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CMV: Pit bulls Should Require a License to Own | In this month alone, 6 people and 9 animals have been killed in a pit bull attack. Many others have been maimed and permanently disfigured/disabled because of a pit bull attack.
Pit bull supporters often say "it's the owner, not the dog." Personally, I disagree. According to Wikipedia,
>The bull-and-terrier was ... | 19 | The question isn't "What percentage of dog attacks are from pit bulls," but rather, "What percentage of pit bulls commit attacks."
In the last decade (2010 - 2021) there have been 430 fatal dog attacks in the US. And I'll give it to you, 185 of them (or 43%) were committed by pit bulls.
However, the important thing ... | 58 |
Why aren't photons affected by the Higgs field? | 29 | By definition!
Photons are by definition the single component of the original SU(2)×U(1) electroweak gauge field that leaves the Higgs vacuum expectation value invariant. This means that the VEV is uncharged for the photon, and the photon aquires no mass.
A little simpler: basically, SU(2)×U(1) is a four dimensional ... | 19 | |
How come gases are so cold in their pressurised cans? | 214 | The gas in a can like spray paint isn't actually cold. Its the same temperature as the can or the air around it. Its when the gas is rapidly expanded that the temperature drop happens. The opposite is also true. When you compress a gas it heats up. Its what makes most air conditioning systems possible. | 171 | |
ELI5 Why can't certain organs such as the pancreas or brain be transplanted? (what other organs cannot be transplanted?) | 588 | It is possible to do a pancreas transplant, but it's indicated only in people who have also a kidney failure, therefore it's a double transplant, kidney and pancreas.
Keep in mind that when you receive a transplant of any kind you'll have to do a immunosuppressive treatment for the rest of your life. It's far more ea... | 772 | |
Why is it that we started building a space station, rather than a moon base? | 53 | The ISS is about 1000 times closer to the Earth than the moon, so we can actually move people and things back and forth in a reasonable time frame.
The low gravity could actually be seen as a bonus - we need to study the effects of near-zero gravity on humans so that we know how to deal with the effects long-term. | 42 | |
[Too Many Cooks] Do the Cybernetic Operational Optimized Knights of Science actually stand a chance against the Beast Rebels of the Hellscape? | In most iterations of of the "Too Many Cooks" scenarios, the victims have no chance against The Killer. Often, he takes them totally unawares. In the case of Katie Adkins, she is able to notice and at least attempt to escape, but in the end, she is caught and killed.
In the case of the COOKS, it looks superficially di... | 171 | There may be too many COOKS. Much like the saying "too many cooks" implies, having too many efficient and competent experts can sometimes lead to failure or getting nothing done. Ultimately, the BRotH will be spoiled by how easy it is defeat them due to the fact that there are, indeed, Too Many COOKS. | 100 |
ELI5: If a wind turbine (or any generator) is producing electricity but no one is using it where does the electricity go? | 22 | Nowhere. The effort needed to turn the wind turbine is equal the produced power. The more load is needed the harded is to turn the turbine. If you disconnect the load it will be very easy to turn the turbine. There still be voltage but there will be no currect.
In real life you have to stop such a generator the preven... | 27 | |
Do you believe in free will? | If determinism (everything has a certain and traceable cause) is true, then the will is not free, as everything has been predetermined.
If indeterminism is true, then the will is not free either, because everything is left up to chance and we are not in control, therefore not able to exercise our will.
It seems tha... | 16 | > If determinism (everything has a certain and traceable cause) is true, then the will is not free...
No, that's not the case. The debate about free will is typically cashed out in two debates: is determinism true? and is incompatibilism true? Incompatibilism is the thesis that determinism is inconsistent with fr... | 25 |
ELI5:Why is there a women's poker league? | I can understand why sports leagues like the NBA and the WNBA are separated but why would there be two different leagues for poker. Aren't they doing the same thing? | 22 | Yes, they are playing the same game.
However, due to the fact that women didn't play poker until very recently (relative to invention of the game) it is an unusual situation to have women play at the same level.
Poker is a game of aggression, and many of the players are people who take that to a personal level, whic... | 17 |
[Alien] Congrats, Weyland-Yutani! You finally got your hands on a Xenomorph. Even better, it's a Queen! So, you're not going to run out of test subjects anytime soon. Now, what uses/applications/scientific breakthroughs can you expect from this extraterrestrial species? | 434 | Materials science - the xenomorph's silicon based structure is unlike any complex terrestrial organism. Their excreted resins are remarkably tough/versatile and their ability to survive in extraordinarily hostile environments (hard vacuum) would be invaluable.
Chemistry - xenomorph blood is considerably more acidic t... | 382 | |
[The Truman Show] How did they keep the other kids around Truman from spilling the beans when he was a child? | This isn't just about child actors' acting skills being a problem; the real question is how they kept the kids from flat out *telling* Truman, or otherwise letting the truth slip.
Kids can be terrible when it comes to dealing with an outsider. If they all knew that Truman was the special kid that they were all working... | 63 | He _never_ had good, long-term friendships as a child, which is why he's fairly detached and formal with the people around him. He greets his next-door neighbors from twenty feet away, with a robotic and... frankly... _staged_ performance.
This formal, proper upbringing helped ensure that he'd be controllable and acce... | 49 |
ELI5: What does "nose" smell like? How does your nose ignore itself to smell its surroundings? | Is it something that your brain does to not sense it, or does your nose or body produce something to mask the smell? Could we possibly smell other noses' scents? Is it the same for animals? Or is there even a smell in your nose? | 21 | Your brain only has the capacity to notice things that are changing in your environment. Sensory inputs that remain constant (and are deemed not a threat or at least not a source of interest) are not given any attention by the brain.
