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ELI5: how do we know dating something is accurate? If the materiales from which something is made are millions of years old, what difference does it make once it’s made into something? | 69 | The radioactive isotopes that are checked for with radiometric dating exist naturally in the world. The acts of molten rock churning in the Earth, or the waters mixing in the oceans, or animals eating plants, and even breathing, all increase the amounts of the isotopes found within the body.
Once the thing is no longe... | 34 | |
Why does basal cell carcinoma so rarely metastasize? | Biochemically/genetically speaking. | 69 | I believe you are implocitly comparing BCC to melanoma - they are derived from different cells and the epithelial cells are much more terminally differentiated and more committed than melanocytes which easily restore their mobility which enables metastasis.
Short answer is that melanocytes migrate during embryogenesis... | 20 |
Why does hitting the top of a bottle of beer with another bottle of beer create that much froth? | 12,151 | it momentarily cause the bottom of the bottle to move away from the beer faster than the beer can move. this creates lots of tiny vacuum bubbles. the beer then rushes into this gap. each of those becomes a nucleation site for the dissolved carbon dioxide to form dozens of small bubbles. this basically turns all the bee... | 8,790 | |
[WH40K] What would happen to an alien race that started worshiping the God-Emperor and declared their allegiance to him? | Would they be seamlessly integrated into the Empire or would they remain second-class citizens at best? How would the citizens of the Empire view them? | 110 | Filthy xenos betrayed us once, to trust any of them again is heresy of the highest order. Burn them all, if they have truly earned his forgiveness he will greet them with open arms and their souls will be spared the warp. | 118 |
CMV: Identity based on accidents of birth is stupid and toxic | r/chezdor suggested I put this up, so I will. :) Be careful what you wish for. ;)
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> Identity is stupid. Having a sense of self grounded in accidents of birth is a great way to ignore what matters most - our values and actions. It doesn't matter if I'm a man, woman, or a transgender albino unicorn. Wha... | 58 | >or how people decide to treat you. No matter how unfair, how irrational, how hurtful, how toxic, how angry it makes you, or how happy your misery makes others, you do not have a CHOICE regarding these things.
>These things exist, and you are absolutely powerless to change them right now.
The problem is, like i... | 40 |
ELI5: Why do mattresses always have a weird stiching pattern on them? | 56 | The practical reason is that it keeps the stuffing more evenly distributed around the mattress after several hundreds of nights. This is similar to the box patterns that are usually sewn into comforters.
The less practical reason is that it's visually appealing for the showroom floor. This is similar to putting pretty... | 29 | |
ELI5: What is the difference between a checking and savings account? And why do we have both? | 31 | Different purposes, different properties.
Savings accounts typically have a relatively high interest rate, but charge some money per transaction. This means it is in your best interest to stuff cash into the account; saving.
Checking accounts typically have a lower interest rate, but charge less (or free) for transac... | 21 | |
ELI5 why a fractal has an infinite perimeter | 6,882 | Benoit Mandelbrot, his name is on that famous fractal, asked the seemingly foolish question, "How long is the coastline of England?" It's hard to imagine a more well-mapped coastline, right? Mandelbrot stated that the coastline of England is infinitely long.
It turns out that the length of that coastline depends on th... | 3,770 | |
ELI5:Why do your dreams seem longer the less you sleep? | 279 | Generally you forget almost all of your dreams. You go through multiple REM cycles (Rapid Eye Movement) in which you dream.
Over the course of the night, you dream, forget and dream. If you sleep less, that means less dreams for you to remember and the more you'll remember about these dreams.
This is why when you sma... | 85 | |
[Star Wars] Why did Luke waste so much time at Jabba's palace, when he could have walked in there with his lightsaber and free Leia and Han | It's not like Boba and a couple of guards could have stopped him. | 119 | I always attributed to the fact that Luke didn't want to go all violent on everyone and would have preferred a diplomatic solution. Except Luke has absolutely no diplomatic or negotiation skills so he tried to alpha Jabba out of the palace's prized collections.
Except that Jabba has had to deal with arrogant crooks... | 219 |
[Stargate] Because of their services to the Galaxy, would key members of SG-1 be offered a chance to ascend over death when they reached old age? | 40 | Probably not. The only one (that we know of) helping humans ascend in the Milky Way was Oma Desala. Unfortunately, she's occupied with keeping Anubis busy until the end of time. The Others aren't keen on interference of any sort. | 22 | |
ELI5: How do we know gravity actually affects time? | 25 | Einstein first described it in his theory of relativity, and since then it's been directly observed using atomic clocks in orbit. In fact, in order for GPS to stay accurate, the clocks on the satellites used for GPS have to be occasionally corrected. | 28 | |
ELI5: Why are foreign movie posters often depicted with art that has nothing to do with the movie? | I just saw the Soviet Union posters for Star Wars, but I've also seen other foreign posters for movies that have characters or art that has nothing to do with the movie. Why is that? | 35 | I can tell you about why Eastern European countries did this with a degree of certainty — because under communist governments/for a while after them, censoring imported cinema was the norm. When foreign movies were played in these countries, they were often modified to the point where the end product was significantly ... | 18 |
ELI5: f-Stop and Aperture | 98 | Aperture is one of the things that determines how much light reaches the sensor on your camera.
Think of it as a hole in a box. Inside the box is a kid drawing with crayons. (Don't worry, he's being fed.) The bigger the hole (the larger the aperture), the more light that gets in, the more the kid can see his paper t... | 32 | |
ELI5 : phones that take sd cards, why is there a limit on how big a card they can take, why cant it be the biggest available | 20 | Because there are different standards of information for encoding on larger SD cards. This is because larger SD cards required entirely new technologies in order to be able to create.
