get 8?
Since 2 x 2 x 2 = 8, the answer is 3. We need to multiply 2 by itself 3 times to get to 8.
In math notation, we write this as logₓ(Y) ... | 153 |
ELI5: Why every number to the power of 0 is equal to 1? | I'm too dumb to get it | 8,269 | x^n / x^m = x^(n-m) , right?
That means that, for example,
2^2 / 2^2 = 2^(2-2) = 2^0
Since
2^2 / 2^2 = 4 / 4 = 1
Then
2^0 = 1
Another way to look at it is to go backwards.
2^4 = 16
2^3 = 8, or 16 / 2
2^2 = 4, or 8 / 2
2^1 = 2, or 4 / 2
2^0 = 1, or 2 / 2
Does that help? | 11,630 |
ELI5: Why is the Periodic Table shaped the way it is? | I have basic knowledge of chemistry, but I've never received a straight answer on this. | 15 | To assemble the table:
* Line up all the elements according to the number of protons in their nucleus (hydrogen 1, helium 2, and so on).
* Noble gasses stand out because they're chemically inert (I'll get to why later). Take this long line and split it at every noble gas to make a new row, keeping the noble gas on th... | 12 |
ELI5: What is that hiccup like thing I feel after eating a big meal? | 47 | Irritation of your diaphragm, which is a muscle under your lungs that allows a good ventilation (by allowing your lungs to expand when inhaling and decrease when exhaling), is a known cause of hiccups. After a big meal, your stomach is full and may irritate your diaphragm. Ingestion of air may also be a factor.
| 18 | |
Academic Appeal - PhD removed without fair cause | Hi all!
Further to my post from a few weeks ago when I was initially removed from my PhD project. All your comments and advice were really helpful!
On 19/06 I was informed by my assessor and supervisor that they could not condone my transfer into 2nd year due to "poor writing" of my continuation report. No actual ins... | 185 | I would not contact the press, that could (and will likely) blow up in your face. However, contacting an ombudsman or barrister/lawyer to explore legal avenues at this point would be worth your time.
If these allegations are true, there are some serious issues with that lab and most involved. At very least, pursuing ... | 229 |
[DC] Would the Joker in all of his psychopathy have any sexual urges/inclinations? | Is he capable of such basic instinct? | 60 | Depends on which one you're talking about. The DCAU Joker definitely had and enjoyed sex with Harley. Apparently whoopie cushions and cream pies were involved.
The Joker that we saw briefly in Azarello's Joker raped his henchman's wife.
And in the post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint continuity, there was a point where he tho... | 78 |
ELI5 why ships don't use left, right, front, and back. | I assume it's so sailors can insult the Lilly livers land lovers. | 50 | Originally, ships had a "larboard" and a "starboard". The "starboard" meant literally the side where the steering paddle was located -- compare German "Steuerbord", where "Steuer" means "steering".
This is because early Germanic ships had the steering paddle on that side. The other side was the side used for loading a... | 53 |
ELI5: How does something become a commodity and what does that mean for public access to the item - like water, gold etc? | 17 | Generally commodities are less expensive than otherwise due to the greater competition between suppliers. If you want gold then any gold will do from anyone who has it, but if you want an iPhone only Apple can produce it.
Of course this doesn't mean that a commodity is inexpensive overall, gold being an example. It ju... | 10 | |
[Civilization] Why does Gandhi decide to become imperialistic? | 48 | Gandhi is a cold-hearted cynic who will use any tactic necessary to win. In the case of 1940s India, he knew the best tactic was a form of non-violent protest to embarrass the British. However, if he had had nukes, then we'd have seen Mushroom clouds from London to Edinburgh. | 59 | |
ELI5 What is the Boehner Bill that just passed? What does it cut? | 30 | The bill passed the House of Representatives but was rejected by the Senate.
In the United States, in order for a bill to become law it must:
- Pass the lower house (House of Representatives)
- Pass the upper house (The Senate)
- Be signed by the Executive (The President)
This bill cleared the first hurdle but neve... | 11 | |
ELI5: Why does paper product (paper towels, napkins, etc.) become transparent when wet? | 49 | Imagine you are at a restaurant with a self-serve soda dispenser and a clear glass cup. First, you fill the glass with that finely-crushed ice they have at soda dispensers. Now look through the glass. What color does it look? White. Opaque. Like a white paper towel. You cannot see through the glass at all. If t... | 54 | |
[Harry Potter] Im the President of the European Union of Magic and I hear some bad news about a dark wizard on England who is creating a War. Shouldnt we send some help? | Sorry for my english.