Your ears, eyes, and skin do the same thing. Moments after you sit do... | 28 |
What's that feeling you get when you're stretching
or yawning--a sort of thrill that quickly spreads
through the body? | 100 | When you stretch it is basically dilating your blood vessels, which is why athletes stretch before exercise, to ensure maximum blood flow to increase O2 exchange efficiency. E.g. if you sat down for a long time, standing up allows more blood to flow in those areas which have been deprived of sufficient O2, so your musc... | 12 | |
ELI5: Why do people with british accents seem to lose their accents when they sing? | 29 | It's not unique to British people, it happens with basically all accents. An accent is mostly someone putting different stresses on syllables and using a different pacing/rhythm than we're used to. When singing, these (and many other factors that determine accent) are dictated by the song, and deviating can mess up how... | 21 | |
ELI5: How does sanctioning work? | 24 | Imagine there is a store (Russia) in your neighborhood. Who relies on shoppers from your neighborhood (the world)
You don't like the owner of that store, but you cant stop that store from selling it's products (gold, oil, etc))
You do however, control your household (USA) and have tremendous influence over most of yo... | 99 | |
[Fallout 4] Why are magazines worth $32.99 in the pre-war era? | 24 | Inflation.
Consider that, on average, $1 in 1950 (the approximate point of timeline of divergence) is the equivalent to about $10 today. If we assume a similar inflation rate (not exactly a reasonable assumption, but for the sake of argument it works) by 2077 we'd be looking at somewhere around $25 for the same 1$ pu... | 48 | |
ELI5: What do OLED screens do that make them an improvement over LCD screens? | 40 | Traditional LCD screens use a backlight, the LCD pixels change the color of that light as it passes through them. The backlight makes these screens thicker, and the LCD pixels can't block all the light from the backlight so the display isn't capable of displaying true black.
OLEDs emit their own light, there is no bac... | 36 | |
When I am falling asleep, why do I suddenly know that turning over will be more comfortable and can't sleep until I do? | 1,815 | These silly answers are way off. Fact is, your body has several systems (sinus, circulatory, etc) that alternate sides while you sleep to keep you turning over every so often to avoid tissue damage from prolonged weight on any certain part of your body.
Ever had a runny nose that kept switching nostrils? Same thing, s... | 1,400 | |
[Dune] If Feyd-Rautha was raised among the fremen would he have become the Kwisatz-haderach? | Assuming that he was not twisted by life among the harkonnens, and instead raised among the fremen, he would have met the ancient reverend mother and at least learned of the existence of the water of life. Seeing as he was at the same stage of the breeding program, one generation prior to the target, would he also be a... | 47 | No. The reason that Paul was able to do so was because he was born a generation earlier than intended. This is all allegedly thanks to some wibbly wobbly timey whimy prescient influence from the future. Jessica was supposed to have a daughter with Leto and the daughter was to be married to Feyd in order to conceive ... | 30 |
ELI5: Household water softeners | I recently visited the US midwest where it seems everyone has a water softener in their house. Growing up with hard water, I was really annoyed at how my hands/body felt really soapy and slick after trying to wash off the soap I used. Also, it felt like the extra soapiness make my skin break out more.
**ELI5:** Why d... | 24 | Hard water is full of dissolved minerals in the water, typically calcium and magnesium. A water softener uses an ion exchanger to remove them, and replace them with sodium ions.
Soft water reduces the calcium deposits that form in the pipes and shower glass. It also reduces soap scum buildup on shower tubs. As for th... | 15 |
ELI5 Are cows constantly producing milk? | I just drove past a field of cows and there were babies too. The calfs we're so cute! But it got me thinking... When cows make milk it usually goes to their babies, right? So how is it that we have constant stores of milk and cheese at the supermarket? Do we only get milk from cows who's calfs didn't make it (passed aw... | 23 | They take dairy calves away from the mothers and bottle-feed them (or sell them for veal). The milking makes her body think the calf is nursing, a lot, and so she keeps producing milk steadily, usually for about a year. Then she has to have another calf to keep the milk supply going.
If you have a small homestead and... | 70 |
ELI5: If something happens to cause everyone in the world to be infertile, theoretically how long would it take us to find out? | I was just watching the movie Children of Men, great movie by the way, but I was just wondering what are some logical reasons that could cause infertility of the entire human race, and how fast we would be able to realize it. | 22 | 1 week, rounding up to the nearest week.
All the OBGYN's would suddenly have no one coming in reporting a pregnancy. They would each probably consider it just a fluke but after talking to other doctors they would realize something was off. | 18 |
[Superman] Do only certain types of teleportation work on Kryptonians? Eg: Shouldn't Star Trek or Stargate style disassembly/reassembly based technologies fail due to their invulnerability, but space-folding/portal based methods should be ok? | 136 | There are precious few cases where teleportation has failed to work on Superman, but your hypothesis seems valid. It is likely that portal based teleportation is the most commonly used in the galaxy, seeing as it's the basis for the Zeta Beam, and probably the Thanagarian Relativity Beam as well. | 89 | |
Could we provide a stable high-bandwith connection to / from Mars? | i.e "Internet on Mars"
Apart from the obvious latency issues which would make 2-way real time communications impossible, is it even remotely doable? | 29 | It would probably be possible but you'd certainly need some new protocols for communication. That is, just boosting the power and using directed antennas on normal wifi isn't going to do it. Wifi certainly assumes that packets move almost instantaneously, introducing 4 to 20 minute latency is absolutely going to break ... | 22 |
Eli5: How do color changing cups work? | I have a cup that changes from white to purple when cold. How does that happen? | 29 | They are coated with thermochromic paint. The paint can change colour or become transparent when subjected to heat (or by extension cold). How these paints change colour is a little bit beyond eli5 imo but still in short, heat changes the structure of the paint temporarily allowing it to absorb/reflect different wavele... | 21 |
Writing first book - when to approach publishers? | I'm a mid-career (10 years post PhD) UK academic in psychology, and I'm writing my first popular science book. I've written about 2.5 chapters of 10 or 12. Should I approach potential publishers before I've finished a draft with a proposal? Then they could advise on length, format etc. Or should I wait until I've draft... | 46 | **STOP!**
Contact some publishers and see if they are interested in your proposal -tell them you have two sample chapters (many require a sample chapter or two) and can provide an outline of the rest.