This means that larger SD cards effectively write and speak in a different language, so a phone has to have some way of adapting to tha... | 14 | |
[Alien] Something bothering me about the Alien franchise - Why are Weyland Yutani so obsessed with the xenomorph when they could have just reverse engineered the Space Jockeys ship instead? | So, in the Alien franchise, Weyland Yutani are obsessed with getting a xenomorph specimen presumably so they can try to turn it into a bio-weapon (and inevitably fail)
What bothers me in this franchise is Nostromo crew finds a massive alien ship with a dead alien (the space jockey) on it and it seems very much brushed... | 35 | Well, to be fair, that crashed ship was there for thousands of years in a very hostile environment. Whatever technology is left is likely useless at this point, aside from archeology experiments. There might be something to grab, but those eggs technically could be stashed pretty easily onboard and brought back.
Edit:... | 32 |
ELI5 how is it we build a tolerance to spice? | 16 | Assuming you mean the heat from peppers. The chemical in peppers mimics the sensation of burning, but does no actual burning damage. Eventually your brain understands that you won't actually be hurt, just tricked into believing it was hurt. The mild irritation can then become pleasurable. | 20 | |
ELI5: Why does it feel so good to rub your eyes when you're tired\sleepy? | 145 | Your eyes tend to dry out when you get sleepy because of reduced tone in the sympathetic nervous system. Normally, your eyelids are subconsciously kept open by the superior tarsal muscle, which is an involuntary smooth muscle activated by your sympathetic nervous system. However, when you get tired and sleepy, reduced ... | 95 | |
ELI5: If liquid water turns to gas at 212ºF, how does water evaporate at room temperature? | Edit: Thanks for all the help, science and scientists! | 141 | Have you ever jumped on a trampoline with two other people? Sometimes, semi-randomly, two people will land at once, and the third will go flying. Evaporation is sort of the same thing.
Every molecule of water has heat energy, and is in motion. As a liquid, the molecules move somewhat freely in and around each other. T... | 183 |
ELI5: why is it considered disrespectful to wear a hat during the national anthem in America? | 30 | Fundamentally goes back to Christianity as practiced years ago.
When praying or prophesying, men were to have their heads uncovered. Women were to have their heads covered in the same circumstances.
Thus, the removing of hats when someone died in westerns, etc - you were praying, and thus removed your headgear. Lik... | 26 | |
Why is it that natural remedies occur so often in plants, but rarely if ever in animals? | 16 | Consider the chief difference between plants and animals. Animals can move, plants can't. If an animal needs to defend itself, it needs to move faster, or have more muscles, or have teeth and claws and so on. How does a plant defend itself? It can't run away from a predator. It can't bite or claw at an enemy.
So how d... | 15 | |
[Marvel Comics] Will the Punisher go to Valhalla when he dies? | He is undeniably brave, a skilled and disciplined warrior, he is addicted to fighting, and yet has strong convictions when it comes to noncombatants. Also, Thor overall seems to respect him. | 78 | No. The Cosmic Ghost Rider, which was an alternate Castle was taken to Valhalla as an exception. Technically some people can go to Valhalla if they qualify (by dying with a weapon in hand) and if a valkyrie is nearby to take them, but for the most part Valhalla is an exclusive club.
People don't like to talk much abo... | 102 |
ELI5: How exactly does the brain store information? | 43 | Information and stimuli comes into your brain trough your senses: smell, sounds, vision, etc. Most of this if filtered before you even realise it. The relevant stimuli then comes into the working memory, which contains information you are using right now (like when you are calculating, the numbers are in your working m... | 19 | |
ELI5 How come certain creatures' stomach acids can dissolve bones and flesh but don't dissolve the stomach lining itself? | 17 | Your stomach acids could dissolve your own flesh, as well as your stomach itself, so the stomach defends itself by constantly supplying a layer of mucus on its inside. The stomach can also produce some basic chemicals that can neutralize the acids.
| 11 | |
ELI5: What's the difference between patriotism and nationalism, and why is the line so blurred in the U.S.? | 32 | Patriotism is having a sense of pride about your society in as much as you identify with the basic values of the society. An American 'patriot' for example likely identifies with the concepts of democratic representation and justice by rule of law as defined by the rights granted in the constitution. A patriot recogniz... | 21 | |
ELI5: What is 'burning man'? | I've read about it and seen tons of pictures, but I don't get what exactly it is. Can you elaborate? | 26 | An annual mating ritual where hippies congregate to spread STDs and take drugs. The hippies with the brightest colors are able to lure their mates back to their tents where they proceed to ingest ceremonial mushrooms and talk about the universe. Once they have reached extreme levels of intoxication they are made immune... | 20 |
Why do black people have white palms/soles of feet? | I really don't understand why. Can some one help me? Is it for any evolutionary reason? | 32 |
the palms of the hands and soles of the feets have no pigments in the skin, and therfore no melanin will be there to create darker skin pigments from the sun, same with lighter skinned people e.g caucasians, the rest of the skin may tan but not the soles of their feet nor the palms of their hands, its not just people... | 18 |
ELI5: Why is Reuters considered to be a very valid news source? What makes it any different than MSNBC or Fox News? | 179 | Reuters is a news agency that sells articles to other people, so that they can publish it and make money. Since Reuters wants to sell their articles to both MSNBC and Fox News, and both of their online sites, and both conservative and liberal newspapers, they make their articles as much of "just the facts." that you ca... | 216 | |
Opinions welcome: justifying academic salaries by the amount of "training" someone is receiving. | I just had a conversation with two PI's about how a post-doc is a professor-in-training position, and therefore their salary is appropriate because they are being "compensated" with training on top of their salary.
