query stringlengths 19 300 | pos list | neg list | task stringclasses 1 value | instruction dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Why can birds stand freely on the train’s electric wires, while a human can start an electric just by standing close to any. | [
"Electricity likes to travel along the easiest possible path (like a really good conductor of electricity) to its target. When the bird stands on the wire, the electricity would much rather continue traveling along the cables (which conducts well) than take a detour up one of the bird’s leg, through its body and do... | [
"They would get electrocuted if, at the same time, they touched the ground or possibly another wire, thus completing the circuit. A couple of years ago, near my home (in Germany), they moved a stork's nest from on top of a telegraph pole. They built a fake pole, moved the nest onto it, and then moved the pole a few... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
What are the main arguments of holocaust deniers? | [
"Arguments? They mostly just say it was propaganda to make the nazis appear evil, and/or claim that it was much smaller than it was. It's not really about bringing up own arguments but rather calling every proof for it fabricated."
] | [
"How well regarded are the writings of Joseph Campbell by historians?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
"neg": "Represent the argument:"
} |
How does your lip differ from your face or your skin, and why? | [
"They still have all the layers of skin, but the outermost layer is thinner. Lips also have no sebaceous glands, so saliva is the only natural way to moisten lips. And lastly, lips have no melanin, so the color you see is from blood vessels."
] | [
"Why are noses different in size, why are people different heights, why do we have different hair colors?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Biology:"
} |
Does higher population lead to better technology or does better technology lead to higher population? | [
"There’s no straightforward relationship here. Better technology for healthcare, production and distribution of food, etc. will generally increase population growth. Provided people actually have access to them. For example, some of the best maternal healthcare in the world is available in the US, but the US has co... | [
"Not necessarily. In many cases raising a particular countries economic status can be achieved by that country embracing a certain technology or natural resource that they have. Education is massively influential in the economic status of any country. A country that can clarify it's water to fight disease. Teach i... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit answer:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit answer:"
} |
If lightning is drawn to metal and the tallest objects in a given area, why doesn’t it always strike airplanes? | [
"It does often strike airplanes. Lightning is trying to find the best path to go from a negative area to a positive area (charge wise). Generally the earth is a big positive area so it likes to go down. It finds air hard to travel through (and metal easy to travel through) so it finds something else to crawl down t... | [
"Lightning wants to get to the ground and it wants to do that through the first thing it can reach. So houses are often built with a system to collect lightning that would strike the house and funnel it into the ground. It moves the electricity through your metal pipes. So showering during an electrical storm expos... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
How is the universe infinite? | [
"Think of the observable universe as a bubble. With you in the very center. We can only see to the edge of the bubble which keeps getting further away due to the speed of light only having so long to reach us since the universe began. But, just because we can only see to the edge of the bubble from our place does ... | [
"Are you asking what caused the Big bang? No one knows."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit passage:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit passage:"
} |
How does the tide increase/decrease the water level when the net amount of water stays the same? | [
"The moon's gravity causes the tide rise and fall. As it move around the earth it pushes and pulls the water. The pushing effect, or high tide, is just water displacement. The earth ocean is usually in the shape of an oval figuratively speaking."
] | [
"No, in a simplified model, there is a high tide 'under the moon' where the gravitational pull is strongest, and also on the opposite side of the Earth, where it is weakest. Additionally, you have to consider terrain and the travel time for the water itself, which can influence the timing of when the tide is highe... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit sentence:"
} |
If the meteors are disintegrated as they enter the atmosphere, how can spacecrafts get in and out of the atmosphere? | [
"They have a heat shield that faces the direction of atmosphere entry that protects the craft. One kind previously used was called an ablative heat shield, which effectively slowly disintegrated, taking heat with it as it does. These days it's mostly based on a thermal insulator. Without a heat shield, many crafts ... | [
"Both get hit all the time, but the earth's atmosphere causes most below a certain size to burn up before reaching the surface. On the moon, they all impact. Whenever you see a shooting star, that's what you're seeing."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
} |
Why do fans make rooms colder? Wouldn’t faster moving air molecules make a room warmer? | [
"They don't, but they allow more air to come in contact with skin, otherwise there will be some warmer air that sits around your skin as it was warmed by your body heat and can't escape immediately."
] | [
"Wet: Because water has a higher specific heat capacity than air, meaning it takes more energy to heat it up by 1 degree. Since it takes more of your body heat to regulate the temperature around you, you feel cold. Windy: When your body produces heat, it warms the air around you. Wind blows that warm air away and r... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about Physics:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text about Physics:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text about Science:"
} |
Why are (in some countries) sexual activities allowed from the age of 15 but watching pornography is from the age of 18? | [
"One part prudishness, one part child safety. Without some form of government-mandated rating system for pornography, softcore porn and tentacle rape scat fetish porn are basically all the same. You can definitely argue that a developing mind is not going to be harmed by watching some porn, however there's a lot of... | [
"Depends on the specific laws. Some places have laws that treat it as a hard limit. If the age of consent is say 18, that means anyone having sex with an under 18 year old is breaking the law. Even if that person is only 19. Some other places treat it more as a gradated thing. There is generally a lower age limit u... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
} |
How do sound - cancelling headphones work? | [
"They have a microphone that picks up sounds external to the headphones. They then calculate the inverse waveform and play it as close to the same timeframe as they can manage. The two waveforms cancel each other out, resulting in silence. The ‘pressure’ sensation is due to the minute differences in time between th... | [
"Noise cancellation do what they say, cancel outside noise. So, you don't need to raise your volume so much that it could damage your ears. Look up: Ear damage from earphones."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question about Technology:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Technology:",
"neg": "Represent the document about Technology:"
} |
Why is it rude to ask how much someone’s salary is? | [
"Companies don't want their employees talking about how much they make amongst one another so they can negotiate wages rather than giving specified pay per position. That kind of drilled in mindset primarily to the benefit of employers has made discussing wages a faux pas culturally. There should be more discussion... | [
"Who's more likely to tell you their salary: a rich person, or a poor person?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
how does a device know what to play for AR? Like those business cards that start playing when you point a camera at it... | [
"The card has a machine-readable address pointing to somewhere on the internet. That address contains all the information required to display whatever is supposed to be on the card, and the reading phone needs to download it through its data connection."
