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Would animals with non-round pupils (such as cats and goats) see a different shaped image to us, additional to that which is granted by the different eye position? | 9,597 | When light passes through an aperture, each point of out-of-focus light (what photographers call bokeh) takes on the shape and size of that aperture. If you took a near-sighted member of each species and put them far away from a point-source light, each of them would see it as a different shape. A cat would see a verti... | 5,426 | |
[The Incredibles] Okay, so, Supers were outlawed and stopped their careers. But why did the villains stop? | 183 | In addition to what /u/ErrSnorlax said about it no longer being fun, sometimes the villains just... won. Not all villains are world-conquering psychopaths. Some are motivated to just kill or ruin specific people, or make enough money to accomplish something specific. Without supers, some of those villains did exactly w... | 162 | |
[Star Trek]Why did Species 8472 evolve to be so deadly? Their native environment, Fluidic space, is just an endless expanse of organic goo? | I mean fluidic space can't have any gravity or it'd have collapsed into an ultra massive black hole. given that I'd expect most organisms there to resemble Jelly fish rather than bipeds | 17 | Species 8472 is currently the only sentient species in fluidic space. This doesnt mean species 8472 was *always* the only species in fluidic space. Combined with their immediate plans to purge our galaxy of all life, it can be inferred that they fought wars with other inhabitants of fluidic space, and emerged as the ... | 30 |
ELI5 Why do we bury the dead 6' under and not 2', 3', etc. | 157 | Tradition and wild animals. The last thing anyone wants is for a passing dog to dig up Grandma and bring her half decomposed leg home.
Also, putting them six feet under makes it very unlikely that a flood or other natural disaster will dig out and deposit the corpses all over the place, as that is both a sever health ... | 205 | |
eli5: Why are really fucked up hateful subreddits allowed to exist? | I know that reddit is a place where free speech and and freedom of choice are encouraged but why are certain subs like r/rapingwomen and r/coontown still allowed to be on the website even though they encourage violence and hatred? I like this place just as much as the next person, it sucks that people using it as a too... | 22 | The point of freedom of speech is that it's not up to you to decide what is "awful filth". You think it is, which is fine, but the people who post there (not me) don't. To ban their stuff would be to say that your opinion was more important than theirs.
Also, it's easy enough to not be subscribed and never have that s... | 69 |
CMV: As a feminist I'm really bothered how male-to-female trans-people portray what it means to be female | I feel like they're acting and it often feels very campy. I don't like how they say "well my brain is more feminine", like excuse me that's something that women have been trying to get away from for 1000 years. Why did Caitlyn Jenner feel the best way to become a woman was to get all trussed up in a corset on the cover... | 27 | Most feminists pay lots of lip-service to the idea of *choice* - the whole point of the feminist movement is to allow women to *choose* what being a woman means to them. Being a tomboy is supposed to be okay; being ultra-feminine and liking pink/frills/makeup is supposed to be okay; remaining single is supposed to be o... | 68 |
ELI5: Why are people more attractive when they smile? | 141 | Actually a study found that's only true for women (in regards to male being attracted to them), the study found the inverse for men, it found that men who smiled in a picture were perceived less attractive (on average obviously) | 92 | |
[Futurama] How and why do the Neutrals do anything? | How does anything get done in a civilization where no one cares about anything?
Like, people build shelter because of protection from the weather and other elements, but I imagine that a Neutral would be like, "I feel nothing about this cold weather" and promptly freeze to death.
Or starships? If Neutrals have no fee... | 55 | Just because you have no strong opinions doesn't mean you can't accomplish things and doesn't mean you don't feel *anything*. Shelter is necessary to survive, that's not controversial. Cold weather isn't an opinion, if you freeze to death you die. If they're anything like us advancing technology is only natural and nob... | 60 |
[Warhammer 40k] So I keep hearing that the Chaos Gods also personify good traits. What famous examples of them acting on said traits are there? | Are there [eucatastrophes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucatastrophe) and the like to go along with the horrible atrocities committed by the Gods and their servants, or by wannabes in their name? I don't mean just the occasional thing-that-happens-to-result-in-someone-being-happy* events, I mean large scale events on... | 31 | Ok – here’s the deal.
Each of the four represent real concepts of emotion – but understand that the big four are the absolute personification of these ideals taken to wild and illogical extremes.
Khorne – is the god of bloodlust but also one of martial honor and valor. Khorne can stir the heart and fill you with co... | 48 |
CMV:Christianity and Islam both have elements not found in other major religions that are conducive to violent extremism. | Nowadays, it seems the "enlightened" view is that all major religions are pretty much the same. While it is true that they have many elements in common, and that they have all been interpreted and practiced many different ways throughout their histories, I feel that these two have some unique attributes.
**Exclusivit... | 20 | Let's talk about Hinduism for a bit: now it is true that Hinduism talks about reincarnation, we die in order to become more complex beings with the hope that we would one day end the cycle of reincarnation in order to access Nirvana.
This has been the explanation to place a harsh cast system that strictly prevents an... | 16 |
ELI5 how the pyramids were built, and why there are conspiracy theories about it. | 15 | The pyramids were built using ramps and pulleys and thousands of workers who labored for decades.
There are conspiracy theories about them simply because they are old and big and unique. There are very few buildings around that are as old as the pyramids -- 4000 years. People wonder why anyone would build something as... | 17 | |
How is single sign on (SSO) more secure than having several logins when it’s basically using the same password for everything? | 19 | The theory is that heavily securing the SSO system is far more effective and efficient than trying to heavily secure each other system independently. Would you rather trust a specialized SSO company to secure their stuff or trust all tens or hundreds of sites you may login to, ran by admins of varying capabilities? Not... | 11 | |
how do I explain butler's gender performativity to a biologist? | i've entered a discussion with a biologist about butler's theory, and he keeps saying that butler "denies biology". he *does* seem to understand the difference between sex and gender, but is having a hard time understanding the idea that "sex is already gender from the start". any ideas? | 15 | Butler doesn’t say there is no such thing as biological sex, just that gender ends up producing significant constructed notions about biological sex and what a biological sex entails. Just reaffirm that the existence of sex is not without its own major presuppositions, projected onto it by the performativty of gender. | 24 |
[ASOIAF/GOT] Are any of the gods real? Which ones, and how do we know? | 387 | There is no definitive proof either way.