Ok if the European Union is not a thing.
Im the President of Spain and I hear the same. Shouldnt I send some help to England in order to calm things a little? | 31 | It comes down to a couple of things really.
To start with the Ministry of Magic, led by Fudge, steadfastly refused to believe that Voldemort was or could be resurrected, so entrenched was their fear that they publicly mocked any who believed such claims, even going so far as to drag both of their idols names through t... | 28 |
ELI5:Voyager 1 is the farthest spacecraft traveled from Earth, where does it find all of that fuel and how can scientists still manage to control it? | Question number 1: I understand that the Voyager 1 is a probe and there is no gravity or air resistance in space so you can move a great distance with little force but it still need the fuel to propel itself or change direction from time to time and it has been traveling for a very long time, so where does it find all ... | 144 | It has very little if any fuel left. It is simply just flying through space. You said it yourself there's no air resistance. Now that it's moving it doesn't need any fuel to keep moving. They dont change direction ever. They don't really do much control anymore. They just receive data from some of the sensors. If they ... | 62 |
ELI5: What gives the USD value if it is no longer backed by gold? | 374 | Trust. All forms of money are based on the trust that it will be valued when it is time to exchange it again. Whether it is elements and minerals, like gold, or paper currency and coinage, when a person accepts it as compensation, they are trusting that when they go to give it as payment, it will be accepted. Even g... | 349 | |
[Sea Lore?/Pirates of the Caribbean] Was the Flying Dutchman ever going to be upgraded as time went on? Like would Davy Jones be attacking modern battleships in that Galleon? | I admit I'm not very familiar with Davy Jones and all that. But he apparently interns sailors for up to 100 years, so even from the Golden Age of Piracy on at the latest he'd be fighting some of the most powerful sailing warships ever built. Would he keep going as time went on in the same ship or? | 255 | Pirates, traditionally, avoid fighting warships seeing as warships have lots of war and not lots of loot, this being the opposite ratio that pirates generally go for when they attack things.
So, yeah, I'd say it's likely the Flying Dutchmen was upgraded significantly and repeatedly over the years... but likely not wit... | 193 |
[DC] Since the Flash always "stands" on the surface, doesn't that mean his weakpoint is under his feet? | Flash is extremely overpowered, that much is given. I was wondering what if someone booby trapped the ground itself so that you take out Flash's greatest weapon: his feet. technically he can't phase through the ground because he's always standing on the surface, so unless he's fine falling inside the Earth, it seems li... | 48 | He can phase through the ground. He just usually stands on it. He doesn't automatically phase through things or turn it on and off. He has to carefully match his vibrations to whatever he wants to phase through. If he wants to start walking underground, he just has to not match frequency with the ground further down an... | 20 |
ELI5: how we know that the universe will die and no new stars will form? | 15 | Stars are made from certain elements. They have to also be collected into nebula. This can't go on forever. In fact, by looking at star formation in the past and star formation now scientists can see that star formation is really low now. Most stars to ever exist already have. | 20 | |
CMV: People letting dogs lick babies is absolutely disgusting | I see videos all the time of people introducing their newborns to their dog or small children hanging out on the floor with their pets because it’s cute or whatever but this seems like a huge risk?? Also ew??
Don’t get me wrong, I like animals. I have a dog, two cats, two guinea pigs, and in the past a hedgehog. How... | 30 | “All those germs at once” isn’t really a thing—either your kid is exposed to something harmful or they aren’t. And a lick isn’t going to expose the baby to anything, since that’s what skin is for.
Also, babies are already gross, especially babies that are crawling on the floor. That dog isn’t exposing them to much... | 23 |
ELI5:Why do men appear to have a "stitch line" or "scar line" at the base of their ballsac? | Is this scar line related to that whole "we start out as women" theory? Is that scar line where our vaginas were? | 5,039 | Saying it "started out as a vagina" is an overstatement, but it's grounded in truth.
When we're forming in the womb, we start with a shallow slit between our legs. For women, that slit deepens while in men it stitches together.
Calling it a vagina at that stage in development isn't really accurate; a vagina is more t... | 5,519 |
ELI5: Bacteria become resistant to antibacterial products but why not bleach and alcohol? | I understand that some of the bacteria survive the antibacterial products and the ones that survive are more resistant, however why doesn't some bacteria survive alcohol or bleach and become more resistant to those products?
