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[General] Are Catgirls lactose intolerant? | 17 | Maybe. If they developed similarly to humans, there would be some that could drink milk, and some who couldn't. Most Europeans are lactose tolerant, whereas most Asians are not, due to how long Europe has had domesticated cows.
If there's magical bullshit involved, however, all bets are off. If a wizard who loves feed... | 13 | |
ELI5:after losing some blood, the body starts replacing that blood, how does it know that it has already finished replacing that lost blood so it could stop making more? | 1,408 | Special cells in the kidneys, called peritubular cells, sense that the level of oxygen in the blood has decreased (due to the loss of red cells) and start secreting a protein called erythropoietin. This passes through the bloodstream until it reaches the bone marrow (the soft fatty tissue inside the bone cavities).
Th... | 515 | |
ELI5: Dinosaurs lived in a world that was much warmer, with more oxygen than now, what was weather like? More violent? Hurricanes, tornadoes? Some articles talk about the asteroid impact, but not about what normal life was like for the dinos. (and not necessarily "hurricanes", but great storms) | My first front page everrrrr | 16,005 | **TL;DR:** *Oxygen, not so much. But the supercontinents back then could really have amplified weather conditions.*
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The level of oxygen wasn't really that much of a factor. Oxygen levels were higher because plants were sucking all of the carbon dioxide out of the air and trapping the carbon into coal and oil at ... | 5,923 |
ELI5: Why is the cost of movies/music for personal use still so high when there is way less distro overhead? | This crosses my mind so often, how come we are paying $10-$15 for an album, and the same for a SD/HD movie through iTunes or VUDU or whatever? Shouldn't there be a discount for not providing one with physical media? not having to truck them to stores, make displays and so on? Extra Credit: Is this proving that the arti... | 61 | Basically it costs $10-15 to buy an album because people are spending $10-15 to buy one. The customer perceives value at that price.
Keep in mind that 30 years ago we paid $10-15 for an album on record or cassette. The innovations in cost savings and distribution you mention are partially consumed by inflation. | 23 |
I think fat acceptance is terrible. CMV | Being fat is bad- ask any doctor alive and they'll all tell you as much.
I'm not even saying fat people should be seen as ugly or yadda yadda, I'm saying that fat isn't okay. It spawns so, so many other diseases and wrecks your body. If all you had to do to severely reduce your risks of stroke and heart attack were ... | 86 | The fat acceptance movement is not about convincing people it's healthy. Everyone know's it's unhealthy, and very few people are trying to argue that.
Fat acceptance is about not discriminating against fat people, or not publicly shaming strangers for their dietary choices, or about even just about saying it's no... | 54 |
eli5: Why does it hurt so bad in the chest when you swallow air while you drink something? | It really feels like an heart attack and I don’t understand why | 37 | Food/drink doesn't just fall down your throat due to gravity, it is forced down by powerful muscles in your torso and neck (that's why you can drink upside down. try it!)
As a consequence, if air is trying to force its way up the esophagus while the esophagus is trying to push food down, the muscles spasm and hurt for... | 47 |
How do crime families make so much money and manage not to get caught despite their notoriety? | 18 | Because most of the time they don't start out as crime families. They are communities banding together to look out for one another when the law fails to do so. It usually falls on local police forces to stop crimes, but when the police force lives locally they are part of the community being protected. The families typ... | 14 | |
Can you ethically justify joining the military (USA/UK)? | I was just wondering whether it's possible to ethically justify joining the military. I am interested in the type of responses people make. | 55 | By just war theory, neither nation has fought a just war since WWII, so it’s not easy to see a way to ethically serve in their militaries.
There are some bankshot-type arguments you could make — I’ll do a better job being a moral soldier than whoever would replace me — but you have to start from a position of defendin... | 30 |
Is the question "where does life begin" a question of biology or epistemology? | As the title says. Can the question "where does life begin" be proven through biological study and observation, or will the conversation always boil down to what is considered to be alive between a different perspectives that hold different standards to what is "alive" and "dead"? | 35 | From a biology perspective the "where does life begin?" question is completely off base. This is because the sperm and the egg, which combined to form the zygote, were both alive long before conception. The egg has likely been alive since the women it belongs to was in her mother's womb. The sperm has been alive for mo... | 20 |
ELI5: how are we able to consciously read while zoning out at the same time? | You could be reading a book but then your mind starts to wander off about something completely different as you are reading each word and come to find that at the end of the page, you didn't take in anything you read. | 7,849 | Every action you can do is done with the coordination of multiple parts of your brain. Your eyes, in particular, connect to many different parts themselves.
To read, you must track the text, interpret the symbols, interpret the words and grammar, consolidate that into meaning, and store that meaning. The part that tr... | 1,797 |
How do we know that Plato accurately represents Socrates' opinions? | I was reading some answers on this lovely subreddit, and my copy of The Republic earlier, and I came to a thought "why do we assume that Plato accurately represents Socrates' views on anything?"
Plato was the one who wrote all of these things down, it makes no sense to me that we can assume anything written by him is ... | 162 | Well, the short answer is that we don't know which opinions are Socrates' and which are Plato's. Socrates himself never wrote down his own opinions for us, so it all come down to how much we can trust what other people say about him. The three contemporary-ish accounts of Socrates' philosophic practice and opinions co... | 113 |
If I let a bunch of ants loose on my laptop, would they clear away all the crumbs and bits off food that I keep dropping into it? | 133 | Ants in the tropics have been known to invade laptops and yes, they probably ate all the crumbs, but also the insulation on the wires, so this ends up not being a good idea (ie. ruined laptop).
tldr- Ants will make your computer very buggy! | 224 | |
Could any plants grow anywhere on Mars? | Seeing as Mars has a wide variation in temperature and ground water could any plants from Earth grow anywhere on the planet for even a short time? If not, how close are any plants to being able to grow there? | 64 | It would be difficult for plants that reproduce sexually to spread, but simple plants like algae, and even some colony organisms like lichens might find suitable conditions in isolated locations.