] | [
"There will be a small proximity sensor that when it detects the inside of your ear will start a command to play music, the opposite will happen when you take them out. Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I think that's the answer."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
} |
On some websites it says that Venus is hotter than Mercury because it has an atmosphere, however where does that heat energy transfer to if space is a vacuum? | [
"Planets can also emit excess heat through *radiation,* typically by emitting infrared light."
] | [
"Its so cold at night since it has basically no atmosphere, without an atmosphere there is nothing to keep the heat from the sun close to the planet (atmospheres do that in a few ways)."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about Physics:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Physics:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Science:"
} |
Why is lead used to protect yourself from radiation | [
"Imagine holding a flash light next to tissue paper, and then same light through a wall. Notice some light goes through in tissue but nothing in wall? Basically gamma radiation (most dangerous) can go through a lot of things like a light through tissue.but lead or other heavy materials are too dense and no gamma pa... | [
"Some can be so caustic that they will do more damage coming back up as opposed to other methods of dealing with the toxin"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title about Science:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Science:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
How does an international debit/credit transaction work? | [
"There are 5 parties in any card transaction: the purchaser, the issuing bank (the bank who issues the purchasers card), the payment network (Visa, MasterCard, etc.), the merchant's bank, and the merchant. The merchant and the purchaser approve the transaction. The point-of-sale system, using the payment network, s... | [
"There are two types of money: hard and soft. Cash or western union comes under hard type because they can't be reversed. While credit card transaction comes under soft transaction because they are reversible by design."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the comment:",
"neg": "Represent the comment:"
} |
Why a wobbling ceiling fan never balances itself | [
"It wobbles because it is out of balance. That won't change without human intervention. You can tape a penny to the top of a blade to fix it. Some trial & error will be needed."
] | [
"They have a small, off-centred weight that spins. Because it's off-centered, it's unbalanced and causes the vibration when it spins."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage about Technology:"
} |
Where does dust come from and what is it's purpose in nature? | [
"Dust is very fine particles of things that decompose... inside homes, much of it is skin cells. It's also dead, dried plant material, rocks and minerals, etc. anything that can be broken down small enough to become airborn. It doesn't necessarily serve a purpose, it's just a byproduct"
] | [
"It's not air pollution. It has to do with the way light refracts on particles in our atmosphere."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
} |
Why doesn’t the penis get stretch marks? | [
"There’s enough skin to accommodate the penis at its fully erect state. That’s why flaccid penises look all wrinkly and smooshed."
] | [
"It is actually very rare for a penis to be perfectly straight. But as long as there is no pain, it's not a big deal. The slight curve usually is a result of the tissue in one particular area growing slightly more or less rapidly than the other areas during puberty. How much of a bend are we talking here? Are you ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
with slow internet, why do ads load without fail but content is stagnant? | [
"Because ads are stored on seperate special servers, requiring less time to load and search for the video ID. Source- a post from a few days ago where this same question was asked."
] | [
"It's fake, trust me. When I would try too watch a video, sometimes it suddenly buffers completely, but when it gets to the suddenly buffered part, it would just stop. Just a glitch."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
} |
Why sleeping too much makes us feel even more tired? | [
"You can think of the body having two states, a state of being awake and a state of being asleep. It can be hard to fall asleep at night because your body has been in awake mode all day. It’s hard to wake up in the morning because you’re body has been in sleep mode for the past couple hours, so sleeping for long pe... | [
"Stress. Stress is keeping you up awake at night, until you become so sleep deprived your body forces you to be knocked out."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title about Sleep and its effects on the body:",
"pos": "Represent the post about Sleep and its effects on the body:",
"neg": "Represent the post about Sleep and its effects on the body:"
} |
There are tons of British actors playing American characters in popular movies but you rarely see Americans playing British characters, why is that? | [
"Keanu Reeves accent in bram stokers dracula. Keanu Reeves is a legend but that was one of the few times he maybe should have said no."
] | [
"There's no formal distinction, but character actors are those who play mostly supporting roles instead of leads, and are given the distinction because they are quite adept at embodying a wide range of characters to the point of building a career on it. The kind of people you see on screen and go 'oh its that guy!'... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:"
} |
how does a particle accelerator work and what is its purpose? | [
"The LHC (large hadron collider) works by using various types of magnets to speed up, focus, and guide two separate particle beams in opposite directions around a circular track of tubes faster and faster until they reach a high enough speed, then one beam switches tracks putting the two particle beams on a collisi... | [
"nuclear fuel rods heat water, steam turns a turbine. they are very basic, no need to complicate it more than need be."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:"
} |
Does being able to function well mentally while you're high make you better able to function well when you're not? | [
"No. Many people take cannabis so they can function better mentally, it’s not a boost, it’s a correction."
] | [
"Anesthesia are drugs. They're necessary and useful for surgery and treating pain, and you should definitely administer them, but when people are on them or coming down from them, they're high, and they're going to behave like they're high. It's a side effect we just have to accept."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
"neg": "Represent the argument:"
} |
What is the difference between 3rd and 4th wave feminism? | [
"Super short version? 1st Wave focused on enfranchisement (the vote) 2nd wave on equality (workplace rules, legal independence, etc) 3rd wave on empowerment (sexual freedoms, personal autonomy) And the 4th wave on intersectionality (how are all of the above also impacted by things like race, religion, class, abilit... | [
"It has a few different meanings in different contexts. What setting are we talking about?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
"neg": "Represent the argument about finance:"
} |
What physically happens to your brain high on marijuana | [
"It breaks your brain and although you think you’re playing it cool everyone can definitely tell you’re high and you’ve also been telling the same story for 5 minutes. _URL_0_"
] | [
"If you drink coffee every day to wake yourself up in the morning, you will eventually become addicted. How would this contribute to you becoming addicted to alcohol, tobacco or methamphetamines? They're completely different drugs with different effects, different feelings and, most importantly, different chemistry... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title about health:",
"pos": "Represent the document about health:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
When standing up after sitting down for a while, why does your eyesight get blurry and your head gets dizzy? | [
"Answer: when you stand up your head moves from low to high, but it takes your blood circulation a couple more seconds after that to adjust and sort of recover from the sudden movement. This basically pulls your blood out of your head and lower down into your body, leaving your head with lower than normal amounts ... | [
"Alcohol is a depressant to your nervous system so it dulls all your senses. Similar to if you bump into something while drunk, you don’t feel it until the next day, or why your vision gets blurry while drinking."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post about Health and Wellness:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Health and Wellness:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Science:"
} |
how can light have energy? | [
"e = mc2 is not the full equation E²=(mc²)²+(pc)² Is the full one. Essentially, with m=0, you can remove that part of the equation, and end up with E= pc (with p being momentum, and light, since it cannot be at rest, has momentum) This would apply to anything \"mass less\" such as a photon, as the mc2 part is zero... | [
"because there is no air or other matter. Sound is vibrations in air. No air=no sound. edit: no liquid=no sound as well."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query about Physics:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Physics:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why are there strong and successful campaigns to ban fur clothing and not other animal products like leather? | [
"A lot of fur items like mink or sable are killed for their fur and the rest discarded. Cows and lambs are killed for their meat and the skin is also used to make leather. One case is wasteful and pointless, the other is resourceful. Also leather is really useful, fur is seen as elitist."