For example, if I swap my skin with alcohol even if the bacteria under the swab are all killed... | 55 | Imagine a bacterium as a big factory, with the bacterium's membranes and cell wall being like the factory's walls and ceiling, the enzymes like the factory's machines and the DNA like a big book of instructions for building the factory.
An antibiotic is like sending a saboteur into that factory - maybe to break a crit... | 146 |
ELI5: How are telemarketers benefiting by calling me and hanging up without saying anything? | I get these calls all the time from random numbers, and when I answer there's no one there. A lot of the time when I call back it will say "You have reached an nonworking number." How is that benefiting whatever company is calling, if they're not even trying to sell me anything? | 96 | As soon as a telemarketer is free for a new call, their systems will dial multiple numbers hoping that someone will pick up. The first person to answer is lucky enough to talk to the telemarketer, the rest of the calls are either kept on hold waiting for another free telemarketer or hung up on. | 47 |
ELI5:How did they figure out what part of the blowfish is safe to eat? | How many people had to die to figure out that one tiny part was safe, but the rest was poison? Does anyone else think that seems insane? For that matter, who was the first guy to look at an artichoke and think "Yep. That's going in my mouth."?
Edit: Holy crap! Front page for this?! Wow! Thanks for all the answers, fol... | 3,793 | Well, you've got a bit backwards. A small portion is dangerous, and most of it is safe. If it were nearly all poisonous, it probably would never have become a food.
The dangerous part contains a chemical which is so fast acting that you can feel its effects on you within seconds after touching it to your tongue. So... | 3,197 |
[Star Wars] What did Palpatine go splat on after Vader tossed him down the hole? | The hole couldn't be too deep since the Force explosion happens pretty quickly after Palpatine gets thrown. | 35 | He smacked into a plasma conduit on the way down. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it was enough to break his hip and let loose a blast of super-hot plasma that fried his hair and clothing and made that impressive display back up at Luke's level.
After that, Palpatine continues falling towards the core, blacked out f... | 31 |
ELI5: If I swat at a mosquito and miss, will it remember/fear me? Or does it just dodge on instinct and go back to its usual buzzing around/hunting? | 212 | Insects only have a basic nervous system, so they're not capable of that kind of memory. Essentially, when a mosquito dodges a swat, it's because they interpret moving shadows/lines as predatory movement. Their compound eyes augment this survival reflex. | 94 | |
[Star Wars] Did many people know Darth Vader's true identity or how he became trapped in a life support suit? | 64 | No. The official story is that Darth Vader is the right-hand man of the Emperor. If you fucked up, if the mess on your hands was beyond your capacity, if you were a high enough position to commit treason and have done so, if Jedi presence was confirmed to be there, Vader is who the Emperor will send to clean it up. | 52 | |
ELI5 why we should wash our hands with comfortably warm water. Isn't that the ideal temperature for germs and bacteria to grow/multiply? | 16 | It is, but we're not really worried about bacterial growth *while* we wash our hands. We're not even usually worried about bacteria *growing* on our hands at all— the danger is that we'll transfer germs, via our hands, to a new place (inside out bodies, on our food, etc) where they can grow out of control.
Meanwhile, ... | 51 | |
What exactly makes things "cute"? | What is it about puppy eyes or sleeping kittens that are appealing to humans? Why can it also apply to inanimate things? (i.e. A "cute" hammer) And why, when I see a really cute picture do I sometimes feel that it's "too cute" to stand, and I want to physically grab/eat/coddle it? Does the base idea of cuteness apply t... | 27 | In human evolution, natural selection favored parents who had strong, positive feelings for their infant children. Puppies and kittens have similar geometric shapes to their faces as infants. It's a simple matter of mistaken affection that actually worked out pretty well for all parties involved. | 16 |
ELI5: How do they make such complex ASCII art? | 19 | Usually with computer programs. There are many different approaches to generating an ASCII image, depending on how you want your final image to look. For example one simple method would be to transform a picture into a low-resolution grid, where each cell in the grid is assigned a letter depending on the brightness of ... | 10 | |
[Infinity War] was the order in which Thanos obtained the infinity stones determined more by how difficult it was to get them, or because of their abilities? | ie, did he get the Power Stone first because it was easiest to just steal from the Nova Corps, or because he needed its powers first? | 74 | The Power Stone made Thanos essentially invincible; he was able to go against the Hulk without any trouble once he had it, and was also able to ditch his armor. That seems like it would have been a top priority for a guy like Thanos.