As for flowers and trees, the conditions on Mars are extremely dehydrating. They would quickly freeze and lose their water... | 34 |
ELI5 When a person is affected by amnesia (I’ve only ever seen it portrayed in movies) How are they still able to speak English properly? | 16 | Different parts of the brains handle different things. Language is in one part of the brain, so is doing other stuff like walking and using tools. Amnesia typically affects only the memory portion of your brain. So they forget their memories, but retain language an the use of tools and how to walk and stuff. | 27 | |
ELI5: How does your lung recover with a hole left after surgery? | Long story short,I had an operation on my left lung and after it I had a tube stuck in it with a big glass jug to filter out the remaining stuff after the surgery. But when it was removed,only my skin was stiched where the tube was inserted. My lung still had a hole left in it? How does my body deal with this and isn't... | 31 | Potentially the hole was into the cavity between your lung and your chest wall. When you have any injury to the lung it can cause air to escape into the cavity which prevents the lung from inflating (pneumothorax). To fix this the tube is placed inbetween the lung and the chest wall to remove this air. Perhaps your ... | 20 |
[Marvel/DC] What is the most blatantly criminal thing a boss type villain (Kingpin, Penguin, etc) has done in the public eye and gotten away with? | 32 | In the Gotham tv series Penguin kept Riddler’s frozen body (he technically wasn’t dead) in the middle of the Iceberg Lounge and convinced everyone that Nygma had asked him to freeze him due to an as yet incurable terminal illness. | 32 | |
[ASOIAF/GOT] Are the Iron Born so reckless and (often) irrelevant because their leaders are often brain damaged from their baptism? | 219 | It's that their stronghold is on a useless rock they call an island. There's nothing there worth having, and it isn't even all that close to important sea trade routes. They have to play fast and loose to have anything close to adequate lives. Now span that way of life over centuries. | 197 | |
If new elements are created by fusing old ones together (I'm aware that this is greatly simplified). Are there infinitely many undiscovered elements? | Are there infinitely many undiscovered elements waiting to be created (regardless of the difficulty of creating said element) or is there some sort of invisible wall that we might hit?
Thank you. | 23 | No, probably not. The IUPAC sets the criteria for the discovery of a new element, and one of them is a minimum lifetime of around 10^(-14) seconds. That's roughly how long a nucleus needs to live for in order to form an electron cloud and be considered a chemical element.
You can have nuclei with much shorter lifetime... | 19 |
[Edge of Tomorrow] If Tom Cruise was kept in a safe place the entire war, could it have just progressed naturally without either side restarting the day? | Assuming the Army believes his death restarts the day, but not willing to risk the Mimics getting the power back, could they keep him in sum fortress and go about the war regularly? Who would win in this scenario, Humans or Mimics? | 15 | That would stop Tom Cruise from restarting the day, but the Mimics still had reboot power as well - he didn't *take* the ability from them, he was just added to the list of alphas that could start the day in the omega. Mimics would just carry on doing what they were doing - restarting the day every time one of the alp... | 20 |
ELI5: Why do people moan during sex? | How and why is it a natural reflex? | 67 | I know you already marked this as explained, but moaning is just the easiest way to communicate. It doesn't require any effort at all, and you can signal to your partner to keep going. If you said actual words instead of moaning, for a second or two, you would be taking the focus off of the act and focus on the words s... | 59 |
Can a gas/smoke stick to an adhesive surface? And if so, at what density would it require for this to possible? | 22 | Smoke or gas? They're very different. A gas is a chemical that is above its boiling point and has evaporated, like water vapor, oxygen, and other components of our atmosphere.
Smoke is a colloid, a solid aerosol to be specific. It's made of solid particles of ash/soot suspended in the air, which absolutely do eventual... | 11 | |
ELI5: If wine or beer were your only beverage, could your liver metabolize the alcohol fast enough to sustain life? | Asking out of curiosity, and not my crippling alcoholism. | 34 | Yes. In fact hundreds of years ago before modern water delivery and detoxification systems most people drank alcohol as much as we might drink water. The early colonists drank hard apple cider for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, their alcohol-percentage was lower than it is today.
You could survive on 2% apple... | 34 |
ELI5: Why do different species that are raised together not want to eat each other? | If you raise a cat and a rat together they will like each other, or so it seems from all the youtube videos of cats and rats snuggling or bird and a mouse hanging out. Why does this happen? If the cat gets hungry will it "relapse"? | 42 | Because under normal circumstances, eating your family is not conducive to survival. Similar animals when raised together, regardless of species, will often consider each other to be family. Because both animals are being regularly fed, there is no survival drive to kill for a meal and because both animals are familiar... | 26 |
ELI5: Why do explosives such as C4 smell of Almonds? | 35 | When they manufacture C4 they add a chemical (2,3-dinitro-2,3-dimethylbutane, DMNB) to the explosive. This is done to intentionally make the explosive easy to identify by dogs. This particular chemical can be detected by dogs in incredibly minute quantities.
It's to prevent people sneaking it onto planes or other secu... | 65 | |
ELI5: Why have animals still not figured out that roads are dangerous for them? | 22 | Busy roads have only been around for a blink of an eye. It generally takes much longer than that to evolve behaviours to deal with new threats.
Additionally, another thing to consider is that perhaps simply not enough animals are killed by roads to change their behaviour. If a squirrel has a (just coming up with rando... | 37 | |
(In-coming Senior, Econ Major) What skills should I learn this summer? | Hello! My Internship got cancelled due to the pandemic so now I’m going to be at home during this whole summer. I was wondering what skills should I learn this summer? I was thinking of fully learning Tableau, any other suggestions?
Edit: Appreciate all the feedback! Thank you! Unfortunately, for some reason many of t... | 80 | You could always brush up on R, Python, or STATA (depending on your preference) and do a small project. Bonus if you have a professor who is willing to answer questions during that.