Surely the explanation of the post-doc salary is actually something along the lines of supply/demand for... | 72 | “They’re getting training!” is and always has been a poor excuse for exploitation of entry-level workers. It’s no different than trying to get a discount on graphic design work by offering “exposure” as payment, it’s taking a necessary byproduct of the transaction and repackaging it as part of the compensation. The pos... | 120 |
ELI5:Why is the 4.0 GPA scale used? | It seems like the 4.0 GPA scale isn't exactly reflective of a students academic ability.
For example, let's say 90-100 = A+ = 4.0 and 85-89 = A = 3.9.
Student A gets 100 in 4 courses and 89 in 1 course, resulting in a GPA of 3.98.
Student B gets 90 in 5 courses, and ends up with a GPA of 4.0.
I don't know about you, b... | 22 | >For example, let's say 90-100 = A+ = 4.0 and 85-89 = A = 3.9.
I've never seen that scale before. I've always seen something more like:
97-100 = A+ = 4.33
94-96 = A = 4.0
90-93 = A- = 3.67
87-89 = B+ = 3.33
etc.
Thus Student A has a GPA of 4.08, and Student B has a GPA of 3.67.
| 13 |
If the universe is 13.7 billion years old, how come the observable universes edge is 46-47 billion light years away? Should it not be 13.7 billion light years away? | 113 | Because the universe is expanding "faster than the speed of light can cover spacetime". Imagine the earth was the universe and it is expanding at a high rate (getting bigger in scale). If you were living in New York and China was some light years away, the earth is now expanding faster and faster (growing in size) at a... | 58 | |
Is there any significance to the color of the wizards in the Tolkien universe (Grey, Blue, Brown, and White)? | 38 | No. If White has any significance it is because Saruman was "the White". White came to designate the head of the order because Saruman was chosen to lead. Saruman did not lead because he was "the White".
Saruman eventually came to dislike the White in favor of Saruman of "Many Colors". This only became known after ... | 28 | |
ELI5: How does my clothes dryer’s lint catcher get so full, yet my clothes don’t fall apart? Where does all this lint come from? | 1,591 | As you wash items, they lose particles (lint) which is collected in your lint trap. If you weigh the lint you’ll see that it is a small percentage of the (dry) washed items.
As an interesting aside - laundry and linen companies (e.g., Aramark) often have a weight cut off for when they inject new linen. For example, i... | 862 | |
CMV: Some cuisines don't have much to offer for either people interested in food or cooks | Some cultures have a complex and varied cuisine that offers constant discovery and might take a lifetime to experience, or if you are a chef, a lifetime to learn. While other cuisines seemingly just heat up raw ingredients and throw it on a plate. Some examples might help.
Let's take a simple Chinese dish like tofu, o... | 70 | I think you're privileging complexity over perfection here, which is a mistake when evaluating food. A serious chef approaching even a "simple" cuisine, like a Chilean asado for example, will be seeking not so much complexity as absolute perfection. This will involve not just work in the kitchen, but in husbandry and h... | 42 |
If fusion power was as widespread as fission today, what would the worst case "meltdown" scenario be and how bad would it be compared to fission meltdowns? | If fusion power was as widespread as fission today, what would the worst case "meltdown" scenario be and how bad would it be compared to fission meltdowns? Why? | 79 | Since fusion reactions take place only under very specific conditions (very high temperature and pressure), any disruption in the operation of the reactor would cause the necessary conditions for fusion to disappear, which would halt the reaction.
Unlike nuclear fission, which in many cases can be self-sustaining and ... | 123 |
ELI5: how come in movies when the cameraman is filming the actor looking in the mirror, you can't see the camera even if the camera should logically be reflected in the mirror? | This question has been plaguing me for more years than it should have. | 24 | It's a little known fact, but there are a group of vampires in hollywood who are recruited a bit like stunt doubles but for cameramen when they need to film scenes about mirrors.
There are also several alternate techniques that people who don't believe in vampires usually employ.
First and by far the most common, the... | 63 |
Need help getting over a particularly nasty review :( | Hi there! Thanks in advance for reading my post.
I submitted my first manuscript to a journal in my field sometime in July, and the editor recently got back to me with the decision to reject my paper without an invite to revise and resubmit. Reviewers 1 and 2 raised several points for clarification and very helpful su... | 114 | I would suggest revising principally according to the comments from reviewers #1 and #2, and addressing any *substantive* points raised by reviewer #3. Broadly ignore the personal attacks, try to rework the paper to be as good as it can be, and submit it elsewhere.
You don't *need* to do anything regarding this review... | 153 |
Why are Pigeons so well adapted to living in cities? | Why is it that there are so many of them compared to other birds (except maybe Seagulls at the cost) and have they always been well adapted to city life or is it something that has evolved alongside cities? | 54 | The urban pigeons are rock pigeons, they originally nested in cavities on cliffs, big rocks, etc... The urban environment is quite similar to these, with vertical structure, holes everywhere, and other features. Add the abundance of food due to human garbage and the pigeon's adaptive diet and you get the perfect urban ... | 46 |
How does brain differentiate between factual vs fictitious memories ? | 32 | It doesn't, and generally the only thing distinguishing it is your own contextual awareness. Memories are altered very easily, both by people embellishing as time goes on without realising and because the emotional state both at the time and years later has a significant effect on how you interpret that memory in the f... | 46 | |
[Power Rangers] With an entire planet to conquer, why does Rita Repulsa always attack Angel Grove, California? | 182 | Because she knows the Power Rangers live there. Rita's plan is to destroy the Power Rangers because they are pretty much the only obstacle towards her conquering Earth.