Do not write a whole book without a contract!!!!!!! | 80 |
How do you explain to a person 200 years ago that racism is bad? | Recently in a practical ethics class ( not a major, was just interested ), the topic of animal rights was brought up, naturally, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation was a must-read, and "speciesism" was compared with racism and sexism and called a mere prejudice, instinctively as a meat lover but less of an animal abuse l... | 81 | It'd be pretty trivial to convince some 200 years ago that 'In the case of peoples which have no significant difference between them, we should not treat them differently.' The problem would of course be that 200 years ago that people did think there were significant differences between races, something that a lot of p... | 68 |
ELI5: How do we keep in contact with spacecraft such as Voyager 2 that are at the very edge of our solar system? | 21 | With very big dishes on Earth, and very sensitive receivers that can find the tiny signal.
Fun fact: the Voyagers' radio transmitters are 20 Watt -- which is the same power as the bulb in your refrigerator.
So we're effectively looking for a flickering fridge bulb, 19 billion kilometres away... | 38 | |
ELI5: Why do we wake up with morning face? | Puffy eyes, fat face. | 22 | When you're up and about and walking around, your heart has to work against gravity to pump blood up into your face. But when you have been laying horizontal in a bed for 8 or so hours it gives blood the opportunity to "pool" or "settle" in your face, resulting in puffiness. You'll get a more extreme example of this i... | 15 |
A reply to the 'fallacy of composition' objection to Mill's proof of utilitarianism? | The charge of a fallacy of composition against Mill's Utilitarianism is essentially an objection to his jump from 1) Each person ultimately desires their own happiness (a sort of hedonism) to 2) Everybody desires everybody's happiness, and so the good is a maximisation of the general happiness (not just your own happin... | 20 | I think Utilitarians would argue that they are not actually committing it. Mill is not arguing that happiness is merely desirable, he is arguing that it is *worthy of desire*. Namely, Happiness is Good - specifically Mill is claiming that Happiness is *the only* Good.
"[x] is desirable to me, therefore it is desirab... | 13 |
ELI5: What is Rove vs. Wade and what would it take for it to be overturned? | Hi guys. I know I could look up the first part of this question, but I want it real simple like. Also the second part is important too. I heard someone saying something called 'personhood' could lead to it geting overturned, but I'd like to know a little more. Thanks! | 16 | Karl Rove once challenged Dwayne Wade to a 1:1 basketball game. Wade was obviously the overwhelming favorite, but Rove convinced Wade that the best way for him to win was to let Rove's points "trickle down" into Wade's basket. Rove won 184-2. | 23 |
ELI5: What is the common cold? | I had an idea that it was just an extremely common virus that we can't cure. However, upon looking it up some sources say that there are over 200+ viruses that cause the common cold. Does that mean the common cold is just some blanket term we have for viruses that cause these symptoms? | 30 | The common cold is a syndrome (a constellation of symptoms) which can be caused by several different viruses. It's difficult to count the number of viruses because of how many strains, variants and subvariants exist if each. But it's thought that the most colds are caused by rhinoviruses, while many of the others are ... | 27 |
[Stuart Little] Stuart is a talking orphaned mouse who finds himself in an orphanage with humans. He has the voice of a grown man, but is probably 6(?). The littles have a cat who can speak to the mouse just fine, but only sounds like a real to his owners. | There’re also other mice who can speak English just fine *and* two birds who can communicate like humans.
If I go to petco, will the animals start talking to me? Why are cats not able to talk like the rodents and birds? Why is no one afraid of these animals with near human intelligence? | 15 | Honestly, given there's one in the orphanage, it seems they're just a part of life.
Mice and birds are kinds of person, and take part in society, and humans aren't scared of them because they're not racist. | 10 |
[General Scifi] Why can you talk through a prison force field. | In most settings there are no intercoms in the cells and they can just talk right through it.
Most of these cells even have a separate air supply, so it is not air circulation. | 16 | The particles that make up the forcefield still vibrate when the soundwaves hit them, transferring the energy to the air molecules on the other side and allowing the sound to keep traveling.
Same basic principle of talking to someone through a glass window, only in this case the 'glass' is extremely thin so not as mu... | 28 |
How exactly does a stimulant, like adderall or concerta, calm down a person with ADHD? | 49 | The neuropharmacology is a little complicated, but the analogy is a bell curve. If you imagine that a given person might function optimally with a neurotransmitter level of X in a certain region of the brain that is responsible for attention, then someone with less than X has inattention. A stimulant increases that num... | 18 | |
[Spiderman] Throughout the various versions of Spiderman, is his spider sense actually explained extensively? | Is it based off his increased senses, with the spider sense simply his brain constructing a simulation of potential outcomes based on sensory data? Is it a sixth sense, possibly psychic/clairvoyant in nature? This has always kinda bugged me. | 40 | So there's this thing called the Web of Life and Destiny, which consists of the strands of everybody's path through life all woven together. They are woven by a giant cyborg spider god in another universe called the Great Weaver. The weaving is mostly done without thinking about it, but sometimes the Weaver consciously... | 62 |
ELI5 why is it easy for kids to learn language while it is very hard for adults? | 22 | While brain mushiness is definitely part of it, another thing to consider is that when kids learn a language it is generally because they are immersed in that language. As an adult, it is fairly rare to be in a situation where you are immersed in a foreign language for any real amount of time.
Adults absolutely can le... | 23 | |
Why do space shuttles need to be vertically launched into space on a launch pad instead of going into space like an airplane? | Launching a shuttle in space costs a lot of money. Wouldn't it be reduced by a lot if it didn't need a launch pad and go to space like an airplane?
What is the reason why they don't do that?
Is it possible to go to space in an other way than vertically?
