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CMV: Being promiscuous is not morally bad | A lot of people in the world view promiscuous people as immoral and it is taboo in many parts of the world. I think as long as someone is an adult and is having sex with consent and both parties are single and not cheating then it is okay to be promiscuous.
I don’t think it’s morally bad. It’s only bad in my opinion ... | 78 | Sure being promiscuous is fine as long as you have a zillion addendums
-you don't spread STDs
-you don't get anyone pregnant against their will or yours
-you don't unintentionally or intentionally mislead anyone about the intent of the relationship
-you always make sure its with someone you can trust
-you don't ma... | 31 |
[/r/AskScienceFiction/] Why is there no FAQ? What could be put on it? | 35 | I would put that roleplaying is optional but not mandatory. and mentioning a certain book or episode is okay. You don't need to pretend to be a Starfleet engineer to answer a question about warp drive.
Also, every question here should be an actual question. | 28 | |
ELI5: Why does your stomach grumble when you're hungry? | Title says it all. | 32 | When your intestinal muscles contract they push stuff around. If there's food in there it doesn't make much noise; if there's nothing but stomach acid and air it'll make a gurgling sound as gas pockets move through the liquid in your guts. | 30 |
[Tolkien] There are five wizards, right? Gandalf, Saruman, Raddagast... Who are the other two? | 99 | The Blue Wizards, Morinehtar and Romestamo, traveled into the East early on. They attempted to stir up rebellion against Sauron's rule and undermine his strongholds in the area. Tolkien went back and forth on how successful they were, but his latest writings suggest they did quite well. Otherwise Sauron's eastern armie... | 121 | |
ELI5:Why are we told to exercise damaged muscles to restore normal function, but wear glasses for our eyes? | 19 | If one leg is longer than the other you're not told to fix it with exercise. Vision problems are most often caused by eye geometry problems. There are tiny muscles that control focus, and they are the strongest muscles in the body by mass, but workouts for them won't change the geometry that put your retina too far b... | 31 | |
[DC] How can Batman perform well on the Justice League but still challenged and sometimes bested by Joker, Poison Ivy, Riddler, Penguin etc? | How can Batman perform well on the Justice League against extremely powerful villains but is still challenged and sometimes bested by Joker, Poison Ivy, Riddler, Penguin and other street level villains? | 52 | Joker can best him because he's an A-Lister. He's knocked out an iteration of the Suicide Squad in literally seconds with no harm to himself. He managed to track down and kill the Black Glove's members mostly on his own. The United States Govt once declared war on him during a particularly nasty rampage. Don't underest... | 58 |
ELI5: What happens to extra blood vessels when someone loses a substantial amount of weight? | 21 | In the short term, nothing at all. Only after a long time of disuse will there be remodeling. Think of the cells and blood vessels like houses. When somebody moves out of a house, it's not immediately torn down. It's kept in case you need to fill it again, with people, or with fat deposits. Only after a long time with ... | 13 | |
ELI5: What causes us to age and what would have to be done to prevent aging? | I've been wondering about this topic for quite a while now. Especially after hearing about the "Singularity" theory, which says that the newer generations are basically living forever already because anti-aging medicine would develop faster than we could age. | 109 | When your cells split in half to make more of themselves, the ends of the DNA get damaged a little bit. It's a bit like tearing paper in half: each time you do it, the chance you'll get a perfect split is lower and lower. Eventually, the DNA gets damaged to the point where it cannot transmit it's information as accurat... | 73 |
cmv: sleeping with women you deem as "ran through or easy makes you just easy | Edit: title is supposed to be "Sleeping with women you deem as ran through makes you just as easy" , sorry
For anyone who doesn't know, ran through means they have been with a lot of partners sexually.
But I see too often women get called sluts for having sexual partners , but there's no shortage of men that will t... | 23 | It's a double standard, sure. And it might seem unfair. However, men and women are, generally, quite different.
One key difference is how easy it is to find sexual partners. Women, without a doubt, have a much easier time in this regard than all but the most desirable men. It isn't that impressive for a woman to rack... | 32 |
ELI5:mm numbers and the power/lethality of a firearm | Is a 15mm more dangerous than a 9mm? What does .308 mean? | 27 | It's confusing because we don't use consistent measurements.
The caliber (like 9mm or .308) is the diameter of the bullet. Other things being equal, bigger is more powerful. A 10mm is more powerful than a 9mm, partly because it makes a bigger hole, but also because it's heavier and hits you harder.
Those are both mea... | 39 |
ELI5: what is happening in our brains when a song becomes "old" to us? | For instance, I will be listening to this one song I really like, but after overplaying it I lose my appeal and actually start to dislike it. Why? | 61 | One theory of music is that the composer/performer is playing a sort of game with the audience. They provide patterns for the audience to try to anticipate. When the audience can't see any pattern at all, it just seems like boring noise. When the audience can follow the pattern perfectly, it is also boring. When th... | 70 |
ELI5: How exactly do movies and tv shows work when an actor or actress starring in them is also the one directing it? | I am referring to major roles, not just cameos. For example Aziz Ansari directed a few episodes of Master Of None and he is the main character. | 65 | In cases where the director is also on-screen, not much is different. Prior to filming a scene, everyone involved will have a meeting to discuss challenges and other talking points. This makes sure everyone is on the same page, everyone understands their blocking, discussing last minute script changes, etc. This little... | 39 |
ELI5: How do the flashing lights, alarms and gates at train crossings know when to start and stop when trains pass by? | 35 | They run a small electric current down the rails. When the train is coming the axles of the train cause act like a short between the rails which causes the behavior of that current to change. The crossing guards can detect this change. Because the nature of the change is a function of how far away the train is from the... | 19 | |
What happens to astronauts' stomach fluids in zero gravity? | http://i.imgur.com/58Vy3.gif
I saw this the other day which made me wonder...if this astronaut can drink this free-floating water, what do his stomach fluids do?
