post_title stringlengths 5 304 | post_text stringlengths 0 37.5k | post_scores int64 15 83.1k | comment_text stringlengths 200 9.61k | comment_score int64 10 43.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CMV: LEDs, HIDs, and Halogens should be illegal for car headlights. | Basically what I mean is that any blue/white light headlights should be illegal.
Personally in my experience, most blue/white light headlights are so bright that they prevent me from seeing anything while they're shining in my eyes from on coming traffic.
I really don't feel that any extra brightness on their end is ... | 1,319 | LEDs are a different category from the other two and should definitely not be banned. LEDs can produce any color warmth desired, and are extremely stable and energy efficient. That provides huge advantages in terms of electric cars (for range) as well as preventing people driving around with burnt out headlights (goo... | 801 |
If a person gets a skin graft or limb transplant from a person of another race, does the skin remain the same color as the donor or will it eventually take on the color of the recipient? | 1,745 | Nope. Eventually, the pt will kick off the grafted tissue and replace it with their own. If they're lucky it's that simple, if they aren't and the graft struggles/ fails (due to depth, infection, shearing, etc) the graft has to be re-done several times.
It's interesting to open grafted patient's wounds for cleaning o... | 890 | |
Are there more planets or more stars? | Is there a way to find out? Is it even close? | 24 | Based on what the Kepler space telescope has found, there are almost certainly more planets out there than stars.
Before Kepler it was hypothesized that few enough star systems had planets that there might be more stars than planets, but it turns out there are a lot more planets out there than expected. A few planets... | 28 |
[Astronomy] Science in fantasy, Game of Thrones to be precise | So some of you may or may not have read the fantastic series *A Song of Ice and Fire* by George R. R. Martin. If you enjoy fantasy I definitely recommend it.
One of the important characteristics of this fantasy world is that seasons last years (e.g a character asks another character who is a grown man "How many winter... | 58 | I assumed that the presence of "winter" had nothing to do with normal seasons or the planet tilt, but was more like ice ages. I'd figured the climate of the planet was natural unstable, and frequently oscillated between two extremes called "summer" and "winter".
I guess we'll have to keep reading and see what happens... | 29 |
ELI5: Ebola seems to be getting deadlier and more terrifying. Should I, a US citizen, be worried? Is it likely they are going to stop this? | It's pretty freaking terrifying. I am a germophobe. Make me feel better (or worse.) | 17 | The mortality rate of the newer species is lower then the original species, its dropped from 90% to 34%. Its also worth noting that this rate would also be much lower in the west, western medical facilities have much more resources to provide care to hemorrhagic fever patients.
In terms of how much you should worry ab... | 12 |
[Marvel] Can Galactus Drag Planets as Inter-Solar Snack Packs? | Had an idea for a cosplay involving a purple hat and a bag of planet-decorated cookies. Occurred to me that Galactus often starves himself between meals, thought gravity-carried snack packs could help. | 59 | Galactus's primary ship, Taa II is capable of dragging planets and even stars with its massive gravitational pull. But once a planet leaves its star system, it starts to lose energy quickly, which makes it 'stale'. No one wants to eat a stale snack. | 43 |
[DC] Are there any other cosmic sources of power similar to the Speedforce? | From what I understand, the Speedforce is some massive source of energy that grants speedsters their powers, but it seems kind of weird to have this singular force of reality *solely* about moving fast. | 16 | Yep
There's the Still Force that's the well of all inertia, the Strength Force that's the well of gravity, the Sage Force that's the well of intelligence (*that's not even a physics thing*)... they went a bit overboard with the whole thing, really | 21 |
[the Culture] Why did The Affront alter their females to make sex painful for them? | 25 | The Affront genetically engineered most of the life on their planet to feel more pain/fear. The Affront just really enjoy seeing others suffer. They are also a male dominated society so they did the same to the females. | 21 | |
ELI5: What is the difference between whisky, bourbon and scotch? | I'm becoming more of a sophisticated drinker and i want to understand more about liquor store. So what is the difference between whisky, scotch and bourbon?! Appreciate the help.
Edit: really appreciate all those giving the responses, grateful for the help. | 163 | Scotch is whisky made in scotland. Bourbon is american whiskey made from 51% or more corn mash. Regardless of what it's made from, it comes out clear and then goes into a wood barrel or some type for aging. The combination of what its made from and the wood its aged in gives it flavor, body, etc.
You should also look... | 85 |
Does metabolizing your own body fat raise your cholesterol since your body fat is saturated fat? | It was my understanding that consuming saturated fat raises your bad cholesterol. So when an individual metabolizes their own fat when faced with a caloric deficit does it still have this effect? | 37 | When you are metabolizing fat instead of glucose in times of fasting, you are breaking down fats in the form of fatty acids (eg triacylglycerols). These fatty acids undergo a process called beta-oxidation, in which fatty acid chains lose 2 carbons at a time to create acetyl-CoA and succinyl-CoA. These molecules can t... | 22 |
ELI5: Why is there a "seam" on scrotums? | I've always wondered but never cared enough to ask. But now I'm bored so ya know... Reddit. | 505 | Early in development of the fetus all humans are basically arranged as females. The seam of the scrotum is where what otherwise would have become a vagina binds together. The penis is basically formed from what would otherwise be the clitoris. | 463 |
What is happening in our brain when we are TRYING to recall something? | My wife told me she watched a stand-up comedian recently but couldn't remember their name. She said it was "something German-sounding". I knew exactly which comedian she was referring to (I could picture them and their routines) but couldn't recall their exact name. I ran through a series of "German-sounding" names in ... | 15 | What you are trying to do is a type of memory retrieval that refers to relearning the information that has already been learned in the past but is not remembered. People may not be able to recall but they know that they have learned this before. Relearning shows improvement in retrieval of the information as it strengt... | 15 |
I really want to study philosophy. Does this mean I should go to grad school? | I hear many say that the only true or real (or best) way to do it is in academia. But many people also advise strongly against going to grad school for philosophy. So it sounds like a double-bind if the best way to study philosophy is something you shouldn't do.