] | [
"Ultimately, there is no real ethical difference between using an animal skin and using animal fur. They both involve killing an animal and skinning it. The major argument I know of is that cowhide - the major animal skin used for fashion, which is converted into leather and suede - is more acceptable because cows ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
why painting this ceiling made the light “less yellow”? | [
"The camera has adjusted the white balance. Basically, it sees a lot of blue and wants to make the picture more neutrally colored (white), so it adjusts the whole thing to the yellow side, with yellow being opposite of blue. This is most visible on things that are white. In the second picture, it doesn't do that."
... | [
"It's not the mirror, is the lighting. White lighting = shows more imperfections than yellow, in my experience."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
What does the dot product mean in Linear Algebra? Why is it used in movement equations? | [
"The dot product takes two vectors and calculates how much they \"lie on each other\" or \"how much they align.\" Two vectors at 90 degrees from one another will have a dot product of zero since they do not lie on each other at all, while other vectors are less so. More quantitatively, given two vectors A and B, th... | [
"Complex numbers can be written using two notations. Polar which is a magnitude and an angle, and rectangular. Rectangular gives the magnitude along the real axis and separately the magnitude along the imaginary (i) axis. If you took both notations together, you'd see that the magnitude and angle in polar form exa... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
} |
How does Dissonance work in music? | [
"Music is math. Every note has a frequency, and those frequencies relate to eachother with certain ratios. For example, an A is 440 hz, while the A an octave higher is 880 hz. So that's a ratio of 2:1. A perfect fifth is 3/2, 4/3 a perfect fourth, 5/3 a major sixth and so on. Our brain can identify those ratios rea... | [
"What do you mean by downfall? This is still a dominant part of current culture."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
} |
What is DEF Fluid for in diesel trucks? | [
"Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) is something that gets added to the exhaust system of large diesel trucks in order to reduce the concentration of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOX) compounds such as nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide. These compounds contribute to smog and acid rain formation, as well as deplete tropospheric ... | [
"1) Electricity (sometimes derived from solar panels) 2) Natural gas (Methane is the big one) 3) Propane 4) Diesel (not very common) 5) The tears of environmentalists"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
} |
Why does the temperature decrease as you get higher up towards the atmosphere? | [
"It’s colder because at a higher altitude the air is much less dense, meaning there are much fewer particles per cubic meter of space. Since solar energy or heat from the sun is primarily trapped by bouncing between atmospheric particles, the thinner air at high altitudes can’t trap heat as well and so it’s cooler ... | [
"Air that used to be at sea level changes its thermodynamic properties at the top of the mountain. This changes, pressure, temperature and its speed. All have a factor on how much water the air contains or can hold. That is why it snows on top of mountains, because the water in the air comes out of solution and rem... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why, with all our advancements in telecommunications and phone technology, has phone call audio quality stayed virtually the same as ten or twenty years ago? | [
"If you talk about landlines or anything that is talking to landlines: That is a dead technology, don't expect anything there. If you talk about VoIP: That is much better than years ago, with a better sampling rate and wider spectrum they capture. However, that is part of the problem, the biggest problem is the tra... | [
"The world is much better off in most cases. People are richer, hunger levels are lower, war deaths are fewer, crime rate is down. There are a few regional exceptions obviously (it still sucks to be in North Korea for example), but for the world as a whole, life is much better than it was a century ago, or even 50 ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query about Technology:",
"pos": "Represent the answer about Technology:",
"neg": "Represent the answer:"
} |
Why the sudden disparity in chromosome number despite difference in complexity and intelligence? | [
"Just because a book has more pages doesn’t mean it’s a better book. Chromosomes in different species do a lot of different things, and some are more or less efficient, some specialized and some not. The number of individual chromosomes (out of context of a species) is unrelated to pretty much anything"
] | [
"There is a higher probability of beneficial mutation with sexual reproduction than with asexual reproduction."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question about Biology:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Biology:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why are apple computers used so often with graphics intensive projects, such as photo editing and animation, but are never used for gaming? | [
"Because of the history of apple computers and a series of very good advertising campaigns. Historically, Apple computers were cutting edge as far as graphical applications, so they gained a good reputation for graphic design and that sort of stuff. Recently, though, the designs of their consumer machines put style... | [
"> and was always impressed by people who could tell the functionality of a computer simply by looking through its specifications. I don't really know how else you'd determine how good a computer is without touching it. And in response to your question, what do you plan on doing with it? If you just check email and... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit sentence:"
} |
Why does the sweat from our armpits stink? | [
"Sweat doesn’t smell but the bacteria that builds up in a warm damp place does which is why the armpit can still smell even when there’s no sweat."
] | [
"It's kind of like how a person's feet smell bad after they've been wearing shoes all day. When that person sweats, the bacteria that's attracted to their sweat lets off a chip or cheese like odor. Dogs sweat through the pads of their paws, so that same type of bacteria is attracted to that sweat, making the paws s... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
How does the whole dominant hand work? How does one side of our brain working more than the other allow us to have a dominant hand? | [
"How come my left hand is, for all intents & purposes functionally retarded, yet it's the only hand I've ever used to wank comfortably? Right hand, which I do everything else in life with, feels awkward af when I try to get sexy with it..."
] | [
"Overall, usually not. The hard wiring for the superior motor control your dominant hand enjoys isn't free. It takes up real estate in the brain, real estate that otherwise could be used to make you smart or improve visual processing. There are very few tasks crucial to survival that require that level of dexterity... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about science:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text about science:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
How can a game like Red Dead Redemption load quickly, while remastered old games like CTR needs loading screens that take a fair bit of time? | [
"Optimization. Newer games use newer engines while remastered still uses the old engines. ELI5 - think of liquids in pipes. New games are like water where older games are like a sludgey oil."