What keeps the liquid/acid in his stomach or bowels from coming up? His muscles?
If so, are those fluids floating in his stomach but the muscles of his... | 419 | Your digestive tract has several sphincters (muscles that form a ring) that act as doors. Further more, your digestive tract is "potential space" meaning it expands like a balloon when you consume things. This would greatly reduce any floating around-ness. Finally, peristalsis, the action that pushes substances thru th... | 521 |
[The Dark Crystal] Were the Skeksis good rulers of Thra once? What exactly happened to them to become those corrupted evil monsters? | 33 | The original movie explained this quite clearly. The Mystics and the Skeksis are the Good and Evil sides of beings that were divided when the crystal was cracked. The Skeksis themselves were never good in any way. | 37 | |
[DC] Why did Bruce Wayne spend years training in martial arts before he knew that he wanted to be Batman? What was his motivation as a young man? | Here's my understanding of Batman's origin.
He witnesses his parents get shot as a child. As a young adult, he travels the world training to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. After a number of years, he returns to Gotham. At first, he's not sure what he wants to do. But then, he witnesses a bat crash throug... | 17 | IIRC, his intention was always to fight crime, but as Bruce Wayne. It was only as an adult that he realized he needed a disguise. When the bat crashed through his window, it gave him the perfect inspiration for a disguise that would be both effective and intimidating. | 34 |
ELI5 - how is dry ice an industrially effective cooling method? | i would think that whatever equipment you used to get the carbon so damn cold would be more effective as a refrigerant than ice that rapidly evaporates, so why is dry ice used to cool things down instead of a freezer? | 33 | Dry ice is used to keep things cool when you don't have a freezer - for example when you transport things. The main advantage of dry ice is that it *sublimates* - while normal ice goes from solid to liquid, dry ice goes straight to gas, without transitioning to liquid first. This way, whatever you cool remains dry (hen... | 15 |
[House] Is there anyone House won't be rude too? | Seriously is there any way you can get this guy to act like a normal person to you? | 24 | House doesn't see "rudeness" as disrespect but as a way to challenge people and push them in ways to get what he believes is right. He greatly respects a number of doctors on the show, just not always for what they want respect for. He actively comments on who is the best surgeon, who is the bleeding heart best able to... | 32 |
ELI5: Why would anyone want to buy Berkshire Hathaway's stock if they never pay dividends? | 23 | Instead of paying dividends, the company reinvests in itself, so therefore you would expect stock prices to rise faster than a company that does pay dividends. So the value you get from the stock is the increase in the value of the shares you own over time, instead of a cash payout of dividends. As mentioned, Berkshire... | 10 | |
ELI5:The Mt. Gox situation | I am a casual observer of bitcoin and how it operates, however, I cannot understand what role Mt. Gox interacts with the bitcoin community and how it has effected bitcoin in recent news. Any simplification would be greatly appreciated!
edit: Also, what are the long term ramifications of the current Mt. Gox situation? | 235 | Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange. Fundamentally what they were doing was holding other people's money and facilitating transactions exchanging one currency (US dollars, for example) for another (Bitcoins).
In their role as an exchange, Mt. Gox also was sitting on considerably large amounts of Bitcoins that technically ... | 128 |
When we say that a rotating gyroscope's axis is 'fixed', it is fixed relatively to what? | Certainly not relative to Earth, as we can actually use gyroscopes to detect Earth's rotation. But does the gyroscope stay stable if we rotate the entire galaxy? What if we rotate the entire universe: will we, from inside the universe, observe the gyro rotating in opposite direction? The more I think about it, the more... | 230 | > gyroscopes seem to violate the laws of relativity of frames of reference
This applies to linear motion, not to rotational motion. There is no "absolute zero velocity", you can always pick another inertial reference frame to change the observed velocity of all objects.
But there is an "absolute zero" for angular ... | 66 |
My local highway passes through farmland, and a lot of flying bugs die hitting our windshields. By killing all these bugs, could our cars be exerting evolutionary pressure? Note: there is a grass median between the north & south lanes -- a sort of island ecosystem. | Second time asking (with revised text) because no answers the first time. | 37 | Actually, there was a study done in western Canada on the wingspan of swifts that lived near highways. Over a period of time (I believe a few years) the swifts wingspans shrunk. Mostly because manoeuvrability was more important than being able to fly long distances (as the human activity also meant lots of food nearby)... | 33 |
I can understand how natural selection for traits works. But how do complex processes (such as metamorphosis) come about through evolution? | My friend and I were discussing evolution and we don't understand how processes that are so complicated and dependent on sequential events come about in the first place. From the molecular level (e.g. metabolic pathways) to the physiological level (e.g. metamorphosis), are there any general principles to explain this? | 95 | This is probably better suited to ELI5.
If you look at insects as a whole, the extent of the change between nymphs and adults (and the duration of pupation/metamorphpsis) is highly variable.
Some animals do not undergo metamorphosis at all. Some pupate but are not significantly changed and it essentially serves as a... | 23 |
eli5: Why can’t you combine a telescope and microscope? | This is one of those things that I know doesn’t work, but I don’t know the exact reason WHY it doesn’t work. I remember asking a friend in 7th grade biology why I can’t just put a telescope up to a microscope to see even more detail, but he just laughed and no one I’ve ever asked has given me an answer | 16 | Telescopes are generally limited by the size and perfection of their optics rather than what you can see. You could tack on some optics to look at a narrower portion of the telescope, but the narrow portion wouldn’t contain any more detail. Kinda like how digital zoom doesn’t increase the number of pixels, it just crop... | 15 |
Could a refrigerator be replaced by a chamber that periodically irradiates food? | So a refrigerator keeps food cold to inhibit bacterial/fungal growth and I know that some foods like fruit are irradiated before transport to increase shelf life. My question is if instead of keeping food cold, we had a radiation chamber that would periodically turn on to kill any foreign contaminants, would that be mo... | 43 | It would inhibit a lot of bacterial growth, which is a major cause of spoilage, but do nothing with the other major one, oxidation. You have to remember that we are living in an environment with a highly reactive, somewhat toxic compound that slowly burns/rusts many things it comes into contact with, oxygen. It is why ... | 19 |
ELI5 Why are bananas and avocados so.. soft? | Why is the flesh of fruits and vegetables like a banana or avocado soft, like you could scoop it with a spoon and eating it without really needing to chew?
