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c8537u | The Australian Reserve Bank just lowered our interest rate to 1%. If it goes negative wouldn't that mean it'd be better to store your money under your mattress? Hence, creating a massive panic from people emptying their savings accounts | At 1% it's already negative if you count in inflation. Yes it's still better at a bank compared to your matress, but if you want to keep a bigger amount of money from losing its value you need to Invest into something.
That is the goal of the bank | 03715019-81c3-4fc6-93e1-e39b4adb4605 |
c8559m | If we've never discovered life outside of Earth, what does it mean to say we've "discovered organic compounds" on a meteor? | Organic compounds contain carbon. Compounds that don’t contain carbon are inorganic.
The compounds that living things are made of on Earth contain carbon, and are called _organic compounds_. The idea is to discover areas of distant planets that contain the compounds that _could_ be evidence of living things, and then look more closely to see there are living things there. | 2def624a-8b19-4282-be33-8eac92818772 |
c85e7t | How does IT block thousands of websites with the click of a button instead of having to manually type in all the restricted sites? | There are two ways to do it easily.
You can either whitelist, which is allow, certain websites and have it automatically block the rest. This is only done if you want to only allow access to a few sites and nothing else, like only the company website and email servers. I've mostly seen this done on access terminals where people can apply to something like the college online, but can't go elsewhere.
Another option is to get a list that already has the websites you want blocked, and just put that into your filter. This is the most common version, is available from basically any filter company and can be really customizable (say my company wants to block social media, game websites but allow porn, I can just choose those lists and combine them). | b376b5da-93ef-4c04-adf2-f4b8ee31a784 |
c85sea | Why does liquid butter taste so much different than solid butter | Because it is emulsified when solid. In liquid form it gets separated. You can see the water and fat separate. Just like mayonnaise. The base Content is oil, milk, and other stuff. They won't taste same when separate. | 6d86a19e-fa68-4f11-b50c-a8e921c0fe41 |
c85uw0 | How do photons turn into matter. | An interaction (annihilation or scattering of particles) can take place only if - among other things - energy and momentum are conserved. That means one single photon can't turn into matter particles. This is impossible because a massless system can't to turn into one with mass due to the energy and momentum conservation. However, two photons *can* annihilate because the combination of two photons moving towards eachother has an effective mass (through E = mc^(2)). | 90f516f3-1ce5-4f75-ab34-3907f257ddd2 |
c85z03 | How are Octopus able to modify their genetic code and what purpose does that serve? | It's a simplification but you can think of DNA as blueprints on paper in a drawer and RNA as a digital blueprint.
When a living organism grows, it pulls out the paper DNA blueprint and builds the new growth according to the specifications on paper to get an exact copy. Well... sort of exact. When you duplicate DNA (ie. when you have children), small mistakes can creep into the work and that's how you get mutation. You tried to get an exact copy and you got a Chinese knockoff instead.
Since DNA doesn't really change, it means you don't really change during your lifetime (other than the changes already encoded in your DNA).
RNA is similar but unlike DNA, RNA is easier to change. Like a digital set of instructions that you can open, edit and save. That's not usually what happens with RNA but it's possible. RNA is like an e-mail with an attachment of instructions that gets send around your own body.
What happens with octopi is that certain triggers, for example environmental changes, can trigger an RNA change. Water gets warmer? That triggers a change to the octopus' RNA so it becomes better able to cope with the heat. It doesn't mean the octopus is a conscious designer of it's own body like some kind of SciFi monster that evolves on the spot. It just means that certain triggers, that we honestly don't really understand all that well, can cause changes in octopus RNA.
The big difference is that in most animals, adaptation only occurs through evolution. Those little mistakes in the DNA? Well sometimes they work out positively and it means your children have a positive mutation that helps them survive. It doesn't help you though because your DNA didn't change. It only changed when you duplicated your DNA to reproduce.