Maybe you could learn GIS and how it applies to economics, and do a small project there as well.
I’m in the same boat as you, and I’m c... | 52 |
[Star Trek] Explosions on the bridge.....seriously? | I searched but didn't see anything come up.
How is it after 700 years, we seem to have forgotten the technology of the circuit breaker? Everytime anyone or anything hits the shields or whatever, there are explosions on the bridge. That's insane. It's like they only place to store pyrotechnics is under the panels ... | 34 | the only explanation I've seen that remotely accounts for this is that the type of weapons they are using are specifically designed to have that effect. seems like after what, 60 years they should have come up with a defense against that, but maybe starfleet isn't as innovative as they claim | 23 |
[Harry Potter] How many Muggles are aware of the Wizarding World? | We know that the British Prime Minister is aware of the Wizarding World. Presumably, the President of the United States, and other world leaders are aware, yes? How many no-maj know about the wizarding world? | 20 | Couldn't put an exact number on it but probably more then you'd think. All the immediate families of muggel borns will know as well as some extended families and friends. As you say lots of government officials will know. Even pure bloods who live in muggel villages might make a few close friends who they show. | 25 |
Does Jupiter's "spot" move around like a hurricane, or is it a stationary storm? | Since the storm has been going for at least as long as we've been looking through telescopes, has it moved around, or is it always in the same spot? | 248 | The spot stays almost stationary in latitude (North/South) but it moves longitudinally (is that even a word? >.>). Because Jupiter is so large, the distance and speed it travels East/West varies quite a bit with even a few degree latitude shift. | 60 |
[SCP] In contrast to the vast majority, which SCP is the most benevolent, helpful, or generally "good"? | 18 | SCP-2578 is an intelligent orbital cannon that takes it upon itself to assassinate leaders who would be tyrants and madmen. From 1995 onwards, if a leader is plotting mass murder, enslavement, or other nastiness starts getting emails with a countdown and the header "SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS", and 72 hours later, if they hav... | 13 | |
ELI5: My electric shaver advertises blades that are supposedly "self sharpening". How can blades that are continually used without maintenance sharpen themselves? | Will the blades in my electric shaver ever dull if they are self sharpening?
Or is it just false/misleading advertising? | 503 | Electric razor blades function more like scissors than a straight edge or safety razor.
In a self-sharpening razor, blade elements are designed such that as they wear down through friction against one another, the edges of the elements that meet each other (the parts that actually shear your whiskers) retain edge angl... | 514 |
Is someone piggybacking off of my research, or am I the issue? Dealing with "unchosen" co-authors | Hello everyone,
I need an honest opinion from someone far removed from this context.
My colleague, another PhD student, has had trouble with each of his papers as he apparently got into things he didn't know how to do. These are his words. Yesterday he told me he is just a social learner, therefore he gets into thing... | 147 | He can be you co-author, as it seems that your supervisor really wants this, but you don't have to help him. No last minute slides (that's absurd BTW), no teaching him, no presenting for him, just nothing. This would actually be the best help you can give him. It sounds like no one has made him figure stuff out for him... | 159 |
ELI5: what are muscle knots? | I was getting a back rub yesterday and my wife found a knot in my back that kept "clicking" when she would pass over it. What is it and what is the best way to get rid of them? | 25 | Muscle 'knots' or trigger points are a frequent discussion topic among health professionals and no one can really agree on what they are.
There are a lot of conflicting opinions etc out there but we do know that muscle releasing techniques (massage/dry needling/acupuncture/foam rolling or using a spikey ball) can help... | 12 |
CMV: We're wasting time, space, materials and money burying people after death. |
CMV: We're wasting time, space, materials and money burying people after death. We could spend this time on research to find out how to prolong life. We could also put the bodies to research in the medical field or as cadavers for medical practices. That will probably be the best way rather than doing the other option... | 159 | Of course we are. Burial after death, funerals, etc. are a cultural phenomenon. They have no inherent value.
However, they have ascribed value. A widow who buries her husband goes through a process that millions of other people have gone through, one which her friends are familiar and can guide her down. So if funera... | 74 |
[Monsters, Inc/Toy Story] Would toys ever try to stop monsters from scaring their kids? | 18 | Considering that the monsters were human-like in most of their behaviour and can speak English, I'd assume that toys wouldn't interact with them.
Animals could interact with the toys because they couldn't communicate with humans, and therefore weren't a discovery risk (parrots might be an exception?) | 12 | |
[Harry Potter] Is Hagrid secretly a magical prodigy? | He never made it past 3rd year, and yet he was capable of human transfiguration, nonverbal magic, the *Incendio* spell, and the *Aguamenti* charm, all of which are NEWT level*. If he hadn’t been expelled, could he have become a Dumbledore-level wizard?
\*Edit: All with a *broken wand.* | 75 | Most skills you learn in your teens are easier to pick up if you approach them later in life. Just try to learn algebra in your thirties-- it just makes a lot more sense.
Hagrid is in his (sixties?) He's had decades to learn and pick up skills "along the way," even if it wasn't a part of his formal education.
But D... | 97 |
ELI5: Why are dull knives more dangerous than sharp knives? | 48 | When cutting with a dull knife you have to use more force than a sharper one, you also have less control over a dull knife, this makes it very easy slip with a dull knife, and because you are applying more force with said knife you are more likely inure yourself when you slip. | 120 | |
ELI5: How tattoos work. | Basically, how do they get ink to permanently stain your skin? How does the ink stay in your skin even though your skin cells constantly keep shedding? How do they get the ink to get into the skin in the first place? Why is the removal of a tattoo so difficult?
Edit: Thanks for the replies. One more question: How does... | 259 | basically, they use a big needle to put ink into the lower layer of your skin so it won't shed, and the ink particles are big enough that your body can't get rid of them, so they stay right there where they put them. | 439 |
How do scientists across the world accurately repeat experiments that use very fine weight measurements when the force of gravity isn't consistent across Earth? | 27 | For the majority of experiments, the variations of the Gravitational Field are small enough that any affect on the results are minimal, and quite often not relevant.