But other fruits like apples or cucumbers you really have to chew or use a knife to cut up, like they have more structure to them.
Idk I was just high and eatin... | 21 | Because of how they're held together or how their "inner stuff" interacts, just like an ice cube is significantly harder than snow but they are both solidified water, an ice cube's inner stuff is held tight while snow's inner stuff have a great freedom to move around, thus when you step on snow it's way easier to leave... | 11 |
ELI5: what’s the use of the cart that pushes back the airplane? Can planes not reverse without it? | 5,740 | They technically could using reverse thrust but it uses a lot of fuel, can suck in debris, damage the gate, and hard due to the pilots not being able to see the rear of the aircraft. It just makes more sense to have the ground crew do it | 6,541 | |
[The Elder Scrolls Oblivion] What happened to the old Sheogorath? | Apparently the player becomes Sheogorath in that game. The transition is subtle, so you don't feel much like a god in-game and conveniently takes longer than the player will play.
But what happened to the old Sheogorath? Does he become a mortal and die? | 41 | he became jyggalag, daedric prince of order and pissed off somewhere and we have yet to hear from him again, however do to how mantling works in the elder scrolls the player dident just take up the title of the old sheogorath, they became the same entity as jyggalags split personality, hence why when we encounter him i... | 64 |
[General Sci-Fi] Since the human brain does not stop developing until a person is in their 20s, does that mean a child who becomes immortal will never fully mature? | 53 | Depends on what kind of immortality you're talking about. The sort of return to a set template after injury type would seem to freeze a person at whatever level of development, but it's a poor sort of immortality that can't tell the difference between growth and damage.
Most kinds actually can tell that kind of diff... | 38 | |
ELI5: When the Milky Way and Andromeda collide, what will happen to their supermassive black holes at their centers? | 171 | The chances of them colliding with each other during the initial collision is extremely remote.
It's moderately likely that they will absorb one or more stars during the collision before they, like 99.99% of the other stars in each galaxy, pass out the other side unscathed.
The courses of all the stars and massive ob... | 52 | |
ELI5: If prepared foods should not be left unrefrigerated in the "danger zone" for extended periods of time for fear of bacteria growth, why do we treat baked goods differently? | Is it some property of baked goods that prevents leaving them out from being problematic? Or do they still pose a risk but we just treat them differently due to the fact that refrigeration tends to compromise the texture of baked goods? | 42 | For sweet baked goods, the sugar added functions like a preservative to prevent mold growth.
For non-sweet baked goods like bread, baking generates a crust where the water has been baked out. The lack of water makes it more difficult for mold to grow. You'll find that mold grows much easily once you cut open the bread... | 65 |
How accurate was the new Kurzesagt video? | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ
It acts as more or less an overview for what the modern post-industrial economy is. Comparing it from a zero sum game of yore to now a positive sum game where we want everyone to be as well off as possible. How accurate are its claims? | 16 | Mostly accurate. Innovation and efficiency expand the total capacity we can produce.
There are complexities they overlook, pulling 3rd world countries out of poverty is difficult and there are many ways these efforts can stall and backfire. As well there are disagreements as to how best facilitate this growth... is it... | 20 |
Why doesn't the current fed chair have a degree in economics? | I thought that would be a requirement? | 108 | The fed chair is a political appointment, usually given to people with expertise. A degree is (or can be) certainly valuable in showing that you have expertise. But it is not a requirement.
Powell has experience in finance, and has been a part of the fed board for years. That gives him sufficient expertise. | 144 |
Since paper comes from wood (and trees are obviously cellular lifeforms), could you look at a piece of paper through a microscope and see plant cells, or does the process of turning it into paper destroy or cover up these cells? | 19 | Nope, no cells left. Paper is mainly just cellulose fibers, and doesn't have to be made out of wood - historically hemp, flax, cotton and others were used, and rag-and-bone men would collect old rags to sell to paper-makers. Making paper out of wood didn't come along until the 19th century, first with mechanical pulpin... | 26 | |
CMV: The Nordic countries are not socialist | First of all, I should say I don’t consider myself socialist, but I agree with a lot of the criticism against capitalism.
What has baffled me is this - I see a lot of people here in reddit state that the Nordic countries are socialist, but I hadn’t heard this point of view anywhere else. I’m Bulgarian and my country h... | 17 | Words are defined by who uses them.
And there are a lot of people who use the word socialism for things that by your definitions are merely capitalism with a social welfare system.
This is especially prevalent in the US, where the term socialist is often used by the right to criticize normal government welfare projec... | 21 |
[MCU] is it really so hard for Bruce Banner to believe the Avengers broke up? | In Avengers infinity war Bruce Banner is in disbelief after Tony Stark tells him the Avengers are broken up (like the Beatles). This is pretty weird considering the last time he saw the Avengers together they were pretty upset at him and Tony for creating Ultron.
Not to mention then Bruce himself was ready to leave th... | 28 | Yeah, but remember, he's waking up two years later after having just made up with Natasha and settled things with the Avengers. They left on good terms. The last thing Bruce would remember is falling into a pit, and by that point things were okay. | 44 |
[Star Wars] Is there ever any discussion about other galaxies throughout the universe? | I've watched all the Star Wars movies numerous times throughout my life and I've read up on a lot of the lore, so I would say I'm kind of an intermediate Star Wars fan. However, it only just dawned on me as I was playing Mass Effect Andromeda that Star Wars all takes place within the same galaxy, rather than across mu... | 15 | In legends, there is a massive invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong, pain-worshiping aliens from another galaxy. This was a huge part of the legends continuity- the empire was built to prepare for their invasion, and their attack dominated the post-empire continuity.