Then if a person wants to seriously study philosophy, ... | 33 | Certainly you will study philosophy if you go to graduate school, but unless you are wealthy or have an alternate career path mapped out, graduate school is for learning how to be an academic. That is, graduate school is for leaning how to *do* philosophy and *be* an (academic) philosopher. | 38 |
[Star Wars] What would happen if Palpatine had been killed by the broadside from the Venator on the Invisible Hand in Revenge of the Sith? | Everything before that point is the same, but the broadside that hit the Invisible Hand kills Palpatine. What happens? | 25 | Considering the proximity, odds are good that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are also vaporized. Depending on the timing, General Grievous might also bite it, so that’s four major players down in one shot. I’d hate to be that clone gunner...
Anyway, unless there’s some contingency for his premature death (not l... | 40 |
What is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about? And is it worth a read? | I've seen it pop up many times in the related items of philosophy books I get and, when I searched for it on google I got answers I didn't fully understand.
Edit: I would like to know the philosophy of it not the storyline. | 17 | It is definitely worth a read. Dostoevsky has a strong influence on the work of authors like Camus, he can be noted as a precursor to existentialism.
The themes of Crime and Punishment vary and are somewhat complex. One of the most important to me is the whole reflexion on if reason is beyond morality, if a man with ex... | 14 |
What happens to a person dying of thirst if they drink seawater? | If a person is dying of thirst on a raft adrift in the sea, they'll likely be tempted to drink seawater even though they know it won't help.
What will happen to the person once they consume some seawater?
I know they will eventually die, but I'm curious as to how. Specifically, what happens biologically and psycholog... | 126 | Our bodies maintain a very narrow range in concentration of sodium and chloride inside (intracellular space) and outside (interstitial space) cells. The only way to maintain this is through the diffusion of water down the concentration gradient. So as soon as the salty water hits the blood stream, your body will move w... | 187 |
CMV: Necromancy within D&D isn’t evil | So lots of people have on necromancy, and say that it is an inherently evil act, even to the point where in earlier editions using Animate Dead would literally corrupt your soul. But here I’m talking about 5e, so we aren’t selling our soul for power anymore here. Honestly, I think the hate on necromancy is a bit undese... | 36 | If memory of DND is correct there is explicitly positive and negative energy. Which suggests there is some abstract arbiter if good and evil, or at least that these are actual things present in the DnD world and not simply labels humans apply to moral and immoral behavior.
I you can then make the argument that regardl... | 10 |
ELI5: Why is dialogue in movies whisper quiet, then gunshots and explosions happen and damn near blow your speakers? | 3,425 | When using your tv's built-in stereo speakers, go to your set-top box's settings and play around with the dynamic range setting.
It's because you aren't using a surround sound system. Movies are made for a surround sound system, dialogue is on a dedicated center channel, and all non-dialogue audio goes on the othe... | 2,394 | |
How can the "Big Crunch" idea work, if all objects are moving away from one another, and gravity weakens as distance apart becomes greater? | 16 | Gravity never stops acting between two bodies. It gets weaker as you travel away but there is always some force.
The idea behind the Big Crunch model is that eventually the expansion of the universe will halt, thus bodies will no longer be moving away from each other. As gravity will still remain, bodies will move tow... | 19 | |
ELI5: Why does our body start to shake after holding a strenuous position for like an extended period of time? | e.g. planking or wall-sits and starting to shake before failure. | 32 | In short, holding a position or working out requires muscular stimulation which involves neural signals from the brain. These signals come in the form of neurotransmitters, which can get depleted after strenuous exercise. Low levels of these neurotransmitters mean muscle contractions are not as fluid and prolonged, so ... | 19 |
The Joker, Rick Sanchez, Thomas Shelby | I don't want to break the leading question rule, sorry if I am breaking but what is with those characters that they are so let's say attractive to many people? You have probably seen a moral lesson on Facebook with something like "be more quiet, be more intelligent" with the picture of Thomas Shelby, or a "who are you ... | 45 | Two things come immediately to mind. Competence - people are attracted to people who know what they're doing. And secondly, they're attracted to characters who don't care what anyone else thinks about them - many people wish they could be like that. | 38 |
[LoTR] So if the sun and moon are inferior replacements for the two trees of Valinor what did the world look like before their felling? | 19 | Where'd you read that the Sun and Moon were inferior replacements?
In many ways, they're better. The Two Trees' light was pretty much entirely limited to Valinor, leaving Middle-earth in a permanent state of near darkness (starlight provided some light) where evil was allowed to grow with hardly any impediments. | 17 | |
How do our bodies build a tolerance to alcohol? | 4,099 | So our liver is responsible for the processing of alcohol. Each cell in your liver has an organelle called the smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER, which are in all of our cells but is very prominent in liver cells). One job of this organelle is to breakdown and detox substances like drugs and alcohol. When someone goes ... | 2,893 | |
ELI5: how/why does radiation stay in a given area for so long? | Like areas where there was once a meltdown, still dangerous today. | 18 | It isn't the radiation that stays, it is the material that produces the radiation that hangs around
Radiation is a byproduct of the transformation a radioactive material goes through when it decays. It might (for example) start out as plutonium, decay into uranium and spit out a byproduct like an alpha particle, which... | 15 |
ELI5:How do electronics keep track of the time if they are turned off for a period of time and never connect to the internet? | For example if I have an iPad that I turn off for a couple days, and when I turn it back on while it has no internet access, how does it know what the time and date is? | 52 | Your iPad uses a small amount of its battery to keep the internal clock running, which is the only thing it's doing while it's shut down.
Laptops also do this, though sometimes it's through a small watch battery instead of the main battery. | 41 |
CMV: Presidents and members of their administration should not be invited to the WHCA dinner | Presidents dating back to Calvin Coolidge have traditionally been invited to the annual WHCA dinner, a charity event with awards for journalistic excellence and typically featuring a comedy roast of politicians and members of the press as well as a skit or stand-up performance by the President. The event serves as a mo... | 30 | One of the great positive aspects of the WHCA dinner, traditionally, is that it has been a reminder that the press and the government, while not on the "same team", kind of are.
Its a chance for the people involved to sit down, have some laughs, and remind themselves and each other that any adverse relationship is str... | 33 |
Terms in electrolysis which confuses me. | **What is it meant by a negative and positive electrode, and negative and positive terminal of electrolysis?