If the experiment relies on a more accurate measurement of the force of gravity then any weights are re-weighed extensively and for very important experi... | 14 | |
Why isn't there any consensus in the philosophic community like there is in the scientific community? | 61 | The simplest answer is that many of the objects of study in philosophy are not as directly experienced as the hard sciences are. If scientists disagree on the interior structure of an apple, they can obtain apples, split them open, view them through microscopes, and so on.
But if philosophers differ on the nature of B... | 111 | |
[walking dead] Why don’t zombies eat each other/ themselves in walking dead? | What stopping them from eating each other? And if it’s something like they only want fresh flesh, not rotten, why don’t they eat themselves or others when they first turn | 28 | They regularly will keep eating freshly turned walkers. Once the infection is active in the body they lose interest as the virus only wants to attack dormant infection carriers.. it's believed that smell is how they detect active and dormant infections but it's unclear just how when many suffer from decayed or destroye... | 35 |
[A:TLA / LOK] 10,000 years have passed since Korra's harmonic convergence. In a desperate gambit the Avatar merges both Raava & Vaatu within themselves. How does this change things? | 22 | I'd assume the spiritual conflict inside them would tear them apart. Remember when Zuko literally got sick while living in Ba Sing Se with Iroh because of his indecision? Imagine that with the power of 2 avatars behind it | 33 | |
[Monster's Inc. And Monster's University] When Sully transitioned Monster's Inc. from scare energy to laugh energy, what were the repercussions in monster society? | Entire universities, and I assume multiple energy companies all specialized in developing scary monsters. Being scary appears to be socialized into monsters at a young age. What happens to monster society when one of the qualities that defines their culture is no longer necessary? Did the universities all end their sca... | 24 | Scaring was a job. It was working in energy production. They didnt even have to switch out the factories. They gathered and stored the energy with the same equipment. Being exponentially easier to acquire would have brought the cost way down so there would have been some economic repercussions and it would have led to ... | 25 |
Is it possible to voluntarily control your own heartbeat like we can control our breathing? | Please no unverified anecdotes about yoga masters or shaolin monks. | 798 | You can temporarily lower your heartbeat doing vagal maneuvers. The best example is trying to force out a bowel movement. This actually causes many people to lose consciousness having an episode of vasovagal syncope, and is the reason why many older people pass out on the toilet. | 392 |
By what methods do isolated ponds get fish in them? | There are a lot of isolated ponds out there with no connection to waterways. Like the ponds here and there on a farm, or the display ponds where I work. They all seem to have fish in them, usually little sunfish, none bigger than a few rare 6-7 inch specimens. How do these fish get to the ponds? I realize there's a var... | 218 | Also migratory birds and waterfowl transfer amphibian and fish eggs. The eggs attach to the legs, down, feathers of the bird and are deposited (washed off) when the bird enters the next water source. | 100 |
"Jack Andraka, 15, invents cancer test that is 168x faster, 26000x less expensive, and 400x more sensitive than the current standard. 3¢ and 5 minutes." Is this an actually proven method or is just being hyped by the press and ignoring some shortcomings of it? | 1,205 | In any of these "teenager discovers X" stories, the news articles always have almost zero details on what the person actually did, and this is no exception. What usually happens is that they are doing an internship in a professor's lab, and the internship goes well, and it gets picked up by the news, ignoring the detai... | 707 | |
[Marvel] How does Black Panther's Vibranium suit handle heat? | Obviously the suit is pretty durable and allows for great feats but what happens if T'challa was dropped into a volcano? Would the suit protect him or would he just die eventually from being cooked? | 33 | If the suit is a good enough insulator to keep you alive in a volcano for any length of time, then he'd keel over from heat exhaustion after a few minutes of exertion.
It's possible that it has Wakandan-clever ways of radiating heat when he's jumping around the place kicking people in the teeth, or that the heartshape... | 24 |
ELI5: Why do ice cream trucks have really unique and cool ice cream treats, while the grocery store has almost none? | Whenever an ice cream truck comes around, they have awesome ice cream treats: ninja turtle stuff, mickey mouse stuff, spider man stuff, sonic the hedgehog stuff, etc
A quick google search of "ice cream truck ice creams" gives a slurry of pictures of what I'm talking about. However, when you go to the grocery store, no... | 19 | For the same reason as if you went to a Mexican restaurant, you'd find far better variety of Mexican foods than if you went to a diner that happened to serve tacos - It's a specialized endeavor, bringing people in with only one thing in mind - Ice cream and related frozen treats. It's not feasible for a grocery store t... | 21 |
[The Amazing Spider Man] what if Spider-Man one day became evil, how much of a threat can he actually become to the rest of the marvel universe? I'm talking about a fully grown and experience Peter Parker | 643 | He's got one of the top 50 brains on Earth, loaded into a body that can throw cars, dodge bullets, and literally feel an ambush coming. He can outpunch most folks smarter than him, outthink most folks stronger than him, and smarter, stronger and tougher than a *lot* of the Marvel roster. If he concealed his team switch... | 671 | |
ELI5 death and dying. (After suffering the loss of a family friend and her [near full term] unborn child to a tragic auto accident, I need explaining death to my 5 year old daughter and 4 year old son). | If there ever was a time for ELI5 to live up to its name...now is that time, because as a single father of 2 I feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. (& as an atheist I would prefer to keep "God" out of the conversation, unless it is to use this tragedy to rationally discuss different aspects of different religions... | 21 | A body is kind of like a machine; you put food and water into it to keep it running, and it let's you move around and do stuff. But, like any machine, it can break down. And if it gets *really* damaged or really old, then it might stop working forever. We call this dying. Everything that lives has to die eventually; th... | 20 |
CMV: Some proposals or ideas are inherently uncivil and no amount of nicey nicey language makes them civil or obligates a civil response | Like the title says, I think that some positions, ideas, etc are uncivil by their very nature and that complaints about people responding in an uncivil way are foolish and little more than an attempt to legitimize an inherently illegitimate idea.