However, in Canon, they appear to be gone, and Palpatine's ... | 24 |
[DC] Why does the Flash not fly off the Earth and into space when he accelerates to near light speed? | The Earths gravity is not enough to keep him grounded. He has to be pushing down on something, or be able to control his own Higgs field... | 36 | The Flash's powers are completely misunderstood, which have led to some confusion. If he was actually running at .99c, the friction from the air would strip is skin and turn his skelliton into plasma after the first few steps - not to mention the g-forces, which would crush his body into a liquefied mess the width of a... | 19 |
[Black Panther] What did the CIA want with a little chunk of Vibranium? | It didn't seem like they knew it's potential outside of an indestructible metal. | 25 | >It didn't seem like they knew it's potential outside of an indestructible metal.
That on it's own sounds like a perfectly reasonable reason for trying to obtain said material for future research. | 79 |
Eli5: When a cold is "going around," how does the first person get sick? | I'm struggling to phrase this right. If cold viruses are transmitted from person to person, then who infects "patient zero"? | 34 | What we call the common cold is actually caused by hundreds of different viruses, they all just happen to have similar enough symptoms that they get lumped together. Further, those viruses are around basically all the time, you can find someone (and probably lots of someones) somewhere in the world who has one of them... | 61 |
CMV: parents shoud always try to explain their decisions to their children. | I feel like parents make their decisions look way to arbitrary to their children even when they have legitimate reasons for their decisions.
Furthermore the fact that parents don't need to explain themselves sometimes allows them to make decisions that *don't* have good reasoning behind which can just hurt the child... | 1,466 | Obviously, as a rule of thumb, parents should explain their decisions to their children. But you have to make room for exceptions.
- Timing, some actions need to happen on a quick timetable, you don't always have time to explain yourself in the moment.
- Maturity, some actions require a high level of maturity to u... | 520 |
ELI5: Why do some fabrics get softer when they're washed a lot, while others get rougher? | 8,777 | It depends on the textile. With wearing and use, some materials relax and become softer and looser because the thread is bent, pulled, and twisted through mechanical motion, much the way that crumpling a sheet of notebook paper over and over makes it very soft. Wearing the clothes often contributes more to this than th... | 2,414 | |
[DC] How does Batman prepare his young sidekicks for the grittier, more macabre side of crime? | Batman is (usually) not a total ass; he is one of the most compassionate heroes. That being said, he also mentor young sidekicks, who he has few qualms fighting hardened criminals.
But what about the more gruesome, macabre side of crime, e.g. crime scenes, rape, murder etc.? Does he teach them how to handle it in the ... | 20 | It usually depends on the Robin, iirc.
Dick took to crime fighting *super* easily. He was genuinely just kind of a prodigy in a way that the others weren't; in line with this, it's likely he took to the grimmer parts of the job just as well. Seeing his parents die also likely hardened him, so the death and misery he s... | 41 |
What experiments would help science progress a lot but aren't conducted because of ethical problems? | 73 | Directly testing products on humans would speed up drug therapy development, the process is very long and tedious to even get the drug to clinical trials... but frequently the animal model is not similar enough to humans and the drug fails immediately in trials after years of successful experiments. We've cured cancer ... | 37 | |
[LotR Fellowship of the Ring] how did Gandalf get his staff back when escaping Isengard? | (If using book canon instead of movie canon, please just mention so -- I'm not familiar with the books)
Looking at the events of the movie:
1. Saruman takes Gandalf's staff and traps him on top of his tower
2. Gandalf stays there for some time without the staff
3. Still without his staff, he jumps onto the back of an... | 18 | This sub is fine with any type of fiction; it's more "ask science + fiction" than "ask + science fiction".
(Book)
A Wizard's staff is mainly of symbolic importance, and does not actually contribute any power to its owner. Because of this, there was no reason for Saruman to confiscate Gandalf's staff and so Gandalf ha... | 38 |
Progesterone Cream (USP) is rubbed into skin to be absorbed into the bloodstream in an hour. With this understanding of skin permeability, is it known if chemicals/bleach used in hair dying could also get into the bloodstream, or react with skin in some way to be absorbed into the body? | I recently learned that many women rub Bio-identical (USP) Progesterone cream into their skin, to get it quickly into the bloodstream, blowing my mind, as I thought skin was way more impenetrable than that. Now, all the various strong chemicals people (especially women in pursuit of beauty) put on skin seem scary. Whic... | 29 | Rule of thumb is that chemicals comprised of small-ish fat soluble molecules penetrate the skin more easily when applied with a fat-based medium, like cremes and pastes. The more water soluble a substance is, the larger the molecule is and the less fat based the medium is (either water based or solid/dry/powdery), the ... | 16 |
CMV: It is ok for a person with non-mainstream tastes in music to impose their music on people who like mainstream-music, since the world imposes pop-music on everyone, regardless of their taste. | Of course it's "ok" to do this in the grand scheme of things. That being said, when I have house guests, or I am driving other people in the car, I feel that in order to not be rude I should play music that most people will like. When this happens, it is almost always music that **I** don't like.
Example situation: Le... | 561 | Pop music is designed to be inoffensive and catchy. Heavy metal is designed to be loud, aggressive, and dissonant. Being a good host is about making your guests feel comfortable, and in a mixed crowd bland pop music is better at doing that than heavy metal.