What are the problems we are encountering for not being able to do... | 17 | Air launch doesn't buy you much when you have to get going 17,000 mph to orbit. If you have a rocket launched from an aircraft, it's not going to be going much faster than 500 mph when it lights, and it's not going to be more than 6 or 7 miles up at that point. There's the Skylon spaceplane being developed in the UK, b... | 13 |
How come shower water at a given temperature feels lukewarm on my back, but extremely hot on my face? | I understand that the skin on the face is more sensitive than on other parts of the body, but why is that? | 20 | The explanation of the greater sensitivity of the face as relative to other body parts has to do with the density of sensory nerves. The face, the fingertips, the genitals, and some other parts of the body have a very high density of nerve endings. This is why you can differentiate between two pinpricks close together ... | 21 |
Are there any other viable power sources available to us other than electromagnetic induction and photovoltaic technology? | When I make a lost of every source of power generation I can think of, everything comes down to either photovoltaic technology, or spinning a turbine which causes electromagnetic induction. Do we have any other way of powering our homes? | 41 | Fuel cells and thermoelectric generators are two less known ways. Fuel cells generate electricity through reacting oxygen with a fuel, often hydrogen, and have no moving parts similar to a photovoltaic cell. Thermoelectric generators use a strange property of metals called the seebeck effect, where two different metals... | 48 |
[Incredibles] Why aren't heroes covered by Good Samaritan laws? | After Mr. Incredible saves the jumper and a train, he is sued by both the jumper and the passengers. Wouldn't this principle make him immune to legal action? | 18 | Typically good samaritan laws assume that the individual was acting for the well-being of another and had sufficient training or skills to do good. Someone who has never done surgery is more likely going to do harm if they try to help someone in the street in urgent medical need (say they were shot in a vital organ and... | 24 |
ELI5: Why were the Native Americans so technologically far behind the English? | I'm watching a documentary on the development of America, a story I'm sure we've all heard before, and it seems so off to me that America, a nation of so many people would have such a comparatively simple way of life when compared to the technologically and economically complex civilization in England. Anyone have theo... | 25 | Read: guns germs and steel, it seems like it's a complicated read but explains why continents became the way they are
Major reasons are: access to large domesticable animals, axis of direction of the continent, ease of domesticating local plants
Humans got to the Americas late meaning they were already skilled hunters... | 19 |
Eli5: How do peers and leechers in pirating on Utorrent work? Do any other site use them? | 21 | If you've copied someones homework at school, you are now also a point that someone else can copy homework from, as long as everyone who copies the homework copies it identically (this is done by hashing a torrent's content and checking it against the source) it doesn't matter who you copy from, so if there's a 100 peo... | 64 | |
If you freeze blood, how long will the DNA in the blood maintain its integrity? | 56 | ~~Red blood cells do not contain any DNA, so all the DNA in your blood is contained in white blood cells~~. DNA on it’s own is a relatively stable molecule owing to the double helix and (in eukaryotes) chromatin structures. A pure, dry DNA sample with no contaminants will survive for quite a while at room temperature a... | 34 | |
[Masters of the Universe] What happens if He-Man instead of aiming the energy at Cringer hits Orko? | Would it work and increase his abilities? If so, would it follow physical increases or an increase in his overall default abilities thus making him a more powerful magic user? | 20 | I don't know if it would increase his magic abilities. This would depend on how his magic interacts with the power of Grayskull. Physically Orko would be unchanged. He-Man and Battle-Cat aren't really more muscular than Prince Adam and Cringer. Orko might gain a slight pump, as if he's just been lifting weights, but th... | 12 |
Has there been any carnivores that evolved into herbivores, and vice versa? Plus how would it be possible? | Probably a stupid question | 41 | In 1971 scientists moved 5 pairs of insectivorous Italian wall lizards to the tiny island of Pod Mrcaru \[sic\] off the Croatian coast. War broke out, so the scientists left. They returned in 2008 to find that the native lizards were gone and the 5,000 descendants of the transplanted lizards were now herbivores, having... | 75 |
ELI5:Why do famous and influential people have so much dirty laundry? | I realize that there is a lot of attention on these famous people but it seems that the higher you go the stranger the lives and the more unsavory the company. I wonder if it has something to do with the amount of aggression and drive that is necessary for people to get to the top that spills over in negative ways. ... | 15 | It has more to do with how much money they have.
Imagine you win the lottery. What would you do? When asked this question, most people say things like buy a house and travel and give it to friends. But, some people think things like have lots of sex with attractive people, travel and do crazy things, party, experiment... | 11 |
A perspective/scale question: In a hydrogen atom, if the proton was the size of a tennis ball, (say 6.5 cm), on average how far away from the proton would the electron be orbiting? | 20 | A hydrogen atom is 1.1 angstroms in diameter, a proton 1.7 x 10-5. so the atom is 64706 times bigger than the proton. That means your scaled up atom would be 4206 meters across, or about 2.1 km from center to "orbit". | 23 | |
[Rick riordan series] do all the gods exist in the same universe | Do the Egyptian gods and Greek gods exist in the same universe or are they in different universes. Is that ever really answered | 60 | The Greeks, Egyptian and Norse pantheons all explicitly exist in the same setting, but they go out of their way to avoid encountering each other. The Egyptian pantheon sticks to Brooklyn while the Olympians reign in Mannhattan, and they do their level best to avoid butting into each other's affairs because their mutual... | 80 |
CMV: I don't want kids because I don't believe in the future of our planet. | I don't think we will be able to save the environment from ourselves. I don't think it's responsible, fair or right to put children in this world, because there will continually be people, companies and nations that would rather have short term money, than work to do what is right.
I already feel like we have inherit... | 218 | I guess the simplest response is that if we all thought like you, our planet *would* have no future. It's tantamount to just giving up. How is denying future generations the right to exist at all more responsible, fair or right? *They* might want to keep trying to make the world better.