The octopus however can experience changes in it's RNA. The e-mail it sends around it's own body can have changes in it's instructions. So the octopus himself can become more heat resistant, more cold tolerant etc. | 91a4c972-bac7-49a1-a080-9c669de9a5d2 |
c86kyq | Can you gain tan over tattoos? | Yes - the tattoo ink is contained within the dermis. The skin above that can tan normally and dull the tattoo.
Additionally, tattoos are damaged by direct sunlight; the colours in the ink will fade and break down, causing blurring and fading of the tattoo. So keeping it out of the sun entirely or using high SPF lotion is always recommended. | e229c403-d944-4f82-a5a0-da975c4b6eb0 |
c8749s | Why are cross-bred animals like mules and ligers always sterile? | The offspring wind up with different numbers of chromosomes that don't line up very well.
& #x200B;
Here's a longer explanation: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) | b1fdc224-4b6e-44fb-b08a-8da704a174bd |
c87k40 | Why does 37°C weather feel unbearably hot when that's more or less the normal temperature of our insides? | Because our body produces heat on its own already. Once the air temperature is above our body temperature the air doesn't cool us anymore which means the body has to drastically increase its efforts to not overheat. | 2267b9ea-b9ba-42c1-8bee-303bccba8f50 |
c885yo | I've always heard that not eating breakfast is bad for you, but what are the actual consequences if you skip breakfast? | The idea that "breakfast is the most important meal" is a myth. Here is an article with links you can follow regarding the history of the Quaker/Kellog invention of breakfast as we know it, and the weird religious nonsense behind the creation of this myth: _URL_0_ | 49b24d1c-52ee-4c0b-96d0-eefcec1364c6 |
c88osa | What is happening when you stare into a light and then see patterns when you blink? | It used up all light sensor cells in your retina. They take a while to regenerate back, so you have a blindspot that your brain fills these patterns | 22238239-c33d-4324-a619-2b0cf4dedd21 |
c88qgb | Why do people shake Polaroid photos after taking them? | The original Polaroid technology needed to dry before it set, thus the “need” to shake it and expose it to air and probably to discourage users from touching the film while it dried.
Modern Polaroids are actually laminated under a plastic film, so it’s no longer necessary to shake them. In fact Polaroid advise against it. | c97d9cfc-41c3-444c-b731-219b6276cbbb |
c8920q | How does hail work when its summer and the temperatures are way above freezing? | Temperatures are not above freezing a few Km up in the air.
Hail falls too fast to melt before it hits the ground. | 1d7ed0ca-434b-450f-aa81-0f9dd21e2358 |
c8993r | why do pigeons always flock around tourists and other birds less so? | Because where tourists are, discarded food likely is. Pigeons are a domesticated species. As a whole, they've evolved to live alongside humans. Other birds haven't undergone this process, so they don't have the innate programming of "If you go near people there's more likely to be food", and they also still have a strong sense of caution - its safer to not get close to this unknown thing so we won't get close. | d2f08546-de70-459b-8db8-9663c1952a96 |
c89ew3 | Earth's magnetic field is huge. What stops our metals from slamming into the ground ? | Earth is not magnetic, Earth has a magnetic field. There is a bit of a difference. It is not like the ground you stand on attract metal (well, it does due to gravity, but that has nothing to do with metal specifically, just all matter).
Metal is, however, affected by the magnetic field. Think of a compass, it works exactly because the magnetic field pulls the metal needle. Now, where does your needle point? Not toward Earth itself, right? It points parallel to Earth (well, somewhat - Earth is not flat, but you get the idea). This is because the magnetic field is kind of "parallel" to the surface for most places on Earth (some differences when at the magnetic poles, obviously).
You can also think of a magnet with two poles. Try to put another magnet near it, does it try to get to the center? No, to the poles, right? Same for Earth and your compass or other metals.
Now why don't all metals go towards the poles then? Because the magnetic field is quite weak. Again, think of the compass, you have to make it so that it floats relatively easy with hardly any friction to make it move. If a small needle can hardly move, then making bigger metal parts move is even harder. Gravity is actually pulling much more on metals than the magnetic field (and gravity it self is an extremely weak fundamental force, but let's not get deep into that).