Consider another example: you've been asked to make dinner fo... | 403 |
How can I quickly and accurately verify a science or history book is not making claims debunked by the academic community? | I have recently taken an interest into listening to audiobooks focusing on history or areas of science I am not as familiar in to expand my knowledge. I've started to notice many of the reviews are focused less on the accuracy of the books and more on the readers experience and the descriptions/critical reviews are of... | 33 | I'd honestly start by reading intro text books. You can find used old editions on Amazon pretty cheap ( <$10). With that foundation, you will be better equipped to judge what is plausible. Another (easier, but less beneficial in the long run) way would be to google the background of the author. Not the most reliable... | 22 |
[Fairly Oddparents] Do kids with developmental disabilities get their fairies at 20 or something? | 16 | The ones who get teased heavily, and are aware enough to suffer because of it do. Usually, as there aren't enough fairies to go around. The main thing is that most of those kids then wish that they were "normal" and then no longer get teased and don't need fairies anymore. | 16 | |
[Star Wars] I'm a Grey Jedi stuck in a room with Palpatine. What happens? | Does he try to convert me into a Sith, or do we just chill? | 36 | He won't try to "convert" you to anything.
You're either powerful enough to warrant becoming his apprentice or not. Most likely not. There are only ever two sith and if he already has an apprentice that is worthy of the mantle then he cares not for you.
He may decide you have some skill and decides to dominate you a... | 38 |
[SW] Hey everybody! Just got out of The Academy. Can’t shoot for shit, but they made me a Stormtrooper anyway. Just arrived here at the second Death Star. The thing isn’t even complete yet, and I’m a bit nervous because of what happened to the last one. Any advice to calm my nerves or kill time? | 59 | I guarantee you that is the safest place in the universe. Do you REALLY think that the strongest governing body in the universe would allow the terrorists to hurt them again? The new Death Star has external shielding AND is protected by practically the entire fleet.
When a restaurant closes down due to a bug infestat... | 62 | |
ELI5: Why does "hard resetting" seem to fix just about anything like phones or gaming consoles? | 124 | All computers have memory. When they start up they copy the instructions they need to run into memory. If something goes wrong, the instructions in memory can break. Computers don't work when following broken instructions. When you turn off the computer, it removes all the instructions from memory. When it turns back o... | 114 | |
ELI5: How much of what we say do dogs actually understand? | Is it only basic words like their name, out, food, treat, ect; or do they understand more of what we say? | 27 | they associate sounds with a result. let's say cookie, they know they will get a treat to eat, but don't understand the actual meaning. If you say "nookie" instead of cookie, there is a big chance your dog would still act like there is a treat coming. | 23 |
Why is fluoride added to municipal water supplies and then again in tooth paste? [chemistry] | A recent discussion popped up on our community web site asking if fluoride was added to the local water. Links were posted by those opposed to it, but those links seemed more like anti-vax type web sites. Other links popped up supporting the ADA position, but some people didn't trust that either. This is one of the lin... | 108 | Because flouride is good for our teeth.
Very very good for them.
Eating or drinking it (via water or table salt) helps to increase your teeths lifespan, and prevent cavities.
Smearing it on your teeth (via toothpaste) also helps to fight off cavities, (it's a slightly different kind of flouride).
The amount of flou... | 68 |
What percentage of Starfleet is human? | 15 | Starfleet separates ships based on life support requirements. A Tellarite will be able to survive on a human ship but they will never be comfortable. (And the loud mouthed pig nosed grass eaters will let you know about it too.) Conversely a human will be uncomfortable on an Andorian ship for reasons entirely different ... | 12 | |
ELI5: How are naked four-legged mountain goats successfully able to traverse mountainous cliffs, while two-legged humans require climbing gear? | 26 | Well, they're not naked (they have hair) and they've got four feet instead of two... which is a help, not a hindrance.
They also have uniquely designed hooves to help them balance and climb over rough terrain, and they're far more dexterous than we are. They're also acclimated to the habitat. | 31 | |
ELI5: How are memories stored in the brain? | 127 | We don't know.
All of the answers in this thread which sound authoritative are just someone's guess. We have various unproven hypotheses, most of which are vague enough to be possible and not easily disproven. | 214 | |
CMV: You don't always have to be smiling if you are having a good time | In a party, event, gathering, holiday or whatever, it is absolutely fine not to smile/laugh and it isn't even necessary to constantly be showing or proving how much of a wonderful time you are having to other people. As an introvert, it is difficult to do this and my resting face can make it seem like I'm possibly not ... | 26 | Hassling someone about their facial expression is a dick move, and people shouldn't do it. Nothing's more counterproductive than, "Give me a smiiiiile."
That said, the people around you make judgements about what you're thinking and feeling based on your facial expression. Yours is pretty impassive, by default.
Most ... | 14 |
[Marvel/DC] With all those heroes that can do impossible, why isn´t either Earth basically a paradise? | I mean, if you have reality warpers , insanely smart people , why no one goes and cure cancer, deal with famine etc.? | 19 | In general, the heroes are too busy keeping the world from falling apart from cosmic beings going awry, alien invasions, attempted world conquering events, and sitting down to make a plan to fix the world and make it a paradise just doesn't happen because as soon as they get started, here comes a supervillain team-up. ... | 24 |
ELI5: Why is the existence of a middle class important in assessing the strength of an economy? | Is it because they spend their money while having some saved up in case there is a downturn? Or is it something else? | 16 | That's a big one, yes. Compare an economy where there is a middle class to one where there's only very rich people, and very poor people. How will the economy continue to perform when the poor masses have little to spend to fuel it, and the few rich even though they can buy a lot probably won't do so, purchasing only w... | 17 |
Can you create a sonic boom underwater? | 24 | According to Frank Heile, P.h.D. Physics, Stanford University:
"Yes, there will be a sonic boom if an object travels through water at faster than the speed of sound in water. Even though water is relatively incompressible when compared to air, it does transmit sound waves and therefore it will indeed have a cone shape... | 17 | |
[FMA] Can anyone become an Alchemist? | Just thinking. We see plenty of Alchemists in the series: Ed, Al, Azumi, Mustang and so on - and of course we have plenty of none alchemists as well: Riza, Havok, Hughes and so on - so, is there a reason why the non-Alchemists don't learn Alchemy?
Is it a skill that can be learnt (Well I mean, you obviously learn it b... | 18 | It's a skill everyone *can* possess but few actually do and even fewer can use it on the same level as Ed and Al.
