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[Beyblade] What are beyblades? What's the big deal about them? | I have seen the first anime, Metal Fusion, and Burst on-and-off yet I still don't get it.
Are beyblade living creatures or not? Why is it such a huge sport? Why does no one over 18 seem to play it?
In the original anime it felt like beyblading as an up-and-coming sport but the other anime make it seem way more impor... | 410 | IIRC, Beyblades are pieces of a meteor infused with a soul. Or at least, the faces are.
I think Metal Fusion has a few examples of fake, soul-less Beys.
Doji (user of Dark Wolf) is most likely over 18 in Metal Fusion, by the way. | 238 |
ELI5: What does it actually mean when a state “declares a state of emergency”? | I hear that phrase all the time. Most recently, governor McMaster of South Carolina declared a state of emergency in anticipation of hurricane Michael. I’m just wondering, what does that actually do? Simply raise awareness of the disaster? Does anything more practical happen automatically as a result? Government buildi... | 112 | A state of emergency waives some legal procedures and requirements that would otherwise prevent the government from quickly stepping in to help affected areas. In addition, a state of emergency can be used to effectively rapidly inact temporary "laws" that otherwise would not be permissable or contradict existing laws... | 111 |
Is Mayonnaise a compressible fluid? | I know it's technically a colloid. I'm working on a question from an eve friend who wants to make a mayonnaise jet pack. | 60 | First some clarifications that are somewhat relevant to your question.
* A fluid exhibits *incompressible flow* if the density of fluid parcels is constant. This implies that div(**u**) = 0, which is roughly a statement that infinitesimal volumes are conserved.
* Something is an (homogeneous) *incompressible materia... | 49 |
CMV: "Borat 2" was a poor-quality sequel | To begin this post, I think it's important to first look at what made "Borat" such a great film in the first place:
1. **"Borat" was, fundamentally, a film about the character Borat.** "Borat" is such a great movie because Borat is such an entertaining character to watch. Visually, Borat is tall, gangly, and stands ou... | 32 | I think you overestimate how much of the point of Borat was laughing at Borat himself. Sacha Baron Cohen has said that the real comedy of his characters comes from the absurdity that anyone could believe they're real people and what people are willing to reveal about themselves when you use the classic agree and amplif... | 15 |
Why do boiled eggs smell but scrambled eggs don't? | This question was posed by a friend and I don't know the answer. She's curious about the smell when you finish cooking eggs by the different methods. I think she may not be able to smell scrambled eggs because of how often she eats them. Please correct me! | 25 | Boiled eggs smell because sulphur compounds in the proteins making up the egg white release hydrogen sulphide when heated to 100 C. When making scrambled eggs (1) the temperature is usually less than 100 C and (2) compounds in the egg yolk (which is kept separate when boiling) react with any hydrogen sulphide thus neut... | 21 |
Every summer in NYC, the mosquitoes are surprisingly prevalent. Every winter, obviously, they die off. How do they repopulate? | 77 | They are like flies. They have four stages of life egg, larva, pupae, and adult. Mostly the cycle only lasts for a few weeks, but in cold climates the stages can last for months. Some stages can even be frozen and thawed later. | 33 | |
ELI5: Why does Russia want to invade Ukraine? | I'd also like an explanation on why Ukrainians rebels want to fight to join Russia? | 26 | Crimea was conquered by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catharine the Great in 1783. Russia fought two wars with the Ottoman Empire in Crimea, largely over the peninsula's strategic and economic value. In 1954 the Soviet republic of Russia transfered administration of the Crimean peninsula to the Soviet republ... | 28 |
ELI5: The Stock Market and how I can get involved. | 38 | A market is a place (or virtual place nowadays) where people meet to trade things.
A stock market is a place to trade stock (shares of a company). There are commodity markets, bond markets, candy markets (in pre-school classrooms). Pretty much anywhere people have things that they do not need and would value having so... | 10 | |
[Family Guy] Why is Brian an adamant atheist when he’s met Jesus Christ personally several times? | 373 | Because Brian is a pretentious douchebag who thinks he's smarter than everyone else.
The thing is, several times throughout the show we've seen him praying to god ( Usually when there is a real possibility that he's gonna die) so one could make the argument that he's not really an atheist to begin with. | 408 | |
Eli5: the differences between the Little Boy and the Fat Man atomic bombs used against Japan | 185 | Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima, was a uranium bomb, and used a gun-like mechanism to shoot one sub-critical mass of U-235 into another, creating the critical mass that exploded.
Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, was a plutonium bomb, used a sphere of plutonium that was then compressed by ordinary explosives to create th... | 98 | |
I'm a nurse who loved statistics in college... | ...is there a way to make a career out of statistics and the medical field? I know there is, but I have no idea what path is possible or what are common jobs for people in medical statistics, so any info is appreciated. Again, sorry if this is a stupid question. | 28 | Y-E-S is the short answer. Depending on the place you'll probably need to learn R (John's Hopkins has a great intro course on Coursera) or SAS (which I'd personally rather take a bleach enema than work with every day).
You'll probably need a formal graduate degree to get your foot in the door (don't be fooled by boot... | 22 |
Why do the planets orbit the sun on a flat plane? | Why don't they look similar to electrons orbiting an atom? | 22 | 1. Our Solar System was a big blob of gas and dust, and it wasn't ordered in any big way. There was a little bit of rotation.
2. Gravity pulled the blob together, and by conservation of angular momentum that small amount of rotation was magnified, like a skater whose rotation speeds up as they pull their arms in.
3. ... | 13 |
[Once Upon a Time] So is the Galactic Republic out there? | How about Asgard? | 52 | Star Wars actually is canonically part of the Once Upon a Time multiverse. At one point (in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland), Jafar and the Red Queen are reviewing a book of monsters to find things to sic on Alice. One of the monsters the read about is the sarlacc, which they say will "digest her over a millennia". | 48 |
Is there an optimal time to have a baby during the career timeline? | The other popular thread today about having a baby during graduate school made me wonder the same thing about having a baby during a post-doc or while going for tenure... Generally, I've heard there is never one "right" time, but is there a time that is easier than others? Any certain milestones that should generally b... | 54 | The answer to your original question is no. There is never an ideal time and you can always find an excuse to wait. You just have to decide what your priorities are and go for it when you are ready to start a family. It’s what we had to do.