Running into the Space Stone was at least partially a coincidence, but it's very poss... | 64 |
Mitochondria have their own DNA; do all mitochondria in a person’s body share the same DNA? | 3,116 | You normally inherit your mitochondria from your mother. However, as they replicate, they tend to collect mutations. Eventually you will have subpopulations of mitochondria with slightly different genomes, what we call heteroplasmy. They typically aren't particularly common, maybe accounting for 10% of all mitochondria... | 2,076 | |
[Warhammer 40,000] What interactions occurred between the Eldar and Dark Age Era Humanity? | I've heard that at it's height, the Eldar empire was the pre-eminent power in the Galaxy. Similarly, Mankind was at its technological height during the Dark Age of Technology. If I'm reading things correctly, it seems like the Fall of the Eldar and the Age of Strife both occurred nearly simultaneously. Furthermore, it ... | 51 | They didn't.
Mankind, at that point, had no single, unifying leader. They had technology which was closing on the Eldar, who weren't really advancing - having a webway, a post-scarcity society and an infinite supply of chocolate sauce and lubricant does that for you. Die? Fine! Just run straight into the warp and hang... | 22 |
Is anything in the universe truly random? (For Physics majors) | I was wondering if any event in the universe is truly random. I mean, since we have so many laws and models that can predict the behavior of most particles, then technically isn't everything predictable... Doesn't every action and reaction of a particle happen a certain way, which is dictated by the laws of nature.. ra... | 16 | There are aspects of quantum mechanics that, as far as we know, are totally random. An example is radioactive decay: an unstable atom will decay randomly without warning or trigger. You can attempt to modify quantum mechanics in a way that there is order to the randomness that we are unable to detect (hidden variable t... | 15 |
ELI5: why does a broken leg essentially mean a death sentence for a horse? | 22 | Horses legs are under high tension with tight tendons from the knee down. This means that when they break they often shatter. That same tendon situation also means there fairly little blood flow down the leg which makes healing slow. That means that the horse would have to spend a long time on only 3 legs, something it... | 22 | |
[Fallout 4] What's the deal with these Mini Nukes creating no rads? | Hi, I'm a Lone Wanderer from the Commonwealth. Through my adventures I've become fond of using the Fat Man and it's upgraded MIRV variant, but I'm wondering, why isn't there any radiation present after impact? I'd assume that a mini nuke would flood the immediate area with rads, but avoiding the primary explosion is th... | 35 | Mini-nukes rely almost entirely on fusion and therefore can detonate with a minimum of radiation. Given that they were designed to be used tactically rather than strategically against those damned reds it was a requirement that they didn't release much harmful radiation. | 46 |
ELI5: How exactly the symptom of rabies, the fear of water, the hydrophobia works? | One of the rabies symptoms is a fear of water, also called a hydrophobia.
Wikipedia article on rabies even shows a diseased trying to drink water but still unable to.
My question is: how it works on the biological level? Is it happening in consciousness, subconsciousness, or where? How does the sickness knows the wat... | 102 | The hydrophobic comes from the nerves in the throat being damaged. If anything touches the back of the throat; any water or saliva or food, all the muscles in the throat and neck suddenly tense up with maximum strength causing extreme pain and choking.
Because having anything in their mouth (including water) causes ex... | 142 |
How come almost every other mammal (carnivore or herbivore) can eat their meat completely raw and we have to cook ours or else we could potentially die? | I don't understand, every mammal I can think off of my head can heat meat off of the newly dead animal coated in whatever dirt and bacteria came with it while obviously being completely raw. However we have to cook all of our meat for fear of salmonella and other things that can make us very sick. Where did we go wrong... | 60 | Humans can eat raw meat easily enough. Ever had sushi, sashimi, steak tartare, or (for that matter) a rare piece of beef? We don't have to cook our meat. However, there are benefits that come with doing so. A reduced chance of parasites and bacteria, for one. | 87 |
Given our society's rules, slut shaming is completely acceptable. CMV | I see this tired argument every single day: "If a guy has sex with a lot of girls he's a god among men, but if a girl has sex with a lot of guys she's a hoe!" Well no shit. Know why? It's because girls *themselves* perpetuate the archaic stereotype of being pure, non-sexual beings in public, never asking guys out, neve... | 16 | Generally it's different girls -- some perpetuating the stereotypes and others complaining about being slut-shamed.
