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ELI5: What happens with the water that ends up in your lungs when misdrinking? | Sometimes we drink and it goes "the wrong way", ending up in the lungs. What happens to that water? Does it evaporate? Is it slowly absorbed?
It can certainly not be stored there forever, we would feel it. | 37 | The cell walls of your lungs are coated with a thin layer of water to aid oxygen absorption, but the layer is highly controlled excess water can be absorbed back into the cells, alternatively there are tiny hairs cilia which sweep away debris which is collected in the lungs and these can also remove excess water. | 23 |
ELI5: Why isn't the gas tank fill port standardized to be on the same side for every vehicle? | Wouldn't making the port be on the same side for every car make getting through gas stations more uniform/efficient? Seems like this would be a no-brainer. Is there some practical reason why they aren't? | 59 | Simple engineering. There is no uniform standard, so automakers move it around based on what's best for the design of the vehicle. Older cars can have gas caps behind the license plate, to accommodate gas tanks below the trunk.
The location of the gas tank is a big challenge when designing cars, especially more comp... | 39 |
[Star wars] is Ashoka Tano a Jedi at the end of the Clone wars season 7? | 18 | No. A Jedi is a Force-wielding member of a very specific religion. Ahsoka Tano *is* a Force user, Ahsoka Tano *does* use Jedi weaponry, and Ahsoka Tano *does* have considerable Jedi training, but she is not a Jedi.
>!Rex even attempts to use this loophole to get her out of Order 66, but nobody buys it.!< | 38 | |
ELIF: Why are nail salons so frequently operated by Asian women? | I realize it's not exclusive, but really, they just have a knack for it? | 22 | It's mostly due to family and ethnic networks.
Many of the first Asian immigrants to the US started business, they went for simple service sectors with low cost overhead in areas that weren't already saturated by Americans, such as nail salons or bodegas or small convenience stores.
Years later, when new immigrants c... | 26 |
ELI5:Do black men actually have bigger penises? And if so, do black women have deeper, wider vaginas? | 25 | From metapedia:
A 2007 peer-reviewed study appearing in the Tropical Journal of Medical Research has noted that contrary to "the popular belief that the black people generally have longer penile sizes" that in reality "there is no convincing scientific background to support the ascription of bigger penile dimensions t... | 20 | |
[ATLA] Why does the Fire Nation have tripwire trap rooms installed into their ships? | In the pilot episode Aang trips a wire in an empty room of an abandoned Fire Navy ship, which shoots a signal flare and locks them inside the room. I think I understand the intent of this (as a security measure for the Fire Navy to quickly notice a captured ship and maybe trap the captors, as the captors are more likel... | 16 | It's very unlikely the trip wire was set up during day-to-day operations. It's more like part of the evacuation procedure in case of the ship being captured. Remember that the waterbenders did not fight their way onto the ship, they surrounded it and encased it in ice, pushing it out of the sea. The firebenders, now ru... | 50 |
CMV: "ACAB" is ultimately going to hurt America more than it will help. | My view on the phrase “all cops are bastards” is that while it is a convenient way to express distaste with policing in the US it doesn’t allow any room for what is good and working.
For example: I recently saw a video where a person was getting arrested on the street. One cop cuffing him, another standing in front, a... | 109 | Consider the phrase "stranger danger". This is not say that all strangers are dangerous. In fact, most strangers are probably awesome. However, we suggest that people _treat_ strangers as dangerous so as to stay maximally safe.
Similar, it's reasonable to treat cops as _dangerous_ or as _bastards_ (as "bad cops") b... | 22 |
ELI5: If I am allergic to peanut butter and I eat a jar everyday, will I become un-allergic? | 66 | There are some allergy therapies that try a version of this. You can build up resistance to peanut butter if you are exposed to VERY SMALL amounts ever day. Starting with a jar will just send you to the morgue. | 112 | |
ELI5: Agile methodologies in software testing | In general terms, how does this methodology work? | 30 | The basic concept is that you decide on details regarding implementation and testing while developing.
In more classical methodologies you generally spend a lot of time in the beginning of a project to plan everything on a high detail before writing the first line of code.
In agile developement you make a very rough... | 16 |
[Star Wars] Why did the Rebels not evacuate Yavin when the Death Star was approaching? | For comparison, when the Imperial fleet launched a surprise attack on Hoth they managed to evacuate almost everyone, while under enemy fire.
Yet on Yavin they send up 30 one man fighters, then just sit there waiting for the Death Star to get close enough fire. | 37 | The Yavin IV attack was more surprise than the attack on Hoth. Though Leia Organa Solo was suspicious that Millennium Falcon was being tracked, the tracking beacon was never found. When the Rebels received the Death Star plans they began analysing them for weaknesses. When the first Death Star fell out of hyper space i... | 46 |
[Alien] Can you save a infected person with surgery after a facehugger releases him/her? | 21 | From the avp wiki:
>>"Arguably the most biologically intriguing stage of the Xenomorph's life cycle, the Chestburster is not implanted into the host as an embryo but is in fact akin to a cancerous growth; it begins as a tumor that causes the host's body to literally construct the infant creature from its own bio... | 45 | |
Difference between a “Psychotherapist” and “Psychologist” | When I look up the question above for myself , the info it gives just seems the same for both. Are these both two different terms to describe the same position? | 40 | A psychologist holds a doctorate (PhD or PsyD) in psychology and doesn't necessarily provide psychotherapy to clients, but can do so under the title of psychologist.
A clinical psychologist is traditionally trained as a researcher and practitioner, and may focus on either. Someone who gets a PsyD, also a doctoral deg... | 22 |
[LoTR and Middle Earth] Elves that chose not to leave for Valinor and stayed in Middle Earth, what would of happened to them and the areas they lived on | What I mean is, lets say everyone in this sub reddit were Noldor Elves and resided in Rivendell. If we chose to stay in Rivendell for the entirety of the Third Age into the Fourth and so on, what would of happened to our bodies and ultimately Rivendell. | 18 | Ultimately, our spirits (fëar) would consume our bodies (hröar), and we would be left as houseless spirits, a kind of wraith.