The only two Gods we have any kind of proof that they might exist is the Lord of Light and The Many Faced God, and that "proof" could be followers attributing wild magic to an imaginary source deity. | 461 | |
CMV: I don't think everybody deserves the right to vote. | Im talking about the U.S. here because I'm not sure how it works everywhere else. I don't think those who are uneducated about politics and the candidates that they're choosing between should be allowed to vote. It doesn't seem to have any benefits if a person votes based on factors like what their friends/family think... | 122 | Pragmatically, restricting the right to vote is nearly impossible to enforce fairly. The people in power have a vested interest in keeping their power and, if the government can restrict the right to vote, then they can selectively enforce those laws in order to change election outcomes. Because of this possibility, th... | 88 |
ELI5: Why are eSports so much more popular in South Korea than other places? | I've been watching a lot of Overwatch League and one pretty apparent thing is that a ton of players come from South Korea. I've heard the explanation to this is that eSports in general is extremely popular in South Korea. Is this true? If so, why aren't they more popular other places? | 15 | Rewind back to the mid-90's. The country had decided to heavily prioritize its broadband infrastructure. (Google the Korean Information Initiative for more info) Between 1995 and 1998, the government heavily funded the laying of fiber-optic lines throughout the country, making for readily-available, cheap, and fast in... | 26 |
ELI5 why increased atmospheric CO2 levels don't just mean healthier more lush plant life which in turn offset that CO2. | . | 15 | Photosynthesis = H20 + CO2 + Light (particularly UV/V/B light) made into O2 (oxygen gas) + C6H12O6 (Sugar).... Let's keep that simplification in mind for now.
When we think about plants making O2 to offset the CO2 production, you run into two key limitations: water and rate of photosynthesis. When there is no water (p... | 13 |
How much water does it take to offset the dehydrating effects of an alcoholic drink (0.6 fluid oz)? | Alcohol dehydrates you. But how much water would you need to drink to offset the dehydrating effects of a standard alcoholic drink (0.6 fluid oz)? | 28 | There is no simple answer to this, because the dehydrating(diuretic) effects of alcohol are a function of your BAC, not the ABV of the drink. There is a relationship between ABV and BAC but it includes other factors such as body weight, amout of drinks consumed, when the drinks were consumed, personal tolerance to diur... | 11 |
Are there any modern Philosophers who defend Polytheism? | Hey, I have recently been reading about early Christian Church history and something that seems to be brought up a lot are these "pagan philosophers" in places like Egypt which critiqued Christianity. I also heard some people mention that polytheism may have stronger responses to things like the problem of evil, due to... | 23 | In *Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance*, Nesca Robb argued that the fashion for (often veiled) polytheism among the scholars of Renaissance Italy, such as Ficino and Poliziano, was not passed onto the next generation of philosophers for complex religious and social reasons; the witch-craze had emerged and the Refo... | 22 |
ELI5: What can high-profile law firms do to win cases that smaller law firms can't? | In other words, what's the difference between highly-paid attorneys and lower-paid attorneys? | 49 | Larger top-tier/Magic Circle law firms pay their employed solicitors very well, and they're very large organisations. This gives it three main advantages.
First, they have more people that they can put on the project (which achieves certain economies of scale/cost).
Second, the people they have are likely the best ... | 44 |
ELI5: What exactly is happening when you squirt one drop of Dawn in a pot of greasy water, and all the grease radiates away to the sides of the pot? | Bonus points if you can explain to me why it's so damn satisfying. | 46 | There is a layer of oil floating on the surface of the water. The water holds together and the oil rests on top.
The soap molecule attracts oil on one end and water on the other. When the soap connects with the water it breaks the surface tension and the oil moves to the outside. It's like if you were hanging on a ro... | 18 |
Is there a way to use radioactivity to produce energy, other than using the heat it generates? | 2,474 | Yes, there is something called a beta-voltaic cell, which operates similarly to a photo-voltaic cell, except the high-energy electron from the decay excites electrons in the semiconductor, rather than a photon doing that. | 1,259 | |
[Back to the Future] What would happen if I put the DeLorian on a roller bench, ran it up to 88 MPH on the speedometer and then turned the time circuits on? | 30 | Nothing.
It's not the speedometer or the wheels that triggers the time travel, otherwise when Marty was stuck in 1885 they could have rigged up a gear system to spin the wheels to 88MPH.
The time machine itself needs to be traveling at 88MPH relative to its location in spacetime to break free of the time steam and tr... | 56 | |
Can a star have more than one fusion core? | Other than supernova, could for example a blue supergiant/hypergiant have hotspots not in the center that cause fusion? | 36 | The Evolution of some very massive stars (> 8M⊙) leads them to a state in which fusion is occuring at numerous locations within the star. For example:
Initiallly H fuses into He in the core
After 10 Myr,
* core H is exhausted,
* He core contracts, heats.
* H fuses to He in shell around the contracting core
Whe... | 47 |
ELI5 Why do dogs and cats lean their head to the side when puzzled? | 40 | We anthropomorphize our pets all the time. Him turning his head to the side might make us think that he's puzzled, but he is not necessarily puzzled. He could just be at attention or trying to hear something. | 20 | |
CMV: You should be mindful of others while exercising your own freedoms. | Nowadays I see a lot more protests and just people generally wanting to assert their rights despite it causing obvious stress for unrelated people. My view is that I think that people should be mindful of other while they are being themselves. Essentially that even if they have the right to be somewhere or to do someth... | 17 | Sometimes oppressed peoples have to mildly inconvenience unoppressed people to gain awareness and *hopefully* gain allies. None of these things are ever usually more than a slight inconvenience for the people that are “not interested in their causes” as you put it.
It forces people to take a second and realize that s... | 10 |
[Death Note] Why do Shinigamis need to constantly kill multiple humans in a short timeframe if the years of each victim gets added to their own? Surely one human every 10-30 years would be sufficient or is there some kind of exchange rate between human and Shinigami lifespans? | 24 | Shinigami are *incredibly* lazy. Like, lazy enough to almost die because they let the clock run down.