Also, for comic relief, watch the beginning of Idiocracy by Mike Judge. It hig... | 124 |
Why does life "want" to reproduce? When did this come about? | I know this is a very strange and abstract question and I cannot articulate it as well as I can through text, so here is my attempt.
Given that the general evolutionary reason that life wants to reproduce is to simply "continue" itself, my question tries to stem from a more existential and logistical perspective: the ... | 34 | There was no 'thought', and it started before anything was even 'alive', i.e. reproduction has been around longer than life, as the chemical precursors to life reproduced and evolved.
Things that are good at copying themselves make more copies of themselves than things that aren't good at copying themselves. It's that... | 55 |
[ELI5] How does Wireless Charging work? | 225 | A long length of fine wire is wound into a coil, basically in the shape of a doughnut or garden hose. When electricity (specifically, alternating current or AC) is run through this coil, it sets up a magnetic field around it. If you then bring another similar coil of wire close (but not touching) to this coil, the m... | 113 | |
[Star Wars] C-3PO’s memory is never wiped after Episode III. What changes? | What, if anything, would happen differently or would he do differently? | 31 | Assuming palpatine knows his memory is intact Luke and Leia are snatched up soon as the empire gets their hands on his memories and turned to the dark side at a young age to replace Vader. Outside of that happening Leia would know she has a brother sooner than Return of the Jedi. Probably would go find Luke prior to ... | 21 |
Why don't, if two countries are in debt to each other, they forgive a certain amount of each others debt? | If countries X and Y are both in debt to each other, say X owes &5 million to Y (I'm letting & be an imaginary currency, but you can think of it as Euros, USD, or whatever), and Y owes &3 million to X, why don't they cancel out so X only owes &2 million to Y and Y owes X nothing? | 53 | Often when we say, for instance, that X owes &5 million to Y, what we mean is that *private interests* in Y own &5 million of X's debt.
So we might have a situation where Chase is owed $5 billion by the German government, and Deutsche Bank is owed $5 billion by the US government, but we couldn't make a smooth... | 49 |
[Fallout] So when is this music from? For instance, did the Ink Spots start producing music in 1930's or the 2070's? | In the Fallout universe am I listening to hits from the 1930's or to music that was made just before the bombs fell?
| 24 | It's the Ink Spots. What had happened was a cultural freeze. Politicians in charge made particular decisions which had nasty side effects like a lack of new music.
After all, what do you need that *new* music for? It sounds communist to me. Isn't good old fashion traditional American music like the Ink Spots not good ... | 22 |
[Star Wars] Anti-gravity technology seems very common, even when a simple set of wheels would have worked just as well. Carbonite Han Solo was antigravitied out for instance. Yoda uses it to float around on. That being said why do quadrupedal, bipedal and wheeled droids even exist? Vehicles too. | 67 | Anti-grav is still more expensive than wheels. Your average R2 unit will just be rolling around the hangar bay between the ship and the maintenance bay. Can you imagine an R2 unit rolling through a Jungle like Endor? It's ridiculous.
Other walking units, like the AT-AT's and the ST's, are made for uneven terrain and f... | 79 | |
ELI5: Does all the money in the world really exist physically? If you added up all the bank accounts, would there be physical money to equal that? | 41 | Not only does the money not physically exist, there is no means to tell exactly how much money DOES exist at any given time.
Let me give you an example.
You have $10,000.
You put that $10,000 in the bank. You still have $10,000.
The bank (being a bank) lends $9000 of that money out to a company.
You still have... | 81 | |
ELI5:Why do new albums on iTunes cost the same as the hard copy in the shop when you're getting less for your money and there aren't any shipping costs involved etc? | 291 | The answer to "why does X cost $Y" is almost always because that's what people are willing to pay you for it.
As a business, what it costs you to sell the product (CoGS) is just a starting point. You poll your typical customer, construct strategy models, compare test results, etc...
Then you price your good at whatev... | 177 | |
[General SciFi] Why aren't more spaceships spherical? | I'm a software engineer collaborating with a team of physicists and other programmers to develop functions to assist in making physical calculations for spacecraft with odd geometry. I don't have to do this, of course, since food and energy are free, but I've chosen to help develop flight software as community service ... | 236 | Reentry. Unless they stay permanently in space, they will be entering and leaving atmospheres regularly, and that means aerodynamics matter.
Heat. The more power a ship consumes, the more heat is generated. A sphere is optimal for a low-power craft to retain heat, but very inefficient for a high-power vessel generatin... | 224 |
ELI5: Why do some materials ‘feel’ wet when actually they are just cold. | 18 | > Why do some materials ‘feel’ wet when actually they are just cold.
We don't have "wetness sensors" on our skin. We can detect pressure and changes in temperature. Typically speaking water is difficult to change in temperature and a good conductor of heat so it feels cold. But things like metal can also be good co... | 13 | |
[Marvel] Were any beings strong enough to resist the Gauntlet’s snap? | Just wondering if there were beings who could resist being erased by the infinity stones… like The Living Tribunal or similar? | 47 | Yes, the Living Tribunal is beyond the power of the infinity gauntlet. He proved so when Adam Warlock was brought before him in possession of the infinity gauntlet. Warlock got angry and erased all the abstract entities in attendance except for the Tribunal, who brought back the abstracts immediately with a thought.
P... | 67 |
ELI5:How'd people in the past train birds to fly messages to locations. | Honestly this still baffles me to this day. You couldn't send a person to a place they don't know but these birds flew back and fourth all over. HELP ME OH SMART ONES | 19 | They didn't.