When Men die, their fëar depart the circles of Arda for whatever lies beyond - the Gift of Iluvatar. The fëar of Elves, on the other hand, are bound to Arda until its ending. If slain, the fëa ... | 19 |
ELI5, why do viruses and bacteria have many of the same symptoms when they infect a human? | Soar throat, sniffles, sneezes, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea- any combination of these could be covid, flu, common cold, adenovirus, astrovitus, strep, etc | 27 | All of the above are the body using various methods to expel or combat the virus. They're similar for many viruses because those are the tools our body has to fight viral infections (though obviously it's not all the tools) | 64 |
[Star Wars] What do Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader do during their 'off-time'? | 65 | Vader sits in a bacta tank, trying not to think of his dead wife and kids and wallowing in his own negative emotions.
The Emperor probably gets about 5 seconds of true down time in any given year, and spends it working on his evil laugh. | 130 | |
ELI5: What is the use of a birth certificate? | 54 | It proves you were born here and are a citizen. Without one, and without a record of one, they could try and deport you as an illegal immigrant.
It also, you know, proves your age. For age-related things like getting into public school and getting a drivers license. | 40 | |
[Matrix] Why does 01 have so much defense? | So, the humans are all underground. The machines know exactly where they are, and wipe them out every 120 years or so. There's maybe a dozen hovercraft that leave the city, which can be easily destroyed by a small group of sentinels.
Why the hell does 01 have about 200 heavy battleships just sitting there for a threat... | 47 | One of the problems with having full intelligence and independent, but still artificial, personalities, comes the issue of personality disorders and problems. Even though the machines don't have genetics and brain chemicals affecting their moods, they still can get caught with faulty logic, endless looping cycles and b... | 42 |
[Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra] How much authority does the Avatar have? | I think we can all agree that the Avatar (a living god) is very much widely respected throughout the world due to their role in maintaining balance as well their predecessors doing noble things like stopping a genocidal Fire Lord from burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground.
But how much authority do they actually ha... | 40 | The Avatar doesn’t have explicit authority to order any world leaders around, but between their unparalleled bending prowess, the wisdom that they gain during their travels around the world, and their near-universal respect that they have among the general population, it would be foolish for any world leader to ignore ... | 53 |
ELI5: What happens to fish during a hurricane? | And can they predict it coming? | 33 | Sharks can sense the falling barometric pressure associated with a hurricane and leave the area. But other creatures are stuck. Fish and invertebrates can get driven onto land and stranded by the storm surge. Fish nurseries may be upset. Coral reefs can be completely destroyed; those that survive can take years to reco... | 31 |
[28 Weeks Later] What kind of morons are running the NATO cleanup efforts? | Firstly, who decided that the _janitor_ should be able to get into a quarantine room? That's just basic procedure.
Secondly, why, upon hearing that said quarantine had been broken, did they herd ALL the civilians into an enclosed space with multiple doors, one of which leads directly to the now-broken quarantine room,... | 153 | Like all large-scale, high-profile endeavors, the repopulation of the British Isles was carried out with a mix of political grandstanding, hastily-constructed taskforces, inefficient budgeting, and minimal research. The decision of who got to be there was based on which bureaucrats and generals were trying to make a n... | 68 |
CMV:Capitalism is a better economic system than Socialism | I will start my premise by saying that I believe capitalism is better than socialism due to the fact that it allows competition between different businesses. This is crucial to keep growing a stronger economy and helps goods become cheaper than they would be under a socialist government.
My problems with socialism (A... | 239 | Free market capitalism has a few weaknesses. One is monopolies. Another is public goods.
Monopolies form naturally in a free market economy. They remove competition which allows producers to ignore consumers’ desires. How do you prevent or break up monopolies? Anti trust legislation and the judiciary system. But thos... | 166 |
CMV: Churches don't do enough for the secular communities | My personal (anecdotal) experience with churches is that while they may do a lot of charity works, a lot of those works are religious in nature. For example, providing daycare to their religious members, or providing funeral/wedding services, or providing religious counselling sessions.
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I argue churches ... | 19 | Battered women’s shelters don’t help homeless men. Cancer charities don’t help homeless veterans. The Red Cross doesn’t build houses in third world nations. Charities don’t help everyone, they help who they are set up to help. If you don’t like churches because they don’t help all people while refraining from mentionin... | 21 |
How do buildings throughout history disappear in to the earth? | Some examples, such as [Nero's Golden House ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domus_Aurea) were purposefully buried and then built over, and structures in the deserts of Egypt would naturally be covered by sand, but this can't be the explanation for every building that's ever been swallowed up.
I'm really interested in ... | 62 | I once stood in a museum in Budapest, Hungary that was dedicated to this topic. Basically, trash, plants, soil, rubbish, other buildings/roads etc slowly build up over time. First floors become basements become foundations become gravel. There was a whole wall encased in glass that showed about 35 feet of the city star... | 23 |
With the connectivity of the modern world and mediums like skype and gaming, could local accents begin to fade out? | Hi social scientists, I've been sort of scratching my head this afternoon trying to put a locality to my accent after someone asked me what accent I had. I realised that my accent didn't at all fit with the accents of other locals in my area and when I first arrived at university the same problem arose in that nobody c... | 49 | the latest research into the effect of online virtual communities suggest that the rate of accentation is accelerating. world of Warcraft and eve online are developing their own unique dialects that tend to isolate the communities. | 15 |
Why aren't bullets cone shaped? | I can't seem to understand why some rounds (eg. [9mm](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/9mmLuger.jpg)) are rounded not cone shaped. Isn't a cone the best shape to pierce air? | 29 | Intuitively, it may seem that a cone is the best shape but keep in mind that there are multiple factors in play. One of which is torque.