] | [
"Because at that time, they were the best of their quality and kind. Take GTA San Andreas for example. Back then, the graphics seemed awesome and the mechanics worked great. Now, you see the trailer for GTA V, and then look at GTA San Andreas, SA seems like a bad game. Time passes, and technology gets better"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
} |
What happens to the tiny bits of minerals, like sand, when they enter deep into your fingernails? | [
"So under the bottom of your nails, near the cuticle, is a patch of skin called the nail bed. This is constantly making new skin, and new nail. The skin and the nail grow forwards together. When they separate at the end, the skin cells die off, and fall off as dead skin flakes. If you get stuff stuck deep in under ... | [
"Some of it will have evaporated, concentrating the salts/minerals in it. Over time, this can cause encrustations on pots."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post:"
} |
How come we can hold on to our bladders WHILE ASLEEP better than when we were kids? | [
"Also, it’s a muscle. The older you get the more use it gets, making it stronger. Well.. ya know, until you get too old. But that’s a different topic."
] | [
"I don't know if you do this too, but does anyone else get REALLY defensive, but not necessarily mean, when you're just woken up? I find that if I've been asleep less than 10 minutes and someone wakes me up I'm all \"NO I WASN'T ASLEEP I SWEAR\". But then I think about it for 2 seconds and I realize I was asleep. W... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about Health and Wellness:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Health and Wellness:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Volume past 50% on almost every car stereo, home stereo, TV, or computer speaker is uncomfortably loud but every cell phone's ear speaker needs to be above 50% just for me to understand the other person. 100% cell volume is only moderately loud. Why is this? | [
"Very simple. Sound is waves. Bigger the speaker, bigger the waves louder the sound. Phones have tiny speakers. TV’s and Cars have multiple ones and they are rather big compared to a phone"
] | [
"they don't, really, other than that the decibels increase as you increase the volume. there is no set relationship between the volume number on the TV volume control and the actual decibels produced. In fact, it varies quite a bit. One TV's 5 setting might be just as loud as another TV's 10 setting, for instance"
... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the text:",
"neg": "Represent the text:"
} |
The human body is supossed to sleep for 8 hours. At the same time, sleeping 8 hours makes you really tired upon waking, why is this? | [
"Eight hours isn’t actually ideal. Our sleep cycles are approximately 1 hour 30 minutes long, and waking up in the middle of them makes us tired. 7h30m or 9h is better since you will wake up at the end of a cycle."
] | [
"Well if you sleep for the acerage 7-8 hours, the body gets in that much time for digestion. That's a fairly large break between meals and feeling hungry is pretty normal after such a break. Plus, people are typically dehydrated after sleep, which also contributes to the feeling of hunger. Finally, it's a learnt be... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query about Health:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit passage about Health:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit passage about Health and Wellness:"
} |
How does the gps-coordinate system (XYZ-plane) accounts for the earth’s curvature? | [
"GPS doesn't use XYZ coordinates, but ellipsoidal coordinates. Math is used to convert them to something easier for us to use on a map. _URL_0_"
] | [
"They're either relative to the orbit that the ship is on(prograde, retrograde, normal, anti-normal, radial in, radial out) or relative to a fixed set of reference points(Earth, moon, or sun) which you can then use up/down or north/south, east/west to refer to directions. Once you have your reference set you can de... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit paragraph about Physics:"
} |
How can I go to bed with an alarm set at 6:10am and wake up at exactly 6:08am. More than 2 times a week, roughly 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. How does my body achieve this? | [
"I'd say it's all about you thinking that you need to wake up at 6:10am the night before you sleep. It's some sort of mechanism you've set in your mind in order for not to be late."
] | [
"I have the same problem, but I do remember my dreams if I'm woken up in the middle of them. Set your alarm clock to an early time than usual, see if that makes a difference"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query about Biology:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Biology:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why does rubbing your eyes feel so good? | [
"By rubbing your eyes you stimulate a nerve called Vagus nerve, which relaxes you and makes you feel good. Also rubbing eyes would cause more tear secretion which lubricates your eyes so your eyes don't feel dry and tired. But, rubbing eyes too much isn't a good habit, it can affect the shape of your cornea which c... | [
"Putting something soothing on a burn always feels good. Putting something that is soothing and a bit cool feels even better."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
Why lightning flashes for only a second but thunder can be heard for several seconds? | [
"Thunder rumbles on for so long for a few reasons - one is that the lightning strike doesn't happen in one burst. Numerous strikes follow the same path over a fraction of a second. The strike is also several kilometres long, and sound takes 3 seconds to travel a kilometre, so you hear the thunder from the top secon... | [
"It depends what it went between. The duration of the thunder is based off the difference between your distance to the closest and farthest point of the lightning bolt A lightning bolt a few kilometers away between a cloud 400 meters up and the ground will produce a thunderclap that all reaches you at pretty much t... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post:"
} |
You know when you're in a quiet room like a library, when your stomach makes noises or any noise from your body that you cannot really control, is it as loud as how you hear it from yourself? | [
"It's probably not nearly as loud to other people, especially since they're not as tuned into it as you. Also, it happens to everyone, so even if it is loud, nobody thinks it's weird or anything. Definitely nothing to be embarrassed about."
] | [
"Because everything around you is quieter. There is less activity at night for the most part. If you were at a carnival at 12 am and said carnival was busy, everything wouldn't be as loud, but if you live alone every little movement in your home will seem extra loud since there is nothing causing background noise"
... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
What is plasma, how is it created and how is it important to things like plasma tv’s etc? | [
"Plasma is a gas that has been heated to the point that electrons are no longer bound to their atoms. This results in the properties of the gas changing. The most notable change is the gas emits photons. This is how we get HID lighting, and also the light in plasma TVs."