For example, putting forth the idea that gay people should be executed i... | 18 | Being civil is not really about who or what you are talking about. Acting civil says something about **you** and the positions you hold. One should always be civil because it reflects on your composure in dealing with any situation. From this perspective you should especially be civil when other people aren't, as it sh... | 10 |
[Dc comics/Batman] What kind of certifications does Batman need to to fly the Batplane and what FAA rules does he break whenever he goes up? | Let's go with this version of the Batplane: http://imgur.com/a/tG0Na | 24 | Well in addition to pilot's license, whether it be Private or Commercial, the FAA requires a specific type rating to fly any aircraft weighing over 12,500 lbs and/or having a turbojet powerplant. Since the Batwing is a crazy bat-prototype a type rating probably doesn't even exist so Batman would be flying it illegally ... | 24 |
[Warhammer 40K] I Know Warhammer 40K Takes Place In The Ultimate Dystopia, But What Would It Take For It To Stop Being A Terrible Galaxy To Live In? | Let's say I am some sort of godlike being. Not infinitely powerful, but pretty powerful physically and psychically. I have decided to try to fix the wreck that is the 40K universe. What do I do? | 691 | Sever humanity's connection to the Warp. That's it, that's the only hope. As long as we create daemons in our dreams every night, the galaxy can never be a safe place for sentient life.
The Emperor knew that, and he tried it. It didn't work out. | 525 |
Is psychopathy advantageous from an evolutionary perspective? | . | 19 | Reid Malloy submitted a paper in 2011 suggesting just that. Predators in the wild must be able to identify the weakest and easiest target or they will not eat. Malloy argues that psychopaths share that trait and that they can read the facial emotion from people better than non-psychopaths. Wheeler, Book and Costello in... | 13 |
If dark matter does not interact with normal matter at all, but does interact with gravity, does that mean there are "blobs" of dark matter at the center of stars and planets? | 6,156 | Probably not.
For dark matter to be sitting in a clump at the center of a plaent or a star not only would it need to fall in, but it would then have to slow down.
Gravity is nearly perfectly restorative, meaning that all the gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. This means the dark matter ... | 2,512 | |
[Star Wars] What on fucking earth are Star Destroyers good for? | They always get raped by rebels, from ROTJ to Rogue One, all they do is dispatch Tie-Fighters, and form blockades or chase other ships, that's it. Can they actually fight? | 29 | Toy have to realise that the Rebel Alliance chose capital ships explicitly based on an anti-Star Destroyer doctrine. The Empire doesn't have this option. They have to pick tactics that will be reasonably effective against any potential opponent. The rebel alliance is only one possible threat, and they've not been activ... | 52 |
ELI5: why are large animals still often intimidated by smaller animals? Do they not immediately perceive their advantage if they were to fight? | 46 | in the wild its often better to avoid a fight.
especially for predators that know if they dont get a quick kill, they might be injured, if they get injured they cant hunt and they will starve to death if they are lone hunters.
bigger animals just prefer to not engage since its waste of energy, but make no mistake, i... | 89 | |
CMV: In many cases, it is morally permissible or possibly obligatory for superheroes to kill or handicap the supervillain they are fighting. | In many superhero TV shows and comics, superheroes are extremely unwilling to kill villains, instead preferring to capture them. Ordinarily, this would be fine, and I think it is for the most part effective against ordinary criminals who are easily contained. When we consider supervillains, we consistently see that the... | 93 | Superheroes do not kill because their image is as important as the work they do.
Most superheroes are essentialy vigilantes - very few of them have the backing or even implicit approval of the State where they function. Just by existing and doing what they do, superheroes break laws everyday. Yet the one thing that go... | 40 |
ELI5: why is the color green the magic color for video editing? | 31 | The idea is to have a color which is unique to the background or a portion of the image which is to be removed or altered. Blue is another color commonly used but red is avoided because humans tend to be somewhat pink in our fleshy bits which could be confused for the screen.
Another benefit of using green is that man... | 94 | |
ELI5: "One Person, One Vote" and the recent Supreme Court decision about it | I saw [this article from NPR](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/04/472968704/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-one-person-one-vote) which talks about a lot of things I'm not familiar with. Could someone elucidate this for me?
Let me know if I need to be more specific. | 670 | So, when states draw their congressional districts, they are required to make the equal, so that there's the same number of people in each of them.
Some people in Texas had sued on the "one person one vote" idea, which basically says that these boundaries should be drawn based on the number of voters, not the number o... | 275 |
[r/nosleep] The subreddit clearly exists in-universe. What the hell is it a subreddit for? | Unlike most writing subs which are just story compilations, nosleep is entirely in character. People write as if they're making personal posts, people comment as if they're reading personal posts, writers and commentators interact in-character, the mods are involved with the stories, so forth so forth. It's clear that ... | 497 | I think it's used as an underground forum to share supernatural experiences with other people who have encountered them. Like a support or troubleshooting forum, for all things paranormal.
And the ones that aren't asking for suggestions are instead giving a warning. Each time you read about a wendigo, or a skinwalke... | 300 |
If you lived on a high-gravity planet would you develop super-strong bones and muscles? Would you be able to jump off tall Earth buildings without injury? | 22 | You would develop stronger muscles and bones, much like a weightlifter does, but nothing superhuman. You'd also wind up being a lot heavier, which would counteract much of your gain in strength. Top jumping athletes develop the muscles they need for jumping...you'd be developing all of your muscles.
In addition, you... | 12 | |
Why did Milton Friedman think that only printing money could cause inflation? | I am just learning economics, but wouldn’t resource scarcity (artificially created or otherwise) be another, pretty obvious cause of inflation?