So when they realize that they haven't killed anyone in ages, they go and "fill up" by whacking a whole bunch of people. Then they go back to being lazy. | 46 | |
ELI5 how do underwater flares (or matches) maintain a flame or light when they are surrounded by water? | Just watched Crawl (2019) and got me thinking.
Edit: i should clarify, why do they not extinguish like a normal flame. | 77 | We're used to seeing fires that get their oxygen out of the air, but that's not the only way to do it. If you heat up a material with a lot of oxygen in it, like a sulfate, a phosphate or a nitrate, it can break down and release oxygen gas. So a mixture of, say, magnesium metal and some kind of nitrate, could keep it... | 90 |
[Shrek] How did Farquaad become start leading Duloc? If we look at the musical he’s not royalty so how did he take land from the fairytale creatures? | 88 | Perhaps he was a pettier landholder that seized power after a previous monarch died. Or maybe he DIDN'T seize power. Maybe Duloc is actually quite small and simply enjoys autonomy due to larger powers being occupied with more important military matters at the moment than securing such a pitiable holding. If that's the ... | 92 | |
[Star Wars] Did Vader ever reminisce about his life as Anakin? | I know he's basically miserable and bitter 24/7, but, did he ever have moments where he's just sitting in his meditation chamber and thinks to himself "Remember that time I cut off Dooku's hands, that shit was awesome". Basically, was Vader ever even the tiniest bit nostalgic? | 47 | Probably not. Like you said, he lives a very miserable life. Hell, his palace is set on the planet he lost his limbs, humanity, wife, and supposedly his unborn child.
If he does look to his past, it's just to make himself more angry or upset, which helps reinforce his connection to the Dark Side. Being on Mustafar is... | 36 |
[Alien] Are all facehuggers identical, regardless of Xenomorph variant that laid the egg? | Can all facehuggers turn into any variant of Xenomorph from human to Predalien? | 16 | The face hugger is the xenomorph at its absolute base form. They're designed to take on the most needed traits of the host to maximize the resulting morphology of whatever spawns' survivability and lethality. | 22 |
CMV: Transitioning to publicly funded healthcare necessitates a drop in healthcare quality for upper middle class citizens | The country I live in has likely begun the transition from a public/private sector medical system, to an almost entirely publicly provided system. Currently the wealthiest citizens use the private sector exclusively, and pay large amounts to medical schemes who fund the bulk of this use.
With the shift to a national h... | 29 | Having a national healthcare service doesn't stop people getting private health insurance in itself, regardless of your own countries policy. In the UK, which has socialised healthcare, a fair number of people still have private healthcare (often through their employer) and some even have plans which pay for healthcare... | 15 |
Do airline crews suffer a higher ratio of radiation illnesses? | It seems to me that even a marginal exposure, over a large number that work in the business would result in a higher incidents of cancer or other illnesses vs the average population. | 58 | The amount of radiation received by airline crews is small roughly 2 mSv per year. It's not known with certainty whether these levels are harmful or not. According to the linear no-threshold model, any amount of radiation increases the risk of cancer, however, according to the radiation hormesis hypothesis, small amoun... | 21 |
ELI5: If all ingested carbohydrates are just reduced to glucose anyway, what makes "simple" carbs (soda, pastry, Wonder bread) different compared to "complex" carbs (whole wheat, rice)? | 42 | Simple carbs are broken down very quickly, while complex ones are broken down much more slowly. Complex ones offer a more stable source of energy. You'd have to eat a lot more of simple ones to get the same result.
Complex ones also have other compounds in them that are helpful to metabolism in general. | 31 | |
Is crying an inflammatory process? | After I cry, especially for a while, my eyes feel sore and my eyelids get puffy and red, and they can take almost a day to feel back to normal. I also feel tired for the next +/-12 hours.
Is there an inflammatory feedback mechanism from crying?
Also, this brings up another question: does anyone know the scientific ... | 591 | It's a release of certain hormones, whether it's a sad or happy cry, that can cause swelling/inflammation of certain glands and ducts around the sinuses. This is a automatic reaction to keep producing moisture so neither your eyes or sinus drys out to a detrimental point. | 271 |
ELI5: Why does liquid sometimes pour straight down the sides of a cup when held diagonally, instead of straight down where we’re actually aiming? | 16 | Water likes to stick to things (that's why it runs down your arm in the shower). Pour spouts are shaped so that the water can't grab on. If it doesn't have a spout, you have to turn the cup almost upside down to prevent it from holding on to the glass (like it does in the shower). | 12 | |
[Harry Potter] If magic suddenly ceased to work in the world where would that leave the wizarding community and how might they adjust to the new paradigm? | 50 | Grief Counseling Services Contractor here!
What you're suggesting here would be tantamount to us muggles losing electricity. Their entire civilization is founded on the principles of magic. Many fundamental services and goods are rooted in magic (think transportation, communication, construction, protection, banking).... | 53 | |
CMV: Writing is more persuasive when we vocalise it (say it out loud) first. | A curse on business and academic writing is the Myth of Professionalism. This is the belief that to sound like we know what we’re talking about we have to use formal, abstract, high-register language, ie long, fancy words derived from Latin and Greek (think ‘construct’ instead of ‘build’, ‘depart’ vs ‘leave’, ‘request’... | 172 | Interesting topic. A couple of clarifying questions, if you will?
1) How about a non-native speaker, who has learned most of their vocabulary and diction from books and movies (rendering it vastly different from what you refer to as "mid-register language")? Can they not be as persuasive, even if their writing is clea... | 32 |
ELI5: The Boltzmann Brain | I've read a bit about it but I still don't quite understand. Is a Boltzmann brain a consciousness that just randomly forms in the vacuum of the universe? This question stems from a Wikipedia page, about the timeline of future events, and trillions of years from now is around the estimated time that a Boltzmann brain wi... | 54 | The "Boltzmann brain" isn't really *anything.* It's a thought experiment in thermodynamics created to explore an interesting and complex question.
Thermodynamics is basically the study of heat and the flow of heat. Heat is a property of matter — it's got to do with energy on very small scales — but it *behaves* like i... | 201 |
CMV: Pedophiles are constantly discriminated against unfairly | First off let me clarify that I am not a pedophile or anything related.