Homing pigeons naturally return to their nests. So what they did was establish rookeries where there were lots of nests of pigeons at key locations. They would then send those pigeons in cages to other key locations and when you needed to send a message you picked a rookerie closest to your target locati... | 21 |
[Neo Genesis Evangelion] What happened to Shinji and Asuka after the Third Impact? | I know Shinji and Asuka were the two people left after the whole Third Impact, but I wanna what exactly happened. Were they just left there? I am also not sure if Asuka died or not after Shinji decided to kinda, choke her for some reason, and they show presented showed her as still alive, I think? I am not sure, I know... | 49 | They were the first two, they might not be the only two. Anyone who can self-actualizes and choose to live despite the possibility of pain could come back if they want to.
Now they have to learn how to live with each other, knowing that they can hurt or comfort each other.
The time loop thing is a theory, not yet exp... | 27 |
ELI5: When I feel pain from a burn I feel the instant pain then a brief period before throbbing pain starts, are there two different pain receptors? | 41 | When you burn yourself, an immediate reflex occurs to make you pull your hand back. This isn't pain, and it isn't even processed by the brain, but directly by the brain stem. When that reflex is occuring, you haven't had enough time for the pain signals to be transmitted and processed by the brain yet. When those signa... | 37 | |
Why do shaving cuts bleed for so long? (i.e. why doesn't the blood clot normally?) | When I get normal cuts, the bleeding usually stops in a few moments depending on the damage. Smaller cuts stop bleeding faster, larger ones need a bandaid to help.
But when I slice myself with a razor while shaving, it seems to bleed for nearly an hour before finally clotting. No matter if I use a bandaid, piece of pa... | 26 | Layman: Until someone with more knowledge chimes in, I'll just say that the face has more blood vessels per area than any other part of the body (except maybe the genitals). Also razor wounds are not jagged, they are narrow and sharp, so there is less skin "teeth", for lack of a better term, for the clot to adhere to. | 12 |
ELI5, why does compressed air get colder as you use it? | 34 | > why does compressed air get colder as you use it?
Probably what you are familiar with is "canned air" such as in computer cleaners. They aren't really compressed air but rather a chemical with a low boiling point and low vapor pressure. This allows them to pack a high volume of gas into a container without it nee... | 23 | |
Why do high temperatures damage hardware, specifically cpu's and gpu's? | I've searched everywhere and haven't been able to find a straight answer as to why heat will make processors fail.
Specifically temperatures >100C.
What is actually happening on a microscopic and macroscopic level that is causing damage? | 17 | At the microscopic level, a CPU consists of hundreds of millions of transistors. A transistor is, at the most fundamental level, multiple layers of semiconductor material with different types of impurities. The transistors are only a few nanometers across, so the impurity atoms don't have to move far to render it usele... | 23 |
ELI5: How does an iPod to tape player work? | For example, one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Macally-PodTape-iPod-Cassette-Adapter/dp/B0001YXWNM | 18 | An audio cassette is just a reel of magnetic tape with information stored on it. What this adapter does is it creates a magnetic field where the tape player's reading head is, so tape player thinks that it's an actual tape. It also thinks that the tape is spinning, because the information coming out of the adapter is c... | 10 |
[Ready Player One] How in Gods name does the economy even work? | So, as I see it, people can spend irl money on credits, and vice versa. Ok, sure, fine. After all, the virtual environment of the OASIS is better than the standard living conditions. But if you can get credits from just killing rng-ed enemies, then you have a theoretically infinite amount of credits and you break the e... | 28 | For the Oasis currency to have value and be transerable to real world currency doesn't mean it has to be fixed. Take WOW gold, for example. There is an infinite amount that can be mined in the game, it has a market for its real world conversion price, and does have people that farm it.
Botting, just like nearly every ... | 36 |
Why do some ants get scared and run like hell when I discover them, and others don't really seem to care? | Do different species of ants have different survival instincts? Does the size/age of the ant matter? Does it matter if the ants are in a group? | 19 | Ant behavior is largely determined by pheromones. Ants themselves have over 20 different pheromone glands on their body.
One of the first pheromones to evolve was the "alarm" pheromone. This pheromone is released, in most cases from the mandibular gland, whenever an ant feels threatened or is killed (crushing an ant l... | 16 |
If helium rises, and we've "used" nearly all of it that we have, and it's a noble element, shouldn't their be a bunch of helium being held against the inside of our atmosphere? | [inspired by this thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/qvtjx/til_earth_will_be_virtually_heliumfree_by_the_end/c40wmqb?context=3) | 149 | Helium actually escapes the atmosphere. Keep in mind there is no magical barrier that defines the boundary of the atmosphere - it's all held together by gravity. Helium is light enough that it floats to the top, and gravity is too weak to retain it.
Also, from the thread you linked to - helium used for balloons is a v... | 171 |
ELI5: If games can render near photo-realistic graphics in real-time, why does 3D animation software (e.g Blender) take hours or even days to render simple animations? | 20,850 | Games use a lot of tricks to fake the photorealism at less cost than doing it for real (compressing textures, popins, etc.). The most important one is the lighting. You may notice that shadows don't always look right in games. You know how when you hold something colored under a light, it starts to glow that color? Gam... | 15,850 | |
ELI5: what's the purpose of electronically signing on a credit purchase especially when most signatures are not the person's actual signature or lazy scribble that doesn't resemble letters and In what ways are they used? | 452 | There is zero security in a signature. No one checks them, and only a very few are able to detect what is a genuine signature and what isn't.
The best they can do is provide evidence if the holder of a card who did a transaction tries to charge it back. Then the recording of the signature can be verified by real exper... | 210 | |
ELI5: What caused the financial crisis in 2008? | 35 | The United States slipped into a minor recession right after 9/11, so the government used its control over how much money is circulating to make it cheaper to borrow money. Because interest rates were low, people borrowed a lot of money and used much of it to buy houses.