- A blunt object is subject to less destabilizing torque than a pointly one by having the leading edge closer to the center of gravity.
- Spin is induced to resist torque. It is eas... | 16 |
Would a microwave heat up heavy water (deuterium oxide) just like regular water? | I tried to find the answer on Google but couldn't come across anything. | 20 | Yes, they have almost the same electrical dipole moment. It wouldn't be _exactly_ the same, since H2O and D2O have ever-so-slightly different properties (specific heats and so on), but that applies no matter how you heat them.
| 12 |
Does the battery still drain if I hold down the electric motor, stopping it from spinning? | I have [one of these little frothers](http://i.imgur.com/XzjpC4d.jpg). It's just a little battery-operated electric motor.
If I turn it on, but hold it with my hand to prevent it from spinning, there is no movement and hence zero work done (right?). But the battery still drains, no? How exactly does that work? Whe... | 23 | You are right that there is zero work done in this situation but that is only because the motor is 0% efficient in this situation. None of the electrical power is being used to do useful work but is instead being converted mostly to heat. When you stall a motor like this, it is in fact drawing the maximum amount of c... | 33 |
ELI5: what happens when a pair of shears hits that creamy smooth glide-cut and what causes this? | 88 | The first thing that you need to understand is that when you use scissors in the open close motion, you're not really "cutting". You're tearing the paper. You're just doing it really really.... really precisely. Put a piece of paper on the edge of a desk. Hold it down with one hand and pull the part hanging off in a d... | 113 | |
ELI5: How sunburns occur, and why they can cause pain for days after receiving the sunburn. | The only thing I know about the burns is that the UV rays cause the burn.
I have no understanding of how the pain occurs, or why it lasts days after getting the initial burn. On top of that, why (when the burn is bad enough) your skin may secrete/drain(?) fluid from the burned area. | 15 | When you get a burn, what you are doing is causing damage to the DNA in your skin cells. There is a chemical called thymine that is one of the bases in your DNA. When it is hit by UV light, it can get knocked out of place and attach to a thymine next to it. This forms what is called a dimer.
When many dimers form... | 10 |
Why do fruits get sweeter the longer you wait? | 23 | The sugars in fruit are there to encourage animals to eat it. The idea, evolutionarily speaking, is to have an animal, which can move, carry the plant's seeds far away. The seeds will eventually end up in a new place, most likely in a nutrient-rich pile of manure. This benefits the plant by helping it to reproduce a... | 21 | |
CMV: I think putting jelly on first when making a PB&J is the superior option. | Just a thought that popped into my head while making today's lunch: the sandwich maker should always put the jelly on first. My main reason for this is that it keeps jelly out of the peanut butter jar and vice versa. Jelly is easier to scrape off the knife or spoon than peanut butter, leading to less cross contaminatio... | 82 | As someone who took many a bagged lunch back in the ole school days, if you're talking about the "superior" way to make a PB&J there is no better construction than a light layer of peanut butter on both pieces of bread, with the jelly nestled safely in between. There are multiple reasons for this.
1) A traditiona... | 60 |
[marvel] since ghost rider can detect innocence, has he ever become a lawyer? | 16 | Likely not, as the Spirit of Vengeance is a little more Old Testament in it’s thoughts on innocence and punishing the guilty while the justice system probably doesn’t accept what’s essentially eyewitness testimony from a flaming skull. | 31 | |
CMV: Nationalism and other forms of tribalism are counterproductive. For all. | Most of our bigger issues can't be solved effectivelly as long as different human societies dont get together under some sort of coordinating body.
Examples of the issues I'm hinting at: Achieving world peace, terminating world hunger, effectively fighting climate change, stopping the biodiversity loss: Managing worki... | 101 | Well, how are you going to unite the entire world? How are you going to make it so all cultures and races can coincide with eachother peacefully?
When Hannibal Barca attacked Roman land in the Second Punic War, it is said that one of his greatest achievements as a general was uniting multiple cultures and races under ... | 30 |
ELI5: Why do big banks refuse to raise their interest rates for savings accounts? Is there no incentive to at least coming close to the 2-3% online banks offer? | 24 | Banks offer interest on savings accounts to attract customers to deposit money, because then the bank can loan that money out to someone else for a higher rate.
Banks are flush with cash right now, and fewer people are looking for loans. They don't need more cash.
Before the pandemic excess cash reserves of US banks ... | 25 | |
[Green Lantern] Why is it so many humans are chosen to join the corps? | Are humans just that willful of a species compared to others in our sector? Also are there other species out there that get so many chosen from their ranks to join the Corps? | 37 | This is a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to Hal's joining no human had ever been selected into the corp. With his great success it is speculated that the rings/guardians have decided to test more humans to see if humans in general can be that successful. Additionally Kyle's selection was more from desperation rather ... | 24 |
[Flash] Why doesn't he just take Captain Colds gun off him? | There are many different versions of the Flash and many stories that don't quite all match up, but in all of them the Flash is phenomonally fast and can usually move faster than a normal person can blink. Another consistency is that Captain Cold is just a guy with a fancy gun.
So why doesn't the Flash just run up to h... | 45 | The Flash has a lot in common with Superman in this regard. Both are akin to overwhelming elemental forces of nature that could operate 24/7 on levels that are staggering for us to comprehend but because they are also human/human-like they dial themselves back towards our end of the spectrum. Free Will matters to them ... | 47 |
[DC] Does Superman have to work for his strength? | Let's say superman just stopped everything and he ate crap food for a few months would he lose muscle mass and get fat? If this happens will he get weaker? | 23 | It depends, but in most versions no; his strength isn't a function of his muscles, its sort of an energy field, and his perfect physique is somehow automatic. It's all expressly a function of his superpowers in some way or another.
He does, however, seek out *combat training,* because in the DCU, a really good martial... | 43 |
[Dragon Age] The Grey Warden that recruited me got completely wasted at the local tavern and blurted out what actually happens during the Joining. Is there any way to increase my chances of survival or is this completely random? | The grey warden that recruited me got completely drunk and confessed that the Joining consists of drinking Darkspawn blood and that most recruits end up dying.