So my view came to me when I was reading a random sub. He basically revealed that he's attracted to children and he gets off to just manga depictions of children. Just like that, the OP went ahead to ban him stating his intolerance for pedophiles... | 18 | Sexual urges are such a powerful human force that they're hard to ignore in practice. Let's take model pedophile citizen Joe Likeskids. He is sexually attracted to prepubescent children as strongly as a normal person is attracted to adults. But, he has never acted on this attraction in any way. Would you feel totally o... | 17 |
[Avatar: TLA] Why doesn't Long Feng point the Gaang to the Generals? | Long Feng more or less explains to the gaang that the Earth King is a figurehead and is not concerned with the war. The gaang puts all their energy getting through to the Earth King in order to mobilize an invasion force.
The Earth King doesn't even know of the war. But there *is* an Earth Army fighting the Fire Natio... | 39 | The generals are nominally acting under the authority of the Earth King, but they may not know that Long Feng is controlling the Earth King. If the Gaang got too involved with the generals, the generals could realize that, or the king could find out about the war through them. Either way, Long Feng’s grip on power woul... | 39 |
CMV: Incest should be legal. | ##
Yeah. You heard right.
Yup. I know. God the horror right?
This is not Alabama, nor do i have any hidden feeling for family members. The thought of that alone makes me want to vomit. I would like to think i am a decent person, and i did not experience any tragic childhoods or anything. This is just a pure opinion... | 17 | The issue is there is no way to protect people from grooming at the earliest of ages and in the privacy of their own home. There is no problem with people of consenting age who have been free to develop their own thoughts and feelings on the issue but children and babies cannot protect themselves from been brought up t... | 19 |
Are psychosomatic symptoms cultural? Regional? | Somatization and psychosomatic symptoms (such as headaches, back pains, diarrhoea, stomach cramps, respiratory distress, chest tightenings, etc) are prevalent in most populations.
But do those symptoms tend to be more prevalent in specific cultures? Does one group of people exhibit primarily psychosomatic gastrointesti... | 18 | Yes they are.
People from collectivistic cultures (China) are more likely to report somatic symptoms as a result of depression - things like sleep problems or difficulty concentrating. Meanwhile people from individualistic cultures (U.S.A) are more likely to endorse the typical depression symptoms Americans are famil... | 16 |
[Star Wars] Solo: A Star Wars Story Megathread (Solo questions go here ONLY!) | Y'all know the drill. | 99 | So, sorry if this is a stupid question, but does this movie confirm that the Imperial Infantry is mostly made up of the basic imperial troopers and the stormtroopers are more like elite forces like in the EU? | 74 |
ELI5: Monsanto Protection Act | I've read other ELI5 regarding why Monsanto is bad, but I don't get the Monsanto Protection Act. What is it? All the articles I read are saying it's bad but don't explain what it is in an understandable way. | 25 | Genetically engineered crops are regulated. Once they get approved, farmers can grow them. However, if someone screws something up (like the environmental assessment), the approval can be revoked. This means farmers might be in the position of having crops that were legal when the planted them but illegal now. The ... | 51 |
[ASoI&F] Do the old gods have individual identities? | Is there a list of the actual gods worshipped by those who follow the old faith anywhere? Is the drowned god an 'old god'? How about the various gods worshipped across the narrow sea? Or is it just a vague belief in a vast number of indistinguishable nature spirits? | 42 | > Or is it just a vague belief in a vast number of indistinguishable nature spirits?
This is it. The term "Old Gods" came from followers of the Seven. The "old gods" are actually nameless spirits of a religious system closer to animalism than modern theism. It was a type of religion worshiped by children of the for... | 36 |
[DC] Have there ever been times DC heroes have killed without becoming horrible monsters? | It seems that in nearly every single timeline, whenever a DC hero kills for any reason, they end up becoming bloodthirsty and often tyrannical shells of their former selves who mercilessly slaughter everybody for the smallest offenses, or for even so much as whispering unkind words about them, and it seems like the Lea... | 20 | Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord. The rest of the Justice League wasn't exactly thrilled about this, but they eventually accepted that she was right and at no point did she become a bloodthirsty tyrant as a result.
Green Arrow has killed in several timelines, either as a last resort or by accident.
Superman execute... | 37 |
[The Matrix]when people in the matrix breed are the kids they "have" actually related to them? | Like suppose a man & woman in the Matrix have sex with the aim of having a baby.
Will the machines actually go the trouble of finding the two of their sleeping bodies, extracting sperm and egg, combining them, so they can provide them with a kid that's actually theirs? | 34 | Tech is a bit more advanced.
They can probably extract a cell from each parent, splice it into a single offspring, and then it would gestate in an artificial womb. No need for it to specifically be egg and sperm. | 39 |
When a bolt of lightning strikes in the middle of the ocean, how far down does it go? | does it have enough energy to strike all the way to the bottom, or does it just stop after a certain depth? and if so what depth | 51 | Remember that lightning doesn't have downward momentum or anything like that. The surface is essentially where the charge is dispersed. Measurements of exactly what the radius is have not yet been reliably taken, and current evidence suggests that it can vary greatly depending on a variety of factors including water sa... | 43 |
Why are rotary engines considered unreliable, or "bad" when compared to piston engines? | 676 | One of the main problems are the rotor tips. In a piston engine, the cylinder and piston have a rather large contact surface which is constantly lubricated and seals the combustion chamber against the crank case. In a rotary engine, the tips of the triangular rotor drive along the chamber walls to seperate the chambers... | 425 | |
[Star Gate] Why does it take a "source" chevron to activate the gate? | Wouldn't it limit the number of destinations, by requiring all gates to have one chevron that is specifically associated with it? Or is it a sort of "vector" marker that delineates the direction of the wormhole? | 52 | The point of origin symbol is unique to the DHD for every Stargate and it's always in the same place. This means we don't have to waste time finding out what the symbol is as Daniel did on Abydos.