In FMA, Alchemy is just a form of science. But it can transmute matter into virtually anything because of the natural energies of the planet. So long as one fully understands material science, chemical sci... | 23 |
ELI5: Do we actually sweat out toxins? What are these so-called "toxins" and does our body do it with alcohol as well? | 276 | No, sweat is just water that's a little salty. Almost all of the toxins your body takes in are expelled in urine.
Anything that could do damage to a cell is called a toxin. There is an endless number of them, but some well-known ones are alcohol, cyanide, arsenic, mercury, caffeine, nicotine, chlorine, and many ani... | 167 | |
Do the planets aligning actually do anything? | You always hear how the planets aligning causes things like changing tides, changing the tilt of the Earth, or others more fantastical things, but do planets aligning have any effects even if they're minor? | 367 | Scientifically speaking, the only way they could affect us is via gravity. But they are so small and so far away, that the net effect is zero no matter what.
They actually do something when they are aligned: they provide a beautiful view in the evening. | 397 |
I think world news are useless to me. CMV | I live in Wroclaw, Poland and I think that almost every news I see is useless to me (eg Syrian Civil War, Fukushima toxic leak and even any news about Polish government about recent vat raise, I will pay it anyway) because I don't really have any influence on those things. I will never be politician and I have no inter... | 19 | World War 2 happened when Germany invaded Poland. When one country in Europe invaded another in Europe. This would be considered "world news" in England. In the US. In India, in Australia, in Japan, in Italy.
Yet it affected all those nations equally. It was not any kind of sudden thing, either. Thousands of small fac... | 20 |
ELI5:Why are lights standard in refrigerators but not in freezers? | Pretty much every refrigerator has a light in it, but freezers hardly if ever do. Why? | 15 | An incandescent bulb regularly going through such temperature changes would probably greatly increase their rate of failure, and they generally aren't as large or accessed as frequently as the refrigerator. | 13 |
ELI5, How Do Compression Socks Work? | I’m curious as to how compression socks help your legs when you have bad circulation. What is the science behind it that allows you to be on your feet without getting fatigued and swelling when you wear them. | 23 | Due to the compression, the arteries can relax and the veins get a boost. It's important for people at risk for circulation problems. It's highly questionable whether it improves blood flow for athletes, but it doesn't do them any harm, and it may have a psychological effect. | 23 |
Why do whales die when they're beached too long? What is it that kills them? | I have always wondered this.
**Edit:** Thank you for your responses, everyone! | 550 | It's not dehydration or starvation, which would take a long time, but suffocation. Whales are normally supported on all sides by water, which means that they don't have to support their own weight against gravity. When they are beached, the weight of the parts of their bodies that are above their lungs is pushing down ... | 649 |
Analogous to pupils dilating and constricting with light, does the human ear physically adjust in response to volume levels? | 2,777 | The human ear cannot dilate like an eye, however it does have the ability to pull the ear drum taut when a loud noise is experienced. A taut ear drum is less prone to damage.
Some people have the ability to voluntarily flex the muscle that pulls the ear drum taut. If you're able to do this, it sounds like a crinkle/cr... | 2,237 | |
[General] Is a vibroknife (with vibrating blade) worth the fuss? Does it cut better, faster, or deeper? | 20 | A vibro-knife works using the same mechanics as a chain saw. Instead of having to press down with immense strength, the knife cuts 'for you' through a powered high-frequency vibration.
In effect, this makes the blade 'sharper' in that it requires less effort from the user to cut through stronger/more dense materials. | 32 | |
Why doesn't the universe carry an overall positive or negative charge? | 21 | As far as we know all interactions in the universe conserve charge. So for the universe to have overall positive or negative charge, we'd have to look at the initial conditions of the universe, where a lot of our current models tend to break down or lack predictive power.
As for why charge should be conserved, it come... | 13 | |
[General Superheroes] Hey, who the hell gave Hasbro permission to make an action figure out of me? | I do a serious job and I don't need these guys making a mockery of it. What if a villain who didn't know me before buys the toy and uses it to get a leg up on me? Can I sue? | 73 | IP, trademarks, and copyrights all require an actual identity. If you don't have a problem with your real identity being public knowledge, go nuts and trademark yourself.
You could have a trusted ally do it, but then when that supervillain looks up who owns the "Awesome-Man" IP and finds out it's your wife... well...... | 56 |
Where does the energy for exchange particles come from? | The weak interaction uses a W boson to transfer momentum, but it's much heavier than a proton and seemingly spontaneously comes into existence for the purpose of the interaction and then vanishes. I'd like to know how this complys with the conservation of energy because it doesn't really make sense to me. | 16 | You are correct. If you interpret virtual particles as things that literally exist, you are led to nonsensical conclusions.
The mass of a W boson is much too large for a real one to be produced during beta decay of a nucleus.
Virtual particles don't literally exist; they are just an artifact of certain calculation me... | 21 |
[futurama] Coud Fry just... you know buy robot hands? | I mean maybe not quite as good as robot devil hands, and fry is poor as shit anyway, but it seems like robot hands wouldn't be out of reach at all and then he could go back to being a musician? | 31 | True, but if they don't meet the standards of the robot devils hands, they might not let him play what he wants.
And even if they did, Fry is unbelievably stupid, so there's no reason to assume that just because something makes perfect sense he'll do it. | 32 |
Imposter Syndrome overdiagnosis | To start out - I fully believe that imposter syndrome is a real thing that qualified programmers experience.