I was a criminal before he used the right of conscription on me so if i try to leave him I'll get arrested or worse, and in all honesty i still want to help a... | 32 | Yes, many. All of which will be done in advance of your joining, some seem to be totally natural parts of training, some seem slightly odd like being given potions or herbs, some like having magic users around doing unknown things and some trainees being disqualified without reason given seem extremely strange. At the ... | 21 |
ELI5: Why aren't all economics professors rich? | 19 | Because economics, even microeconomics, isn't "how to become a rich individual". It's the study of how markets and economies work.
Knowing how supply and demand work, or what the best international trade strategy is, or the most effective way to go about structuring the tax system, doesn't mean that you have a product... | 39 | |
ELI5: What stops whales from dying of dehydration through osmosis when they gulp in multiple gallons of salt water at a time when they catch fish? | 30 | Baleen whales (filter feeders) don't swallow all the water they take into their mouth. They push it back out through their comb-teeth, and then swallow just the stuff they want to eat and a smaller amount of water. But, they do end up swallowing a lot more salt water than you could - they have big, super-efficient kidn... | 48 | |
ELI5: What is freemasonry? | 89 | They control the British Crown, they keep the metric system down.
They keep Atlantis off the maps, they keep the Martians under wraps.
They hold back the electric car, they make Steve Guttenberg a star.
They rob cave fish of their sight, they rig every Oscar night.
| 83 | |
CMV: Internal monologue should be more normalized in films and television. | You ever see a scene in a film or a show that just makes you go, "uhhhhhhh, what were you thinking?"
I find that there are many scenes in film and television that are a little too open to interpretation. Often it would be helpful for the audience to know exactly what a character is thinking, and it's a massive insight... | 56 | “Show, don’t tell” is a common technique in storytelling for good reason. It makes scenes more vivid, dramatic, and full of action.
I would put it to you that if a character’s motivation is not clear, it is because the creators or the performers did a bad job at showing why they did that thing, not a reason to have an... | 49 |
What is a sore throat? | An ordinary sore throat you get when are ill. What part of the throat is the pain coming from? Are certain glands swollen? Does it affect the trachea or oesophagus? And what causes this to happen? | 1,833 | Viral pharyngitis (sore throat) is much more common than strep pharyngitis, even among children. Sore throats from an upper respiratory virus occur because the viruses infect cells of respiratory epithelial origin, including the nasopharynx (nose and back of throat), The presence of multiplying viruses in the cells cau... | 1,388 |
[Marvel] Which superhero can single handedly stop a World War? | or prevent it from happening in the first place? | 103 | It depends by what you’re measuring. Captain america has a lot of public influence and could turn a country around.
People like Tony stark, Reed Richards and black panther could likely build equipment that massively shifts the flow of a war.
People like the hulk, captain marvel, but also the thing, torch and invisibl... | 111 |
[QUANTUM MECHANICS] Is the famous double slit experiment widely accepted - does an observer really have an influence on physical reality? I just can't understand how a single particle can be in multiple places at the same time. My mind is raging with curiousity. | 30 | It's not in multiple places at once, it just doesn't have a well defined location until it is forced to. The word observer here doesn't mean a dude looking at it, it's just something that forces it into a specific state. | 36 | |
ELI5: Why is it OK to kill a hundreds of bugs/insects but not OK for "bigger" animals? | A life is a life, right? Why is an ant's life more valuable than a bird or (sorry, Reddit) cat? | 25 | Because that's how society is. Why is it not okay to eat a dog (in America), but it's okay to eat a cow?
Now, there are some "objective" ways that you can judge whether treatment of some animal is cruel or not. A lot of people have decided that it's okay to kill certain animals based on how intelligent they are. So, i... | 20 |
Why does switching the batteries around in a remote make it work for a little bit? | This always seems to work with most electronic, battery-powered devices. The most obvious reference being a remote control. | 26 | The electrical contacts on the battery and/or battery holder build up a thin layer of corrosion that resists current flow. Moving the batteries around scratches the contacts and exposes fresh metal, improving conductivity. | 26 |
What's wrong with this argument against evolution? | [From a young-earth creationist's blog](http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/148365096520/watching-evolution-work):
>The critical factor in evolutionary change is not actually time. Instead, it’s population size and generational turnover. This is because the requirement is that substantial variability be provided (by po... | 16 | It's pretty clear that this person doesn't know what they're talking about. "Malaria" is a disease, medical conditions can't evolve. The pathogen that causes malaria, and that is capable of evolution is (primarily) Plasmodium falciparum (Plasmodium). Plasmodium doesn't invade hemoglobin, which is a molecule, and hence ... | 79 |
ELI5: How do Mattress stores stay in business? | In my town (of ~100,000) they're about 20 mattress stores. How do they stay in business? It seems like a front. | 28 | Sloppy math explanation:
Let's say a mattress gets 10 years of life. (Manufacturer recommendations and consumer behavior both vary between 5 and 10 years).
Let's also say that the average person owns one mattress. (Yes, many couples share, but many also have guest beds... so let's stick with one mattress per person ... | 28 |
CMV: There's not a single thing that conservatives in the US advocate for that liberals and progressives don't have a better plan for. | When it comes to healthcare, education, judicial issues, criminal justice issues, fiscal responsibility, taxation, the environment, foreign policy, the American left has got a better stance than the right.
There's a lot of fucktards on the left, but they're generally just the loudest, most viral assholes. When it come... | 18 | This rather relies on your definition of 'better' don't you think?
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>The tax cuts the right vehemently advocates for disproportionately benefit the ultra wealthy and harm the lower and middle classes.