**
In a simple electrolysis setup, there is an anode and cathode. The anode which is positively charged is where electrons are flowing away from and the cathode, which is negatively charged is where electrons ar... | 80 | The anode is ALWAYS the electrode where the oxidation reaction occurs. Similarly, the cathode is the electrode where reduction reaction occurs. Just remember
*AnOx, RedCat*
The anode and cathode switch depending on whether the cell is galvanic or electrolytic. | 22 |
eli5 Gills can absorb oxygen from an aqueous environment. Why can’t gills absorb oxygen from a non-aqueous environment? | Additionally, in the instances like salamanders that absorb oxygen through their skin is this the same function? | 241 | They can, but they collapse and stick together when out of the water and as a result there's far far far less surface area for oxygen exchange exposed to the air than exposed to the water. If you could somehow keep gills fully open and exposed in air, they would likely work. Gills work in water because there is a hug... | 245 |
ELI5 how we can determine that tiny particles like quarks and neutrinos exist, but cannot determine what is ultimately the source of matter. | 33 | Because, in general, it's easier to know something exists than to know how it exists.
We can determine they exist 1. Because we can break things apart into them and 2. Because we can see how they interact with things.
But, of course, we can't actually see them, because they are so small, and we can't break them into ... | 22 | |
[Superman] Ma and Pa Kent notice that little Clark's teeth are coming in crooked. Can human braces fix this? | 35 | With the level of genetic engineering that went into in most continuities kryptonians they probably fixed the chances of this happening eons ago.
Lex Luthor might be able to invent some super braces though. Upper limit of earth tech level there is way above ours. Or they can put normal bracer on and keep him in a re... | 43 | |
[The Boys] Even if Homelander was exposed, what's to stop him from destroying the world? | The Boys talk about exposing the Seven, and most of them could probably be arrested eventually, but what about Homelander? If publicly exposed, couldn't he just flip out and start killing people? Does the government have a contingency plan for Homelander? Does Vought? | 48 | In the original comic books, there *is* a contingency plan in case Homelander ever went rogue. >!Black Noir was a clone created of Homelander but ordered to hide the fact they had the same powers. If Homelander ever went rogue, Black Noir was ordered to kill him.!<
Unfortunately, the *contingency plan* went horr... | 45 |
ELI5: Why don't I like the idea of my partner sleeping with other people than me - Is it cultural or natural? | I am aware that some like the idea of sharing their partner with other people, however, most couples, married or not, seems to solely rely on each other when it comes to having sex. But why is that? Is it our nature and instincts that tells us to stick with one person at a time, or is that just our culture, maybe origi... | 40 | It's a bit of both. Western culture puts extreme emphasis on sexual fidelity not found in other cultures, but a certain amount of jealousy is natural as well.
Humans did not evolve in nuclear families. The Stone Age was not like "The Flintstones". The general culture schema in which humans evolved was in bands of 20-... | 53 |
CMV: There isn't a compelling reason to bid on an eBay Auction before the closing hours/minutes. | So, I am not a particularly active user of eBay, but I don't see the reason to bid on a traditional ebay auction well before the closing time.
For example, if there is something I want to buy on eBay, rather than place a bid, I usually make a note of the closing time of the auction, and check back much closer to then ... | 22 | Two reasons that immediately become apparent:
1) You don't have the discipline to remember to check right before the end of the auction. So you put in your maximum bid early on, knowing that even if you forget, you've still got *some* chance of winning. Whereas if you don't put a bid in, you have zero chance.
2) ... | 22 |
[Terminator] How did the humans figure out that their enemy was Skynet, not other humans, and how long did it take? | Were there subtle signs that indicated something was interfering with combat operations that couldn't have been done by humans? Did leaders eventually talk to each other and figure out no one knows why they are fighting and everyone thinks they are purely doing self defense? Did the machines openly start attacking huma... | 45 | According to the video game Resistance it took about a year to figure things out another year or two to connect the dots to judgment day and skynet. Bout six months after judgment day rumors of killer robots were out in the survivor enclaves. By a year nearly everyone had seen an HK or terminator unit in the distance o... | 47 |
ELI5: how come announcers and speakers sound so differently when recorded in the 1950, 60s ads/recordings? Is this because they were recorded differently and it just sounds like that or was it because they talked like that? | Edit: Example I am talking about: https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI (pre WW2)
Edit 2: what I was referring to was probably more the 30s, 40s than the 60s. I appologize. | 6,714 | The mics and recording quality was different and you had to speak louder to get a decent amplitude to record. Furthermore every time era has there different slang and rythm to speak. And at the end the quality often gets worse during the time it is stored or reused in clips from clips and not the original source. Combi... | 4,565 |
ELI5: How does lead exposure lead to mental health problems in children and why is it hard to remove from the bloodstream? | I was reading an article about lead poisoning in children and it has me wondering how lead exposure damages your brain. From a quick search it seems like it can cause obsessive compulsive tendencies, and sensory problems. Do we have an answer as to why this happens? | 27 | Lead can substitute itself for many of the other metal ions that are useful in the body, without actually being useful itself. This includes iron in blood cells, and calcium which helps it to pass into the brain. It also binds with many enzymes, which are responsible for many of the bodies functions, and makes them les... | 39 |
Is hacking always the victims fault at some point, or can everything be hacked? | I read about the US government having been hacked by Russian hackers. Earlier this week, Finland was hacked. I’ve read about large companies being hacked, passwords leaked etc. I understand that in practice, there’s always an employee who can mess up. But from a theoretical standpoint, is everything always hackable? Is... | 15 | You really can't blame the victim for a zero day vulnerability, as you can't apply a patch that does't exist. Even air gapped systems can be exploited via social engineering, or and adversary who has infiltrated your operations. Stuxnet, for example, was injected by a double agent using a thumb drive.
In practice, b... | 23 |
Why was the PowerPC architecture discontinued after ~15 years, but the x86 architecture is still used after 30+ years? | It seemed like it was much better than x86 in terms of performance vs clockspeed, but i might be wrong | 65 | mostly its a business decision. but, technical side of things, it needs resources to keep an arch evolving.
ibm had a good partnership with apple, and others. but, mostly apple. so apple wanted a chip that intel had for reasons u can read online, and they dumped ibm.
ibm, had no customers to support the volumes ... | 31 |
I'm starting PhD in fall. I have some summer internship money. How do I best spend it to improve my productivity? | Hi,
I will have about 12k saved from a summer internship. My PhD is fully funded and I live a pretty frugal lifestyle (I expect to have at least $400 in surplus money each month from my stipend; I already am living in a nice appartment). I live in the United States.