Part of this is, yes, we've ... | 108 |
If the surrounding temperature is higher than a surface's temperature, does radiation occur ? | I know that q_rad = C*(T_s^(4)-T_surr^(4)), but I'm not sure about what happens if the object's temperature is lower than the surrounding temperature, is it considered irradiation in this case ?? meaning that heat transfers into the object ? | 90 | That equation is about the *net* radiation from a surface. If the right side is positive, the surface has more radiation leaving it than it is absorbing. If it is negative, there is more radiation being absorbed than emitted. In the negative case, there is still radiation leaving the surface in the form of photons le... | 21 |
ELI5: Volt, Watt, Ampere, Ohm | 20 | Use the water analogy.
* Volts are water pressure. How hard the water is shooting out of the pipe.
* Amperes (amps) are the amount of water. How much water is shooting out of the pipe.
* Ohm is resistance. If you put rocks in the pipe, the resistance goes up. Remove the rocks, it goes down. With rocks in the pi... | 52 | |
When you lose weight, where exactly does most of the mass (in your fat cells) go? | 21 | You breathe it out. The average person at rest exchanges about 1 kg of CO2 for about 0.8 kg of O2 every day via the lungs, for a net loss of .2 kg, or about .44 lbs. The CO2 comes from cell respiration. The carbon comes partly from glucose which is 40% carbon by weight, and partly from fat, which is about 80% carbon by... | 30 | |
[LOTR] How would the movies change if Saruman had not joined Sauron but instead aided Frodo and Gandalf? | 139 | **Fellowship of the Ring:** Gandalf is never imprisoned, reaches the Prancing Pony on time, and the early escapes from the Black Riders are much easier with his help. Frodo doesn't get stabbed. The Fellowship never needs to even try Caradhras or Moria, instead advancing south across the plains to Isengard itself, catch... | 306 | |
CMV: Middle Easterners Are Not White | Inspired by a recent AskReddit post (I would link, but I'm on mobile).
In the United States, Arabs, Turks, and Persians are legally white. In the US Census, we must check the "white" box.
I don't believe we are white. First of all, we are not treated as white. There are more assumptions made based on the way we loo... | 29 | Not too long ago, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Spaniards, hell even Russians and the Irish were not considered "white."
The definition has been ever expanding as more people and cultures assimilate and are accepted into mainstream American society.
It also highlights the fact that "races" are completely made up and are ... | 62 |
I think politicians should be legally required to do things that they promised to do before the election if they win. CMV | In the UK each political party puts out a manifesto before the election stating what they would do in government. I think this should be made legally binding on the MPs, so they would have to, at some point before the next election, vote for the policies that they said they would support. They could put conditions on t... | 300 | The problem is that you'd be electing something like a computer program without the ability to "debug" it in production. They could promise two policies that conflict with each other in practice, and in a way that's difficult to foresee that far in advance.
Running for office also does not mean you get access to class... | 165 |
AskScience AMA Series: I study the mutualistic relationship between alligators and wading birds in the Everglades. AMA! | Hi everyone!
My name is Wray Gabel, I'm a Masters student at the University of Florida advised by Dr. Peter Frederick.
A little about my research--my thesis explores the mutualistic relationship between nesting wading birds and the American Alligator. Basically, wading birds get protection from nest predators (like r... | 292 | Do alligators still eat the birds given the opportunity? If so, is that still mutualistic? Don't the birds just nest in alligator habitats because fewer climbing predators are present? Maybe alligators are just opportunists.
Or is all that what mutualism is? | 18 |
ELI5: how can my cat find my cup of water at night if water has no taste or colour? | 50 | I suspect you mean smell, not taste. (If it's tasting water, it's already found it.)
Water does have a smell, it's just that humans don't smell it. We don't need to, and it's better for us to be able to smell anything that's polluting the water (these smells would be drowned out if we were smelling the water). It's po... | 46 | |
ELI5: What exactly causes snot to be green/yellow when one has a sinus infection? | It just seems like a silly color. Neon green doesn't exist that often in nature. | 21 | Bacteria can be all different colors, but because they're so small, it's only obvious when they're in large groups. That's also why if your nose is running from just allergies or a viral infection, it tends to be clear - few or no bacteria means no color.
Color can actually be used to help identify bacteria - generall... | 11 |
ELI5: Why do we feel uncomfortable in hot weather, but feel comfortable in hot water (shower, hot tub, etc.)? | The title says it all. | 22 | What matters is not the temperature, but how fast heat is leaving your body. Air is not that good at taking heat away, so at around 27 degrees Celsius there comes a point where you can't get rid of your body heat as fast as it builds up without some other strategy, like sweating.
If the air is moving, it is better at ... | 11 |
What do antivirus scanners on your PC actually look for in a file? | Obviously they search for a virus but what attributes of a file gives away thats its a threat to the system? | 1,133 | Virusscanners use two approaches: Signature-based scanning and heuristic scanning.
**Signature-based** scanning involves looking for specific elements in a virus program. Some virus authors in the past left messages in their program which could be scanned for. Alternatively, certain filenames were used. Or simply the ... | 572 |
ELI5: How and why do people create viruses? | 26 | In the past, most viruses were bored, intelligent teenagers showing off how much smarter they were than whoever designed the system they were hacking. Those people still exist ("script kiddies"), but modern hacking more often done for profit, by either individuals or organized crime. Some viruses are also created by sp... | 39 | |
[Game of Thrones] How much power in Westeros would Daenerys instantly gain if she started from burning the Red Keep instead of landing on Dragonstone? | 15 | So the main challenge for Daenerys is getting the nobility on her side.
If she incinerates the Usurper Cersei, she eliminates the person still holding the Lannisters together (against all reason and logic), and shows her power and control over the dragon.
Rest of her troops land outside king's landing, the city surr... | 16 | |
ELI5: How do bots work and why can’t retailers easily stop them? | I’m constantly hearing about bots being used to snag up everything from PS5s to Sneaker Drops. How do these “bots” work, and why can’t retailers prevent their use? | 20 | The bots are just programs that people have designed to order things off retailer’s websites. They can work in a million different ways (acting exactly as a human would, using a browser, or just hooking more directly into the retailer’s site’s systems).