] | [
"There are thousands of types of cancer each with different causes and different treatment mechanisms What causes tumors in the lungs and tumors in the liver and tumors in the skin are all very different and treatments for them are wildly different Yes, all cancer is tumors so they have that in common, but saying o... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about science:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about science:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
What happens in court when it’s just one person’s word against another? | [
"> Is it really just a case of telling the story and seeing who the jury believes? More or less, yes. Each side presents their argument to the court and then the rest of the trial is bringing in evidence (documents, objects, witnesses, etc.) to support their core argument. Once that evidence is presented, the other... | [
"The accused has a right to confront their accusers and to attend their own trials. So it's pretty obvious to all involved, when it comes to race, gender, etc."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
"neg": "Represent the argument:"
} |
How are a model of shoes/sneakers/... are priced the same even tho the sizes are different? | [
"[This article presents a breakdown of the manufacturing cost of a shoe.](_URL_1_) It states that from the $70 dollars you pay for a pair of sneakers, $35 dollars go to the end retailer, 20$ to the brand/designer, and $15 to the factory. So the manufacturing cost is only $15. Further in the article there is a [bre... | [
"No real difference in the product,the only real difference is on the price, products aimed at women often cost more than the male equivalents"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why does hot water work better than cold water when you're washing dishes? | [
"The heat melts the grease, oil, and fat that is used when cooking food. Also, heat makes things softer (usually) allowing the food to be slippery and come off of the dishes. Soap, in a nutshell, makes things super slippery and will trap food particles while the water and friction of a sponge or wash cloth rinses t... | [
"You've trained yourself wrong. Also, try cold water. Warm or lukewarm water doesn't compare well to cold beverages when you're hot."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit post about Food and Beverage:"
} |
How can a store like Kroger sell their own store brand MTN dew for .69 cents for a two liter when the name brand cost over 2x? | [
"When you buy something from a \"name brand\" company like Pepsi or Coke, you're not only paying for the product but you're paying for all the overhead that comes along with producing it and getting it on the shelf- namely the marketing/branding. Store brands are a lot cheaper because it's the result of a super eff... | [
"They have decent margins and are in fairly low cost locations. If you compare the few name brand products at a dollar store vs the same size item at eg. Walmart, Walmart is cheaper. For example a small container of Palmolive dish soap is 88¢ at Walmart and a dollar at the dollar store."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the comment:",
"neg": "Represent the comment:"
} |
Why do eyes make that firework effect when you rub them for long enough? | [
"From what I understand the cells that register light are quite sensitive to changes in blood pressure/flow due to their delicate nature. When you rub on your eyes you change the pressure of the whole eyeball, which in turn registers as light or colors due to all those small delicate cells."
] | [
"> What are these red dots? They are red blood cells zipping through the tiny capillaries on the surface of your retina. Usually our brains filter them out as noise but sometimes we can see them such as when our brains haven't adapted yet or when we trick it by looking into a featureless blue sky."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Science:"
} |
Why and how do clouds rain? Why do they turn black? | [
"The atmosphere is full of water vapor, which is to say super tiny drops of water that basically float through the air. In certain conditions the droplets can start to combine and create larger drops of water. Eventually these drops can start getting big enough that they start blocking some sun light, and that's w... | [
"It's not air pollution. It has to do with the way light refracts on particles in our atmosphere."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the text:",
"neg": "Represent the text:"
} |
What causes the pressure in our ears, when we inhale sharply, or try to get water out of our ears. | [
"Your inner ear (the part on the \"inner\" side of the eardrum) is connected to your nose via your sinuses and eustachian tubes. Normally this serves to equalise the pressure between your inner and outer ear, but if you raise the pressure in your sinus (by holding your nose and blowing, for example) you can feel th... | [
"Do you mean like on an plane? This is caused by the pressure inside your ear being different from the pressure in the surrounding air. When you're on a plane or travelling to a higher altitude, the change in pressure is usually gradual, so you don't directly perceive the change in pressure. because the pressure on... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title about Health and wellness:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Health and wellness:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why is tipping in USA so common, yet in the UK for example, it isn’t? | [
"Cause the UK pays service workers a living wage. They build it into the price of the entrees. The US wants the struggle to be real so they pay like $3.52 per hour to service workers and tipping is supposed to makeup for the shit hourly pay."
] | [
"The American way to tipping is very alien to other countries, from what I know. In fact, your waiters are *expected* to receive tips as part of their salary which blows my mind. Here we tip the waiter if the service was excellent. Don't expect me to tip you if you were in any way rude, if our food took to long to ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
} |
Orientability in geometry/topology | [
"A sphere is orientable because you cannot go from 'inside' to 'outside' a sphere without crossing the boundary of the sphere, it defines two entirely separate regions. With a Klein bottle, you can do so without crossing it's boundaries."
] | [
"It would be a [3-sphere](_URL_0_). And the fourth dimension in those graphics is a spatial dimension."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit post:"
} |
How do we have foods such as corn all year when they have such long growing times? | [
"It's grown in different seasons in different parts of the country, and when it's too cold to be grown in the south, it's imported from warmer climates."
] | [
"Growing seasons are different in different parts of the world. Different crops take differing times to mature, and like different climates. These together mean that food can be produced at a variety of times. If you have a 180 day growing season, and a crop with a growth time of 60 days (e.g. Spinach) you can get ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
How are bridges that span long distances of water (e.g., Seven Mile Bridge in Key West, FL or Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana) built? | [
"Typically what will happen is a coffer dam gets set up. Basically its just some thick sheets of metal driven into the seabed.Once its set up you can pump the water out and have people start building the base. These will be the piles you see sticking up out of the water. Now that thats out of the way you can bring ... | [
"I live less than 2 hours from the Mackinaw Bridge. They are usually considered to be individual lakes because of their currents around the straights of Mackinaw, making some very rough waters. Lake Huron's current runs counterclockwise along Canada and Michigan while Lake Michigan's runs clockwise along the Lower ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit paragraph:"
} |
Why do Americans talk differently than Brits, even though they emerged from them only a few hundred years ago. | [
"Bear in mind that there are 150 British accents."