You're falling into the classic problem with prejudice: even when most members of a group are statistically one way, not all are.
Besides that, you're making a "two wrongs make a right" kind of argument... | 60 |
ELI5: if I make coffee (acidic) with high pH water (basic) would I have a pH neutral beverage? | Wondering why this wouldn't work to take out the acidity of coffee. Would it just taste terrible? What makes coffee acidic in the first place? | 19 | >Would it just taste terrible?
Yes. The acid is a key flavour component in coffee and without it (or with the addition of base to "balance" the pH) it will taste flat, and exacerbate other negative characteristics of the drink. The by products of the acid/base reaction may also contribute off flavours of saltiness ... | 16 |
ELI5: Is it me or whenever I'm done working out I randomly get full and don't feel like eating ? | 17 | This is a common thing.
There is a hormone believed to be responsible for your body creating that hunger feeling or having an appetite.
And studies have shown that it seems physical exercise suppresses the release of that hormone.
One theory for why this happens is it a beneficial reaction developed through evolutio... | 13 | |
[D&D] I've been seduced by a bard. Apparently I consented, but I don't remember a thing past the CHA check and my spouse is furious. Can I sue? Should I? | 253 | Everyone knows no matter how high a persuasion check, it's not a Mind Control spell.
I mean we've all heard tales of legendary bards, and how women just can't help themselves. Doesn't hold up in court, your husband has valid grounds for a divorce. Sorry.
Just remember: Persuasion is not Mind Control. Stealth is not ... | 309 | |
What is the difference between an accent and a dialect? | 17 |
On a surface level, an accent is purely differences in pronunciation, while a dialect includes differences in grammar and vocabulary.
In practice, much like the definition of species, the differences between accent, dialect, and language are just a matter of degree; i.e. accents are less different from each other th... | 52 | |
I believe the western countries are socially liberal only because of a higher material standard of living and not some sort of higher enlightenment on the part of the citizens, CMV | I see it quite often, living in the western world and consuming western media, this attitude of latent superiority over the "backwards bigoted people with Wrong™ beliefs", be they the Muslims with their treatment of women or the older generations with their treatment of gays, I'm talking about this idea that people hav... | 100 | It isn't that the standard of living is higher, it's that education is better. Poverty does not correlate with bigotry because being poor causes you to be bigoted, it correlates with bigotry because the poor are less likely to be well educated. You will find that the actual causal relationship is between education and ... | 36 |
[ELI5] Why does the moon look so tiny in pictures when it looks so large from where I took it? | 241 | It looks small in pictures because it's a photograph.
1. The lens you are using. Most cell-phones/digital cameras have a fixed lens, and it is usually a wide angle. The zoom that is available isn't optical zoom. It's digital. This means that the lens doesn't make anything bigger, but the image itself is cropped. This ... | 86 | |
[MCU] [Avengers] If the infinity stones are so crucial to the flow of the universe that the Ancient One won't even let Bruce borrow them at first, why isn't it a problem that they're destroyed now? | 439 | Her visualization of the timeline splitting looked nearly identical to the timelines splitting at the end of Loki. This implies the disaster she was anticipating *has come to pass*, and she was simply wrong about the root cause. | 472 | |
[The Dark Knight] What makes Health Ledger Joker impossible to manipulate/threatened compared to other criminals/villains? | 20 | He doesn't care about anything except getting a rise out of Batman. He barely cares about survival, he has no loved ones, and he's not interested in wealth. Essentially he's dangerous for many of the same reasons Batman is. | 84 | |
ELI5:ELI5: When a person exercises and burn calories, what is actually happening to the fat? when someone loses weight where is the fat going? | 60 | Your fat is made of hydrocarbons - molecules of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. When you inhale oxygen (O2) and exhale carbon dioxide (CO2) you are literally exhaling the carbon from those fat molecules as you burn those calories. What about the hydrogen and oxygen? That becomes water which you urinate/sweat out. | 30 | |
Do plugged-in laptop and phone chargers et. al. continue to use electricity even when the paired device is not connected to them? | If I leave my laptop charger plugged in but do not have my laptop connected to it, does that still use power? I frequently unplug my devices' chargers/power cables from outlets, even when the device is not attached, because I suspect that having a cable plugged in still uses electricity. is this so?