I am all in on this academia thing. How do I spend... | 15 | There are very few things you can just buy to immediately improve productivity. You will lose infinitely more time to burnout than you'll ever gain with productivity tools, so anything that minimizes burnout is great. To reduce burnout, get yourself access to some sports/exercise setup (doesnt matter what, as long as y... | 32 |
[Halo] How is the Master Chief able to utilise overshield and active camo pickups? | If active camo and overshield pickups Covenant inventions, why is the Master Chief able to utilise them? Surely there would be incompatibility between his armour (UNSC tech) and the pickup (Covenant tech) | 22 | If memory serves, the UNSC was pretty quick to study Covenant tech and often in greater detail than the Covenant themselves.
I'd not be surprised if his suit is based on the same technology as the elites' armor. It's an imperfect match, mind you, which is why the upgrades are so short-term. | 20 |
ELI5: How do people snoop in on unsecured wifi networks? | I think I understand it if someone makes a network called "Free Public wifi", and then (through the router app??) they can read what you're sending to, and from the network. But can people pick up information sent to and from the network if they did not set up the network? | 15 | Sure. If you've got a network with no password or other form of authentication, then the connection to that access point is completely unencrypted and broadcast all over the local area for anybody to grab and read right out of the air. There are even tools for some of the older encryption protocols (WEP, most notably) ... | 19 |
[Phoenix Wright/Marvel] Would Phoenix, Maya, Apollo, and Athena have to register their lawyer powers? | So the Phoenix Wright series takes place in Jamarica (America with Japanese culture and legal systems.), and in the series all members of the Wright Anything Agency except trucy have some sort of weird pseudo-superpower.
**Phoenix:** has the magatama a green stone that can tell if some one is lying and display those ... | 32 | Phoenix's and Maya's actuall constitutes as superpowers.
Apollo'a, Athena's and Trucy's (she can also make out tells, just doesn't have a bracelet for it) are pretty much super psychology powers, hardly something to be concerned about and not really supernatural. | 22 |
Is There a Limit To How Hot Something Can Get? | I know that there is and absolute zero, but is there an absolute hot? A point where something is so hot that it can't get any hotter? Also what is the hottest thing in the universe? | 21 | It depends on whether you are speaking of a small finite system or not. For a small finite system (like a handful of atoms), you can end up with negative temperatures which are hotter than any positive temperature, and so there is an 'absolute hot' which happens to be 0 (or arbitrarily close to it at least, just like a... | 20 |
ELI5: Why is spending a lot of time reading socially acceptable but spending a lot of time on screens isn't? | 29 | It's associative properties. That books are liked to knowledge, while screens are *associated* with forms of non informational stimulation. Or it could come from a time when sitting in front of the tv meant a higher electricity bill or even in the time of AOL, when you could either be online or on the phone. Just a gue... | 25 | |
I feel that if you had no control over something, you shouldn't have pride when it comes to that subject. CMV. | I see these celebrations that happen all the time, whether it be puerto rican day parade, Gay pride, Black pride, people cheering the sports team from their country, what ever the case may be. I feel that these are completely unnecessary and in some cases offensive. It feels hypocritical in the sense that it would soun... | 47 | Some of the examples of "pride" you point to aren't really examples of being proud of something you had no control over.
In each of those cases, people have been made to feel *shame* for things that they have no control over, time and time again.
Surely if you honestly feel pride is unjustified for these things, you... | 61 |
ELI5: Why are rabbits not a preferred source of meat, seeing as they breed so easily, and are so easy to keep? | Rabbits breed, well, like rabbits. They are easily tamed and don't take up much space. Why is the rabbit meat industry not bigger?
Wouldn't it be better to breed rabbits rather than cows (from a methane/global warming point of view)? | 64 | Rabbit consumption is higher in Europe than it is in the Americas.
Rabbits are relatively useless farm animals and were not a significant part of American agricultural life. Chickens provide an ongoing protein source in eggs, pigs can live largely off of waste products. Cows provide milk and meat cows are relatively l... | 46 |
ELI5: help me explain dropping the bombs on japan to a bunch of tweeners. | Hola folks. im working as a camp councilor as a summer job. long story short, the topic of dropping the bombs on japan came up (space camp, was doing the section on Werner Vonbraun and the use of rockets in WW2). most of the kids had an extremely negative opinion of the event and seemed to think it was an example of Am... | 20 | An invasion would have been even more costly in both American and Japanese lives, because culturally, they could *not* surrender without losing face. Did you know that they haven't made new Purple Heart medals since 1945? We're *still* drawing from the enormous supply of medals that were struck in anticipation of inv... | 15 |
[DC/Brightburn] would batman be about to come up with a contingency plan to take form Brandon? | Say Bruce Wayne was in the world of Brightburn at the end of the movie when Brandon went off the rails. Can he save that world from Brandon? | 22 | If he has access to the technology of the Justice League? Absolutely. The metal Brandon is vulnerable to can be analyzed by the Bat-spectrometer, the bat could drop him into the Phantom Zone, and the Hellbat can go toe-to-toe with Darkseid for a few minutes, so ... the Bat has options.
If you're talking Nolan-verse, t... | 29 |
Trying to explain to a friend about the statistics and probabilities of single events and multiple events, but lacking the vocabulary. | Yesterday a couple of friends and I were discussing going to a casino, and roulette was brought up. One of my friends tried to tell us that you could do really well at roulette by paying attention to what numbers are 'hot' or 'cold', and by using knowledge that over a certain amount of spins, you knew that every number... | 40 | Your friend is indeed wrong. It's simplest to start with a single coin toss and work up from there. After a thousand coin tosses, you'd expect to see roughly 500 heads and 500 tails. This is what we're led to believe based on our understanding of the probability being 0.5 for each event.
However, if you have just thro... | 31 |
[Dark Souls Series] How powerful are the the Chosen Undead, Bear of the Curse and the Ashen One by the end of their games? | As in where do they fit on the food chain in-universe and how would they fair well in other series? | 29 | They’re certainly formidable - as would anything that could kill entire pantheons of gods.
But you have to take into account the fact that all of the gods and monsters you fight in the games are implied to be pale shadows of their former selves.