And most of her attacks are psychological, meant to throw the Power Rangers off their game by messing with their personal lives. It's not necessarily ... | 211 | |
Is it possible we’ve permanently eliminated some strains of colds and flu with the year long quarantine? | 255 | Yes, maybe. There are a couple of strains that there have been zero reported cases of and scientists think they may have gone extinct. Which is good news for flu shot makers because they just hope they are right about which strains they develop vaccines for months in advance of flu season. Fewer types of flu strains ... | 189 | |
ELI5: How the US came to be a current world superpower | 20 | As others mentioned, the USA has had a wealth of land mass and thus natural resources that helped propel its growth and progress since its founding. The influx of African slaves and Chinese railroad workers also played a significant part in this.
It was a series of events starting after the First World War and the ens... | 15 | |
[Star Wars] If Luke had killed Vader and become the Emperor's new right-hand man, would it have affected anything? Wouldn't Lando and Wedge have still blown all of them up 20 minutes later? | 76 | If, in the original story, Luke had enough time to drag Vader’s cyborg-armored ass to the ship, have a heartfelt goodbye, and escape, I’m assuming that they would have just gotten the hell out of there before the Death Star blew. | 98 | |
ELI5: Why do both coffee (stimulant) and alcohol (depressentt) both make the human body sweat more than usual? | 15 | Coffee increases heart rate and blood pressure by stimulating the central nervous system, which in turn stimulates sweat glands. Alcohol dilates (widens) blood vessels which makes the extremities/crevices of your body much warmer, which stimulates sweating to cool you off. | 13 | |
[Star Wars] Why did the Separatists join with the Trade Federation? | One of the reasons for the Separatists, from what little info about their motives I could find in canon, is that the Republic was corrupt and unwilling to protect outlying star systems from megacorps, and that the invasion of Naboo in Episode 1 was an example of that. In a Clone Wars episode, they even highlight how, u... | 60 | They didn't. The Trade Federation was (supposedly) neutral. While they did provide resources to the Separatists, they also had a seat in the Galactic Senate of the Republic, and publicly denounced Nute Gunray's invasion of Naboo.
As for why the Separatists were ok with this arrangement, it's actually pretty simple; T... | 63 |
Why are there so few elements that are liquid at room temperature? | 118 elements and only two are liquid at room temp... what makes the liquid state so rare? | 149 | Because in order to have a 'room' you need to have solid elements?
More seriously, this should be seen the other way around: life has developped on earth because Earth has a good balance of solid/liquid/gaseous elements.
Additionally, the liquid phase can be seen as an intermediate between solid and gaseous phases. T... | 108 |
CMV: The current crash in oil prices is not some genius "political play" by the Saudis and we should stop giving them credit for it. | So I've just been reading through the /r/futurology thread about OPEC and the rise of electric cars, and it seems that a lot of people credit the Saudis with reducing the global oil price "to hurt Russia/ISIS/US Shale/Carrot top/and so on..."
The problem is that I'm not sure this belief has any basis in reality. Produ... | 93 | The Saudis have enormous influence over the price of oil and they always have. That's because of the quality of their oil fields and the high well pressures. Their well pressures are so high that increasing production rates is literally a case of opening up the taps.
For that reason, Saudi Arabia has traditionally be... | 31 |
[Injustice] How bad do things have to get before Wonder Woman realizes that maybe she made a mistake somewhere down the line? | 60 | Probably the moment Clark kills her she may feel a little remorse. She's beaten several villains that were nigh god like, brought world peace, ended so much suffering and pain for others. She willingly fought clark to the death and was willing to lose just to make sure he continued with their goals. It's not love it's ... | 54 | |
ELI5: How are employment agencies not regulated more? You can be a "temp" for years....how? | I am 34 year old male from Ontario, Canada. I am not sure what it is like in other parts of the world but right now a large portion of employment opportunities are only available through these "Emplyment Agencies". Or as I have always called them, TEMP agencies. Because that is what they were. Someone you can call for ... | 40 | You're misunderstanding what a "temp" agency is. Temp agencies are businesses that basically collect workers for use in deployment for larger companies. You can be a full time temp at a temp agency with no benefits. That's kind of exactly the work you're going into.
Temp agencies are designed to connect workers with b... | 12 |
Why would you scrape a webpage with beautiful soup when Pandas read_html tool is way easier? | I'm learning Python right now, and after getting through a MOOC on the basics, I moved onto another course for Webscraping and I found it challenging and frustrating. The furthest I got was getting the header row for a web table, which was all smooshed into one string. It would have taken some regular expressions to ma... | 19 | Probably because pandas only works on tables that specifically use <table> html elements, whereas beautiful soup is more general purpose and more finely controlled to search and extract what you want. | 23 |
ELI5: How come when I'm stressed or worried my stomach becomes physically ill and gives me diarrhea? | 3,283 | When your stress levels are too high, you body goes into fight-or-flight mode. This is where you body redirects energy to the muscles so that you can fight something really well or run away from something really well.
However, in stressful situations you might not actually be able to run away, but your body still ... | 1,736 | |
Why was the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) outbreak of 2002-2004 not worse? | I'm curious why that Coronavirus outbreak didn't become worse/affect greater numbers. From reading about it, it doesn't seem as though the early reaction to it was much different than the early reaction to SARS-Cov-2 (Covid 19). Was it less contagious? Was it just luck? | 102 | One reason:
It’s much harder to contain SARS-Cov-2 because there are so many asymptomatic people and people with minor symptoms spreading the virus.
SARS-Cov-1 was easier to contain because if you had it, you were likely pretty sick. Plus, you had to be showing some symptoms to spread it. You didn’t have a bunch of... | 179 |
[It Always Sunny in Philadelphia] How come all the crimes the gang did haven't caught up to them yet? | Kidnapping,drugging,blowing up a guys car(terrorism), operation a sweatshop, making terrorist threats, assault,robbery,burning down a building, breaking and entering and many more. Why isnt the gang locked up already? | 495 | Because every bad consequence and karmic turn that should hit the gang gets absorbed by everyone else around them.