That being said, I've seen multiple posts here and in other communities where people list an extremely shaky list of credentials (e.g., I just finished a bootcamp), express concern of job-preparedness, and fini... | 38 | The main issue here is boot camps and programs like them tend to over promise on the kinds of opportunities they can provide. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with the concept of boot camps, getting enough training to start doing basic coding work and then building upon that foundation later is fine but it becomes... | 24 |
[Pokemon] What exactly IS hyper-beam? What is hyper about it? | It's a beam of energy, right? What kind of energy? What is it about the beam that causes damage? Can it be created in smaller amounts? Hyper is a level of potion along with "super" and "max". Is there a "max-beam"? | 30 | Hyper Beam is an incredibly dense ray of light that slams the target with incredible force. As to the size, it probably requires a break-point to reach the appropriate levels of density, but width and diameter of the actual beam would remain unaffected. So a larger creature could focus a "wider" beam than a smaller cre... | 34 |
[WH40K] Okay, Abaddon here, I can't figure this thing out | Yo, fool. Yeah, I bet you thought I'd be speaking slightly differently. Well, you were correct, lowly moral. Continue to cower behind your pict screen, you may yet survive another pitiful night in your broken Imperium (*spits*).
Before I conclude with flaying you alive in the Garden of Slaanesh for an eternity...I hav... | 17 | Do you have any fucking idea how important Terra is? You want to virus bomb that?! You don't take the Emperor's Golden armour then proceed to go "Yeah.. They'd make good toilet paper." You fucking wear it! You own Terra and it's people, in tact, you own the universe. No wonder they call you Failbbadon, you'll never amo... | 35 |
CMV: Having ulterior motives isn't a bad thing | Ulterior motives should not automatically be a bad thing. They should only be a bad thing when used for bad/evil/harmful/etc reasons. I think we should demonize the harmful/selfish behavior, but not be offended by ulterior motives themselves.
The association of ulterior motives with evil intentions, harmful manipulati... | 30 | The definition of ulterior has negative connotations. "going beyond what is openly said or shown and especially what is proper". Having a motive you don't voice, and having an ulterior motive, aren't necessarily the same thing. | 34 |
[Marvel]How did the ancient Wakandans extract vibranium? | The material is strong enough to deflect modern bullets and survive explosions. | 15 | Vibranium isn’t indestructible until it’s processed. We see that unstable Vibranium needs the sonic railway to be transported safely, and produces the kinetic loading in Black Panther’s nano-suit. So unprocessed Vibranium has different properties than stabilized Vibranium. | 18 |
[40k] Is there any chance that more chaos gods could be born? | So we all know there are already the 4 gods but is there any chance of any more being born for other emotions?
Thanks | 18 | Definitely yes.
Just like slaanesh was born, another powerful entity could raise from more emotions which reflect on the warp, but the scale of the event would need to be massive.
Some heretic theories say that the emperor himself is already another godlike entity on the warp as he is being fueled by the worship of t... | 27 |
In Australia, a young (10-34) male is 3-6 times more likely to get robbed than an equally aged female, and 24-29 times more likely to get robbed than an old (65+) person. Why? | I stumbled upon this statistic: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/cfi/141-160/cfi150.html
Mind=blown. One would expect robbers to go after easier targets, i.e. women rather than men and perhaps old people rather than young. That seems to be common sense. Yet according to this statistic these supposed... | 17 | One problem is that these groups may not be comparable. This could be because younger men may be in areas, at times, or in different circumstances in which there is a higher likelihood of getting robbed. As an example, many women are reluctant to go out at night alone while men may not have that same aversion and there... | 17 |
ELI5: How do banks know that it’s not you using your card when they send out those fraud alert messages? | So I just woke up this morning, made my coffee and was scrolling through Reddit.. And I got a Fraud Alert text from Chase telling me they declined a purchase of $153.60. I buy stuff *all* of the time with my chase debit card.. online, in store, sometimes run it as credit.. and I never get those fraud alert messages.
... | 27 | The credit card company knows a good deal about you. They know where you live, where you usually shop, what you usually buy, etc. If they detect a purchase that deviates from your patterns, they will flag it as potential fraud.
So, if you normally buy food, gas, groceries, etc. on your card in one particular part of... | 49 |
If an object is producing a pitch of, say 440Hz, and is moving away from you at the speed of sound, is its perceived pitch 220Hz? | And how fast would the object have to travel towards you for there to be a perceived pitch of 880Hz? | 24 | Yes, the pitch is 220 Hz for an emitted frequency of 440Hz moving away at the speed of sound. Moving towards the speed would have to be 171.5m/s for it to be perceived at 880Hz.
The frequency perceived by observer is determined by f=(1/(c+-v))fo where f is the perceived frequency, fo is the emitted frequency, c is the... | 12 |
CMV: I see no point in peeling my string cheese into little strands before eating it. | When I want to eat string cheese, I just open it from the wrapper and bite into it. I don't understand why I need to rip off little strands of cheese to eat. My reasoning:
* I eat my cheese because I'm hungry or I'm looking for a protein fix. I don't need to dawdle and waste more time peeling little bits of cheese to ... | 42 | Peeling string cheese gives you a long rough strand with a high surface area to volume ratio. This high surface area means more intense flavor. If you eat chunks of the string cheese, you'll have a much smaller surface area to volume ratio, and less flavor. | 36 |
[Harry Potter] Besides Dumbledore and the main trio, who knew that Aberforth was the bartender of The Hog’s Head? | 16 | Everyone who was polite enough to ask his name. It wasn't a secret. And given the amount of help he provided to Neville and the others bunking in the Room of Requirement, it likely became common knowledge at the school too. | 20 | |
ELI5: Why are breasts often considered sexually attractive and private? | Just a drunk thought... | 27 | Breasts are a sexual characteristic of human females. Other mammals only have breasts when breast feeding, otherwise they are small and look the same as the male breast of the species.
Scientists are still trying to work out the specifics, but the attraction is thought to lay in something about youth (old people=less... | 18 |
What are the characteristics of good academic research collaborators? | 15 | * Communication. Nothing works if the parties involved don't talk to each other. It can't be a one-way street - if you find yourself always following up on emails that haven't been answered - it is a less than ideal collaboration.