**thanks for t... | 53 | Once the load (device to be powered/charged) is removed from the charger, very little power will be used. Most power bricks have little LEDs that remain on, and there is a small amount of power dissipated in the cord/other components that stay electrified (commonly referred to as phantom power), but only a VERY small ... | 26 |
[Monsters inc] so you’re telling me that an adult would NOT be scared shitless if Mike wazowski walked outta their closet door? Wouldn’t a grown ass man’s scream be louder and much more effective than a toddler’s? | 1,202 | Yes, it would, as we saw in Monsters University. But the problem with scaring adults is if a bunch of adults start saying they see creatures coming out of closest, then the human world is going to start investigating.
If little kids do it, then people just dismiss it as nightmares or overactive imaginations. Remember ... | 1,137 | |
ELI5: Implosions | 28 | An explosion is when something is under very high pressure - so high that whatever is trying to contain it, can't contain it any more. Imagine a sealed drinking cup with a straw. When you blow into the straw, you increase the pressure in the cup. Eventually, the cup will explode - it won't be able to hold its contents,... | 24 | |
ELI5:Why are all "As Seen on TV" commercials so similar to each other? | 23 | These companies carefully study what works -- even trying different versions of an ad to see what brings in more orders.
What you see now is the optimal format -- the one that brings in the most orders -- so everyone tries to use it. | 12 | |
CMV: Children should not be allowed to go to church | EDIT FOR DELTAS:
So my view was changed in several ways which I'd like to note here:
1. I think I was painting all religion with a very broad brush due to my upbringing and several people have given some examples of how their religious upbringing was quite different and did not pose the problems I stated.
2. I had no... | 96 | I think your childhood experience as JW is being generalized across all religions, which is inaccurate. In the mainline Protestant denominations, for example, critical thinking, doubt, and questioning are encouraged - how else does one understand something complicated without examining its contradictions and questions?... | 44 |
Is the purpose of life to contribute to society? | Is the purpose of life to contribute to society?
An average life consists of surviving, learning, reproducing, teaching, working. Then you're finished. You're born, you contribute a small bit of your existence to the world then die. Outside of that, there is using your physical and emotional functions to work thro... | 84 | It really depends on your definition of "purpose".
If by your definition of purpose then yes. You will find the answer to that in many western political philosophies especially the philosophy of communitariansm, utilitarianism and socialism. You'll find alot of what you're looking for in Jean Jaque Roussoeus work and ... | 32 |
CMV: Those in nursing homes and other settings for long-term and/or end-of-life care should have basically unlimited access to recreational drugs. | The main argument against recreational drugs seems to be that it's detrimental to your health and makes you less likely to be a contributing member of society. These are settings where these arguments no longer apply. If these people want to gamble their health then that's their choice, so long as they feel this gives ... | 2,879 | Physiological differences make it hard to predict people’s reactions to various recreational drugs. Sure, you might handle most of them fine, but even the most benign one could trigger severe bouts of extreme paranoia or aggression in someone else that could lead them to harming others - especially in a situation where... | 597 |
ELI5: How is Ebola able to spread the way it has during the current outbreak? | I am seeing reports that multiple medical professionals have begun to contract the disease. How is this happening if it is so hard to transmit and what is preventing this from spreading further, if anything? | 90 | Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person; every droplet of a sneeze has the potential to infect, and so do other fluids as well. It also stays virulent after death, so touching the dead body during funeral rites also has the potential to infect. There is a pretty high cha... | 44 |
Do scientists testing medicine on animals have to give the animals the disease first? | Is there a market that sells animals with the disease you want or something? | 53 | This really depends on the study. Many studies just test the effects of the drug on healthy animals. Often the disease cannot be vectored in the animal, as it the case with some viruses, so you cannot give it to the animal. However, most of the time you are able to introduce or induce the exact or similar human disease... | 11 |
Could living things sink or dive into lava? Or is it simply too dense? | This link is near the top of r/all right now: https://gfycat.com/GranularAnnualBactrian
The comments are full of people talking about diving in.
Would a human actually sink or even be able to get below the surface? Or is molten rock too dense for that? I've wondered this since I was a kid and saw Arnold lowering hims... | 19 | Kilauea lava is about 2.6 times as dense as water; the human body is slightly less dense than water. Lava is also significantly more viscous than water.