If you are a wealthy person, and don't really care about the lower and middle classes, this is most ... | 38 |
I do not think that non-essential charities should exist until every person on earth has their basic needs met. CMV. | When I say non-essential, I mean things that are not providing food, water, shelter, or health-related services to the less fortunate. While I think that the desire to help people in non-essential ways is great and should be encouraged through specific volunteer work, I simply cannot see a justification for charities t... | 54 | Do you, therefore, give all of your money, save only that amount that is absolutely necessary for you to live in poverty, to help those who need it in order to live?
Because you are the smallest non-essential charity there is, or that there can possibly be. If you're giving yourself a nice meal or a haircut, you're li... | 98 |
What is the purpose of eyebrows? | I was pondering this question earlier today while thinking about extremist groups that shave their eyebrows. What is the anatomical function of eyebrows? | 15 | Eyebrows are hypothesized to have two main functions: to prevent debris, such as dirt, sweat, or dust, from falling into the eyes from above (in addition to the protection offered by eyelashes) and to offer an additional means of facial expression. | 15 |
[The Terminator] What would have happened if Sarah Connor named her son "John Reese"? | 19 | There's fundamentally no change. Ignoring the entire paradox situation John is the destined destroyer of skynet. It will always know his name even if it's changed. In fact the only reason skynet even knew where to find John in the sequel was because of his foster paperwork that would have any name changes listed as wel... | 19 | |
ELI5: Why are giants always shown as being so slow in movies? I know they would be heavier and need to move a lot more weight, but don’t they have the proportions of a normal person? Their muscles would be bigger allowing them to move at a normal speed. | Sorry if this is stupid. It’s just been on my mind for ages. | 68 | In movies, it is because it looks right. But it is also realistic, due to the 'square-cube law' - that strength increases by the square of length, but mass increases by the cube. So you'd expect animal 3 times bigger to be 9 times stronger, but 27 times heavier - proportional to it's mass, the bigger animal is 1/3 as s... | 150 |
ELI5: why don't taxi drivers just become Uber drivers? | 20 | Because Uber drivers are paid less, have to use their personal cars, get no insurance, and are increasingly being cracked down on by cities for being unlicensed taxis.
Uber sold the age-old concept of unlicensed cabs with a lot of hype to convince people they were doing something new. All they did was make an app and ... | 34 | |
CMV: If I was about to be put to death by firing squad or some other form of execution I wouldn't just stand there and take it, I would find a way to fight back | I understand that some executions are going to come from horrible people/groups and that I'd run the risk of suffering an even worse death/possibly torture but when I see one person shooting a whole line of people I would turn around and fight the person. You're already faced with death and you're either going to die w... | 72 | Many times a person undergoes many fake executions, they rebel and fight back and then get punished and realise it is only a fake execution for PR and that fighting back is both useless and gets you punishment. Better to save your strength/resolve to a time when you are more likely to escape. The real execution comes a... | 87 |
ELI5: What is it that gives a material the ability to be polished? | I've always wondered what it is that allows you to polish metals to a mirror finish, but not wood or plastic, for example? I assume its something to do with light scattering and reflection from the internal structures of the material? | 147 | There are two things that go into why a material can have a mirror finish. First, is whether light that hits it reflects straight back or gets scattered in many different directions. Smooth surfaces scatter less of the reflected light, and will be shinier than rough surfaces.
Any material can be polished.* Polishin... | 27 |
The brightness of the actual dark side of the moon? | With the extremely thin atmosphere on Earth's moon, and a complete absence of cloud cover, foliage, etc., what sort of luminosity would the various stars and Milky Way provide on the moon's night? Meaning - if both Earth and the Sun were 'behind' you as you were standing on the moon, would it truly be pitch black, or ... | 108 | Not much darker than a "dark sky" spot on Earth.
The Earth's atmosphere mostly reflects back urban light. But go out in the desert, or out at sea, at least 100 km away from any city and town - it's a pretty dark place. Luna wouldn't be very different - a bit darker maybe, but not much.
Most people have lived in citie... | 29 |
Religious people are often just as logical as non-religious people, they just start from different assumptions. CMV | For context, I'm an atheist but I find that many of my non-religous friends seem to think that if someone is religious they have to be completely Illogical, but I don't think that's the case. They actually are logical, they just start from a different set of assumptions.
For Example:
A=B
B=C
A=C
Is valid
But
A... | 38 | Assumptions can themselves be judged on terms of rationality. Christianity assumes, as an epistemic standard, the contents of a book, with no prior principles to show why the contents of this book are necessarily true and should not be judged by their own merit.
Atheism, since it denotes a lack of belief, does not dep... | 54 |
Does being exposed to confrontation/danger on a daily basis naturally increase testosterone levels? | 34 | Perhaps it's not the question you are really trying to ask, but the implication would be women and children who have lived with threatening partners or parents for large portions of their lives would then have extremely high levels of testosterone. Not sure that pans out.
Testosterone isn't the stress hormone, corti... | 18 | |
I think Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, isn't that good, and nostalgia blindness has led to it becoming one of the most overrated games of all time. CMV | As someone who didn't play the game upon its original release in 1998, I recently got around to playing it. After all it is the highest rated video game of all time on metacritic, and I did really enjoy the few other zelda games I played (Twilight Princess and Link's Awakening). So when I played it, while the controls ... | 33 | Games like twilight princess take so much from ocarina that they couldn't exist without it. OoT brought the series from top down adventure without a whole lot of character to 3d adventure. Along with Super Mario 64 they were the driving forces to push us into the 3d world for videogames. It's combat was revolutionary a... | 37 |
How realistic can hallucinations actually be? | I'm not sure how many people have actually seen it but a few years ago on FX there was a TV show called Wilfred. In the show, everyone else sees Wilfred as a regular dog, but Elijah Wood plays a guy who sees him as a human in a dog suit. The show revolves around their friendship. They hang out, smoke weed, go on "adven... | 21 | To nitpick, your question seems to be getting at how 'organized' or 'consistently structured' hallucinations can be, as opposed to how 'realistic' they are. To be clear, **hallucinations are absolutely real to the people experiencing them.**
Now, is it *possible* for this type of highly organized hallucination to occu... | 21 |
How does a spacecraft Measure its speed in orbit around a planet? | So I was just watching an episode of sci-show space, where they talked about the Juno probe and the work it is doing while orbiting Jupiter.