As Daniel explains in the movie, the first six chevrons refer to specific points in space. Where those points intersect re... | 31 |
Argentina and Turkey, both upper-middle income countries, have the highest minimum wages (PPP) in the whole world. Is this system sustainable and what will be the consequences for that? | I was recently checking [List\_of\_countries\_by\_minimum\_wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage) article on Wikipedia. I was expecting to see common high-income countries such as Norway, Germany, US etc. at the top 10 even for PPP, but seeing Argentina and Turkey in the first and second... | 93 | I think that table shows PPP based on 2016 figures but the minimum wage are more recent. For example Turkey changed their minimum wage a lot in 2021.
This makes their minimum wage PPP look high but actually what's happened is inflation has been huge in both countries. Meaning the minimum wage purchasing power is actua... | 75 |
What prevents a normal, healthy heart from going into cardiac arrest during very, very intense exercise? | During really high intensity anaerobic activity your heart rate can get to very high rates, close to 100 % of your theoretical maximum. Assuming a normal, healthy heart what prevents the heart from going 'too fast' and going into an aberrant rhythm, and cardiac arrest?
I asked this question to an electro-physiologist... | 47 | The heart adapts to higher rates. For instance heart rate is normally controlled by the sino-atrial node by a balance of sympathetic (+) and vagal (-) inputs. But the heart also gets sympathetic inputs to other parts of the muscle which alter the action potentials and conduction (e.g. shortening it), so that the fast r... | 11 |
CMV:The best pro-choice argument is utilitarian, not feminist. | _____
I think feminist pro-abortion arguments that revolve around a woman's choice and her control over her body are entirely ineffective in convincing pro-lifers because most pro-lifers don't really give that much of a damn about women's choices.
The correct way to argue for the pro-choice position is to say that not... | 338 | By framing it as a "women's issue", pro-choicers avoid the main fallacy of your argument. Using the "utilitarian approach" would make no distinction between an unborn child and a 2 year old child who is no longer wanted. Every utilitarian argument made in favor of abortion can be equally applied to the 2 year old. T... | 177 |
What causes rocks to be such a wide variety of different colours instead of just grey? | Here's an [example pic](http://i.imgur.com/5yqZYLN.jpg) posted earlier in /r/pics. | 89 | Different types of rocks or minerals are made up from different chemicals. For example, an Albite Feldspar (found in the Earth's crust) is (Na or Ca)AlSi3O8 and is white or colorless unless it has impurities. It's because these chemicals can be arranged in a wide array of crystal structures (In the Albite Feldspar exam... | 29 |
ELI5: What would the galaxy images popular in r/spaceporn look like to the naked eye? | So as far as I know, the pictures of galaxies are colourised to show the different gasses present.
Do we know what these galaxies would look like if we were actually there looking at them? Would they have these colours? Or would we just be able to see the light from the stars in the galaxy?
Sorry if the title is weir... | 67 | many would be mostly be very faint light from the stars themselves. In many of the pictures the telescope is identifying gasses in the galaxies and use a computer to apply the color of choice to the gasses. you may see clouds of blue and red but in reality they are transparent. you might give hydrogen a blue color and ... | 31 |
Why do most poisonous household products say “Do not induce vomiting?” | It seems like if you drink poison you’d want to get it out of your stomach quickly before it gets absorbed. Not inducing vomiting seems counterintuitive. | 24 | Some substances, like bleach, can also do harm going back up your esophagus. So, if you drink something that burns your insides on the way down, why force that same harmful, corrosive substance back up? Also, depending on the substance, the way to treat it is sometimes simpler than vomiting it up and going through all ... | 34 |
ELI5: Why are protein bars so dense? | They are always so firm and heavy, like bricks. Whereas a normal candy bar is kinda light and fluffy. Why can’t protein bars be like that? | 48 | Because the ingredients that make up protein bars, which are high in proteins, are different that the ingredients that make up a candy bar, which is high in sugar.
So it isn't super simple to just do the same thing, because youre starting with two different things.
There is also the function of marketing, Protein bar... | 74 |
Why are the seatbelts on cars, buses, and airplanes different? | More specifically, why does a bus use the fiddly two point seatbelt that takes forever to adjust? It’s not as secure as the three point car seatbelt, and it’s not as easily adjustable and removable as a airplane seatbelt. | 1,955 | Airliner seatbelts are different because airliners are vastly different from buses and cars.
Airliner seatbelts are there primarily to move your body down as the plane goes down. If there's a patch of turbulence which causes a rapid descent, your body continues moving the way it's been going, and the airliner smacks i... | 1,314 |
[The Mummy] When Imhotep takes Mr. Burns' eyes (and his tongue) how was he able to see clearly as Mr. Burns' needed glasses and was pretty blind without them? | 99 | The eyes Imhotep had after the regeneration were Imhotep's actual eyes. He just had to use Burns' eyes as the catalyst and raw material. Also helped that the regenerated eyes were in Imhotep's ocular cavities, not Burns'.
Similar to how his internal organs weren't desiccated dust after he assimilated them, even thou... | 112 | |
Where does light go? | If I have an electric light switched on in a room it gives off light. Photons I presume. When I switch it off what happens to them? Where does that energy actually go?
The previous question may answer this but why doesn't light bounce around in the room forever? | 25 | When your light is switched on, electrons are being pushed along a Copper wire into a thin Tungsten wire, which is very resistive. The electrons in the resistor bump into the atoms as they flow around, which causes the material to heat up. When a material is hot enough (around 3000K) it emits a lot of light, through a ... | 24 |
ELI5 How does sleeping late harm your body | Hi first time poster here. I understand sleeping late does harm to your body but what I don't understand is if lets say I form a habit of sleeping at a specific timing (lets say 4am, and wake at 12 the next day), so I get about 8 hours of sleep every night.
Would this affect my body somehow because this just seems to... | 19 | Hello! So quick disclaimer: I’m not a sleep specialist or anything but have read a few books on the subject.
Basically your body has a natural circadian rhythm which ebbs and flows roughly with the time of day (e.g. sunset and sunrise). Sleeping through this circadian rhythm can cause your body to feel groggy (almost... | 10 |
Is a book from 2015 too old to learn from? | Hello all. I have in my possession a book on JavaScript coding, but it's from 2015. Could I learn from this book, or should I seek something more up to date? Thanks for any help. | 29 | IMO - you can definitely learn the basics from it, but be sure to UPDATE your knowledge with current developments.