Just in general, I don’t fully understand peoples reverence of Friedman, his economic style seems pretty outdated to say the least. Like I said though, just learning the ropes | 101 | A real shock to aggregate supply (increasing resource scarcity, as you’d put it), results in a higher price level *only if* the money supply and velocity remain constant. In other words, inflation need not result from a real shock if the Fed responds with appropriate contractionary monetary policy. This is why Friedm... | 124 |
ELI5: Why do I get that gross taste in my mouth after I take a nap? | 16 | The leftover bits of food in/on your teeth start breaking down. Same reason people get morning breath. Brushing before you sleep helps, so does mouthwash when you get up, but it's basically an unavoidable biological process. | 13 | |
ELI5: Why do people usually have to fast before an operation, and how does this work in case of an urgent, unplanned operation where the person has not been fasting? | 5,650 | Because of the general anesthesia. General anesthesia and the intubation process can make people vomit or regurgitate, and since you're unconscious and your normal reflexes are suppressed, you could aspirate stomach contents into your lungs, which can be fatal. Also for surgery on part of the digestive system itself, o... | 5,126 | |
[Star Trek] How long do Vulcans live for? | 17 | Probably around 230-250 years. Sarek was considered old at 205, but not hobbling-with-a-walker old. His death was premature due to Bendii Syndrome, which is incredibly rare. Even on his deathbed, he was capable of getting up and walking around—only his loss of emotional control and memory problems prevented it. | 20 | |
Why in the show Galaxy Quest are the crew of the NSEA Protector recording everything that happens on their many daring adventures? | 21 | It's automatic. Partially for reasons analogous to a 21st-century Earth aircraft's black-box, and partially so that any allegations of misconduct can easily be investigated by the NSEA.
The missions in which the crews of NSEA ships prevail against the greatest odds in as heroic a way as possible are broadcast into unk... | 14 | |
[Hellraiser] If I open the box what will determine if I am tortured for eternity or turned into a cenobyte? | 45 | The Cenobites as seen in the movies are flesh incarnations of various spirits; Pinhead, for example, is the flesh-suit of the Cenobite Xipe Totec (who was worshiped as a god in Aztec culture). So your body will only be turned into a Cenobite if one of those spirits requires it, probably because someone destroyed the fl... | 36 | |
[Demolition Man] When "Verbal Morality Statutes" start getting enforced, how'll they get prevented from issuing false positives? (e.g. talking about the Shih-Tzu breed of dogs...) | You'll understand what a "[Verbal Morality Statute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4HEEiJuGo)" is if you've seen the 1993 Sylvester Stallone film, *Demolition Man.* However, instead of unenvironmental slips of paper, you'll receive text messages.
(So find your toilet paper elsewhere if [washlets](http://www.washle... | 84 | > Or will we be forced to live in fear of causing a false positive to deduct our bank accounts every so often?
Pretty much this. Dr. Cocteau has done great things to provide the framework for a peaceful, productive, and *lawful* society, and it is the responsibility of the citizens of San Angeles to comply with t... | 59 |
ELI5 How do people die when they jump from bridges into water yet there are plenty of people who do this for fun? | 21 | I assume you are referring to people jumping from the same height so basucally what it comes down to is experience/training. Hitting the water from significant height means a person is traveling quite fast. Faster than it takes for the water to move out of the way. There are positions and techniques to mitigate potenti... | 53 | |
How does tar from smoking get out of your lungs? | I’ve quit smoking. For the first while, my nose was runny for like a month. I think that was because my cilia came back to life. However, now…usually once a day…usually in the morning, I seem to be blowing my nose and black/brownish phlegm comes out. Is that tar? I thought it would come up from coughing. | 21 | The cilia in your lungs slowly sweep up gunk and tar (we actually call clearing out the lungs via various techniques the “pulmonary toilet”). When they sweep things up it usually goes up and then swallowed into the esophagus.
Now, if you were sleeping on your back all night that gunk could make its way up into the na... | 33 |
Why does Best Buy charge $45 for a 100ft ethernet cord when Amazon charges $17? | My gf was upset cause she thought she was gonna have to spend $45 on a ethernet cord. She works from home and they installer couldn't run a coax to her bedroom, so she has the the modem in the living room.
So I go on Amazon and boom $17 for a 100ft cable. I guess the installer said something along the lines of if the ... | 22 | well im sure a best buy employee will back me up but besy buy typically has a 400% markup on cables because people that go there are desperate and need them now. Easy profit like gas stations selling those USB 12v cig to usb chargers and cables and such for $10 you can buy on ebay for less than a buck. | 20 |
ELI5: Why do we interpret music in the minor key, and dissonance and such, as "creepy," or "sad?" | Whenever there's a scene in a movie that suddenly turns sour-- a character reveals bad news, or a dead body is found-- without fail, the score becomes dissonant or shifts into a minor key. In any horror movie, the music for the "scary" parts is in the minor key. In general, songs feel "sadder" or "creepier" once they c... | 20 | I think it's just cultural conditioning. In the Middle East, among other places, minor keys are used all the time for celebratory music.
Plus, it's not just minor or major keys, tempo and style have a lot to do with it as well. | 10 |
[the incredibles] I’m trying to figure out the meaning behind Syndrome’s name. What kind of syndrome did he have? | 34 | It is an allusion to "hero syndrome" which is when people create dangerous situations so they can be the hero...which is what he is doing. Apparently he is like the riddler, he can't help but leave a clue for people to figure out? Either that or its a subtle take that to all heroes, since he believes that they are as s... | 81 | |
[Rick and Morty]A question about squirrels. | So do squirrels secretly run the world on most realities or was that scenario particular to that one? | 21 | I don't know what you are talking about. Squirrels are harmless. You are clearly delusional. You should step away from your keyboard and go for a nice walk in the woods. You will feel much better after spending a little time in the great outdoors. | 36 |
ELI5: How does Humble Bundle make money when they have discounts that cost them hundreds of dollars each sale, and only make a percentage of the discounted sale? | 102 | It helps a lot that they aren't selling a physical product. Really cuts down on the cost per unit. No materials, no production cost. Just licensing and server costs (bandwidth).