Anyways, the retailers could deal with the bots; they could imple... | 39 |
ELI5: Positive Discrimination in the US and how it is positive. | I have lived in the US after moving from the UK a few years ago, I find the concept of positive discrimination baffling. In the UK we don't really follow the concept much if at all but here in the US South it seems to cause some bitterness.
I find the concept of positive discrimination to just further work to separat... | 62 | Because if you just focus on the 'People' then Jeff in HR who secretly doesn't really like asian women that much may subtly never hire any asian women for the company. Or Susan is convinced that all Muslims are terrorists, and therefore she makes sure to shred all the applications that have 'funny names'. The fact that... | 90 |
ELI5: Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress by a vote of 255-67. Why does Eric Holder still have a job? | 29 | **Practical Answer** - Contempt of Congress is not automatically disqualifying from government employment, nor does it require one be fired. More importantly, the Attorney general is an extremely important position in statutes and regulations. If Holder were to leave his post---whether he resigned or the President remo... | 36 | |
CMV: Critical Thinking / Philosophy should be a core discipline in modern school systems | Communication is essential, which is why school in the United States has an English class as one of the four core disciplines (English, Math, Science, History)
Everyone communicates, but many do it poorly... So we deem it absolutely necessary to at least attempt refining ones ability to communicate through the educati... | 766 | The problem with making it a *core* discipline, is that philosophy devoid of context is incredibly abstract and abstract concepts are boring to children of school age.
What we should be doing is teaching logic... in math classes. And to a degree we do.
And teaching ethics... in English class and History class. And a... | 147 |
ELI5: How does rendering work? | Is it like a painting being painted 60 times a second?
I'm asking about real-time or somewhat real time rendering, in games or in certain animation studios. | 37 | "Rendering" is a general term for converting a *general* "high level" description of something in to a *specific* instance. In the graphics example, the high-level description is a 3D model held in computer memory, while the rendering is a specific view on to that model. If it's a first person view, the "virtual camera... | 18 |
[Marvel] Are there any drawbacks to Iron Man not keeping his real identity a secret ? | 36 | In *Iron Man 2*, Ivan Vanko almost kills Tony Stark during a motorsport race because his attendance was very publicly known, and therefore easy to anticipate.
In *Iron Man 3*, Tony Stark's home is obliterated by gunship helicopters. This almost kills Tony Stark *and* Pepper Potts.
Yes, there are drawbacks to pissing... | 93 | |
ELI5: In school we learnt that honey doesn't spoil. So how is it that packaged honey, even those that claim to be "pure", have an expiration date? | 185 | They don’t spoil but they do lose flavour, smell and water. If you store honey in fridge, some times you might notice it crystallises. This will happen in room temperature after a couple of years. So the expiration date is really a best by date. | 200 | |
ELI5: How does youtube meet the incredibly high demand for storage required for all the uploaded videos? | I read that if you tried to watch every video on youtube, for every minute of video you watched, you would fall one week behind due to all the uploads that would take place in that one minute.
So this raised the question - how does youtube (or Google) meet such an incredible demand for storage? Are there algorithms th... | 15 | By having entire buildings filled with servers and hard drives.
How many terabyte drives can you fit in a million sq ft datacenter? Google has over 20 datacenter worldwide.
And you continuously add more drives. By the rackful. | 15 |
ELI5: Why can an ant fall from several feet up and live to walk away, yet if a person fell from the same relative height they would die? | 24 | In physics, there exists a term called terminal velocity. It describes the max speed of an object will fall taken into the effects of gravity and air resistance.
An ant has a very low terminal velocity, where on the other hand a human has fairly high terminal velocity. To put into perspective the difference, imagine ... | 11 | |
[Warhammer 40k] Do the people in charge actually believe the whole Emperor religion thing? | Like, is this a 1984 thing where the terrible society is self perpetuating because everyone believes in it, or is it a case of the upper classes spreading a useful lie? | 15 | If by 'in charge' you mean the High Lords of Terra, then generally they do. Remember that followers of the Imperial Cult did manage to wrestle control of the Imperium from the High Lords during the Age of Apostasy. But here's a breakdown of each High Lord:
Permanent seats:
The Master of the Administratum - Believer
... | 36 |
ELI5: The lyrics to Hotel California | Edit: Wow, I never expected it to be this popular. Thanks, everyone! | 493 | I always thought that this song was about drugs, and that the "hotel" is the metaphorical place you go when you are high.
He is felling depressed about something (dark desert highway) A girl introduce him to drugs (she showed me the way), it's great at first (such a lovely place, any time of year, etc ...).
He meets... | 563 |
[Dont be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood] How was Loc-Dog able to obtain a Soviet nuclear warhead? | [Scene](https://youtu.be/F1Bhl3yjzsQ) in question. | 32 | After the collapse of the Soviet union several nuclear warheads went missing. The CIA has been running Operation Buyback ever since to acquire or destroy these missing warheads. Nukes aren't the most marketable assets and many weapons dealers will happily give them away rather than try to find a government in need of o... | 26 |
Can't seem to get a boolean expression for the life of me | I was given a circuit diagram with 2 !!! outputs and i can't seem to find the expression for it. I used logisim to draw the circuit https://imgur.com/Bs9viQS and it gave me two expressions for two outputs : one for x : https://imgur.com/uXsD4lu and another for y : https://imgur.com/Pv59CMc
HOW am I supposed to co... | 15 | Really look at the expressions for x and y. Think about what they mean and how they relate to each other. Don't rely on software to tell you what the expressions are, either do it by hand or derive it yourself from the truth table.
The truth table is a dead giveaway for how you're supposed to 'combine' the expressio... | 13 |
[DC] How can the Anti Life Equation and the Life Equation exist in the same universe when they both "prove" inherently contradictory truths about the universe? | The Anti Life Equation mathematically proves that life is meaningless and not worth living, while the Life Equation proves the exact opposite. But they're both undeniable proof of ideas that cannot exist in the same reality with the same basis of life. There can't be a universe where 2+2=4 and 4-2=3 can coexist, so how... | 121 | Different axioms.