That's why Rickety Cricket, Bill Ponderosa, the McPoyles etc all have progressively more miserable as the shows gone on | 627 |
Is Double-Slit Experiment about measurement limitations or nature of the light? | Hi,
I was reading about Double-Slit experiment lately and Complementarity. Can we say that:
The act of "**observing**” affects the electrons/photos but this doesn’t mean that the reality was not there. We don’t have a way to measure our system without changing the information in it. This is still more a **measuremen... | 69 | "Observing" mean the the light interacts with macroscopic objects, such as the slit, barrier, and the screen. The experiment is about the nature of reality. It's not a technological limit on our human measurements. A full discussion would include the concepts of local hidden-variables, and Bell's theorem (look them up... | 53 |
[GoT/SPOILERS up to S4E1] Why is the magical stuff becoming more powerful during this time? | Does it co-incide with a long winter coming?
When Danaerys was in Qarth, the House of the Undying guy said that his magic is only strong thanks to the presence of the dragons. So without them around the powers of practitioners like him might be diminished from what they once were.
What Melisandre can do seems to be s... | 43 | It's not because winter is coming, it's because *change* is coming. The Warlock in Quarth was wrong, he can't use magic because the dragons have hatched, they're both because there's a change in the world. This change is also what's causing more White Walker and Whight activity, and it's what is allowing the priestho... | 32 |
ELI5: Why do some consider autism to be part of the neurodiversity, instead of a disorder/pathology? What, then, are the implications for other mental disorders? (eg, mood disorders) | 27 | Because in many cases the line between "neurodiversity" and a disorder is a line drawn by society. Consider homosexuality. It was once considered to be a disorder, and is now part of the spectrum of human sexuality. Its removal is due mostly to social activism and protest from, and advocation for, the homosexual commun... | 10 | |
[ASoIaF] Why did the dead direwolf get so far south? | In the beginning, Ned and co. find a dead direwolf, and then adopt it's cubs. What was it doing there? It died from a deer antler in the throat, but why did it move so far south? | 67 | Wildlings, giants, other animals and else are fleeing the march of Winter from the north - why not the wolves? Just because they're extinct south of the wall doesn't mean they aren't possible visitors.
This one being pregnant would be seeking warmer and more fertile lands for its cubs. | 55 |
CMV: Attempted crimes should be treated identically to their completed versions | **I believe that attempted crimes** (attempted murder, attempted rape, attempted kidnapping, etc.) **should not exist, but rather should be charged, prosecuted, and sentenced as their completed versions** (murder, rape, kidnapping, etc.).
Implicit in the very act of an attempt is the intent to commit the crime, and I ... | 27 | I agree mostly with this but have one concern.
When guilt or another change of heart causes a person to stop before committing the crime and hands themselves in. This should definitely be treated as a different case for determining punishment as they have already made the realisation it’s wrong, so the punishment is si... | 20 |
[Stargate]Suppose Ra somehow found out when the Romans banned the worship of him in the 4th century AD. do you think he'd do anything about it, or had he totally lost interest in Earth by that point? | 20 | Oh he'd absolutely do something. He's very egotistical and responds violently to undermining his authority- he tries to nuke earth as revenge for them defying his rule after millenia passed.
If he knew it, he'd be furious humans would undermine his worship. If he could get to earth at that point, the romans wouldn't b... | 18 | |
A common symptom of severe radiation exposure is nausea and vomiting shortly after. What biological mechanism is affected by the radiation to result in these symptoms so soon after exposure? | This is a well-known effect of severe exposure to radiation. I've been searching online to find out what specific biological process is disrupted by the radiation to produce this effect, but I haven't found anything.
I can understand the biological origin of the many longer term effects due to tissue damage, like hair... | 52 | Vomiting is caused by the rapid death of cells in the lining of the GI tract. The sudden loss of stomach lining causes vomiting.
The reason this occurs is because the cells in the GI tract lining replicate very quickly and have one if the shorter life cycles of any cell type. Cells that have their DNA damaged by radi... | 54 |
[Destiny] How many of them are there?! | I'm an average and rather exasperated Guardian and I know for a fact that many of us are busting our asses. The leaders of the Vanguard are telling us all about how crucial our victories are and how much of a difference we are making. Even with all the "progress" we are making every time I'm on patrol I see the same am... | 46 | You are battling against interstellar forces, and in the case of the Vex, interdimensional ones. The Fallen are likely the least numerous, and probably still number in the tens of millions. For the Hive of the Moon alone, they undoubtedly can call upon billions of Drones. | 22 |
[LOTR books] In the Fellowship of the Ring, the night before entering Moria they fight with a pack of wolfs. But they vanish at dawn and Gandalf mentions that they were not normal wolfs. Why was that? | 20 | They are Wargs - evil wolves of Wilderland. As Gandalf says, they are not simply a hunting pack of normal animals.