They mentioned that one of its jobs is to map the gravity field of the planet, and it does this by detecting speed changes in the orbiter, with higher speeds meaning higher gravi... | 34 | Speed is typically determined by measuring the location at different times. This is done by measuring the location of (or more precisely the perceived angle between) certain celestial objects on the sky.
When only the change in speed (acceleration) needs to be known that can be done with accelerometer sensors (that me... | 12 |
How well supported is this claim made by my economics textbook? | My economics textbook states this as a fact: "Income redistribution discourages productivity, thus actually aggravating poverty." As it did not really couch this as an opinion nor offer evidence, I would be interested in seeing what research or theories support or dispute this statement. Thanks! | 16 | Certainly iffy. The more sensible statement would be that redistribution could lower total output, but that doesn't necessitate an increase in poverty. Total wealth could decline while the poor still end up better off (depending on the size of the wealth transfer and the losses due to decreased incentive to work). | 16 |
Why do theists often say that God is "outside the reach of science"? | And not just theists. A lot of people seem to think that the existence of God is not a scientific question. Well let's recall what the scientific method is. First you make and observation. Then you formulate a hypothesis to explain that observation. Then you make predictions based on that hypothesis. And then you test ... | 29 | I’m not sure you’re right in claiming that if a claim has no testable predictions, it is inconsequential whether it is correct.
For a claim to make testable predictions for us, it must be possible for us to specify a set of observations which would lead us to think the claim was true or false. This could fail to be th... | 44 |
ELI5: What ecological disaster happened on earth in the movie “interstellar “ ? Is it an actual possibility ? | 32 | There was a fungal or bacterial blight that was killing off crops. In the movie they mention that it "breathes" nitrogen, or something like that.
They don't really go into detail (nor should they have), but basically all of the food crops.were dying off because of the blight.
It's a possible scenario, but largely imp... | 23 | |
When a clock is so accurate that it "only loses one second in X billion years," or something, how can we possibly know that? What do we compare it to? | It used to be that to gauge the accuracy of a clock, you'd compare it to the position of the sun in the sky. But we've since learned that the Earth's rotation is always slowing, so that's not terribly accurate.
And now that we have atomic clocks and a second isn't even [defined](http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/c... | 84 | We know the definition of the second as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."
If we state that a clock only loses, say, one second in a billion years, it means it measures each of its second... | 69 |
[Star Trek] When the Captain needs to make it somewhere fast, they usually tell the helmsman to kick the engines to warp 9.9, but all other times, they'll just casually go warp 5,6, etc. Where is the speed threshold where you're overclocking the engines, and damaging them long-term? | 112 | This is true up to a point in the canon, afterwards it's not an issue: but use of high warp factors were found to damage space time via subspace tears, so "speed limits" were introduced to limit damage except in special cases. | 109 | |
ELI5: When I boil water, why am i supposed to use cold water? | Wouldn't warm or hot water just speed up the process? | 19 | This originated in countries with municipal hot water that was run through metal piping. The hot water is a lot more reactive than cold and pulls all sorts of crap from the metal pipes with it. For example lead piping was still used in some parts of Russia in the 90s. You would definitely not want to drink hot water th... | 25 |
ELI5, How is the immortal jellyfish immortal, and why is it not a major point of research? | 33 | I’m gonna use an vague analogy but hopefully this makes sense: imagine a caterpillar that grows into a cocoon which births a butterfly, now when the butterfly is at the end of its life cycle, it sheds all the parts that make it a butterfly and become a caterpillar again repeating the cycle.
| 49 | |
Does a substance at -1°C and the same substance at 1°C heat up and cool off at the exact same rate when placed into an environment that is 0°C? | 26 | Nope. Heat exchange rate by conductivity and/or convection changes *non linearly* based on the temperature of both the substance and the environment. Even in the same environment, the same substance does not behave the same at different temperatures, it's not a simple linear proportion. Also, this is more thermodynamic... | 20 | |
ELI5: How is it possible that a pair (male and female) of an animal species can populate an entire territory? | I mean, I've heard of cases were a certain pair of fish/bird/etc populate an entire territory causing numerous problems with native species. However I have also read that once there are less than 30 or so specimens of some animal species the gene pool is not big enough to carry on and they will eventually become extint... | 3,338 | Think back to school when you were asked a question “Would you rather have a penny doubled every day for 30 days or $10,000?”, and how if you chose the penny option you would get around5 million dollars. Well now say we have some 2 bugs were that just dropped in a new area, and they had 10 children. well a year passes,... | 1,993 |
I'm having trouble grasping the concept of energy. | I understand all the equations that I have been given and see how they all relate, but I can't help but feel that it doesn't exist. Energy to me feels like a common variable that is used to relate other variables together. Can somebody help me materialize what energy is? I think if I have a mental image of what energy ... | 25 | In general, conserved quantities result from a symmetry in the problem. For example, angular momentum conservations comes from rotational symmetry (like how a sphere looks the same from all directions). Conservation of energy comes from time ~~inversion~~ *translation* symmetry. That is, if you replaced time with ~~(-t... | 11 |
Why specifically does consuming too much sugar make one experience nausea/vomiting? What's going on in the body to upset the stomach and cause an adverse reaction? | 36 | Excess sugar in one location, in this case your stomach, draws a lot of water from surrounding tissue to balance the solute concentrations on both sides. That influx of water in your stomach causes nausea and vomiting. Burgers and other things aren't broken down as fast so you don't have such a huge shift in sugar draw... | 14 | |
[Godzilla] So a kaiju is attacking my city/town. What are the best actions I can take in order to beat ensure my safety? | 17 | It depends on the town. Ideally you just stay in one of the skyscrapers and they all get lowered through the ground. If your city doesn't have the budget for that, they likely have shelters for this. And if it's the first kaiju attack or they don't have the budget for even that, then try to evacuate before it gets ther... | 13 | |
How do you decide when to call it a day? And how many hours a day do you spend doing "real" work? | I've tried leaving school/ the library at a set time, but I could never get what I want to get done done.