Once, long ago, they were way, way more powerful. Their armies and thei... | 32 |
Does more exposure to a virus make you sicker? | A few months ago, there was a meme about how all of the COVID virus in the world would be able to fit into a tablespoon, and the meme was about someone eating it (very silly, yes). But that got me thinking about what would happen if that was possible. Does more exposure to a virus cause you to get sicker, or would the ... | 329 | The measure of how many viral particles are either circulating or you are otherwise exposed to is called "viral load" or similarly "infectious dose." Speaking very generally, our bodies do pretty well fighting off infection when viral load is small, as those few particles would have to successfully reproduce, and there... | 341 |
[Star Wars] Why didn't the clone troopers use camouflage or utilize cover during the Clone Wars? | Same question for the CIS Forces. During the Battle(s) of Geonosis and Utapau the Clone and Sepratist Armies engaged in line and column tactics/warfare and rarely appeared to use cover. Similarly, few if any of the combatants appeared to be camouflaged or using any environmental advantages.
Given the strength and accu... | 68 | some did, but it's wasn't as useful as you might think. even B1 battle droids had infra-red scanners in their eyes, visual camoflauge might as well not exist. scanning and detection tech is insanely advanced. they can literally scan an entire planet in seconds and come back with accurate life readings for specific spec... | 60 |
What were the ideological goals of the frankfurt school? Were they still communists? Or social democrats? A mix? | I heard that Marcuse has been accused of having some weird ideology that was somewhat elitist.
| 31 | Neither. They only ever identified themselves as 'critical theorists' -basically they sought to rigurously examine social norms, and in the process reveal contradictions therewithin. They never sought to propose solutions to the problems they identified, hence they can't really be placed into any political category. | 13 |
AskScience AMA Series - IAmA Entomologist working on molecular systematics and genetic barcoding. AMA! | Specifically, I work on producing phylogenies of moths and (soon enough) fireflies as well. This process involves DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), gel electrophoresis, and a lot of computer analysis. Feel free to ask any questions you may have about insect evolution, experimental procedure, or about bug... | 127 | Have you discovered any cryptic moth species which were previously unknown due to common morphological characters?
How well resolved are your phylogenies? Do you stop at the species level, or are you interested in sub-species diversity?
Why is it important to develop moth phylogenies? | 12 |
So I wrote an auth server - are people using it??? | Hey reddit!
Backstory: Decade Jam, a game jam that lasts for a decade, began Jan 1st, 2020. I started writing a web game called [Egg Trainer](https://eggtrainer.com/), but after a year of work realized that my codebase wasn't workable anymore. So at the beginning of 2021, I began working on a game engine that would po... | 20 | I think everyone knows what they are getting is "as is" with no liability or warranty. If it makes you feel better you can put that in the license explicitly. That is probably the bare minimum.
If you wanna go further then thats good on you. If you are actively maintaining it, you probably want to at least keep up wit... | 10 |
ELI5: Why is it acceptable for celebrities to receive millions of dollars in salary while a CEO of a billion dollar company is often criticized for that? | 248 | Because despite their big salaries, the celebrities are often not the top dog in the chain, they're just employees of someone making even more money.
It might seem crazy that an NFL player is getting paid $14 million for a year, but in the current agreement with the owners, all of the players combined only get 47% of... | 131 | |
CMV: I feel that refugees would be more welcome as temporary visitors/wards of a host country as opposed to permanent new citizens. | Making the assumption that there are more asylum seekers then there are countries that can/will accommodate them, I think temporary visa type situation of 5-10 years and you head back or length of the conflict + three years would accommodate more asylum seekers? I'm talking about those fleeing war not your local boy lo... | 52 | In the UK you initially get 5 years and then after 5 years there's a needs assessment on if they can be safely returned and if not they get permanent.
The issue is its very hard to tell when, if ever (and it often is never) it would be safe to go back. So you'd have to set up an enormous and expensive bureaucracy to ... | 26 |
[LotR] I'm one of the Rangers of the North/Dunedain- what would have my life been like growing up/when I'm not being a ranger? What would interacting with my fellow rangers have looked like when I'm not out Rangering? | The Rangers/Dunedain aren't just a club of neighborhood watch enthusiasts, but an actual society with customs, traditions- and presumably families. My question is, what would life would have been like for these Rangers outside of their Ranging? I know they didn't really have any major settlements (though they might hav... | 32 | They lived in small, out-of-the-way villages, far from other significant settlements and major travel routes. You're right that only the line of Chieftains were fostered in Rivendell. If memory serves their homes were mainly in the Angle between the rivers Bruinen (Loudwater) and Mitheithel (Hoarwell), some distance so... | 22 |
ELI5: Why is it so rare to see bucks along the road at night, as opposed to does and fawns, which are a very common sight? | 23 | ELI5: there are more does/ fawns then bucks.
In a lot of deer populations does outnumber bucks 4:1, that ratio doesn’t include fawns under 1 1/2 YO. So it could be up near 10:1 if you included them. Not to mention half the year bucks don’t have horns | 14 | |
when astronauts use the space station's stationary bicycle, does the rotation of the mass wheel start to rotate the I.S.S. and how do they compensate for that? | 5,067 | The ISS has a total mass around 420,000kg. The effect of the spinning bike will be nothing compared to the inertia of the station.
ISS has four control moment gyros (CMG) used to adjust attitude that are something like 100kg spinning up to 7000rpm IIRC. That dwarfs the component from the bike. | 2,778 | |
ELI5: Why do magnets damage electronics? | How do magnets damage electronics on a small scale? For instance, how does a magnet damage the data on a hard disk drive?
And, on a bigger scale, how do EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) cause mass absolute destruction to all electronics in the vicinity of the EMP detonation? | 354 | Most electronics will not be damaged by a magnet. The things that do get damaged by magnets get messed up because they use magnets to work- hard drives store data by magnetizing tiny portions of the disk, and then a magnetic needle "reads" which way each section of the disk pulls. Other electronics, like flash memory o... | 149 |
ELI5: If sound travels fastest through solids and slowest through gases, why does heat do the opposite? | Aren't they both just the vibration of molecules? | 20 | Heat transfer in a gas is primarily through the movement of the gas. As the gas gets stirred up the hot gas can move across its container very quickly.