ES6 was a major milestone \~ mid June 2015. If your book (u mentioned 2015) has included ES6 thats great, if not, make sure you follow the releases post 2015 especially ES6 (being the biggest one), with s... | 34 |
ELIF: Three Mile Island accident | 24 | Nuclear Energy is a kind of energy that requires us to take a very powerful reaction, make a safe place for it to be started, start it, watch it, control it.
Three Mile Island (TMI) accident was a situation gone bad and an inadequate design for proper watching/controlling.
The accident was caused by a bad valve. This... | 17 | |
ELI5: Why did the Iraqi Army and the ARVN in the 70s failed so miserably, despite after having the US invest billions of dollars in them? | It seems that after the US left Iraq in 2011, the Iraqi army has plummeted, (source:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/american-intelligence-officials-said-iraqi-military-had-been-in-decline.html?_r=0) as did the ARVN in 1972. | 125 | Training and equipment aren't the only things required to have a successful army...
Commitment and resolve are important too...And it just wasn't there for these armies...
These conflicts in particular have/had levels to them that "we", meaning the US Government, didn't understand, maybe willfully...They were/are a l... | 40 |
If aluminium has no fatigue limit, why are flexible shaft couplings often made from it? | If I understood correctly, aluminium is bound to fail after a high enough number of cycles, unlike for instance steel, which can take small loads indefinitely.
Then why is it that a huge amount of flexible shaft couplings seems to be made from aluminium, which would seem to be a horrible material for this application?... | 69 | It also could be a sacrificial piece, where they plan for the aluminum piece to fail in the event of an overload, rather than the more costly or important steel parts. Similar to a shear key used in shafts couplings. Rather than have the whole thing be ruined if there was a problem, a cheap Al piece takes the load and... | 31 |
[One punch man/Marvel] Could Mumen rider wield Mjolnir? | I don't know too much in-depth knowledge of one punch man I've read most of what's out and watched the anime. But the reoccurring character Mumen rider reminded me of Captain America before the experiment.
The most prominent example was when he used his own body to occupy the deep sea king for at least a minute or to... | 55 | The Unlicensed Rider is the only character in the OPM universe who might be worthy. There is a fair argument to be made that he lacks the lust for battle of a Thor, but so did Jane and she was chosen. Lest we forget, Mjolnir is sentient, even if it rarely shows this. It chooses it's wielder. Mumen Rider is the most sel... | 80 |
ELI5: What makes medical grade skin adhesive patches so sticky, and how are they able to stay in place for weeks at a time? | 62 | Really strong glue chemically bonds to the surfaces it's applied to. Scientists found a glue that chemically mixes with the skin permanently.
But it only reacts with the top layer of skin. As your skin cells die off and shed, the chemically bonded cells are shed too.
So when the patch comes off, it's not really... | 72 | |
I believe children born with severe illnesses that have no cure should be euthanized. CMV. | Hear me out.
If you speak with people that have been clinically dead, or even if you have been under anesthesia or even just a deep sleep, you don't realize you were under until you're out of it. It happens suddenly, it's painless and most people recall to be at peace. Even if you look at dead bodies, they look very p... | 279 | The problem with your position is that it requires someone other than the person with the severe illness to assess whether their life is on balance worth living. An individual can assess the entirety of their experience and determine whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa, and they can make an informed decisi... | 168 |
[Harry Potter] I just heard that the Dark Lord is back. What's in it for me if join his side? | This morning's Daily Prophet said that You-Know-Who is back and attacked the Ministry, Harry Potter is some kind of Chosen One, and Sirus Black is dead.
At this point, the war could go either way and I'm thinking about becoming a Death Eater. I've heard Dumbledore talk about how wizards should be nice to muggles but ... | 18 | Not being murdered by You-Know-Who as a blood traitor as quickly. Maybe a place in the Ministry of Magic once he takes it over and if he likes you enough.
Though seriously, I've got a wand pointed at your face, two giants behind me and a pack of dementors off hunting Muggles ready to be called at a moments notice. Wh... | 20 |
[IT, 2017-19] Why does killing IT only work in the second movie? | It's been a good minute since I watched these movies, I've never seen the original with Tim Curry or read the books. I can only go by the information given in the movies.
In the first movie when the children approach IT, he is disguised as Georgie. He's shot in the forehead. Then he changes back to IT and it becomes... | 18 | IT is a creature of the mind, it is not the natural law of his form that he has to follow but the laws imposed n it by strong collective belief, thus a placebo is as good as the real deal to him, but just like a placebo the ritual did not work because they did not all fully believe it would , shooting fake-georgia did... | 21 |
Why does my breath smell so bad in the mornings? | 69 | You're dehydrated, and mouth bacteria thrive in dryness. When you go to sleep, your salivary glands stop moistening your mouth, and these drier conditions allow bacteria to multiply, and in turn, start crapping everywhere.
This is also why Mouthwash will make your breath smell nice at first, but make it smell like ass... | 52 | |
Why is water immersion so effective at temporary burn pain relief? | Say you burn your hand on the stove. It hurts a lot, but nothing serious enough to seek medical attention for.
You can tough out the pain until it eventually goes away, or you can put your hand in cool water, which makes the pain disappear until the water warms up. If you take your hand out of the water, the pain is w... | 47 | When you get a burn, the skin damage is just the surface of what is changing in your body; most of the damage is occurring internally under the skin as thermal damage. Running cold water does two things, it bombards your sensory nerves to distract it (same as distracting a child from getting a needle by rubbing the arm... | 22 |
How does one read information from qubits? | When the qubits are being read by the outside world, they would collapse - how do we make sure they collapse so that the information is accurate? | 33 | This is the entire challenge of creating quantum algorithms, and there's no set method. The way that you manipulate your qubits will vary depending on what sort of problem you're solving. The basic idea, though, is that since quantum states can interfere with each other, you arrange it so that states corresponding to c... | 21 |
ELI5: Why does ball skin move on it's own and if I hover my finger over it, why does it all seem to rush towards the heat? What is going on there? | 140 | Your scrotum is a genius little bit of biology, that keeps your testes (and the sperm inside them) safe and at the right temperature even while your body has to get much hotter. Because the inside of your body is too warm for sperm to be made there, the whole thing has to hang outside, and respond very quickly and care... | 132 | |
[DCU] Can someone drown in the Lazarus Pit? | 84 | No. People don't drown in water because there is a fluid in their lungs, they drown because the water is in the way of oxygen reaching their blood vessels.