I've tried only finishing the day when I've finished what I intended to/need to get done, but I end up losing sleep and getting a bit burned out.
And no, I am not aiming too high or being too hard on myself. I t... | 24 | A good friend would say that if he did 4 hours of pure productive work a day, excluding everything else, from coffee breaks to bureaucratic meetings to surfing the net, day in and day out, he’s happy and as productive as he could be long term. | 35 |
[Marvel] Will the fingerprint of the Hulk be like a bigger version of Bruce Banner's fingerprint, completely matched or something else entirely? | 91 | It will probably match the overall pattern, but the proportions may be distorted. Hulk's fingers are stubbier relative to the length of his hand than Banner's are. Everything is stretched laterally.
There also may be ridges or striations from the underlying musculature. | 75 | |
ELI5 What is actually happening during acupuncture, does it actually work ? | 26 | In Acupuncture and in most of traditional Chinese medicine, there is a belief that an invisible life force (called qi) flows through our bodies using certain pathways (called meridians). Illness is generally caused by an imbalance in qi within our bodies, so acupuncturists stick needles at certain meridian points in t... | 25 | |
[James Bond] Do the M in the Brosnan universe and the M of the Craig Universe just both happen to look exactly like Dame Judi Dench? Or are these two characters the same person? | I just can't figure out any way that Die Another Day could be canon with Casino Royale. Let alone if we go back to *Goldeneye*.
These are just two separate timelines with equivalent people becoming M, right? | 358 | The Craig era is a reboot, a totally separate continuity to the 'classic' continuity from *Dr. No* to *Die Another Day.*
Judi Dench plays two separate characters. In *GoldenEye,* the implication is that M is a political appointee, a bureaucrat with little meaningful experience in intelligence, especially working in th... | 270 |
ELI5 — Why is the Christian year (2012) used by
everyone around the world, including Jews and
Hindus and Muslims? | 18 | In short, because of Western-European cultural imperialism and dominance.
In what we now call the year 525, a Christian monk named Dennis the Short (Dionysius Exiguus) devised an era system based from the birth of Jesus, and deemed (erroneously) that Jesus was born five hundred and twenty-five years ago from that stan... | 27 | |
Why is radiation contagious? | I understand radioactive decay and how that can damage cells by polarizing the DNA.
What I don't understand is how a non-radioactive material can become radioactive to a dangerous point. I would think that the material would get hit by the decaying particles, get damaged and that's it. Instead, the material can also... | 25 | There are two ways in which objects can be 'activated':
The first is that radiation from the original radioactive material hits the nuclei of the object, and through the reverse process of radioactive decay create an unstable nucleus. This however very rarely happens, unless you put something in a very intense radiati... | 40 |
CMV: Affirmative Action should/should've been based on economic status rather than (mostly) race. | Although I feel like Affirmative Action had a good intention, I feel like it has failed and has actually done more harm than good.
I have two reasons for this
1. I have difficulty seeing why it is in society's best interest to help a black person suffering in poverty over a white person suffering in poverty. While I ... | 29 | > Blacks/minorities who benefit/benefited from Affirmative Action rarely use their money/influence to restore their communities
That's a pretty bold claim. Can you provide a source for this?
&#x200B; | 28 |
CMV: The plural noun ‘guys’ is gender neutral in most situations | Like in several other languages, it is common to have a plural noun that is used when talking to a group of ambiguous gender. (For example the Chinese tāmen (plural form of he/him/she/her/it.)) however, English doesn’t have a specific word that fits this description in every way. They/them works when talking about a pe... | 202 | If it is, and we agree that the singular “guy” is masculine then we’re going back to asserting male as default.
The reason “guys” works as neutral is the same reason “Latino” works for groups that include women: because male is dominant. If we’re goi g to use “guys” the same way, then it’s *exactly* like using congre... | 40 |
[Comic books] Could Deadpool catch Covid-19? Who else would or wouldn't have to worry about catching it or spreading it? | 17 | In theory, yes.
In practice, he has a healing factor, so it probably won't bother him much. Also he wears a mask all the time, which covers his nose and mouth, and he has no compunctions about killing people with swords, so people are probably keeping a safe distance from him, so the odds of him infecting someone e... | 34 | |
ELI5: Why is investing not seen as the same way as it is gambling? | 20 | Investing is gambling, but a type of gambling with favourable odds. Unless a company goes bankrupt, their stock will trend upwards over the years. It may not go up this year, or in the next ten years, but over the course of a lifetime, it will probably go up.
Investment isn't normally called gambling because gamblin... | 20 | |
ELI5: What is fire, really? What makes a material flammable at the atomic level? | It can't just be heat, because some materials will just never catch fire. What is it that triggers it, and what is it, other than just energy? | 17 | Fire is hot gasses that result as a product of combustion. Most commonly in our day to day experience, this combustion is due to reactions with oxygen.
Oxygen is highly reactive. Given heat and fuel, it will literally rip the fuel molecules apart, generating more heat as it does so. That makes it self-sustaining; i... | 10 |
[40K] I know the god emperor of man is technically alive inside the golden throne... But does his mind exist outside the warp? | I mean is there any direct interaction between the golden throne and humanity in this universe?
| 26 | The Emperor is capable of it, but such communications are rare, limited only to averting immediate perils to the Imperium as a whole. There's a lot on his plate, and the Imperium can ill afford the consequences from even a minor disruption of his focus.