So to say that it's 'costing hundreds' isn't accurate, they're almost certainly not dropping the price below cost, even though to us consum... | 93 | |
Why did Scopenhauer call well-being a negative element? | Here is the exact quote:
*"Pleasure and well\-being is negative and suffering positive, that happiness of a given life is not to be measured according to the joys and pleasures it contains but according to the absence of the positive element, the absence of suffering".*
I understand the main point that a life devoi... | 17 | Schopeenhauer sees all living in a state of dissatisfaction of strife and therefore suffering. So suffering is the default, therefore positive state. He only thinks there is a neutral state when when we contemplate art. And therefore become 'disinterested spectators' in existence. Well being is a negative state because... | 23 |
[The Boys] Why does Homelander bother taking orders from Vought? | I'm fairly certain Homelander despises having to answer to "insects" when he has power that they lack, so why does he bother obeying them? Why not just lay waste to Vought, or try to take control of the company for himself since he's so convinced that a man with his power should be the one who's in charge? It's not lik... | 18 | Because he thrives on attention. He loves people loving him. Though he could pretty much end anyone, he doesn't want the hero worship to end for him. That's exactly what would happen if the public sees him turn on humanity. | 42 |
if the deepest a modern nuclear attack submarine can go in the ocean is 2500 feet down before its hull collapses, how do animals survive that deep and deeper? | 37 | Submarines must remain full of air, and they remain close to 1 atmosphere, so as they descend, the pressure difference between outside and inside grows tremendously. At some point, that pressure difference is too high, and the submarine crunches.
But deep marine life doesn't have those pockets of air, they allow the ... | 104 | |
If an animal within a group (chimps, wolves, etc.) is infertile, are they ostracized by others of their group, or is it not 'noticed' at all? | As the title says! I've been reading up on evolution, and for some reason this question came to my mind. The book (The Human Body) puts a lot of emphasis on how natural selection played a role in making our bodies are they are, obviously through breeding 'advantageous' characteristics, and it made me wonder what happen... | 52 | In the cases of wolves and chimps, the answer is surely "no". Most of the group do not reproduce anyway. Their function is to make the group stronger, while the alpha male and alpha female (in the case wolves) or all the females (in the case of primates) actually reproduce. Non-reproducing individuals pose no threat to... | 28 |
ELI5 Why is it bad for young kids to weightlift? | Why do medical professionals advise against intense strength training for little kids? | 21 | Muscle development that outpaces normal activities for a child can have detrimental effects on bone growth. It can cause stress in areas while the bones are still calcifying, resulting in a multitude of different issues including: bone deformities, contractures, etc. | 27 |
[Star Trek] What makes replicated food different from the "real deal?" | Two months ago I completed my first successful away mission in the Beta Quadrant. Much to my surprise, Captain Hansen commended me in front of the whole crew, even calling me by my full name! Even though it was a boring deuterium survey mission in a nearby collapsing nebula, my bunk mate insisted on celebrating that ... | 16 | Replicated food isn't made by exactly duplicating a real item of food, as that would be too complex. Instead it replicates a tiny portion of food over and over, and assembles that into a replicated meal. So every piece of spaghetti tastes EXACTLY the same as the other pieces for example. Eventually you start to noti... | 21 |
I've heard that PI do more administration than research. Does this mean they stop having first author papers? | Just curious. Most people I've asked (grad students and PIs alike) say that PIs do far more administration and overseeing than actual research. So do they stop having first author papers? | 20 | Correct, most of the time. It depends a bit on the type of research. If they're a pure theorist or mathematics, they may still have the time to do the work for first author papers. But the job of most PIs is to train their students in research, guide the process, and secure funding to keep it going. So it's more resear... | 47 |
[WH40k] What is the single most badass feat ever performed? | Degrees of badassitude scale with how powerful the person/xeno performing the act was.
It *is* amazing that a human was able to not only create a beacon that allows Warp navigation, but power it with his mind. However, the feat loses some luster as the Emperor is *so powerful* that powering it with his mind took no... | 76 | Probably Ollanius Pius. Just a regular dude guardsmen who proved his titan-class balls when he stepped between his emperor and the warmaster horus.
just to hammer the point home: just a normal guy, proving how much of a massive badass he is by getting in the way of a towering slaughter machine | 105 |
Why is forward, but not lateral, neck immobility a sign for meningitis? | When considering meningitis, doctors check if a patient can tilt his head forward. Why is the forward movement (chin to chest) an indicator for meningitis but other neck stiffness (inability to turn or tilt head to the sides) is not?
Disclaimer: of course the question arose from personal interest, but I have already b... | 73 | Meningitis is an irritation of the coverings of the brain, called the meninges. Forward neck movement will cause the meninges to stretch and because they're irritated, it will cause pain. Lateral head movement doesn't cause a significant stretch on the meninges and won't cause the same neck pain.
Think of it like thi... | 32 |
[Dune] How would events have played out if Paul was born female? | Lady Jessica was ordered to bear only girls to Duke Leto, with a view to future marriage into House Harkonnen. How would the events of Dune have gone if she had obeyed? Presumably the emperor would still have set his trap for House Atriedes on Arrakkis. | 15 | An interesting question. There are many possibilities:
If the Reverend Mother was telling the truth that she wanted a marriage and alliance between Harkonnen and Atreides, then the Bene Gesserit may have "encouraged" the emperor not to go through with his trap.
Alternatively, Lady Atreides may have been taken away f... | 20 |
ELI5 How clothing retailers can get away with such astronomical markup. | 41 | They can charge what you are willing to pay. If it costs you 5c to make lemonade, and all your friends are willing to pay 15c for it, you can charge that. But if they suddenly can't, you have to lower your prices or sell less. | 25 | |
Where is the line between a bad choice and a bad person? | At what point does a person become the sum of their choices?