While this was happening, home prices were incre... | 41 | |
[Lord of the Rings] If elves have such keen senses, why would they need to make weaponry that alerts them to the presence of orcs? | In the films, Sting doesn't give them much lead time before the orcs appear. They don't seem particularly inclined to be stealthy, in any case, always charging in. | 31 | It might have been used as a component to a strategy of terror - rather than alerting the elves using the weapons, it would alert the orcs that the wielders are elite warriors with fine weaponry, and would likely cause the orcs with less moral to flee rather than engage.
Orcs are cowardly and unwilling to attack with... | 66 |
ELI: If humans originated in Africa, how did we also develope on remote islands like Japan? | Did humans travel to japan in boats from china and after a while forget they came from the mainland and created their own origin stories? Or, if not, how did we get to japan? | 18 | The former. Humans radiated outward from Africa in several waves, and over time colonized pretty much every place that could support us. Sometimes they ended up in places that later became islands after sea levels rose, and sometimes they used rafts or boats. You can even use genetics to work out roughly how long ago d... | 19 |
[MCU] What's the hierarchy/order of command in the Avengers? | 45 | There's no real hierarchy.
Fury started it and Stark kept it going through funding. Rogers kept people motivated because he wanted to get rid of Hydra. Ultron happens, authority is imposed and the group basically breaks up.
Civil War shows that there's no leader. People happily abandon Stark. Doesn't matter if he's p... | 81 | |
ELI5: Why does your body feel really hot inside or has this weird feeling for like 1 second after you stumbled or maybe even nearly dropped something important? I guess it has something to do with adrenalin but what does really happen? | 21 | Yes, it does have to do with adrenaline. Adrenaline is released in your body, which causes your heart to beat faster which brings more oxigen to your cells which causes them to burn that oxigen more intensely increasing metabolism and increasing your body temperature in the process. | 11 | |
ELI5: Why does 81° water feel so much colder than 81° air? | Edit: 81° Fahrenheit | 2,584 | for the same reason that objects in a "room temperature" room all seem to be different temperatures, the air or a piece of wood might not feel cold, but tile might. in actuality, they are the same temperature. Varying degrees of thermal conductivity make us perceive that some things are colder than others. Water and ai... | 1,736 |
[Marvel/DC] Out of the various super-teams, which ones would actually have you concerned from a security standpoint? | Let's say your taking the role of an operative of ARMOR or some similar organization. For those who don't know what ARMOR is, it's an arm of SHIELD that focuses on observing alternate realities.
So out of the following Super-teams, which do you think is the most dangerous in both terms of power and any psych profiles ... | 28 | All of these teams present an end-of-the-world level threat if they went bad, so the one that worries me most is the one that would be hardest to stop.
That is, very easily, the Justice League. Of the original seven, Superman, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder can end the world individually, and all are extremely difficul... | 40 |
[Futurama] Why is the world so misinformed about the 2000s? | Shouldnt there be enough heads or frozen people to give a good picture of what happened? | 45 | Not that many people talk to the heads in the head museum. As you saw when Fry hid in there, there was barely anyone in there. The heads *also* have become a bit eccentric, and aren't generally treated with much respect. Frankly the only ones with any semblance of respect comparable to what they had in their home era w... | 41 |
[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] What exactly is the Ooze or mutagen? | So what exactly is the ooze or mutagen and why does it turn animals humanoid? Or turn human's into humanoid animals. Where does it come from and how does it work? Can it be undone once mutated? | 19 | It depends on the Canon. In some cases the Ooze is extra terrestrual/dimensional and has origins relating to krang and his people in others it is created by humans via unknown methods and has a mixed bag of effects. | 17 |
How are toll roads legal? I thought that taxes payed for roads? | Question in the title plus a bonus: can you get a ticket for using the fast pass or pike pass lane without having the pass? | 101 | You pay a premium on certain frequently used roads/bridges/tunnels in order to supplement the general taxes. This keeps people who use the road more (though not entirely) financially responsible for contributing to upkeep. As opposed to raising taxes on everyone all the time.
LY5?
Every person in your neighborhoo... | 78 |
[Super Heroes] Okay, let’s put this to bed: which Superheroes DO go down on their partners? | Assuming that Batman doesn’t (which I don’t personally believe but whatever) and Green Arrow does, who else is eating that pie in bed? | 1,046 | Not only does **Daredevil** go down, his ability to sense the heart rate and internal physiology of his partners means that he plays them like a fiddle. And he only gets better each time.
**Cyclops** probably does not. Since his eyebeams can punch holes in mountains, it’s too much of a risk. | 892 |
CMV: The free market isn't going to save the planet | Let's be real, all these "green" ´products and no straws/plastics bags are just for show, they don't do anything meaningful against climate change.
We are too far gone to expect the free market to come up with solutions that we needed to implement decades ago. And that's assuming corporations even want to solve it at ... | 127 | The free market optimizes within the constraints set by the government.
If the government isn’t creating the right incentive structure, yeah - we’re gonna have a problem.
But the free market is still a powerful force even if government isn’t optimal. The tipping point to a greener technology becoming cheaper creat... | 52 |
[MCU] So what exactly is the difference between sorcery and witchcraft? | In the new movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, they talk about how the Scarlet Witch is capable of powerful witchcraft, but treat it like it’s a different skill set that sorcery. Strange even confers with Wanda at the beginning of the movie because he considers her an expert in the field. So what then, i... | 128 | The films seem to imply that sorcerers are normal individuals who learn to manipulate magical energies over time, and anyone can learn to do this with the right teachers. But witchcraft is magic that is innate to the wielder, they are basically a magical person whether they learn to wield it effectively not | 166 |
[The Matrix] How did the first person hack out of the Matrix? | In the movie, we see people pulled out of the matrix by people who are already outside of it. How could you get out if there were no one to pull you out? | 25 | >"When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth - As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free. After he died, the Oracle prophesied his ret... | 26 |
CMV: Conservative parties don't help the world. | I have yet to see any conservative political party that genuinely wants to help normal people and not just their own group. Not talking about individuals because I know there are some.