Sufficiently oxygenated fluorocarbon liquids are breathable, and the Lazarus Pit has them as part of its makeup. | 81 | |
CMV: Lotto scratchers should require people to re-enter the line at the back. | Most people have probably seen this before. You're in line waiting to buy gas/food/smokes and someone 5 spots ahead of you is at the counter diluting their lotto scratchers down to a losing ticket. It's flat out inconsiderate to let someone play their game potentially for 3-5 minutes while people are waiting behind the... | 29 | Damn. Is this really an issue you've run into so often that you wanted to make a CMV about it?
I can't imagine anyone disagreeing outside of whatever assholes do it and whatever cashier is too lazy/passive to tell them to move along. | 37 |
[James Bond] Are there restrictions to what 00 agents can buy/spend? | Do they have to document/itemize their expenses?
What is considered not eligible for purchase? Is there a limit to their expenses? We know there is a limit such as the re-buy in Casino Royale. What would be the likely threshold to spending before they need approval? | 44 | Depends on what the cover is. MI6 isnt dumb, if he is pretending to be a millionaire playboy they make sure he has enough in his account to spend like a millionaire playboy.
If he is doing regular spy shit he gets a stipend for sure, possibly just access to the company card where they ask him basics about his expense... | 57 |
ELI5: How can you pinpoint your location with GPS on your phone without service on the ground, but can’t do the same on an airplane? | 17 | It works in plane too....if you have an unobstructed view of the sky with at least 4 satellites.
Given cramped space and metal ceilinge of typical airliner body this is 50/50 chance of working if you're in window seat. But if you do it on a private small plane with a big plastic window, it works just fine. | 18 | |
ELI5: Why are you always told to widen the crack before fixing it? | When you go to fix drywall or tarmac, the first instruction is to widen the crack. Why is that? | 22 | You widen the crack to remove loose materials and be sure to get the filler all the way in the crack. Nit widening could leave loose broken pieces that will inhibit the effective fix. Also, if the crack is narrow, it would be more difficult to get the filler all the way into the crack. | 12 |
What evolutionary advantage is there to internal organs feeling pain when without modern medicine, there's nothing a person or animal can do to fix what's causing the pain anyway? | 67 | Pain can be an indication of something you can change or be careful of. You could change your diet. You could exert yourself less. You could protect that part of your body. These types of changes could prevent further disability, allow for better healing, etc. | 79 | |
ELI5 how seedless fruits keep being grown? Like if you have a seedless clementine, or grape, what is used to plant the next generation of that fruit? | 23 | There are two ways to get seedless fruits. For clementines, grapes, and other things that grow on long-lived trees or vines, the plants are propagated by cuttings. This is true even for the ordinary varieties of most of these plants. All grapes of a particular variety are descended from one original grape plant, whic... | 42 | |
Why do investors buy bonds with real negative interest rates? Are they irrationally incurring a real loss? | 54 | TL:DR, the profit maximizing risk adjusted payoff can be (minimizing) a loss, if all your options suck.
You have to consider their other options. By making the distinction of "real negative interest rates" you say you believe that inflation is going to be higher than those bonds' rates, therefore they would be worse ... | 71 | |
ELI5: Are GM crops/food as bad as many people seem to think they are? | 391 | Damaging health claims are nonsense. No reputable studies have ever been produced linking health concerns with GM crops. It's just the same kind of tenuous link people make because the rise of cancer diagnoses and the use of GM crops roughly correlate (like autism and vaccines, or ice cream and polio).
As for environm... | 448 | |
ELI5: Why is it tough to sleep at night even when you're tired, but easy to fall back asleep in the morning when you've just had a good night's sleep? | It seems like it should be really easy to fall asleep after going 16 hours without sleep, but often people just lie in bed for an hour or more, and then after 8 hours of sleep, they have trouble staying awake enough to get out of bed. How does this work?
Edit: Thanks to node_of_ranvier for the explanation! | 1,679 | It has to do with your heart-rate. When you're going to bed after 16hrs without sleep your heart is probably still pumping blood around pretty quick. Especially if you've had coffee, an energy drink or some other form of caffeine to keep you awake. However when you wake up after having been asleep for a solid night of ... | 909 |
[Matrix] What happens to a person when an Agent hijacks their body? | Asking from the following perspectives:
1) Is their consciousness obliterated, or stored somewhere for return to the body if the agent leaves it?
2) Do the agents ever leave an occupied body (other than via death)?
3) What is the perspective of other people? For instance, if your boss turns into an agent in the midd... | 69 | When an agent takes a body the person is rendered unconscious. They wake up in their bed with no knowledge of what happened or how they got from where they were to there. Killing an agent doesn't kill the person. Agents use the body as an entry point into the matrix and nothing more. They can't use animals or inanimate... | 49 |
ELI5: Air weighs 14 pounds per square inch, yet we don't feel it crushing us. The notion that internal pressure somehow acts as a counterbalance just seems to mean that we're being crushed in both directions. Shouldn't we feel this massive weight on us? | 8,671 | If it helps, we're already "crushed." Our species evolved on this planet; we evolved "resistance to crushing of 14.7 psi_a" as part of the process, because otherwise our ancestors would've died.
With regard to the physics, most of our body is water, which is relatively incompressible, so that's not a hazard. What the ... | 5,010 | |
[Kenobi] Question about Vader *spoilers* | Why did Vader absolve Obi-wan of his guilt? After their duel, when Obi-wan apologizes, Vader says:
“I’m not your failure Obi-wan. You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. *I* did…”
If he hates Obi-wan so much, why did he absolve Obi-wan of his guilt? | 32 | Because by claiming it for himself, he cements his identity as Darth Vader, rather than as Anakin. He *needs* that, because he could never survive facing the things he has done through Anakin's eyes.