There is no explanation given for how they disappeared. Not in LotR, not in Tolkien's private letters, nor in the published draft versions of the story we have in *The History of Middle Earth*. | 32 | |
ELI5 - Why when steaming/foaming milk (like for lattes and cappuccinos) does the milk taste sweeter then normal? | 65 | Imagine your mom buys you one of those toys with the different shapes that you have to match to their corresponding shaped holes. You’re excited to start testing your hypothesis that maybe the cylinder one would fit into the star shaped hole but there’s one problem. To save money, the manufacturer left all the pieces c... | 131 | |
ELI5: Brexit and what's so bad about it? | 16 | Without getting into the "it's good" or "it's bad" politics of it:
Britain has been a part of the European Union for a long time. The European Union is an extensive agreement between all its member nations allowing for greatly increased and deregulated international travel, immigration and trade. Their economies are... | 21 | |
ELI5: Why isn't it possible for hackers to downgrade the operating system of iphones? | Fundamentally, a phone is just a little pocket computer. So why can't hackers just wipe everything and install any type of operating system they would like (ie android on an iphone)? How exactly do apple prevent this from being possible? If they can find exploits allowing them to jailbreak the phone, can't they use tho... | 16 | They absolutely can, there just isn't enough of a demand for many of those types of hacks. For example, OpeniBoot is a project for an open source version of iBoot (the Apple bootloader) that makes it possible to install Android, or many many other OSes, on your Apple device. But because not enough people are interested... | 11 |
Why does the Moon's gravity cause tides on earth but the Sun's gravity doesn't? | 10,465 | The Sun's gravity actually *does* cause tides! They're just weaker than the Moon's tides.
The Sun's gravitational force on the Earth is stronger than the Moon's, but its tides are weaker. This is because tides decrease with distance more quickly than net gravity does.
Tidal forces are caused by the difference in grav... | 9,249 | |
if pi = circumference/diameter and if the circumference and diameter are whole numbers, then doesn't pi=p/q? then how is it considered irrational? or is this just an approximation? | 31 | If the diameter of a circle is a whole number, the circumference cannot be. If the circumference of a circle is a whole number, the diameter cannot be. You will never find a circle where both the diameter and the circumference are both whole numbers. | 76 | |
ELI5: What is the difference between a military, a paramilitary, a militia, and a private army? | 18 | * Military: In context to the question and in modern parlance, a military nationally funded and controlled fighting force, accountable and fully funded by its national government. The purpose of a standing military is as a defense to external threats. Typically, a standing military does not carry actionable authority w... | 23 | |
The self in Buddhism | Apologies if this is not the right forum for this question, but could anyone explain how in Buddhism there is a belief of no-self, yet also a belief in reincarnation? What is being reincarnated if there is no self? | 18 | What Buddhism is rejecting is that anything can be regarded as a self.
How is this specifically understood? Most clearly, the problematic conception of selfhood has these qualities: temporal extension (hence the argument from change in the *Anātmalakṣanasūtra*), agency over the different mental and physical components... | 22 |
Do the other 8 planets have a necessary effect on keeping Earth in the "Goldilocks Zone"? | This question stems from a conversation I had with my SO, that ended with the following: "If all the planets in our solar system suddenly magically disappeared, what would happen to Earth?" What are some other similar scenarios and how could they play out? | 19 | If Jupiter wasn't there the earth would be hit much, much more often by large asteroids. Jupiter's gravity tends to slingshot asteroids out of earth's path. Many believe that we wouldn't have survived long enough to evolve of it wasn't for Jupiter's gravitational help | 24 |
[Mary Poppins] What *is* Mary Poppins? A benevolent witch? A guardian angel? A domesticated Fae? | 44 | I think she's a god. As in the New American Gods, where they are formed from a combination of belief and ritual. Mary Poppins is British. Like, *literally* the god of British. The rituals are cleanliness, respect, tea, and a reserved but sincere form of fun.
She is basically the result of the collective consciousness... | 88 | |
CMV: Arguing with bigots online is not a waste of time. | Let me preface this post by saying I'm a practicing Muslim, and for years I've been trying to educate people on what Islam is and what Islam is not. That involves breaking stereotypes, correcting people's misunderstandings and factual errors. I'm not here to have a conversation on Islam right now or argue politics.
I'... | 128 | Arguing with bigots *who are acting in good faith* isn't a waste of time. They might learn something and observers might learn something.
But many, many bigots online are NOT acting in good faith. They're only interested in 'gotchas' ("You're the REAL bigot!") and their actual arguments are impossible to pin down, b... | 79 |
[General] Will a genie grant wishes through a third party? | Let's say I can't use a genie, like I already got my 3 wishes and want more. Can I just grab a random person, put a gun to their head, and force them to ask for wishes on my behalf? Is there anything a genie can do to refuse wishes made under duress? | 28 | I think the answer is yes, the genie would grant the wishes, *but* your plan wouldn't really work if the random person has even a modicum of sense about them. They just have to use their first wish to eliminate whatever threat you're making, and then they've got two more wishes.
I think the better business model here ... | 34 |
How can BBC, Sky, Channel 4 etc. show programmes and ads on my TV but say their content isn't available in my region when I try to view it on their respective web players? | To clarify: I live in Ireland. These are British TV networks.
Ive heard similar situations of people in Canada having American networks on their TV and are told that the content also isn't available to their region. What is the reasoning behind this? Is it a smart move in terms of business and ad revenue ?
Thanks. | 66 | It's worth pointing out that the BBC doesn't show ads.
As for the other channels, it's a licensing issue. They pay for programmes to be shown at a certain time, and then to be hosted online to be available for X amount of time. For example, BBC3 shows Family Guy late at night, but is **not** allowed to put it on iPla... | 24 |
ELI5: Why armies just stood in front of each other and fired? | While watching the movie The Patriot I keep seeing major battles where the 2 armies just stand in front of each other and fire. Why did they do this? This seems like a very stupid way to fight a war causing the most deaths possible | 40 | Because the accuracy and firing rate of their weapons was very poor. Keeping your men together and organized allowed them to fire in a more organized way that allowed them to fire volleys in succession and en-mass, that allowed for more hits on the enemy. If everyone hid behind cover separately, and fired sporadically ... | 60 |
[Fullmetal Alchemist] [spoilers] Could Ed learn alkahestry? | At the end of the manga/Brotherhood, Ed gives up his ability to use alchemy. Does this prevent him from using alkahestry as well, or could he theoretically learn it? | 41 | Alkahestry differs from alchemy in that they use different power sources, the former 'the chi flowing trough the earth' ^((whatever that is supposed to mean)^) and the latter the tectonic shift as well as the power of the Homunkulus' philosophers stone.