A hot solid can transfer heat very quickly in the same way. Heat a bucket of ball bearings up. Then through the bucket of bearings across the room. All the heat ju... | 27 |
ELI5: How did autographs get their value? Why did we one day declare that someone touching a ball makes it worth more? | 33 | As the old axiom says, "everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it."
Nothing, not even money, has an inherent value. Its value is only what someone would trade for it.
Since people like autographed baseballs (it makes the baseball feel more unique and concretely related to the autographer and less like a ... | 29 | |
ELI5: Why do humans unconciously lift heavy weights with their backs, although a) leg muscles are stronger and b) it would be healthier? | English is not my first language, sorry if my question is not easy to understand.
EDIT: Thanks for all the answers first! While thinking about this, I personally also figuered that there‘s some kind of societal pressure too. Imagine for example dropping your keys and then doing a full squad to pick them up. It would l... | 38 | Muscle memory is unconcious and built through repetitions. Somebody trained like in a gym, would learn and "unconciously" use the legs too, for example, if he's been doing deadlifts in proper form.
Someone who is disabled from the waist down for example, would have appropriate bio mechanics to use their hands like for... | 41 |
ELI5: What makes walking on train tracks so dangerous? Couldn't the average person hear a train coming long before it reaches them? | 47 | Unless impaired via listening to music, drugs or alcohol you will hear, see or if you're standing on the rails you will feel it coming. And unless you're on a bridge or in a tunnel you don't need much warning. You just need to side step the train, not out run it.
Source: played on a lot of tracks as a kid and still ha... | 38 | |
CMV: YouTube should crack down on parasites whose channels consist mostly of repackaging other people's content. | I am fine with fair use. I am in favor of content creators being allowed to insert clips of other people's content in their own video so they can respond to it.
I am talking about the videos that consist entirely of someone else's content. Much of the time, they take long form content like a podcast or interview, cho... | 308 | It's in the hands of the copyright holder. You said it yourself. If you see content being infringed upon you should report it to the owner of the content. They can take do with it as they wish. Youtube's automation has been an issue from day one. We shouldn't be trying to get even more of it put in. | 39 |
Why don't we have full control over the apps we install on Windows unlike Android? | We can see and restrict the permissions an app has on Android. On Windows, the apps we install only ask for administrator permissions. Why can't we have the same as on Android. Are there any tools to do so? | 23 | "Full control" is an exceedingly generous label for the extremely vague and generalized bundles of permissions in the android ecosystem. But anyway...
Part of the reason is historic. Computers were originally designed for a very simply use case. You feed it a program and some data, wait a while and it gives you back s... | 28 |
How far away do we have to move from the sun before we can stare at it without hurting our eyes? | Just wondering. At our current distance from the sun, we would be blind within minutes. But exactly how far away would be need to be before it wouldn't hurt our eyes to look at it? Jupiter/Saturnian distances? Thanks! | 16 | I'll talk about the physics involved:
The relevant physical unit (I believe) is flux (F): energy per time per area. It is proportional to the luminosity (L, energy per time) of the source and drops off as the square of the distance (r) from the source.
F = L / 4 pi r^2
(The 4 pi assumes the source is radiating equal... | 29 |
ELI5: Why is it that certain word associations just have a single way that sounds "right." | For example, if I tell someone to fetch me some pepper and to get the salt as well, I'll never say that. It's "Salt and Pepper." Not "Pepper and Salt." Just "Salt and Pepper." Then you have "Nieces and Nephews," "Ladies and Gentlemen" (Though that seems to be more of a phrase), "Fruits and Vegetables," etc. There's obv... | 15 | Because these are commonly used combinations and the more you hear it the easier it sticks to your brain. Its a historical accident that we use "Salt and Pepper" instead of "Pepper and salt." If half of america used "Salt and Pepper" and the other half "Pepper and salt." eventually one of them would win over the other,... | 12 |
[Rick and Morty] Regarding S1E06 'Rick Potion No. 9" | Towards the end of the episode when Rick is explaining to Morty how there are infinite timelines, he says "It's not like we can do this every week, anyways. We get three or four more of these, tops". My question is, if there are "infinite timelines" why are there only finite universes where certain events happen?
EDIT... | 15 | Of the infinite universes, there were a finite (though a vast amount) number of them where Rick cured the infection in time for the world to return to normal. Of those uncountable worlds where Rick solved the crisis, there were also a finite, but smaller amount than the first, where Rick and Morty died soon after due ... | 22 |
ELI5: Why does inhaling steam seem to clear up clogged sinuses? | 20 | Think of your mucous as a kind of hydrophilic (strongly attracted to water) slime. If you're sick, suffering from allergies, exposed to irritants, etc... then it can be valuable to move that mucous along faster than it would normally. By inhaling water vapor, you increase the water content of the mucous, and it becomes... | 20 | |
ELI5: Athletes that throw spears are fit, while those that throw neck-boulders are more of the bulky type. Why so? | 17 | Bulky is not the same thing as 'not fit.' Strength takes muscle, and more muscle can take up more space. This can lead to an appearance in very strong athletes that we may erroneously consider 'fat' or something along those lines. Part of this confusion arises due to body builders, who workout in ways to emphasize a sp... | 11 | |
[Warhammer 40k] So... wouldn't it be a good thing for the Emperor to die? | Before you start screaming heresy and start giving the extermitatus order hear me out!
As I understand it, the Emperor is decaying slowly anyway, and the technology of the golden throne is one step away from failing too. But would the Emperor die his soul would go to the Warp and he could be re-born again as the perfe... | 21 | It's a big assumption that the Emperor would be reborn. He could instead ascend to true god-hood and become an aloof Warp entity that doesn't intervene directly in the lives of humans. He might also just die and his soul might fade away, which would be really bad.
Not to mention many of the immediate term effects on... | 39 |
What happens if someone seals a completely empty box in space and brings it to earth? | My thermos has a vacuum, but my coffee still gets cold. If I bring home a vacuum from space, what will happen? Will I be able to use it to keep my coffee hot forever? Will the box close in on itself?
Thanks in advance for all the answers! | 16 | If the box is not strong enough, the pressure difference between the inside (0) and the outside (1 bar) will cause it to collapse.