He can't hate Obi-Wan for turning him into Vader if he *wants* to be Vader, and he is desperate to believe that he doe... | 87 |
CMV: Emotional Regulation should be a required course that goes from Preschool to College. | As someone in his 30s currently going through emotional regulation. Mindfulness. And the idea that *you don't have to trust every thought you have*. I've lived inside my own head for a long time, and I've found that it had an overly detrimental effect on my ability to deal with my emotions, with my traumas, or even not... | 988 | Everyone who suggests things that should be learned in school neglects to say what it is replacing. Having a topic from pre K to graduation is an especially large emphasis on the topic. So what are you getting rid of? History? Mathematics?
The bad news is Johnny doesn't know what photosynthesis is; but the good news ... | 193 |
[Spider-Man] Would he be able to heal back to normal from an injury that would kill or disable a normal person? | In the ps4 game, he mentioned that after a bad run in with one of his villains, he had to change the material his visor was made of, because the broken glass could have blinded him. I guess I'm asking specifically, would that really have blinded him? In addition to more durable eyes, he has a more rapid healing factor.... | 35 | I think that in comics, he was once blinded by acid(?) in his eyes and healed from it.
Pieces of visor would still be a problem, because even though he can heal from it, he would have been blinded in a fight. | 26 |
cmv: The protests are spreading fascist and anti-free speech ideals and are becoming more discriminatory than their message | NEW TITLE: Radical Protesters are spreading Communist ideas and are becoming more discriminatory than their message.
firstly i want to state that I am not white or american I am a Canadian and a brown person, but I feel like this needs to be said I also want to say that I know that George Floyd was killed unjustly but... | 56 | Good points already being made, but I'd like to address your last point. You have been mislead by your conservative talkers, which is not surprising. The message that is spreading "defund the police" or "disband the police" is not about having no police. Generally speaking in both cases, the intent is not to do away wi... | 34 |
What would the discovery of the Higgs boson mean in terms of practical application? | The media is apt to compare the work going on at the LHC to the space race in the 60s, an endeavor that produced discoveries that changed the face of modern technology. If the experiments at CERN really do reveal the Higgs boson, what exactly does that mean in real world terms? What new technology might we expect from ... | 41 | Much like the 60s space race, actually being on the moon wasn't practical. It was the technologies that *got* us to the moon that were. The same is largely true of particle physics. Knowing that a Higgs boson exists is nice and it tells us about the universe we live in, and maybe there's some unforeseen technology out ... | 42 |
Why don't steel bridges e.g. the Sydney Harbour Bridge, suffer metal fatigue? | Millions of tons of moving, vibrating trains, trucks, busses and cars every day. Forces of wind and rain. Fierce heat and cold yet no-one ever talks about fatigue in the steel. Especially in cables like Brooklyn bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge? | 2,244 | If you keep the stress below a certain limit, you can go an infinite number of cycles (N) below a certain stress (S) for steel. A material’s S-N curve describes how many cycles to failure at a given stress. The curve for steel levels off and stays flat at a certain S, heading to infinite N (horizontal axis). Most mate... | 3,250 |
ELI5: The reason for the difference in quality between a still frame taken from a video shot in 1080p, and a 1920x1080 resolution photograph | 55 | Generally a movie frame will be much more highly compressed than a still frame, i.e., the average number of bytes used for a movie frame will be less than for a still frame of the same size. Movies just can't usually afford the number of bytes.
Movies do have one advantage over stills in that consecutive frames will ... | 31 | |
CMV: Media outlets and governments scrubbing the internet of the Christchurch footage is counterproductive. Everyone should watch the footage. | So I woke up my news feed yesterday, being bombarded by warnings about the Christchurch livestream footage that was leaked all over FB, Twitter, etc. Hundreds of warnings, from governments, media outlets, and individuals who watched it and regretted it. Warnings like "do not watch it" "do not share it on social media" ... | 15 | The footage is part of the terrorist act. It was streamed to spread fear among those it depicts being murdered and to encourage copycats and spread white supremacist memes. There's a reason the shooter wrote all over their gun and filmed themselves. These were conscious choices on how they tried to present their murder... | 11 |
ELI5: Why do cats like to sit/sleep in boxes, even when its clearly not very comfortable? | 15 | Its actually comfortable to them.
Cats value having walls around them and a place to hide. A box gives them walls on all sides and is concealed. Not really different from a cave or den if you think about it. | 26 | |
ELI5: why can't we choose to rotate our eyes individually like a chameleon? | Also, why can some people cross their eyes easily, but others have a hard time or can't altogether?
Googled it and couldn't find an answer | 357 | The same reason we don't manually control our digestion system: We have no need to.
EDIT: Deeper explanation: Predators have their eyes both facing forward so they can judge distance (depth perception) when hunting prey. If we want to look left, we can look left. If we want to look right, we can do that too. It doesn'... | 280 |
Are people who had bronchitis more likely to die from COVID-19? | I'm curious if scarring on your lungs from past illnesses like bronchitis makes you more vulnerable to COVID-19, as I heard the virus also causes damage to the lungs. Thanks in advanced :) | 131 | Yes. Covid19 is a respiratory infection so any damage or weakness in the lungs puts you at a greater risk. Asthma and obesity would also increase risk. Ultimately it seems that age is the largest risk factor though. | 95 |
[Harry Potter] The World is at the brink of Thermonuclear War, do the Wizards intervene? | Save the Muggles or ignore them? | 34 | Despite having a significant muggle born population most of the ruling class of the Wizarding World seems oblivious to the human world. Under most cases they would probably not be paying enough attention to intervene in an official capacity. It may only be after the bombs have fallen that someone would take notice.
... | 51 |
ELI5: If Time 'Stops' at the Speed of Light, How Does Anything Happen To Light Itself? | As you get faster and faster time "slows down".
Photons have no mass and travel at this 'top speed', so how does anything happen (bounce off surfaces, being detected by your eye, travelling through space etc.) when it is not affected by time? | 22 | Nothing does happen to light. The only "things" that can "happen" to light (and that's using the terms loosely) is that it can come into existence, and it can stop existing … and in the frame of reference of light, those two events happen at both the same instant and the same point in space.
Say you have an atom. That... | 37 |
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