All over the world I always see that it's the conservatives against fact checking or againts helping the environment. Or the conservat... | 17 | Conservatives are for a Free Market approach to an economy.
Go look at any Quality of Life metric and see how many countries with the highest quality of life DONT have a Free Market economy. Almost all of them do (if not all).
>It genuinely looks like they are againts helping people.
Having a high quality life wi... | 28 |
[DC] I have done nothing with my life but train to lift heavy objects. Am I stronger than someone like Batman or Bane? | Okay, so I have spent every moment of my life training to give myself the absolute max of human strength. If I wanted to I could easily get to the olympics and bring home gold for my country. Every waking hour of my life has been spent weight lifting, bulking up, or lifting more weights.
I should be stronger than eit... | 26 | Probably, though it's worth noting that they have really good genes and you may not. Also note that you would be better at the lifts you practiced, but not a better fighter. Also weaker then Bane when hes on venom. | 32 |
CMV: The mission to recover bodies from White Island is stupid and needlessly risks lives. | >The [New Zealand](https://www.theguardian.com/world/newzealand) military will deploy to White Island at first light in an attempt to bring eight bodies home to their desperate families – despite a serious risk of the volcano erupting again.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/new-zealand-volcano-police... | 48 | > What they are bringing back is essentially of no value
This is what you get wrong. These bodies have enormous emotional value to their loved ones. Being able to bury a body instead of an empty casket is a enormous difference. To you it might not mean anything but to the loved ones of those people who passed a... | 25 |
ELI5: What is the difference between carbs and sugars if carbs are broken down into sugars? Also why are sugars so much worse than carbs for the gut microbiome if they end up as the same thing? | 33 | If you think of your metabolism as like a campfire, then carbs are wood.
Sugars are twigs and leaves. You can just pick em up and start a fire with them. Glucose is one of the simplest sugars. This is basically leaves. Sucrose might be like twigs, since it's a little more complicated and takes a bit of work to get bur... | 102 | |
[The Expanse]how long can the ships create linier gravity through acceleration before they max out on speed and have to stop and start again? | 56 | ...there is no max speed other than the speed of light.
The fastest, although least fuel efficient, way to travel in space is max burn for half the distance then flip over and max burn for the other half. | 113 | |
CMV: Gun Control Proponents undermine their own argument | I was reading this article from the NYT [How They Got Their Guns] (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0) and Slate (How Mass shooters got their guns)[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/how_roseburg_new... | 18 | The main issues you're naming don't actually affect what most people are talking about with gun issues. The most/basically all gun deaths happen outside of mass shooting. We've no idea how many of those people would lose their gun access, but surely it isn't 0%. Stopping those many people would be more than good enough... | 16 |
[Star Wars] Should the Naboo have been suspicious when the Gungans put together a well organised and equipped land army in an afternoon? Who exactly were the Gungans planning to fight before the Trade Federation showed up? | So in the Phantom Menace, after a little encouragement Boss Nass, calls his banners and immediately has a large well organised and equipped land army at his disposal. They are armed with shields and weapons capable of putting up at least some fight against the Trade Federation, who are much stronger than the Naboo guar... | 73 | This is a bit like asking if Mexico should be suspicious of the United States' military. Probably yes, but there isn't a lot they can do about it.
The Gungans have a proud military tradition, and (prior to the Battle of Naboo) were pretty xenophobic. Their army was also more of a militia than a standing army, its prim... | 68 |
ELI5: Why are razors in apples the most widely-known danger of Trick-or-Treating, when there's no documented case of it happening? | 26 | Its an amazing example of media fear mongering. When theres no news, you create news. Whats a better way to get viewers than a special horrible thing everyone will have to hear about to be safe. Bonus points because you can attribute your coverage to it not happening anymore (even though it didnt happen in the first pl... | 22 | |
[Harry Potter] If the Sorting Hat in it's wisdom placed Draco Malfoy into Gryffindor how might things have turned out for him? | 32 | Well, he wanted to be a Slytherin, and almost all the Gryffindors would either bully him or just refuse to associate with him. He's kind of an entitled dick.
McGonigal is not a horrible person, but she doesn't respect the way Draco does things. He has to wait until second year before trying out for Quidditch.
He'... | 28 | |
Do we have a handle on the number of diseases that go undiagnosed and contagious? | A Chinese doctor discover COVID 19 was circulating. However, we all get sick and go to the doctor to discover we don’t have COVID or Strep and there is no attempt to figure out what is making people sick. (The two things doctors test generally).
Meanwhile lots of people are getting sick and if it progresses to someth... | 52 | It's worth researching if people are A. getting so sick they need to go to the hospital B. They die.
The amount of resources it would take to figure out what every single person is getting sick from, when they can get back on their feet at home and with rest, is far more than any government is willing to pay.
People... | 74 |
[FMA:Brotherhood] Does Al know more about human transmutation because he sacrificed more of his body compared to Ed? | In Ed's case, he went through the Gate and was shown everything but was cut off. Then he mentions he's almost there to knowing the secret to human transmutation but his sacrifice (his leg) was not enough of an exchange.
I assume Alphonse also went through the same thing and since he sacrificed his body, does he know e... | 25 | I believe when Ed is talking with Izumi they agree Al must have seen more of the Truth than either of them because he lost his entire body. However, the ordeal was intense enough that Al cannot remember it. He does eventually remember some (since he no longer needs to draw Transmutation circles), but it's unclear just... | 24 |
ELI5: Why does the whole stream change it's course when you run water from the faucet and barely touch the side of the stream? | 142 | The viscosity (the way the water particles try to stick together) of the water means that when a few particles are diverted, they pull on the other particles around them and it turns into a chain reaction of movement. Imagine pinching a tubular curtain about halfway between and the floor and the ceiling and pulling it ... | 41 | |
Since electromagnetism is so much stronger than gravity, why doesn't it have more of an effect on large celestial bodies? | Since bodies like Earth, Jupiter and the Sun all have powerful magnetic fields, why do we not see the orbits of large bodies shifted by the magnetic fields of one another? Indeed, *do* we see this at all?