] | [
"You and your parents speak the same language, but you speak it a little differently. Maybe you and your friends think it is cool to say \"'What's up?\" instead of \"Hello.\" Your kids also speak the same language as you, but they also speak it a little differently. Instead of saying \"What's up?\" they just say \"... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
How do game show award money amounts work? Some game shows are only able to give away a few thousand dollars and others can give away millions. Who sponsors / funds shows and how are final award amounts decided? | [
"gameshows basically buy an insurance against larger winnings. it is then the banks job to figure out the probability of such large wins, and offer a premium to the gameshow they have to pay regardless what is won. for small amounts (a few thousand) the gameshows itself can probably handle, for larger ones you need... | [
"There are a few possibilities here: 1) The production company is fronting the cash, and just keeps it when nobody wins. Shows with wealthy backers and relatively small proze pools do this. 2) The production company is using some form of sweepstakes insurance, paying a regular premium and the small prizes themselve... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why can’t a sponge soak up mercury even when submerged in it? | [
"A sponge can't absorb Mercury for basically two reasons: One, sponges are made primarily of cellulose, which has a favorable interaction with water and liquids containing water. Mercury, on the other hand, is a metal, albeit a liquid metal (at room temp), and does not have a favorable interaction with cellulose. ... | [
"Take a cup of water, pour some salt in it. Stir, and watch it dissolves. Pour some more salt, stir, watch it dissolve. Repeat until no matter how much you stir, it won’t go away. You have now reached saturation. If you take too many vitamins, same thing happens, they just can’t be “absorbed” after a certain point.... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
} |
How to have safe sex IF you want to have a baby? | [
"Well if you and your partner are going to have a baby I would assume both of you would know if you have any STI/STD. If you are unsure you both can get tested at a clinic."
] | [
"The S in STD is just the most common way of transferring these diseases. Some (like herpes) are actually transferred just by touch. Others are also bloodborne, etc. Two virgins wouldn't pass a disease only because they don't have the disease. That being said, if you recently got an STD from a virgin, I would still... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the answer:",
"neg": "Represent the answer:"
} |
why do ordinarily unexciting things become super interesting when one is procrastinating work? | [
"So I'm not a psychologist or anything, but procrastination was described to me as a battle of self-control/motivation versus the negative effects of actually performing the task. When the negativities (anxiety, stress, fear of failure, exhaustion, etc.) outweigh our self-control and motivation to get the task done... | [
"Because those are socially expected times in which to be productive and one is not terribly productive or effective when intoxicated."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
What are the actual risks of talking about Tienanmen square massacre in China? | [
"You’ll get re-educated to be a more harmonious citizen in re-education camp if you have families that would make a fuss if you’re missing, if you don’t you’ll just disappear. They actually talk about their version of the event in uni. The gist is: no protester die, many peace keeper die, there were no tanks. No i... | [
"Why is the US so upset over the labeling of US treatment of Native Americans as a genocide?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the sentence:"
} |
Why do men have nipples if we do not produce milk? | [
"In mammals nipples form before gender is determined in fetal development. So both genders get nipples but only the females get fully formed breast which can feed an infant."
] | [
"I had read somewhere that the nipples were darker due to an adaptation which allows our offspring to locate it easier, in order to eat. Many mammal's nipples are a different pigment not just humans. Not sure about the genitals part."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post about Health and Wellness:"
} |
Why does it sometimes take a few listens to start liking a song? | [
"Sometimes it's as simple as getting used to it. Ever noticed how 99% of people mostly watch movies, read books, listen to songs that belong to the environment in which they were raised? You're not born with your own unique tailored taste. You like what your brain associates with stuff you know. Sometimes it just t... | [
"It usually seems to choose my least favourite songs and repeat them over and over. There's some serious science in there, I'm sure."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
} |
How does sunscreen/sunblock work? | [
"Sunblock is a layer of liquid you apply to your skin to protect your self from UV-Rays. Basically there is a type of radiation emitted by the sun called Ultraviolet, which is very damaging to humans and living organisms because it causes damage to our DNA. Sunblock and sunscreen puts a layer that is capable of abs... | [
"Technically: It's a UV transmission rating SPF 60 means 1 part in 60 of the UV radiation from the sun are transmitted to your skin, assuming you follow their instructions. & #x200B; Realistically: 1 SPF is like growing 1 layer of skin to tank the sunburn for you. 30 SPF = about 30 times the protection of your reg... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
} |
How did people get pigeons/ravens to go to specific (long distance) locations back in the day? | [
"Just pigeons. Ravens is a Game if Thrones thing only. And all they were doing was returning home - you couldn't direct them where to go. If you want to send a message by pigeon to Rome, you need to have a pigeon that lives in Rome that you took with you."
] | [
"These languages all had mostly developed by the time long-distance travel had become common. You gotta remember for most of human history, the vast majority of people never traveled more than ~30 miles from where they were born."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit argument:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit argument:"
} |
How do you differentiate east from west at the poles? | [
"Exactly at the poles, there is no east or west. From the south pole, every direction is north. Close to the poles, east and west still exist; that latitude band is just a really small circle"
] | [
"Does it spiral the other way in the southern hemisphere?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
What's to stop someone from buying an old Spanish gold coin, creating molds of the faces, striking their own fake Spanish gold coins, and selling them for a 10x profit by weight? | [
"Most metallurgy trading would have to be graded and proofed. There are ways to date metal castings and alloy types. For a more in depth explanation I'd have to probably write you a small paper but thats the jist of it."
] | [
"Non-circulating legal tender (NCLT) coins are never intended to circulate as cash money but they include a denomination as a fail-safe of sorts so that should the world economy collapse and silver becomes worth less than $5.00 per ounce (for example) then at least this item's value is backed by a treasury for $20.... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
How did humans decide which animals were pets and which would be food? | [
"What values the animal gives is the determiner i would believe. A cow won’t go hunting or keep your house safe. A dog would. A hen wouldn’t (on the contrary) keep pest at bay but a cat would. You’d keep the animals where the needs are and get the maximum return from them. Yes cats and dogs also produce milk an... | [
"What practical purpose would domesticated bears serve? All of our domesticated animals came from a practical need. Dogs? Descended from wolves that we captured as pups and raised. Dogs were (and still are) a pretty effective security system. Cats were domesticated for pest control. A house with a cat was healthier... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the passage:",
"neg": "Represent the passage:"
} |
When a fake check is written and it bounces, how come the recipient is immediately penalized and not the sender? | [
"You don't know who the sender is. It's as simple as that, they don't use there real name or bank account."
] | [
"The bank won't know when you're making the deposit but as soon as they send the check information over to the bank that issued the check, it's going to come out that somebody's cheating the system. This seldom goes well for the cheater. It's illegal and you will get caught."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why do some noises, like slurping or clicking sounds, bother us when they come from other people but not when we make them ourselves? | [
"Depends on the situation and usually depends on etiquette standards. Depends on your culture too, for instance slurping is considered a sign of gratitude in some countries."