I don't think we ever get to see these audiences directly, only ... | 29 |
[Star Wars] Why did the Emperor and Vader tolerate the ineffectiveness of the Stormtroopers? | Why did the Emperor and Vader tolerate the ineffectiveness of the Stormtroopers? Vader was shown to force choke those under him not meeting his expectations, why did the Stormtroopers remain somewhat ineffective during battle after battle without intervention? | 53 | Storm Troopers were actually not usually ineffective. They were the elite fighting force of the empire, more skilled than the average imperial soldier (as depicted in Solo). In general, we see them as fairly effective, from storming the Tantine IV in a New Hope, to successful invasion of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. Wh... | 75 |
How are we able to flex each digit of the hand individually when the flexor digitorum is one muscle that has attachments to the 4 digits? | 261 | Because there are separate tendons, and the individual fingers have their own extrinsic (superficial) muscles that are primarily responsible for finger movement.
Also, it's nigh impossible to flex your pinky without also flexing your ring finger. Try it. | 71 | |
ELI5: Can I get sick from myself? | If I am sick and eat out of say a peanut butter jar straight out of it with a spoon and a week or so later when I'm no longer sick eat out of the same jar can I get myself sick again? | 50 | If you are sick from viral infections: no.
The immune system works in a way that it builds immunity from previously encountered viral pathogens. This prevents you from getting sick from the same flu strain a week after it has cleared your body.
If you are sick from a bacterial infections: yes.
When you put e.g. diar... | 53 |
[DC Comics] What's in Batman's file on Captain Atom? How would he neutralize him if needed? He's easily one of the strongest members of the Justice League with no clear weaknesses | 62 | His clear weakness across all continuities is that if you can puncture his containment suit, he'll go up like a nuclear bomb.
It varies from canon to canon on whether he can recover from that afterwards; sometimes it's what kills him for good, other times there's enough "Atom essence" clinging to the inside of the su... | 86 | |
Why does water that has been sitting for a while taste different than water directly from the tap? | Also why are there bubbles on the glass | 752 | Very little Dissolved Oxygen. Bubbles observed on the walls of the glass of water, is evidence of the out gassing process. Higher Water temperatures hold less Oxygen and also makes the water seem to taste not as "fresh". | 237 |
[Fallout] Is it possible that the Children of Atom are right about nuclear explosions giving birth to new universes, and the Fallout universe itself was born in the bombing of Japan at the end of WWII (which is where its events start deviating from real history)? | In terms of resonating with the series' established themes, I'd say it sounds like a pretty strong theory, but it does leave the question: how would realities subsequently created by additional atomic explosions within the *Fallout* universe, such as the hundreds during armageddon, respectively diverge? | 127 | A major theory of mine is that Fallout endured what was similar to what we Elder Scrolls fans call a "Dragon Break" Back when ESII had multiple, very different ending they explained that massive impacts and events can sometimes result in massive breaks in reality that can diverge universes. A universe may split in two ... | 86 |
Eli5: Why aren't baseball fields all the same size? | Why wouldnt there be a regulated size every field has to have | 57 | Because the rules allow for stadiums to design fields within certain parameters. That design is in order to benefit the team.
Baseball teams play half their games outside of their own field, so it evens out. Every team gets half their games in their home field which is tuned to their advantage.
The result is that t... | 77 |
[Fallout] Arthur Maxson unites the factions on the northern East Coast to purge the Super Mutants and Ghouls. What happens and is this successful? | Title.
Let's say Maxson gets Acadia, the Institute, Minutemen, Railroad, and Gunners to align themselves with the Brotherhood to completely eradicate Ghouls and Super Mutants on the northern East Coast (from DC to Maine). What are the results of this alliance? | 17 | Id imagine it collapses pretty quickly over matters of synths and synths rights. While they may have been United over a common enemy (mutants), beliefs are gonna flair up and the alliance will collapse into infighting | 16 |
ELI5: Why are large truck brake failures common enough to require the failure lanes on mountain roads? | 629 | Trucks are *heavy*. Driving downhill means the brakes need to constantly be slowing down their heavy loads, building up heat in the brakes. Unfortunately brakes become less effective as they get hot, meaning longer periods of braking are required which makes them *more* hot, etc.
Overusing brakes can result in the los... | 850 | |
Why is there Bombings in Volgograd? What does Chechnya hope to accomplish by bombing russia? Independence? | http://www.independent.ie/world-news/new-explosion-in-russian-city-of-volgograd-kills-at-least-15-people-29874600.html
Why are people bombing other civilians?
Thanks for helping me understand. | 29 | Chechnyans have been bombing the land for decades now, most of the times they just don't get that much coverage. But now there's the Olympics which intrigues Western media as well. But they're doing it for freedom, yes. Keep in mind, Russia has and is terrorising Chechnyans just as well but because it all happens on Ru... | 21 |
ELI5:What the difference is between x264 and x265 video encoding and which is better | 40 | The actual encoding is called h.264 and h.265; x264 and x265 are an implementation of that standard.
The h.264 encoding is older and more widespread. There are a ton of devices that can do h.264 very quickly and/or very energy efficiently. The h.265 encoding is newer and claims to outperform h.264 in many ways, thou... | 19 | |
Why does riding a bike last so long in muscle memory? | It's the archetypal phrase when it comes to long-term muscle memory:
"It's like learning to ride a bike"
What is it about bike riding that once it is learnt it is never completely unlearned?
Is bicycling unique in this way or do all dextrous skills "stick" with us for life once we've become competent at them? | 20 | Balance and praxis (learned sequences) are largely moderated in the cerebellum as they are learned, not in the muscles.
Like almost anything that you learn and rely on daily, the neural circuits for them are reinforced, strengthening them, so that even if you don't use them for a while, they remain accessible. | 13 |
[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia] Just how much money does Frank Reynolds have? | 45 | He's definitely a multimillionaire. He writes Dee and Dennis a check for eight million dollars in Season 11, Episode 2. Of course, he thinks it's still 2006, so who knows what he's worth now, but in Season 11, Episode 3, he buys Party Mountain, with plans to frack it.
So I'd say pretty fuckin' rich. Not Scrooge McDuck... | 53 |
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