If you jumped off the edge of the crater you'd sink a little because of momentum, but you would easily float in lava. The net force pushing you to the surface of lava... | 25 |
CMV: Raising minimum wage isn't the answer to poverty and correcting the wage gap. We need to institute a maximum pay gap within companies, get rid of tax loopholes for the super rich and stop taxing low income brackets | Disclaimer: This was written from a Canadian point of view, having seen minimum wage rise, and the effects it has had on my Provence, cost of living and other challenges we face, but I do think it would also benefit America and other countries in a similar wage to cost of living situation. The research I did was mostly... | 283 | The issue with this is you are misunderstanding how these people at the top are making money. No one is making 100 million in a salary or a bonus or anything like that. Comments like: "The issue with that is once you start getting into those who control more than 100 million, those individuals end up usually not paying... | 127 |
ELI5: How can politicians make promises and not be held accountable? | 34 | Under the law, at least in the United States, you have no liability for a "promise" except in certain specific circumstances. Thus, you can't just sue a politician for breaking a promise.
But, that doesn't mean they're not held accountable. The way we hold politicians accountable is through the vote. If a politicia... | 10 | |
[MCU] Does War Machine's suit have its own snarky AI? | I don't think we ever see Rhodey bantering with his suit or even issuing it verbal commands. But after JARVIS disappears in Age of Ultron, Tony has to install Friday on his suit, implying it does need some kind of AI to operate. | 24 | > Tony has to install Friday on his suit, implying it does need some kind of AI to operate.
Tony installing FRIDAY does not mean that he *needs* to have her on the suit. He repaints his suit when it gets scratched off after a fight, doesn't mean it needs that hot rod red to operate.
IW Spoilers
>![Tony loses ... | 26 |
If rogue waves occur in the ocean, and rogue sound waves also occur? | To my knowledge a rogue wave occurs when lots of smaller waves converge in the right way.
My question is, does this happen with sound waves? Could a loud booming sound occur at random from the confluence of many low amplitude waves? | 31 | Theoretically yes, small amplitude sound waves can converge to form a large amplitude wave. In practice however this is ridiculously unlikely, and even less likely that it will occur somewhere that it can be heard. | 16 |
[Harry Potter] Could you splinch/telefrag someone by using a Time Turner? | If your point of arrival in the past happened to be where someone was standing, what would happen?
If you've been standing in the same spot for an hour then travel back one hour, would you telefrag your past self? | 37 | #DO NOT MESS WITH TIME
Ahem.
Time-Turners operate within consistent loops. This is *not* a feature of time-travel itself in HP; it is indeed possible to change time and e.g. erase people from time (though time seems to have some kind of Butterfly Effect immunity; if you give someone's father a condom, they vanish fro... | 43 |
ELI5: Why is honey dangerous to toddlers and infants? | 13,569 | Honey often contains botulism spores, growth of botulism is suppressed when there is low water activity (such as in honey), and it's suppressed when the pH is low. It needs to get 125'C to kill the spores. Botulism produces one of the most toxic poisons known to man when it grows.
The temperature to kill botulism is ... | 18,591 | |
When should I tell my supervisor that I’m thinking about dropping out of my PhD? | Here’s my situation, in a bit more detail: I’m just at the end of the Master’s portion of the degree, and would be leaving with a good grade in that; I’m in a social sciences/humanities programme in a world top 10 institution for my subject; I am in the UK; I’m fully funded by a research council.
I’m basically 95% ce... | 49 | Don't say a word until you have a new source of income. It's just about priorities, and your supervisor should understand if they're a decent person, and if not then meh, they evidently care more about their convenience than your wellbeing. But also: you don't \*know\* what'll happen, maybe you look around and are disa... | 118 |
ELI5 if every cell in your body gets replaced over time, how does your brain maintain memories? | 34 | Neurons that compose memories do not normally die and are not replaced by newly forming cells. The cell is replaced in the sense that sooner or later every molecule is swapped out as a normal part of cellular maintenance but the entire cell is never replaced all at once.