They still get channeled the same way, through the gate of the re... | 28 |
What does mean sea level mean if you're thousands of miles from the sea? | As I understand it, Mean Sea Level is defined by taking the time-averaged effective gravitational potential of the water-air boundary averaged over the world's oceans. Since sea levels are rising globally, we choose some datum and stick to that. This seems reasonably unambiguous.
If the summit of Everest is 8848m abov... | 25 | Sea level is affected by gravity/mass (hence the moon causing tides and so on...). Therefore mountains affect the sea level. Currently, sea level is calculated by assuming the entire earth is covered in water, but the mass from the mountains is still there (hard to imagine, i know). Then the water "bulges" in some plac... | 12 |
ELI5: Why do pirates use strippers to get 4k content? | Why do pirates use strippers to get 4k content of streaming websites? Why don't they just get a 4k screen capture service and record the screen while playing the video? | 18 | If you merely capture screen, you will only get pixel by pixel data. Saving pixel by pixel one hour of 4k video would take tremendous space
4k denotes 3840*2160. That is the number of pixels on screen on a single frame, or in other words, that's 8 million pixels per frame. Each pixel should have color information tagg... | 22 |
CMV: I believe people who volunteer for admin/moderator positions are power hungry and get satisfaction in controlling other people. | CMV: People who volunteer in admin/mod roles in an organization are power hungry and like having power over others.
The statement is obviously not true for everyone, but I find that a good number of people who volunteer for these positions (and sometimes the paid ones too) just get off on having power over others no m... | 15 | Moderation is something you only notice when it's done badly, either because its obnoxiously strict or because a forum is a disaster because it isn't being moderated at all. You never notice the moderators who are keeping things reasonable and dealing with all the unreasonable people who want to cause trouble. | 11 |
[Star Wars] How differently would galactic events have gone if Qui-Gon had made it through the blast doors in Episode I? | So let's say that in [this scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTHjSG61SI) (relevant part at 6:00) the destroyer droids do not make it in time to force Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon away from the blast doors and they get in. What happens next?
Bonus: With the possibility of them meeting Anakin far later in the series does th... | 70 | The blockade of naboo was simply a tool for Sidious to force a crisis. His end game was creating a war where the republic would be willing to cede senate control to Palpatine or a puppet of his.
If the blockade had failed because Qui Gon had entered into (aggressive) negotiations with the trade federation, Sidious wo... | 67 |
ELI5: Why are our dreams so easily forgotten? | I often feel that I have the most vivid and elaborate dreams but as soon as I wake up, my recollection of the dream is completely wiped from memory as if it never happened. What accounts for this strange phenomena? | 41 | The ability to remember dreams changes from person to person although studies have shown that more than 95% of us are like you and completely forget our dreams.
Basically we have short term memory and long term memory. Dreams are a sort of stream of consciousness that pass rapidly through your short term memory and you... | 24 |
[ELI5] Why does aperture size effect depth of field? | Why does a wide aperture blur the background while a narrow one keeps it in focus? | 26 | Imagine a light ray emitted/reflected from a specific single point on an object. If your aperture is infinitely small, there's only one position that ray can ever end up after going through the aperture. Do this for all rays emitted from said object, and since there's only one place for each ray to end up, which is rel... | 57 |
ELI5: why do the effects in older movies (some not even 10 years old yet) seem so cheesy now yet back when the movie was released it seem so real! | 170 | When we haven't experienced something that much, we pay less attention to the details.
If we ate bacon for the first time, we'd get blown away by the taste no matter how it was cooked or where it's from - it's unique, delicious and memorable. After eating it every day for a month, we might develop a preference for how... | 127 | |
ELI5: The difference between AMD and Intel? | Thankyou all so much!! | 74 | For the most part, you can think of them like competitors in any other market -- e.g. Honda and Toyota.
Both car manufacturers make cars -- some that are super gas efficient, some that can hold a lot of people, and some that are sporty. One company might develop some cool new technology, and the same with the other. ... | 32 |
ELI5: How do people measure statistics of things like what state has the most human trafficking? | 49 | Very hard. In general, data on this and similar issues comes from multiple sources, some of which include official crime statistics countries report to various international organizations such as Europol, Interpol, UNOCD etc. Depending on the editor/user of data, some will be evaluated and supplemented by other sources... | 13 | |
If one recovers from COVID 19, does the body become immune to the virus? Or is there a possibility of contracting the disease again? | 95 | From an interview with Dr. Fauci he says that with it having low mutation rate it's unlikely to become reinfected with another strain, and although they haven't confirmed or ruled out anything it's most likely we develop an immunity to this virus after contracting it. So unless thing's are really crazy with this virus,... | 117 | |
ELI5: Why does the same water feel a different temperature to your body than it does to your head? For example when in the shower? | 8,025 | Fun fact: you can’t actually sense temperature; not in the way we usually think of it.
Instead, you sense the transfer of heat into or out of your skin. If different parts of your body are different temperatures, they will feel the same temperature differently.
There are a couple of experiments you can run to illustr... | 6,022 | |
Does your body still "recharge" at all if you are just lying there, eyes closed, not moving, but not sleeping? | Wondering because I've heard that if you are trying to nap, but can't really fall asleep, you're still benefitting. Would love to know the actual science behind this, if it exists. | 60 | Yes, to a certain extent.