After all, even a tiny magnet can defy the gravity of an entire planet by lifting a kilogram weight off a table, a... | 16 | Excellent question. The fundamental reason is because there is no such thing as negative mass. Let me explain. Electric charge can come either as positive or negative, and opposites attract. This means that free positive charges will tend to attract free negative charges until they bind to form neutral atoms and molecu... | 19 |
[Halo] How were energy shields distributed to covenant forces? | I’m kinda confused on how the covenant handled energy shields. I’m talking purely lore now. I don’t read the books so maybe there’s a clearer answer there. In Reach when noble team first encountered the elite zealot team, we see that their shield can take a lot bullets before dropping. In the Halo 4 intro, we see that ... | 52 | Yes, there are lots of different armor models. This should be pretty obvious. In Halo 2 one of the elites comments that the Arbiter's antique armor can't cloak as long as their armor. In Halo 3 brutes start using shields because the elites defect. Jackals are issued portable arm-shields instead of full-body shields, li... | 25 |
How was it decided where astronauts would land on the moon? | 29 | Based on what a professor in a planetary science class explained to me:
* Step one: Send unmanned orbiters to take large, low-resolution photos and make a global map
* Step two: Give the map to the geologists and rocket engineers and have them argue about the most interesting vs. safest place to land, come up with a... | 12 | |
Why does electricity usually spread itself in a zig zag pattern when there's no concrete path to follow? | 186 | I assume you're talking about things like lightning. Ordinarily, air is extremely resistive to electrical current flow. But, when the electric field is strong enough, a narrow channel will ionize and conduct current. This allows charge to advance a short distance, where the electric field builds up again, causing an... | 55 | |
[Mostly Marvel, but some DC] Why do so many villains wear purple and green? | Galactus, Green Goblin, Kang the Conqueror, Mysterio, the Joker, the Riddler, the Leader is pretty green, Magneto (no green, but plenty of purple), Dr. Doom (no purple, but plenty of green)...and I'm sure I'm missing some others. Anyone have any good ideas why all of these baddies prefer green and purple?
My working h... | 102 | Purple it a color traditionnally associated with royalties. It instinctively give a feeling of power and authority. Therefore, villains who often aim at controlling the world are naturally attracted to thsi color.
Green on the other hand is a color that reflect greed and envy. Feelings also very strongs amongst villai... | 115 |
How large will a human fetus get if the mother never goes into labor or gets a Caesarean section? | Will the baby continue to grow until the mother dies from the size? Is it possible that a mother give birth to a child that is a few years old? | 48 | No - in fact, if the child stays in the womb much beyond 40 weeks, they will die. The placenta gradually stops working as you get beyond 40 weeks or so, and without this, the child gets no food or blood (among othr things).
This is why obstetricians will generally induce delivery or perform a Caesarian once you get p... | 60 |
ELI5: what would happen if i stood on a train going at the speed of light, and took a step forward? Would i go faster than light, or would it be physically impossible? | 23 | You can't actually travel at the speed of light, so for this question, let's assume your train is going 1m/s slower than light.
At that speed, time would be stretched by a factor of about 300,000,000.
Then you start walking/running at 2 m/s, which seems like it should take you faster than light. But due to the stret... | 36 | |
How is "you only dream of people you've met in life before, and your mind can't make up new people" even testable? Is this really true? | 63 | This is a common, but annoying, claim. There's no way of testing its veracity, for several reasons.
First, the question is ill-posed: what does "make up new people" mean? If a person is composed of pieces of others, then do they qualify as "new"? In any case, that's not an accurate representation of how memories work ... | 103 | |
ELI5: How is Chernobyl still dangerously radioactive but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were being rebuilt not even a decade after the atomic bombings? | 76 | For a few reasons. The Fat Man and Little Boy bombs detonated several hundred feet above ground level, and in doing so expended only 2 pounds each of their plutonium and uranium fuel. The Chernobyl reactor accident was at ground level and the reactor contained 180 TONS of radioactive fuel. | 48 | |
[Harry Potter/DC] Would the Marauder's Map reveal Joker's identity in Hogwarts? | Simple question, really. In light of recent debates in this subreddit about Death Note vs Joker, I thought Harry Potter might be able to chip in and help if he had his Map readily available. If i recall correctly, the Marauder's Map only works within the boundaries of Hogwarts, thus would it reveal the Joker's true i... | 46 | Magic isn't quite bound by the same rules as human logic. The map could discern a person's identity very easily unless confused by some sort of magic meant to conceal the user; simply calling yourself by another name would mean nothing to the map, as an alias is a thoroughly non-magical form of concealing one's identit... | 49 |
ELI5: Why do a lot of animals love good pats on their head, even when they are NOT domesticated? | There are videos of a lot of wild animals getting a good pat on their head, seemingly enjoying it. Or maybe its a good stroke over their necks, or being cuddled. Preys and predators alike. What evolutionary advantages drive them to act this way?
| 20 | Rubbing or nuzzling is often a sign of affection or bonding for a large number of mammals. Even birds can preen each other to bond, in some cases. But not all wild animals get any kind of good feeling for rubbing. For example, most lizards and fish do not care at all about that kind of attention. A dew fish might do so... | 17 |
ELI5 Brute Force password attacks; wouldn’t they get locked out? | I understand how password length and character exponentially increases the time necessary to brute force the answer.
Question is how do the attackers get around all the various hurdles and lockouts that every site seems to have? If they don’t have some trick for getting around the lockout, wouldn’t the account just ... | 38 | Generally speaking, people aren't brute forcing passwords by shoving them into a webform.