* Sharing the workload. Ideally you want collaborators that help you move around your ... | 15 | |
[Rick and Morty] How did dust and mildew settle on Jerry and Beth when Rick froze time? | How would anything grow if time was stopped? | 142 | Clearly not everything was stopped. If time was stopped down to a molecular level then Rick, Morty, and Summer would be immobile since they're surrounded on all sides by paused atmospheric particles. Instead all air is able to part when they walk by, and is also breathable. That's where your dust particles come from.
... | 158 |
What is a buffer overflow, and how is it used to exploit programs? | 31 | Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure book (i.e. "If you choose to go left, turn to page 10. If you go right, turn to page 20). You have sneakily inserted a page 30 which tells the reader to give you all your money.
At the start of the book there is a blank page where the reader can make notes. That's your buffer. I... | 54 | |
ELI5: How does AI (Bots) work in video games? | 42 | AI in games has to have a couple things first; you have to have a designed goal for the AI to do first, and allow it access to stuff to achieve that goal.
In a video game this might turn out to be something like a standard fighting game; where the AI is designed to win the match, and is given access to button combinat... | 23 | |
CMV: Every problem in the US can be solved with more education funding. | Poverty
Sensible Gun control
Bigotry
Racism
Obesity
Drug and opioid crisis
Even climate change!
Studies have shown that the more educated people are, the more money they make, the less likely they are to mistreat other people, and the more hygienic they are. Educated people have better critical thinking skills t... | 258 | Education, and in particular its funding has never been and will never be the "silver bullet" to all our problems. Thinking it will be drastically misunderstands the problems found within both the culture and educational system.
First off simply pumping more funding into the education system will do nothing. What need... | 43 |
[MCU] Is vibranium common in space? | 22 | In the comics, vibranium exists in space, although its source is unknown. "Common" is probably relative, but it's a stable transuranic element evidenced in certain asteroid mineral deposits - that suggests some very weird circumstances for its creation, probably involving supernovas under unusual conditions. Yet it *is... | 24 | |
ELI5: If sweat cools down our body... Do we sweat under hot shower? | 92 | Yes, sweating is an automatic reaction triggered by feeling heat. So you do sweat under hot shower. The shower washes the sweat right away, but since you aren’t actually getting cooler, you just sweat more. You can eventually dehydrate this way under the shower or even while in a hot bath, despite being surrounded by w... | 182 | |
ELI5: People today are able to produce paintings that are indistinguishable from photographs. Why couldn’t artists in past eras achieve this level of realism? | 17 | Quality of materials, (paints, brushes, canvas) time, painting detailed pictures requires a lot of time and you have to be able to afford to spend that much time on a single painting, lack of photographs as reference, until Vermeer, who may have used a kind of pinhole camera to create their pictures still images of the... | 25 | |
ELI5: Why does travelling, even when it is essentially sitting still, tire you more than sitting still in a stationary place? | 1,994 | When sitting stationary your body exerts effort just to keep you upright in your seat.
When sitting while traveling, your body exerts effort to counter every motion of the vehicle you happen to be in. Vehicle slows down, your core muscles react to keep you pressed back into your seat, and you don’t recognize this as ... | 1,658 | |
[Kingdom Hearts] So why could Roxas feel? | I thought nobodies were supposed to not be able to feel, but it was *really* obvious he (along with Axel, I assume because of long term exposure to Roxas) were able to feel emotions.
I know Sora was unusully stronger in the heart than the normal victims, and Roxas wasn't created conventionally, but neither w... | 37 | In 358/2 days, Roxas could feel because Sora was never really gone, and he was leeching off of Sora's feelings and memories - his heart. This is part of why Roxas *had* to go for Sora to come back.
In 3D we learn that Nobodies only lack a heart for a short time after creation. Their interactions with others produces a... | 27 |
[Dragonball/Z] Why is everyone making a big deal out of flying and ki waves in the World Tourny saga?(with videl and goku back from the dead)During his fight with Tien and King Piccalo there was both flying and ki waves involved Roshi Could use Ki waves and did in world tournies before those as well | 26 | Because the world tourny has gone mainstream in the years between DB and DBZ. The crowd was small (it wasn't a stadium, no bleachers just standing room only) and made up of people really serious about martial arts and even they were pretty surprised back in the day.
Once Hercule saved the world he was the drive force... | 33 | |
Are states obligated to protect only their own citizens? | Hello, I have a debate tournament coming up(about democracy promotion in the Middle East if that's relevant) and I've been looking for literature on this topic.
After a quick search on the SEP, IEP, google scholar, and this sub, I didn't come up with anything.
If you can just point me to some works related to the que... | 15 | The name of the idea that states have a duty to protect more than just their citizens is known as the "responsibility to protect." A good place to start is Gareth Evans's book *The Responsibility to Protect* and *Responsibility to Protect*, edited by Cooper and Kohler. | 10 |
[Dead Space] Why do the Necromorphs attack Isaac? | I just finished the first Dead Space and I have to say that I do not understand a lot of things, for example how Nicole could interact with consoles if she was just a hallucination. Also how Isaac was so stupid to think it was the real one. And, If she could control the consoles etc, why didn't she bring the Marker bac... | 34 | As for the consoles, its possible it was just another crew member that Issac was hallucinating as Nicole. Or it was time to an automatic cycle once someone used the trolley.
The ultimate goal of the Markers is to achieve convergence. That is, to surround themselves with so many Necromorphs (modified human DNA) that it... | 16 |
[Star Wars] Why did Palpatine intentionally attract the rebels when the death star wasn't finished? | I understand he had a shield generator on the planet and didn't think he'd lose. But why not wait until the death star is 100% done? It looked about 75%, so it clearly wasn't taking the full 20 years like the first one.
Even if he was fairly certain of his victory on the planet surface, he could've waited a few more ... | 75 | The thing is, he wasn't "fairly certain" of his victory. He was absolutely and totally convinced that the rebels would be crushed. Palpatine was incredibly powerful and his power made him arrogant. He *wanted* the rebels to attack before the Death Star was finished. He believed that if the rebels thought they had a cha... | 149 |
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