If the box is strong enough and it is sealed well, then you'll just have a box with a near-vacuum inside it. This isn't anything extraordinary, since we can produce vacuums that are more p... | 36 |
ELI5: Kosovo and Serbia? What is it all about and who is right? | 34 | The story starts a way long time ago. Kosovo was part of the Serbian Kingdom for a long time. Then it was taken over by the Muslim Ottoman Empire for a long time. In 1913, the Serbian empire got it back. They sort of recognized it as independent though, calling Kosovo an "autonomous province" within Serbia. After WWII,... | 42 | |
ELI5: How do springs originate at the top of the hills and how do they acquire such volume of water? | One explanation that I found was rainfall but it is not apparent that rainfall could contribute to such volume of water. | 8,411 | Answer:
Think of a rock mountain actually more like a sponge. A sponge seems like it fills with water perfectly evenly, but when you zoom in if you were to fill a sponge certain holes would fill faster than other ones. There are little pockets of water in the side of the mountains. Sometimes the entire mountain is fu... | 4,205 |
[Any space faring] What is the least weaponizable FTL system? | Many settings like Star Wars feature ships with shields and armor that can take an incredible beating but they should be destroyed by high speed projectiles that should be quite doable considering how inexpensive a FTL missile should be compared to a capital ship. | 44 | Hyperspace is actually not especially weaponizable, considering its easily countered by a simple interdiction system that is already installed on any ship that would actually be worth using such a weapon on.
In the Halo series the Prophet of Regret initiates a Slipspace jump while still in Earth's atmosphere, causing ... | 28 |
ELI5: Why do Webpages on mobile devices especially still jump around frequently while loading? It goes as far as you cannot reliably trust what you about to hit will be still there when hitting it. Can't there be a load order that prevents that? | 25 | Scripts load at various times, often triggered by other scripts and elements on the page. Also, many images are not properly coded with width/height info causing the image load to make the page fluctuate.
A fun way to learn about how the web really works is to use an add-on like noscript. You will have the base page l... | 12 | |
[Batman] Is Gotham really that dangerous or does it just look that way due to all the highly publicized incidents. Furthermore, how does it compare to other real-world cities with high crime rates? | Say I'm born and raised in Gotham and never leave. How likely is it that I'll have a moderately comfortable life (not a luxury or anything) and live well into my 70s before passing of old age or will I be constantly living in fear that I'll meet a truly horrific demise for seemingly no reason?
Is Gotham truly that da... | 38 | Its not the best city but its not an active warzone either (most of the time) . City wide destruction events don't happen that often and most super criminals are not that powerful.
But the city is ruled by multiple criminal organisations and the governement is corrupt as hell. So you have a good chance to have to deal... | 48 |
ELI5: How can the French Prime Minister just...dissolve the government? | For reference:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/25/french-president-dissolves-government-amid-dispute-over-economy/ | 33 | The **Prime Minister** of France can't do that.
However the French **President** can dissolve the government, effectively sacking all the ministers including the Prime Minister. He can do this because that's actually part of his job -- if he feels the government has become so beset with problems that it's become disfu... | 45 |
Why are nuclear bombs detonated while they’re still thousand of feet in the air? | 24 | To get a bigger area of effect.
If you detonate the bomb at ground level, only the part of the explosion around the horizontal circumference that will do major damage to buildings and the surroundings. You lose a lot of the force of the explosion upwards into the sky, and down into the ground directly under the explos... | 23 | |
Is there a proof that the maximum value for the multiplication of a set of positive numbers of finite sum is achieved when the numbers are all "e"? | I have noticed a curious numerical association, and I can not find a method to prove whether my assumption about it is correct or not.
(Please note that my background is engineering, not pure math, so my explanation might be a bit simplistic).
Given a positive number, "a", expressed as an arbitrary sum of smaller pos... | 1,695 | First we prove that the a_i are equal: for a_i ≠ a_j, replacing both with their mean gives a larger product (by AM-GM, or by (μ + λ)(μ - λ) = μ^2 - λ^2 < μ^(2)).
Then notating the equal a_i as y, we wish to maximize x = y^(a / y) with a fixed; differentiating wrt y gives ay^(a/y - 2)(1 - ln y), with stationary poin... | 454 |
CMV: Of all the people with a claim on the Iron Throne, Stannis Baratheon would make the best king. | I can't really talk about this without avoiding spoilers, but I'll try and spoiler tag things that haven't happened in the show yet, so the discussion isn't restricted to book readers only.
Let's have a look at Stannis' competition:
- Dany
A young girl with little experience ruling, the Westerosi equivalent of nukes... | 33 | "Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends."
Stannis has repeatedly shown himself incapable of compromise no matter what is at stake. Knowing himself capable of assassinating Renly, he could have waited a few days and inherited the throne - yet h... | 21 |
If I forget something in my short-term memory, will it ever come back to me in my long-term memory or is it gone forever? | For example, if I meet a guy who tells me he lives in *x* city, but a few days later I can't remember what city he lives in, will that information ever come back to me without me actively trying to recall it? | 21 | Short term memory is normally described as seconds. So if you forgot sonething after a few days thats yiur long term memory failing you.
And yes, your long term memory might recall something later that you thought you forgot.
Interestingly, and maybe helpfully. If you ever need to commit something to ltm you can repe... | 28 |
Is there a philosophy (ontology) of economics? | I've been getting more and more interested in economics lately.
I'm reading a paper by an economist named Metcalfe, who criticizes more orthodox economists for being too committed to [methodological atomism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/methodological-individualism/). Metcalfe proposes that "the economy" and its... | 15 | According to a certain reading (Lukacs and Adorno, for example), this is precisely what Marx is doing: What is called the "the economy" and "the market" in liberal economics is really grounded by the metaphysical status of the commodity and value itself - that it is, the eradication of the particular through the univer... | 15 |
[MCU] Why Won't the Avengers Travel Back to the Moment Before Thanos Atomized the Stones? | Well, it seems that it have been exactly 6 months after the release, or 7, so I don't have to put a spoiler warning here according to the rules. Several months ago, HISHE poked fun at this, when Youtube recommended this video to me again few days ago, I rewatched it and decided to ask people online.
Why won't the Ave... | 26 | Too risky. Fighting a fully armed Thanos is a massive gamble that they lost the first time around. All it takes is for him to recognize the attack and close his fist and they probably lose. It's much safer to travel back in time where they can grab the stones with as little resistance as possible. And even that was ris... | 76 |
[AWOIAF] Why doesn't Maester Yandel dedicate a single chapter of his work to the lands between Old Valyria and the Red Wastes? | Slavers Bay, Tolos, Lhazar, Qarth. None get much more than passing mention in relation to other lands. | 33 | He didn't have access to that information.