First post but I think about this often.
I'm going to provide the following example but after typing it, I realize I'm thinking more towards daily life but please keeping reading:
An extreme example being a person committing one murder. We've all seen s... | 101 | Psychologically, one might draw a distinction between a behaviour that was due to someone's disposition and a behaviour that was due mostly due to circumstances. Clearly, the two interact, but if someone is disposed to be violent, for example, they are more likely to commit acts that others would deem immoral. If that ... | 38 |
Why is it impossible for objects weighing less than 0.02 milligrams to form a black hole? | Whats so special about that mass that you cant form a black hole below it? | 780 | A black hole of mass less than around .02 milligrams or so would have a Schwarzschild radius of around a Planck length or less. At this scale, general relativity cannot be trusted; we need a theory that incorporates general relativity and quantum field theory. Thus, at the very least, we can say that such a black hol... | 709 |
ELI5: What is the purpose of the International Space Station? | And the space program in general for that matter. Like most people reading this right now, I'm a science oriented thinker driven by curiosity and turned on by knowledge. I hear political arguments on the opposing view that (US tax) money is better spent elsewhere. What are the main goals and expectations of the spac... | 202 | The space station is currently used for conducting experiments in micro gravity. But it can also be used as a checkpoint for longer missions that require heavy payloads. For example: if we want to send a ship to the moon we can send the ship without fuel to the ISS (International Space Station) and then send the fuel t... | 76 |
ELI5: Why is it so hard for a camera lens to capture the depth and the quality as seen with a naked eye? | 46 | The simple answer is that it is just as hard for the eye.
Our eyes also have depth of field issues, but we constantly shift the point of focus. Rather than thinking if the eye as taking a photo think of it more like a video camera that can refocus almost instantly. As soon as we look at a blurry part of the picture i... | 64 | |
Are most rich people rich because they were born into it? | I was reading Yuval Noah Harari's book *Sapiens*, and on page 136, he says, "...it's a proven fact that most rich people are rich for the simple reason that they were born into a rich family, while most poor people will remain poor throughout their lives simply because they were born into a poor family." There is no s... | 185 | I can't speak to the empirical facts, but simple logic decrees that these statements are not necessarily inconsistent:
"most rich people are rich for the simple reason that they were born into a rich family"
vs.
"only 20% of millionaires inherited their riches."
It is entirely possible that being born into a rich ... | 143 |
ELI5: Why do flies seem to swarm and buzz around a dead animal rather than land and stay on it? | It seems like there are more flies in the a air than actually on the carcass. | 417 | This is a great question, one I'd never thought of before.
Flies are competitive and fight for "landing rights" on a carcass. Those fights occur both on the dead animal and in the air above it, making a flying swarm over the corpse as they jockey for position.
Beetles that crawl up to the corpse, on the other hand, ... | 235 |
ELI5: Why is lifting items “with your back” dangerous? Why can’t back muscles be strengthened? | 15 | While you sure can injure your back muscles and that is a significant risk (due to the leverage disadvantages of your back muscles vs. your arms when pivoting on the spine), the main issue is your spine. It's very easy to slip a disk, or otherwise onjure your spine, when trying to lift a heavy load with your back.
And... | 54 | |
[40k] Realistically, what steps can humanity take to preserve itself as top dog in the galaxy? | 171 | Realistically, their best chance would be for the Mechanicus to pretend that some Tau tech was actually coming from an STC, and reverse engineer it. If they had the Tau rifles for every Imperial guardsman then things would definitely get better.
Their main chance is increasing their technology, but tbh the main issue... | 149 | |
[Indiana Jones] Is it ever revealed why the US government is stockpiling religious artifacts including the ark of the covenant? | 86 | As opposed to just leaving that stuff lying around? These things are dangerous, and if the Americans don't take steps to ensure they aren't winding up in hostile hands, the body count could be massive.
Consider the Ark; while an unconventional weapon system, if wielded by a hostile power with the good sense to keep th... | 97 | |
ELI5: Why do some dogs wipe their feet after "doing their business"? | 364 | I read this explanation a while back, and thought I'd share it:
> Dirt scratching, or scraping, has been studied by ethologists. These are mostly observational studies, where numbers of canids were observed performing various elimination, sniffing, and marking behaviors. The behaviors are counted and the surroundin... | 89 | |
Why does it take multiple years to develop smaller transistors for CPUs and GPUs? Why can't a company just immediately start making 5 nm transistors? | 8,258 | Ex Intel process engineer here. Because it wouldn't work. Making chips that don't have killer defects takes an insanely finely-tuned process. When you shrink the transistor size (and everything else on the chip), pretty much everything stops working, and you've got to start finding and fixing problems as fast as you ca... | 6,184 | |
ELI5: What kind of environmental impact comes about from the tons upon tons of salt that gets added to roadways during the winter, and does it differ based on location (such as proximity to water)? | 103 | I wrote a whole report on this last semester. The short answer: yes. A lot. Salt is really bad for vegetation on the roadside, and any animals in water nearby. And some cities don't really care about how much salt they spread. But other places are looking into alternative deicers. | 77 | |
CMV: I think using BCE/CE instead of BC/AD isn't really about being scientific at all. | I believe the decision to switch from AD/BC to BCE/CE was not an attempt by scientists to better adhere the scientific process, but more so an attempt to appease the "PC crowd". I do not believe the use of BCE/CE accurately represents our (humankind's) time here on Earth, and I think by switching it managed to offend m... | 18 | Well you're correct that the switch from "BC/AD" to "BCE/CE" had nothing to do with "scientists to better adhere the scientific process." Where did you get the impression that it was supposed to? Contemporary usage was driven by historians and religious scholars. This makes sense. It's odd to talk about the politics of... | 41 |
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