The body's systems are not usually just "on" or "off". There are gradients and different levels of activation of each system in the body. Even within the context of sleep, there are different kinds of sleep, with some biological processes occurring at different rates.
Several of your body's ... | 29 |
What would happen if a nuclear bomb went off on a gas giant planet? | I'm curious as to what could possibly happen to planets like Jupiter, Saturn, or Uranus with the hydrogen content of their atmospheres. For this, let's assume something like [Tsar Bomba](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_bomba) is sent, what would happen to a gas giant? What if five, ten, or twenty Tsar Bomba-like bom... | 49 | Nothing would happen. When the fragments of comet shoemaker-levy 9 impacted Jupiter, one of the impacts released as much energy as 6,000,000 megatons of TNT. At worst the explosion would leave a dark mark on Jupiter. | 45 |
Why do mRNA vaccines use mRNA in order for the body to create the covid spike protein? Why can't we just create the spike protein and make a vaccine using that (eliminating the intermediate step)? | 39 | Since a single copy of mRNA produce many copies of the spike protein, it’s easier and more efficient to have your body produce the spike protein without having to worry about stability of the spike protein in solution, the spike protein forming aggregates, etc. it’s just much cleaner to inject the stabilized mRNA and l... | 74 | |
How are plants and animals thriving in Chernobyl? | My understanding is that humans won't survive long, especially if they eat things from the ground. Why are the wolves, moose, bison, birds, trees, grass, and bushes fine? | 16 | Because radiation isn't some super-lethal force that destroys all life. We are constantly exposed to radiation from the ground, air, and space. It turns out humans are far more lethal to plants and animals than the radiation levels within the exclusion zone. So in the absence of humans, wildlife is thriving. | 29 |
ELI5: Why is thigh skin so much thinner than skin on other parts of the body? | I was looking up why thigh chafing happens so often, and apparently one reason is that thigh skin is so much thinner than skin on other parts of the body. Why is this? | 35 | Most people in our evolutionary past were normal weight or underweight and for them this was probably never really an issue (especially when you consider that they didn’t have clothing (or at least not shorts and trousers) for most of that time). So having thick, robust skin on the inside of your thighs was probably ne... | 12 |
[Undergrad] Allowed acquaintance to base her homework off mine, got accused of plagiarism. | **Background:**
I'm a 3rd year computer science student in Canada, taking a Theory of Computation course. I've been accused of plagiarism.
**What happened:**
A month ago we had an assignment due into which I put a lot of effort. After I had finished, an acquaintance of mine asked me for help at the last minute b... | 17 | So, based on the details in the post, it sounds like your classmate is guilty of plagiarism (passing off someone else's work as their own), but you're guilty of _academic dishonesty_ (of which plagiarism is one form), since you facilitated your classmate's plagiarism/dishonest submission of work. | 45 |
[Dragon Ball Z] Why didn’t Cell ever use the Kaioken when he was losing a fight? | He should be able to, more than Goku even, because of how durable his body is and how he never runs out of energy. If he did that, he would have won damn near every fight he was in. | 180 | Does cell know about kaioken?
If he does, it may be a technique that requires proper training under a teacher compared to something like the kamehameha, which seems be learnable by seeing it in person. | 132 |
ELI5: How does pool cleaning work? Surely, even if dissolved, all that crap is STILL in the SAME water? | 79 | It depends. A lot of the material settles out of the water and collects on the bottom or floats to the top where it can be removed mechanically. Some of it do end up in the filters in front of the circulation pumps for the pool which can then be cleaned out. However some of the algae will dissolve into smaller molecule... | 151 | |
Humans see in color, pigeons see millions of hues, dogs see in black and white, snakes can sense heat, and flies have millions of lenses in which they perceive the world. How then, do we know what the world actually looks like? | 33 | It doesn't "actually" look like anything. "Looking like" is something the world does in various ways to things that perceive things visually. There's no "actual" version of it that isn't relative to things doing the perceiving. | 57 | |
ELI5: Why are there so many planes crashed in the Rocky Mountains, East of the Continental Divide? | I'm curious about the science of why the altitude or this specific area was so difficult as well as the social/political/whatever climate that made this happen. | 76 | Pilot here with mountain-flying experience, I'll try to answer the question as completely as possible without getting to science-y.
There are a two main reasons why this happens:
* **Altitude**: In the same way that your car produces significantly less power at higher elevations, small aircraft produce less power at ... | 49 |
CMV: The Purge would cause more issues than it would solve. | The Purge (an event where all crime is legal in the film series *The Purge*) would undoubtedly cause more issues than it would solve.
In the movies it is touted as a beneficial thing. That crime has greatly been reduced and homelessness almost eradicated.
Allowing all crime to be legal for just one day would cause h... | 52 | yeah i mean the movies are pretty anti-purge for many reasons. they don't go into the points you bring up necessarily but like the whole point of the movies/series is that the purge is bad morally and ineffective practically for its purported goals
EDIT:
>In the movies it is touted as a beneficial thing. That cr... | 55 |
[LOTR] Is there a biological reason Boromir was able to fight despite having three arrows in his chest? Or was it just a matter of push-ups, sit-ups, and plenty of juice? | 631 | Arrows are only super lethal when they strike the heart or brain. Anything else is death by bloodloss or internal injuries which takes longer. Boromir is full up on adrenaline and righteous fury so he's ignoring the pain and pushing through until shock and death set it. | 855 | |
ELI5: Why do redheads have a different reaction to anesthesia? | 15 | Scientists are actually a little unsure. But in redheads there is a mutation in the gene that governs the release of melanin which causes tans and darkens hair. Broken gene means no melanin and you get light skin and red hair.
By sheer evolutionary coincidence this same gene is also reused in pain reception. There's ... | 26 |
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