He never left the citadel, and the citadel had more books than he could read. So he assembled the information from the book he'd read, he knew of and subsequently read, or otherwise had access to and read. Even some of the scrolls and books he'd read were incomplete, damaged... | 20 |
Why is Internet Explorer inferior to other browsers? | I've used IE since my family purchased our first PC in 1998. I've never had any problems with it. I've used Firefox and Chrome on other people's computers and I honestly can't tell the difference between them and IE. Maybe that's because I'm not much of a technology person, maybe it's because there were huge differe... | 58 | To explain like you're 5: Internet Explorer is like the kid who eats paste during arts and crafts and can't follow basic instructions from the teacher. He can't color inside the lines and barely knows how to read (do 5 year olds know how to read? sorry, maybe ELI10). Not to mention his poor hygiene which causes him to ... | 76 |
ELI5: Why my dad points the pedestal fan outwards to cool down the house? | No idea why, but my dad faces the fan outside my window, shouldn't it be facing inside to cool down the house? | 32 | Putting the fan on you causes a breeze which cools you down. Pointing the fan out is blowing the hot air out, thereby causing negative air pressure inside the house and forcing fresh air to flow in.
So, if it is hotter outside than in, point your fan at you. If it is hotter inside than out, point your fan out. | 42 |
[Star Wars] What's life like on a Star Destroyer? | 46 | Most of the time very cramped, uncomfortable, and a little smelly, especially as an enlistedman. Regardless of whether you work in the power-plant, weapons, deck department, or what have you, you most likely hot-bunk (share your bunk with one or two other crewman who sleep in your space while you are on watch) due to t... | 49 | |
[Star Wars] Were there any 'good' Sith? | As far as my understanding goes, *Sith* only refers to the use of the dark side of the force over the light side. Has there been any record of a good Sith? Or at least, a sith that wasn't out and out evil? | 34 | Many, if not most, who turn to the dark side originally do it out of a desire to do good. Revan sought to unite the galaxy against a terrible threat. Vader wanted the power to save the one he loved. Even Palpatine envisioned an age of order and prosperity for the galaxy. The problem is that tapping into the dark side -... | 73 |
How does sun bleaching work? | I get the science of how we see color via reflected light but I'm genuinely curious about how if an object is left in the sun for an extended period of time it will seemingly lose its color. How does it happen and what causes it? | 24 | The UV in the sun is pretty damaging and will chemically decompose many compounds (like dyes - whether artificial or natural) If you leave plastic out in the sun, the UV will usually make it brittle and yellowed fairly quickly unless the plastic is designed for outdoor use. | 25 |
ELI5: How does my ISP (that has an offer on data only for a specific website) know that I am using the internet for that specific website and not others? | 19 | For the most part, it's quite similar to post. They know you're sending letters, and who you're sending them to, and they know you're receiving letters, and where they're coming from, but they (assuming HTTPS) don't know what's inside the envelopes.
They need to know where the letters are going though, otherwise they... | 38 | |
ELI5: why are spicy things so much spicier when it touches your throat in a wrong way/ goes down the wrong hole? | 60 | Because our saliva dilutes and surrounds capsaicin molecules, protecting our digesting tract. Swallowing it "wrong" usually means that it touched our throat without a saliva layer. Even worse when we mistakenly inhale some. | 37 | |
Who cares if moral realism is true? | I've never seen this assumption formalized in the literature, but it seems to me that there is a general feeling that it is "important" whether moral realism is true or not. Without being overly-general about the personal values of individual philosophers, the potential truth of moral realism seems to carry more weigh... | 16 | The view that moral facts would necessarily affect behavior is called motivational internalism. Basically, just by learning some moral fact, you automatically have a motive, though not necessarily overriding, toward some end. Most moral realists reject this view because it seems impossible for any facts to behave like ... | 10 |
If a bottle is completely filled with water and I shake it. Does the water still move inside? | 11,550 | If it's completely filled such that there's no air, the bottle is completely rigid, theres no particulate, and *you don't rotate it* the water will effectively be like a rigid body and not move at all. You need some kind of force differential to get things to move relative to one another, and assuming the fluid to be i... | 7,956 | |
CMV: The term elope does not include the concept of getting married in a court house and having a small gathering with family and friends afterwards | Pretty simple concept here. I don’t believe semantic change has come so far as to have the term elope change so drastically that it now can be applied to something small and local.
Elope, as defined by the Oxford dictionary is:
>> run away secretly in order to get married, especially without parental consent
W... | 261 | Words are defined by usage, not dictionaries. So if people are using the term as a catch-all for any non-traditional wedding then the meaning of the term has shifted from being strictly about secretly running away to get married. | 79 |
What are "Artificial Flavors" made out of? | I assume its chemicals, but what kind? How did food scientists go about determining which chemicals tasted like pizza or cherry? Why are artificial flavors so common in processed foods? | 87 | Organic compuounds are usually used as artificial flavors. Flavors are extracted from the natural source and studied. Once the structure of the molecule that produces the flavor is known a synthetic substitue can usually be made. This is done to cut costs associated with processing natural flavors.
Here are some chem... | 56 |
CMV: The “Don’t Say Gay” bill does not discriminate against the LGBT community | First, the bill is called “Florida House Bill 1557: Parental Rights in Education”. From my understanding, the part that is the most controversial is the fact that it prohibits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classroom settings from kindergarten to third grade.
I think this is exactly as it... | 784 | Sexual orientation and gender identity aren't just or even mostly about sexual intercourse. For example, discussing a person with two fathers or two mothers, a person in a same-sex relationship, romantic feelings, etc would be "banned", all while it's perfectly fine to have the same discussions about opposite-sex relat... | 1,700 |
[DC] Where did the meteor that gave Vandal Savage his immortality come from? | 34 | Outer space.
Seriously, nobody knows anything about that meteor. Savage himself was just a caveman then. And while he gained super-intelligence and immortality, he didn't instantly gain *knowledge*. It would have taken him a while to figure out how the world works. It's still just a weird rock to him until much, m... | 54 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.