Instead, here's what will usually happen.
First, years ago you will have signed up for some random website that has moderate security at best. The email address and hashed password are part of that site's database.
Then, that s... | 145 |
[Dragonball] Humans shed cells all the time, cells regeneration only requires a few cells, how is it even possible to kill him in the first place as wouldnt he have cells just lying around? | 23 | Skin cells are already dead when you shed them, so presumably everything outside the gigantic Kamahameha was already dead by the time Cell got blasted.
They can't stay alive and viable for regeneration indefinitely, otherwise there would be a
million Cell clones hanging out within a week or two. Sorta like an Ork i... | 40 | |
Why do eyelids tend to close when the tongue tastes something really sour? | 190 | The function of the disgust expression is to stop noxious stimuli in the environment from harming us by entering one of the orifices on the face. That's is why the nose wrinkles, the tongue protrudes and the eyes close.
This physiological function was first proposed by Darwin (1872). | 94 | |
ELI5: Why are land/real estate lease agreements often for 99 years? | Everything from Hong Kong, Daewoo in Madagascar, to housing in Singapore. Why exactly 99? | 15 | In much of the English speaking world, or at least parts of the world where the judicial system has some connection to merry olde England, an old legal doctrine called the Rule Against Perpetuites was part of common law. There is no way to properly ELI5 the RAP other than to say it was designed to stop the "dead hand"... | 19 |
How does physical manipulation (e.g. massage) relax muscles? Does pressure create physiological changes in the tissue? | Maybe another way to put this might be: How much of muscle relaxation is physiological and how much is psychological?
**Edit:** Please provide credible sources if possible. Perhaps understandably, this field is full of personal theories without scientific support, so if you could provide links to appropriate sources ... | 2,455 | Stimulation of mechanoreceptors in the skin/muscle/fascia tissue can also activate inhibitory interneurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. This dampens the activity of A-delta and C pain fibers, resulting in short term reduction of pain. This obviously is only a small part of how a massage works physiologically,... | 786 |
CMV: I find it flattering if people from other cultures want to celebrate my culture and use elements of it | I'm Middle Eastern but I live in Europe. I always found it flattering when people of other cultures, for instance white people, took an interest to my culture. I think that sharing each other's culture is a beautiful way to connect with each other and tear down cultural segregation and develop more understanding betwee... | 1,335 | I mostly agree with you, but I'd suggest reconsidering one thing. Part of the idea of cultural appropriation is that the dominant culture with worldwide cultural and political influence routinely misrepresents a culture, often in a negative or disrespectful way. In other words, if your are for example from a small sout... | 233 |
Eli5 Why we cannot build a sleep surplus? | A previous posters question raised another question for me. I understand that human beings can experience sleep deficit, but why can we not build up a sleep surplus? | 2,680 | One of the main purposes of sleep it to allow our bodies to recover from the day and do a bunch of normal "maintenance" tasks that need to get done. Some of that stuff just needs to be done every day.
Like, imagine you generate one trashcan's worth of trash every day. You can empty it once a day and be fine, or you ... | 5,650 |
[Warhammer 40k]Why do eldar make everything so unnecessarily complex? | Lets look at their night spinner anti gravity tank's main gun.
>The Night Spinner grav-tank mounts a Doomweaver atop its sleek chassis, a weapon that spins threads of monofilament wire into a lethal web that is launched high into the air. This monofilament mesh is made from an organic polymer compound. The compoun... | 37 | Because the Eldar had millennia of boredom of which to invent unnecessarily complex devices. Sure they could just “get the job done” but the Eldar haven’t had to deal with resource scarcity, actual enemies, or mortality since the War in Heaven. So they spent those years seeing how far they could push. Sure sticking exp... | 53 |
ELI5: How is Grand Theft Auto 5 able to have such a large map, but little if any load screens? | Most games I've ever played have to load every time I enter a new area. How does Rockstar bypass this? | 185 | All of the map's data is available, but not always loaded. Instead, the game loads only what is pertinent to the player and the information is left behind once it becomes irrelevant. You can truly notice the effects of this when travelling very quickly across the map, such as in a plane or helicopter. You'll notice ... | 132 |
ELI5: The Missing Dollar Riddle. | Three people check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each guest pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't... | 36 | The $27 paid includes the $2 tip, so adding them makes no sense but the riddle confuses you into thinking that it does. The original $30 is made up of the $27 paid ($25 to the hotel plus $2 tip) and the $1 each they got back. | 35 |
ELI5: why do computers sometimes make horrible buzzing sounds when crashing/locking up? | Just had this happen to me for the first time in a while and it always catches me off guard.
To give my example, I was listening to music on my PC, and mid-song the PC completely locked up and a loud buzzing sound came through my headphones. I've had it happen in the past with other PCs and with game consoles as wel... | 31 | The sound hardware in a PC is designed to work with as little interference from the CPU as possible. To that end, it's generally set up so it can play a chunk of audio from memory without interference--all the CPU needs to do is update the location the audio hardware is playing from every now and again. If the system h... | 41 |
ELI5: If someone mails me illegal drugs, why can I be arrested? | I asked this question in my law class, and it led to a HUGE arguement about whether or not intent is required to have something be considered a crime.
I live in NY, and if the police see a package addressed to you that contains illegal drugs in it, they CAN arrest you once you receive the package, even if you had no i... | 90 | It needs to be proven in a court of law that you knew you were recieving drugs in the mail. The police have the power to arrest someone on reasonable suspicion a much lower standard then what is needed to find you guilty in court. Its pretty reasonable that if you got drugs in the mail you knew they were coming since... | 83 |
How are dams able to be constructed against the constant push of flowing water? | Secondly, how exactly does a dam hold back a constantly accumulating amount of water without simply overflowing? I know they drain some water through spillways, but it seems like the vast majority of water is still trapped above the dam. Where does it all go? | 47 | Usually the river is redirected around the site where permanent dam construction is taking place. A temporary dam may be used to assist the redirection.