Think of a car for example. A normal cell dying... | 29 | |
CMV: The best way to reduce immigration is to make the countries of origin better places to live. | The United States spends billions of dollars trying to prevent people from Central and South America from immigrating to the US. If we spent some of that money to invest in those countries, and making them better places with more opportunity and less corruption and crime, then people wouldn't need to emigrate in the fi... | 1,650 | the problem isn't lack of money, the problem is corruption. sending huge amounts of money is just going to result in that money getting stolen. unless you want to annex those countries into the US and subject them to US laws and US institutions, it is going to be very difficult to fundamentally reform those countries. ... | 584 |
ELI5: Why is shampoo usually translucent but conditioner opaque? | 3,083 | Because conditioner is marketed as a "cream". (In fact it's sometimes the case and used to be the case back in the day that people would call conditioner "cream rinse".)
We associate opacity with creaminess and moisturizing properties, while we associate clarity with cleaning properties.
Kind of like why Crystal Pe... | 2,149 | |
How many calories are we capable of burning in a single two second burst? | I saw [this](http://i.imgur.com/0Sr6t.jpg) pic in another post and I couldn't help but wonder how many calories were burned in that single throw. | 48 | If a shot put is accelerated to ten meters per second, that's still about 10% of a dietary (kilo)calorie in terms of kinetic energy. Elite cyclists are able to output upwards of 1500 watts, which is about 0.3 (kilo)calories per second. | 13 |
If I shout into a breeze blowing straight at me, does my voice travel less distance then if I was to shout without a breeze? | 50 | Basically, yes. The speed of sound in a medium is always measured with respect to the medium itself! If you speak on a very windy day, then your voice will travel at different speeds *with respect to you* in different directions depending on the direction of the wind.
If you visualize the sound you produce by shouting... | 19 | |
[Thor 2] Odin-Loki-Thor conversation and post credits scene. | If Loki disguised himself as Odin to talk to Thor then what happened to Odin? Is he aware that Loki alive, is he aware that Thor turned down Asgardian throne? He would want to listen to Thor's reason.
Is it possible that Loki disguise himself as Thor to have a conversetion with his father? If Odin alive then what wi... | 51 | Benicio Del Toro was playing "The Collector," one of the "Elders of the Universe," the last remaining members of their otherwise extinct species who were the first to gain sentience after the Big Bang. As their various races died out, Death herself gave immortality to the last remaining members.
These Elders basicall... | 60 |
ELI5: why does having a baby with a sibling create deformities and weaker genes in said baby? | 57 | It doesn't unless the aforementioned siblings have recessive defects. You need to have two copies of recessive defects to see an effect. Two siblings are more likely to share a recessive defect since they share a parent that could have one. If both siblings have this defect and pass it on, then the offspring will defin... | 36 | |
What would happen if we paid off our debt? | What would happen to the United States economy if a large percentage of individual Americans made an asserted effort pay off their debts (Homes, Credit Cards, Student Loans, Cars, ect) in the next 5 years? How would it effect our economy in a whole over short period of time (5-10 years) and how would it effect over a l... | 35 | Money spent paying down debt is money not spent on consumption. If everybody redirected their income from consumption to debt repayment, it would probably spark another recession in the short run. In the long run, total interest payments would be lower due to the reduced debt burden and so the money that would have bee... | 23 |
Eli5 - How do the USA test top secret aircrafts such as the B-21? | I'm pretty sure the U.S. revealed the B -21 bomber because they have other top secret aircrafts that make the B-21 look like childs play. I don't think we would reveal anything that would give competitive information to enemy countries. Based on those logic, how do we test out to secret aircrafts without getting caught... | 19 | That's why they have test ranges like Area 51, to protect things. What was shown in the reveal probably did not actually contain any competitive information. And it's going to be a nuclear-capable bomber, and one of the big reasons for a nuclear arsenal and platforms to begin with is deterrence. It helps to keep your e... | 41 |
ELI5: Why do people get a knot in their stomach when something bad has happened or they are anxious? | 8,056 | I actually know this one! Sympathetic nervous response (SNR) more commonly known as “fight or flight”. When you induce stress on the body it begins releasing dopamine and adrenaline to give you the best chance at surviving the immediate stressor; shutting off digestion and using that energy for more immediate things li... | 7,198 | |
How does killing the heads of terrorists groups actually help end terrorism? | Are the few individuals at the top that skilled in planning attacks that their respective #2 (or 3, 4, 5...) wouldn't be able to step in and execute as well? It just seems like we cut a head off and three more grow in it's place. | 21 | Terrorist organizations are complex. They look for financing, they build networks of suppliers and friendly organizations, they recruit and train, they plan and execute on objectives. These are complex actions that are more like that of a global company than what you might think. Terrorism is complicated work, and a... | 14 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.