] | [
"Sound travels through your jaw bones to your ears when you speak, distorting how you sound when you hear yourself talking compared to how you actually sound."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document about Language and Communication:"
} |
How are nuclear fuel and control rods raised and lowered? | [
"The are hydraulics actuator that move them. You can for example see them [_URL_1_](_URL_1_) at the top of the reactor and moving [controllrods in reactors](_URL_0_). The one in the video is research reactor and not power plans."
] | [
"Atoms get split via the process of nuclear fission. This releases large amounts of energy, which is used to heat up water. This water than powers a steam engine, which turns a generator, producing electricity. The operators of the plant can control how much energy is produced by inserting control rods into the pla... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the text:",
"neg": "Represent the text:"
} |
How do optical fibers made of glass bend in wire and, not just shatter instead? | [
"If the glass fiber is 1/300 the thickness a sheet of glass, it can bend around a 300x tighter radius without breaking. The material on the outside of the bend has to stretch in order to stay lined up with the material on the inside of the bend. If the material is thinner, the difference in radius is smaller, so t... | [
"Molecules of plastic resist deformation up to certain point and then give up en masse producing cracking sound. Like cracking a stick except some plastic types can bend multiple times before breaking."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why is Hunter S Thompson popular | [
"His craziness wasn't an act. He was honest in his desire to get the most out of his words by any means necessary. Also, he was a turbulent man that lived in and documented a very turbulent time. He isn't the greatest writer but he has great content."
] | [
"No, that's why it's called American Sign Language."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the paragraph:",
"neg": "Represent the paragraph:"
} |
how are dish sponges considered sanitary enough to use to clean something? | [
"In the same way a loofah or bath scrubber is not efficient by itself for actually cleaning yourself, it's a tool used for applying a lather of soap and water, with a material conducive to physically removing food debris"
] | [
"No it's not enough dish washers use hot water below boiling and chemical detergents. To get something truly sterilized you need to use a special device called and Autoclave it uses pressure and temperatures (121+°C) to completely sterilize (medical metal) things. However sterilization is the old way of thinking a... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why is it that a drink that has cold condensation on it is very slippery, but a warm drink that is just wet, isn’t? | [
"Condensation is caused when the cold liquid in the glass cools down the surrounding air. This causes the air to lose its capacity to hold onto moisture and therefore the moisture precipitates out of the air and sticks to the side of the glass. It doesn’t happen with warm liquids because the warm liquid causes the ... | [
"The thing you are licking has to be so cold that it freezes the water on your tongue. If your spit freezes it freezes onto your tongue, and whatever you licked. Hence they are now connected forever, or dump warm water on it."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question about Science:",
"pos": "Represent the answer about Science:",
"neg": "Represent the answer about Dentistry:"
} |
When we focus on a moving object we can smoothly move our eyes however if nothing is there we cant smoothly move them from left to right? | [
"Horizontal saccades (eye movements) feel like they are smooth, but they aren't. They are always somewhat jerky, but your brain corrects the visual input so that you interpret it as smooth movement. When you have a moving object this allows the brain's \"correction software\" to do a more convincing job of making y... | [
"So I want you to hold both thumbs out in front of you, holding your hands apart. Look at one thumb, then look at the other. Chances are your eyes snapped from one to the other quickly. Eyes in general don't focus well when an image is moving too much, so tend to try to keep things stable by \"snapping\" from image... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post about Biology:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document about Biology:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why do men get random boners when we are travelling in cars? (In Australia, we call them Travellers) | [
"Aside from certain medical priapisms, erections are caused by blood withheld from exiting the penis more so than an increase of blood in. The human body has a number of venous mechanisms for exiting blood from the lower body in particular, including the penis region. These evolved to counteract the force of gravit... | [
"Well, son, when a man and a hand love each other very much, they do things that feel good. Like tickle their pickle. There definitely ARE certain times when it feels better, and it happens anytime you sit down oddly, see a pretty woman, think about a pretty woman, pretend to be a pretty woman, in the middle of eat... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query about Biology/Physiology:",
"pos": "Represent the sentence about Biology/Physiology:",
"neg": "Represent the sentence:"
} |
Why is the song “American Pie” titled that? | [
"The song is about the death of Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and the others that died on that plane crash. It also references Bob Dylan, Elvis and other popular musicians of the time. American Pie, to my understanding, is referencing the phrase \"as American as apple pie,\" and it acts as a farewell to those musicians a... | [
"Too catchy to ignore, too generic to like."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit sentence:"
} |
How do those “push and twist” drug bottles work? | [
"They utilize a thread with an interruption on the bottle and a small bit of spring tension on the cap. Unless the cap is pushed down it cannot interact with these thread to come off."
] | [
"I always thought it was something easy to grab with gloves on since most winter gloves severely reduce dexterity."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit passage:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit passage:"
} |
How do those windows, wich you can turn non transparant with a switch, work ? | [
"There's a film of liquid crystal inside the window, specially constructed and treated so that the crystals inside respond to electric current. When there's no current, the crystals go out of alignment, and their random orientation blocks light. When you flip the switch on, a low-voltage electric current forces the... | [
"I guess its just the topleft pixel what is the actual mouse. The rest is just animated from there. You can move this pixel anywhere on the screen, causing the animation to vanish bottom-right. Not a native speaker, please excuse grammatical flaws."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit passage:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit passage:"
} |
How does a turtle’s shell grow while the turtle grows? What is it made of? | [
"The shell is made up of panel-like things called scutes. With most types of turtles, these scutes shed periodically to allow bigger scutes to form. They are made out of keratin - same as human hair & nails. Source: I’m a turtle fan."
] | [
"They grow them, in the same way that we human grow fingernails and hair. The material of the shell is excreted over time; it just so happens that the way it's excreted in a snail causes the shell to grow in a spiral pattern. BTW, the tip of the snail's shell is actually the snail's baby-sized shell. It's just kep... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the document:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
How does salt in a salt flat create almost a large mirror? | [
"Those are probably the ones where it has just rained and there is a little bit of surface water remaining that actually creates the mirroring effect."