A hydroelectric dam routes some of the water through the turbines within the dam to create electricity. Excess water exits through spillways.
When the lake upstream ... | 36 |
CMV: Governments no longer have the power they used to over companies. | I believe governments no longer have the power they used to over companies.
Some companies have near bottomless resources and hold monopolies across various sectors and nations. I will refer to these companies as super companies.
Super companies can no longer be controlled by the government. Only hindered. A super c... | 56 | >A super company can hire experts to legally find ways around legislation and laws.
That doesn't mean the government has less power over companies, it means they're writing poorly worded laws
>They have more resources and power than most governments.
Speaking as someone in the US, The US budget is around 4T ... | 35 |
Do you have an internal monologue? | I have one constantly myself. I’m always thinking to myself. I thought everyone one earth always has been and always will be like this, but I found out yesterday not everyone has an internal monologue. Some people don’t have one at all. This BLEW my mind. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have one. I can’t figure o... | 72 | Ok, it’s like this, hear me out.
What people don’t realize is that, we sorta still do have one, but one that most people aren’t very conscious of. But you can think if it like, instead of it being in the language of English, it’s by another language we’ve learned. We think in the language of feeling.
Here’s sort of ... | 28 |
Shouldn't the existence of consciousness scare us? | Assuming the following points:
a) Consciousness exists and can be created by the universe
b) Your consciousness was created once, either by random chance or any other process (which process has no importance). This means the same thing could happen again in the future, or it could even have happened in the past. ... | 17 | It seems like your argument is based on a negativity bias. Consciousness also enables you to experience pleasure, peace, and fulfilment. By your reasoning, consciousness could also be exciting, strange, intangible, or just about any other emotive. Conscious experience is not entirely pain and terror, even if it include... | 10 |
Eli5: how does a toaster only click when it’s connected to electricity? | It seems so simple yet I can’t seem to find an answer anywhere. | 195 | the mechanism relies on the electromagnetic field created by the current flowing through the switch you close when you press the lever
so it holds down as long as the timer allows for and if it switches off the electricity, the electromagnet opens and releases the main switch in turn killing the whole circuit
if you ... | 259 |
What exactly is Particle-Wave Duality of Light? | I have read a little bit about Quantum Mechanics and this is a bizarre phenomenon(for someone who didn't take GCSE Physics) that I've come across that isn't explained very well.. So I was wondering if someone can perhaps provide me with a more comprehensive explanation with suitable analogies so that I have a better in... | 16 | Waves and particles are concepts that have quite different properties.
The following are simplistic representations of some of the classical properties of waves and particles:
Waves are considered to be entities that don't have a single position, but are instead spread out over an area. In addition, two waves can int... | 25 |
[Home Improvement] How has Tim survived into adulthood being as accident prone as he is? | 15 | I assume doing the show increased his rate of accidents by a ton, since he seems to get viewership by being somewhat willing to get into crazy accidents. Even if he is not doing it intentionally, he does continue to work on the show which requires him to do _potentially_ dangerous work on a regular basis. It's possib... | 16 | |
CMV: Anita Sarkeesian is a horrible person, a sexist and a liar. Her examples of discrimination are easy to disprove. | You may be able to change my view, which I hope, but you will never be able to change the fact that Anita Sarkeesian has lied and over exaggerated things more times than necessary.
[I feel everyone should watch this video before they attempt to change my view, as it presents most of the information I get my opinion ab... | 16 | OP, can you elaborate on your claim that women are more likely than men to have "serious problems in the brain"?
Are you talking about organic brain damage? Mental illness? Something else?
What is the foundation for this claim? | 17 |
ELI5: The Pros and Cons of Universal Healthcare. | 220 | Pros:
* Everyone has health care coverage.
* Catastrophic illnesses or accidents no longer bankrupt families.
* Theoretically, the state could drive preventative care programs as a way to reduce costs.
Cons:
* It costs money. Someone has to pay for this with taxes.
* The state gets even more involved in your pri... | 171 | |
ELI5: With the amount of space debris orbitting the planet, how do satellites and space stations mitigate against impacts? | 15 | "Space debris" is a continuum. The frequency of a piece of debris is directly related to the size of that debris - small particles are significantly more likely than huge chunks of matter. Satellites and space stations are just built with enough external shielding to survive the constant onslaught of tiny particles (mm... | 12 | |
How does electricity "know" which path has the least resistance? | 16 | Imagine you have a circuit with two different resistors in parallel, connected to a battery. At the moment you close the circuit (i.e. turn it on), you will have electrons leaving the negative side of the battery. They will push against the other electrons on the wire, which will then push on the next ones, etc. See, t... | 17 | |
ELI5: what are birthmarks and why do they appear? | 173 | A birthmark is a congenital, benign irregularity on the skin which is present at birth or appears shortly after birth, usually in the first month. They can occur anywhere on the skin. Birthmarks are caused by overgrowth of blood vessels, melanocytes, smooth muscle, fat, fibroblasts, or keratinocytes. | 53 | |
ELI5 - Why is it bad for money to have a fixed value over time? | What's the harm in a dollar's worth being constant? Why is an inflation rate of zero bad? | 158 | Having inflation increases investment, it makes it disadvantageous for you to have tons of cash just laying around. In fact a big problem now is that companies and people are hoarding cash, with inflation there's a big push to invest in things such as an expansion or hiring new employees, because you effectively lose ... | 69 |
ELI5: When watching a painful video (ex: a bicycle crash), why do our nerves seem to become active, as if we are feeling the pain ourselves, for a split second? | Not sure this is common but it’s not always pleasant. | 21 | 2 possible reasons.
1) Humans have special kinds of neurons called mirror neurons that allow you to "feel" in a limited sense what other humans are feeling. This is helpful to build empathy and lasting relationships.
2) Our brains are also constantly learning and trying to simulate the effects of the environment on o... | 16 |
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