If you run the numbers from one set of premises, you calculate that life is meaningless and has not capacity for more then slavery to darkseid. If you run from another, you calculate that all people have value and deserve freedom.
One could say the entire point of all of DC comics is a discussion o... | 140 |
[Marvel/DC] So many characters are geniuses. If every superhero and villain with genius intellect had instead average intelligence, how would their worlds be different? What events would have changed? | This is assuming everyone keeps their non-smart powers. | 45 | Most of Marvel never happens. The FF never go into space, because Reed hasn't invented an experimental rocket ship. Bruce Banner never invents the Gamma Bomb and doesn't become the Hulk. Tony Stark never becomes Iron Man. Hank Pym never invents Pym Particles and doesn't become Ant-Man, or make his girlfriend the Wasp. ... | 64 |
ELI5 - Google's new privacy policy | I just don't get what all the fuzz is about? | 69 | Google will now take all the things you read, write or click in any of the Google products and use them in order to show you targeted advertisements.
The big difference is that (1) the information from all products (search, G+, docs) is combined, which didn't use to be the case - this will allow much more accurate pro... | 24 |
Why are prices of goods lower on Black Friday, when demand for Christmas gifts begins to surge, than After Christmas (Boxing Day), when demand sharply declines? | 78 | The surge in demand around Black Friday is well anticipated by stores, who preemptively increase their supply in order to capitalize on the increased demand. This helps keep prices from increasing for most things as the supply rises to meet the demand, but creates increased pressure for the stores to attract that incre... | 29 | |
[Japanese Mythology] Ok, why are people against me marrying a Kitsune? | Just curious becuase... I mean, who wouldn't want to have a superpowered wife. I'm pretty sure she isn't deceiving me or something because I'm just a farmer and all and people are acting like crazy. | 272 | Look goddamn it we have lost way too many viable husbands and fathers to the temptation to touch the fluffy tail.
you know the problem is that when a man and a kitsune make babies they are always kitsune babies and because of all the kitsune being ludicrously attractive and affectionate we are having problems keeping... | 256 |
[MCU] Does Thanos have any special feats besides being smarter and stronger Hulk? | 196 | Well... he's pretty resistant to infinity stones, which seem to kill anyone else that uses them ;-).
But yes, if you consider a Titan's strength, durability, speed, reflexes, and longevity to just be "a stronger hulk", then sure, probably longevity is the only true "extra" power that isn't just massively greater than... | 235 | |
How would a neutral bouyant object or person experience acceleration if the fluid around them was accelerating with them. Think throwing a fishbowl. | A colleague mentioned that lots of stuff in Star Trek is scientifically viable. I challenged this by saying "inertial dampers."
His response blew my mind.
Put a man in a fishbowl in a SCUBA suit, and accelerate that inside a rocket ship.
While it's clear that he wouldn't be flung to the back of the fishbowl, I know... | 56 | It would be the same effect as accelerating in a car. The fluids inside the body would still experience the sudden change in force (an object at rest will stay at rest untill acted upon by an outside force)
Inertial dampeners on Star Trek actually apply an opposite artifical gravity against the force of acceleration. ... | 14 |
CMV: the economy is massively rigged, and that’s the way it’s going to stay | The top 1% owns 56% of the stock market. The top 10%, 88% of it. In the past the mistake a lot of people made was assuming the stock market would keep going up indefinitely, and that was a great way to lose a lot of your money. But with the numbers above, the rich will always make sure the stock market is propped up (l... | 37 | I would agree with you, except for the rising number of millennial millionaires, millennials are currently set to become one of the wealthiest generations in recorded history based on statistics. Currently speaking baby boomers are still number one, but these millennials millionaires are born from hard work, not from i... | 11 |
Eli5 Why does our breathing affects our heartbeats speed when we do nothing? | If breathing is mostly done by lungs so why does breathing affects the speed of heart beats.
As from what i understand, lungs inhale and exhale oxygen and heart pumps oxygenated blood. Then why? | 188 | When you breathe in, you may notice your heart beat start to go faster. This is what we call respiratory arrhythmia and is a physiological phenomenon. The reason is that when we exhale, there's higher intrathoracic pressure i.e. Compression of ghe lungs forces air out. This increased pressure stimulates the Vagus, a ne... | 81 |
ELI5: Whats the difference from those big bulky cameras you'd see at movie sets and tv shows ,and the normal small portable cameras? | 85 | The main reason is those cameras carry physically larger lenses and the sensor inside the camera is larger as well. These are larger both to enhance quality and to work well in low light situations, such as when actors are talking indoors. They also have a bit more electronics to send a lower quality version of the vid... | 59 | |
ELI5: Why can't Android get updates like Windows does, bypassing the phone's manufacturer? | Both Windows and Android have to deal with vast number of devices of various manufacturers, but Windows can update itself while Android can't. I thought this might be caused by how phones need to be optimized for power and performance, but so do laptops.
Edit: In short, why doesn't Android devices get updates at the s... | 46 | first of all, every manufacturer (besides of nexus series) is tinkering with android. so there is almost no "pure android" besides of official google products. this means that every manufacturer needs to change android.
second thing, drivers. windows have many drivers, many things is plug and play, it doesn't work tha... | 18 |
ELI5: How are video game AIs programmed? | 23 | Normally.by a mix of states and branching decision making. Depending on what's recently happen it will be in a certain state ie cautious, searching, patrolling, aggressive etc. Then based on their state it will have a decision tree to respond to situations for example in an FPS it may be:
State [In combat]; underfire?... | 17 | |
ELI5: Which transmission gives more mileage and why? | I drive a manual transmission car and I find my mileage to be comparable if not lower to an automatic transmission car. While activating cruise control, my mileage rises by a few kms because of this I have always wondered which transmission for my next car would be the best, considering mileage to be an important facto... | 48 | The blunt truth: Driver skill/style is 10x more important than transmission.