] | [
"On a sunny day, when the road gets much hotter than the air above it, a temperature gradient is established, which bends the light upward. What appears to be water is actually bent light looking at the sky."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit post:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit post:"
} |
Why is the picture in night vision goggles green? | [
"When the light enters the goggles, it's converted to electricity, then boosted electrically, then the light hits a phosphor screen (like the screen part of old school CRT displays) and converted again to light. There's no way to preserve the color, so it's effectively a black and white image, but it's converted to... | [
"I think it is a picture of the screen, not a screenshot. The camera got the white balance off resulting in the off white color."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit answer:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit answer about Computer Science:"
} |
Why is eyeball size (generally) related to body size in animals? | [
"In most cases like this I would look at the evolutionary drivers. Hunter or prey, day or night etc. Eagles and hawks hunt during the day, owls mostly at night so there are different requirements and different size eyes and vision. Killer whales hunt near the surface, Sperm whales in the deep so they have bigger ey... | [
"Intelligence is not correlated with actual brain size. If it were, whales would have already developed interstellar travel - their brains are as big as a person. Elephants would likely be our terrestrial overlords. What seems to matter is brain size relative to body size. The head of a small dog is relatively the ... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the title:",
"pos": "Represent the post:",
"neg": "Represent the post:"
} |
What's happening when someone wakes up from surgery/a coma/head injury and knows a different language? How would it be possible for someone to materialize knowledge of all that vocabulary, and sentence structure? | [
"That doesn't actually happen. Those stories are creations of TV shows or tabloid magazines."
] | [
"Some of them do... long term memory and short term memory are very different things. Learning to speak language is something we encode in ourselves at a young age. Even then, you are incorrect here as people often do forget how to put words together in the sentence they are attempting properly. People with this di... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question about Neuroscience:",
"pos": "Represent the document about Neuroscience:",
"neg": "Represent the document:"
} |
Why do airplane emergency oxygen masks have bags if they are meant to not inflate? | [
"They inflate temporarily, if you pause in breathing, so that the oxygen can flow out of the source continuously. When you next inhale, the bag deflates again. It other words, it's a *buffer* in the oxygen flow."
] | [
"It's the altitude. Most jets are not pressurized, and the higher up you go, the thinner the air gets. It's not a factor of speed, because even slow moving prop planes like a Lancaster bomber from WWII required the use of oxygen masks. Passenger plane pilots don't require oxygen masks because the cabins are pressur... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit query:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document:"
} |
Why is 60 FPS the base for smoothness for PC gaming? | [
"Basically, you want your FPS to match the refresh rate of your monitor. Most monitors are 60hz, therefore 60 fps is the ideal for them to be in sync. However, if you get a 144hz monitor and runs a game at 60 fps it won't seem as smooth because they are not in sync. Monitors with a higher refresh rate are becoming ... | [
"Hardware is faster than software, which indicates the PS4 will have faster framerate than if it used software rendering."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about videogame development:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit comment about videogame development:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit comment:"
} |
how do show/ movie directors get shots and scenes of totally abandoned cities? | [
"They're not in real cities. They're on a movie set, and the rest of the city is faked with CGI. Check out [this demo reel](_URL_0_) of how prevalent CGI is in TV shows."
] | [
"Many of these events are recurring or there are similar events. So for example if it going to be a sports event, they might use last-years footage to spice up that commercial. If it going to be something new, the commercials usually feature participants or previously taken footage of participants with some generic... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit text:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit text:"
} |
How does something, like an internal parasite, survive without the need of oxygen? | [
"Parasites usualy have slower metabolims and doesnt require as much oxygen to survive. Guts have low levels of oxygen from the air you swallow while breathing eating etc and thats enough for them. Some parasites on the other hand are anaerobic creatures which means they dont need oxygen to survive at all."
] | [
"Bacteria can produce toxins like Cholera toxin, which messes up with your cellular machinery and causes diarrhoea / dehydration. Viruses destroy your cells in order to reproduce, so a runaway infection will lead to complete destruction of an organ / organ system. All organisms need resources to grow, and these pat... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit document:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit document about Medical:"
} |
Why can two engines have the same horsepower, but one will produce more torque? | [
"This one is pretty simple math: Power = torque x RPM (speed) If power is constant, an increase in torque = decrease in RPM. So if we have 1 power, 1 torque, and 1 RPM (ignoring units for simplicity): 1 = 1x1 If you have another engine with 2 torque but 0.5 RPM: 2 x 0.5 = 1 Same power."
] | [
"Power is force times speed. If you increase the speed( or the rpm) you can have more power in the same volume. A bike that goes up to 18.000 rpm can develop roughly four times the power of a car that goes up to 5000 supposing every other aspect of the engine is the same between both."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the question:",
"pos": "Represent the sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the sentence:"
} |
Why do modern cinemas still use projectors? | [
"If they're using a blu-ray player, that entire wall would have to be a tv-type screen, making it the complete opposite of cost effective."
] | [
"Why do some parts of the world call gasoline petrol?"
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit title:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit sentence:"
} |
Why is the head of a university called a Vice-Chancellor? | [
"Because the Chancellor is a fairly ceremonial position / a governance position. In the british model (which is where the name comes from), chancellor's usually basically the chairman of the university's governing council (senate), whereas the VC is the actual person in charge of university operations. It's analogo... | [
"The geographical references in the Cossacks reply were the titles the Sultan claimed in his initial demand that they submit to his authority. The Sultan titled himself as the authority over all those locations; the professions mentioned by the Cossacks are insulting because they are base labor jobs. A modern equiv... | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the post:",
"pos": "Represent the sentence:",
"neg": "Represent the sentence:"
} |
Why do humans kiss? Like why is it that specific body part? | [
"There are a lot of nerve endings on your lips to protect you from hurting yourself while you eat, so in the right context it can feel good. It's likely a learnt behaviour originating from when parents would pre-chew food for their babies and spit it into their mouths, how romantic."
] | [
"It's a submissive show of affection. You are the dominant member of the pack. Also, people are delicious (because of the salty skin)."
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the Reddit question about Social Sciences:",
"pos": "Represent the Reddit answer about Social Sciences:",
"neg": "Represent the Reddit answer:"
} |
What would happen if the sun disappeared? | [
"We wouldn't know it had disappeared for around 8 minutes ish. After 8 minutes we would no longer receive light from the sun, nor would we be affected by the presence of the sun (as gravitational waves travel at the speed of light meaning that we would still be under the effects of the sun's presence for a few minu... | [
"ASAP Science actually covered this if you want to check out their channel. I believe the video is titled, \"What if humans disappeared?\""
] | eli5_question_answer | {
"query": "Represent the query:",
"pos": "Represent the argument:",
"neg": "Represent the argument about Science:"
} |
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