If fuel consumption is a priority:
1) Drive at the speed limit. EVERY car (other than sports cars perhaps) will be a LOT more fuel efficient at 65mph or less. This can easily save 10-15% on fuel consumption on highways.
2) Accelerate gentl... | 132 |
[Star Wars] it's the first day of high school (or whatever is equivalent). What sort of classes would an average teenager expect to take during the time periods of the prequels, original trilogy, and new trilogy? | Would there be a planetary history course as well as galactic?
Are the jedi brought up at all? Would the text books change after order 66?
I am assuming in an empire this big, there would be much more to learn. Would children be required to go to school longer than us on earth?
Would schools on other planets be unde... | 21 | Your education experince would change depending on what planet you are from. Most worlds would apprentice you, or have you start working at a very young age. The core worlds would likely have a general schooling, to prepare you either for the workforce, or for the best and brightest, to be sent to the imperial academy. | 17 |
Why does stellar fusion last so long? | Even if fusion is only occuring in the core of a star, what is the hydrogen doing that is not undergoing fusion? Even the largest stars with lives of 100 million years seem long-lived. If hydrogen fused into helium in the core, what stops it from continuing to fuse into heavier elements immediately? | 39 | Stellar Evolution takes place in a really cool state of equilibrium. So, as you probably know, the fusion only happens at high temperatures. Also, the fusion creates a lot of energy, which in turn creates radiative pressure, which "pushes the star" keeping it large. These two forces keep each other balanced as such.
A... | 60 |
[Fight Club] What the hell happens after Durden blows up the buildings? | Blowing up 9 buildings would kind of put anyone on a most wanted list. What would happen next? | 31 | He is institutionalized, he believes himself to be dead and in heaven trying to convince god that people are not perfect unique snowflakes or piles of infectious human waste they just are and that is ok.
The people from the self help groups still write him and tell him that they hope he will get better and project may... | 22 |
[Skyrim] Why am I the "Last" Dragonborn? Will there never be another? | 163 | It's a point of contention. We aren't even entirely sure how the Dragonblood works. The one source that says it's not hereditary is deeply flawed, and all the evidence that it IS hereditary is either out-of-universe or circumstantial.
It's highly probable, however, that the Dragonborn have served their primary purpos... | 123 | |
Quitting the PhD and how to proceed with the exit strategy? | Hi guys, this is a follow-up to my previous post almost a year ago:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/yyrts/need_advice_on_how_to_proceed_with_a_terrible_lab/)
Anyways, since that time the lab has really not improved. Our last grant expired a few months ago and we're running on fumes. The lab is still... | 27 | If it were me, I'd just be honest. Hand him a resignation stating you're not happy at the organisation and want to be elsewhere.
Don't make threats, don't make a drama, just plain and simplle.
If he gets his back up over it, then there's ways of escalating. But low key minimum fuss is the way forward. | 23 |
Are viruses like colds and flu different depending on where you are? | In the UK I tended to get colds infrequently and very mildly. Since spending time in and then moving to the US it seems like here I seem to suffer much worse.
I figured colds and flu tend to travel pretty far and wide and wouldn’t vary much place to place.
However several people have suggested that my immune system i... | 3,154 | Yes you are being exposed to variants you aren't yet immune to. However there are other factors. If you are in a place, like a transport hub where there are loads of people bringing in new strains of disease you will get ill more often, also the environment can weaken your immune system, so if the climate is harsher o... | 1,519 |
[Stranger Things] Why don't ALL the people of Hawkins just leave the city if they see all this weird stuff happening? Or why doesn't some agency try to evacuate the city? | 164 | The same reason people don't leave Detroit, or Beirute, or any other real-world hellhole.
- Leaving a place costs money that a lot of people don't have
- People fall victim to inertia or fear; it could always be worse somewhere else
- The belief that "it won't happen to me" is very strong
And when you're dealing with... | 124 | |
How are age groups decided for the COVID vaccine? | The Pfizer-BioNTech might soon be approved for 5-11 year olds. How are these age groups decided? Is it largely arbitrary or historical? By expected weight? Or is the 'maturity' of an immune system by a certain age a factor? | 38 | That's kinda the line between toddler and school age for development for lots of other studies. School age is also important for the economic and social impacts of not being vaccinated and being in a classroom with a bunch of other people. Immune system maturity doesn't really play in so much as risk vs benefit analysi... | 29 |
[General] If you combine the DNA of two different species to create a race of super monsters, how do you classify it taxonomically? | I'm cloning a race of tarantula/grizzly bear hybrids as a funny joke and to reign terror upon my enemies, but I don't know how to classify it when I publish my findings.
They're morphologically more similar to grizzlies, but have about .003% more tarantula DNA (as well as a little sea cucumber "filler" DNA). What shou... | 43 | It's not really necessary to classify your new organism unless you plan to create a large, stable, breeding population or if you plan to patent the genome. For now just calling them transgenic grizzlies (*Ursos arctos*) is sufficient.
If your creations are able to interbreed with each other, produce viable offspring,... | 46 |
ELI5: Why do large, orbital structures such as accretion discs, spiral galaxies, planetary rings, etc, tend to form in a 2d disc instead of a 3d sphere/cloud? | 9,117 | The really ELI5 answer. Everything wants to make a single ball of stuff because of gravity. But just like a centrifuge, spinning makes things want to go to the outside. Since they are only spinning in one direction, they only move to the outside in one direction. So you have a ball that is spinning and spitting out stu... | 3,825 | |
CMV: I think anyone who claims America was founded as a "Christian nation" is either lying, or willfully ignorant | I think this goes beyond just being wrong about something.
It's extremely easy to confirm this claim. Just go online and search our country's founding documents. Obviously if America was *founded* as a christian nation, then we'd expect to see references to this in the *founding* documents.
But there is literally zer... | 33 | >Just go online and search our country's founding documents. Obviously if America was founded as a christian nation, then we'd expect to see references to this in the founding documents.
You do see references to it. While others have quoted the Federalist Papers, you don't even have to go _that_ far to find refere... | 21 |
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