Another thing that matters is how the magnetic field "looks like". It is uniform. It doesn't actually try to pull things toward the poles (or repel) - it pretty much just align things. This, *again,* is the behaviour you can see with a compass. | 8bcbdc05-b48d-445d-b6c5-3d5c3444ccd7 |
c89m1x | Why current computer keyboards are not in alphabetic order? | Because people got good at typing with the current layout and it would be inconvenient for people to learn new typing skills when switching from typewriters to computers.
There are more efficient keyboards out there (not alphabetic) but we stick with qwerty. | ee03d278-cffe-43cd-a3ec-7220840ffb8d |
c89mq6 | why even when you’re dehydrated, do you sometimes have to wake up to urinate in the middle of the night? | Dehydration is your body not having enough water, that doesn’t mean that your body does not have any water. So you can still drink water, have you body ingest the water, and urinate even if you’re still dehydrated.
Your body urinates all liquids you drink regardless of whether your dehydrated or not because dehydration is the result of an amount, or unable to reach that amount. | 234a5fa6-ea63-4802-a553-e252d126c737 |
c89s6m | Why is 4/4 the most natural time signature for music? | It isn't just some innate thing. Other time signatures can feel just as natural, be we are just used to 4/4, especially in western culture. Actually, 3/4 is also quite natural here.
Some other cultures have other time signatures more common and will feel they are much more natural than western cultures, simply because they are used to it. You can also look at dance, some middle eastern cultures dance to things like 7/8.
Musicians that plays a lot of different time signatures can "easily" learn to make them natural - it just takes some time and practice.
Another aspect is even and odd. 4/4 for example is even, so you can easily bop your head up and down and it always fit neatly - meaning all bars are the same. So you can bop with down (D) and up (U) and for a bar it would be D-U-D-U, then repeating. 3/4 on the other hand would be D-U-D, but then next bar would be U-D-U. Now, this feels natural to most people in western culture because we are used to 3/4. But how about 7/8? I've seen musicians screw up when practicing this just because they get confused about how to bop their head, or tap their foot. In a sense, how is it really different from 3/4? Same problems should occur, but it is a matter of what we are used to. 6/8 feels much easier even if you are not used to it because it is even, so if you try to bop your head or something each bar is the same. This means you can suddenly screw up, essentially it feels just like during it for 4/4.
TL;DR: You can learn to feel other time signatures as something natural, you are just used to 4/4 and 3/4 in western culture. | ae98e22a-b4ca-4998-ac33-eaaa1749bff3 |
c89vl4 | What are the benefits of standing up at work versus sitting down? | Standing is straight up better, most of the time.
Our ancestors stood, crouched down etc. for most of their time. Their bodies slowly became more and more adjusted to do that more and more efficiently. The result of that is what we have in our bodies.
Sitting all day can cause problems with your lower back mainly, especially if you sit like a wobbly piece of jelly (which we all do).
Your legs require constant stress in order to build muscle, they are the biggest limbs on your body and have enormous capacity for strength; thus they need both light and heavy loads; but much more the former. Standing will build your leg muscles slowly, bascially.
There are a million knock-on effects which come about from sitting down all day. Heart disease, diabetes, general mortality risk, colon cancer, general back pain. All of those are reduced, or as with colon cancer, nearly eliminated, by addition of standing for 30, 60, 240 minutes in a day more than prior.
Forgot to mention leg blood clots. Those are bad. | 23cc42b3-bd00-424b-a499-65f72241bffa |
c89wdr | After seeing a little spider dance to itself in the mirror, it made me wonder; are humans the only animals who are able to recognize that it is themselves in the reflection? | Cats are a curious case. They don't seem to recognise themselves in the mirror but as soon as they realise that there is no real cat they ignore the reflection as irrelevant just as they might ignore a shadow that follows their movements. They must know the reflection is somehow related to them like a shadow is but either don't care or don't make the connection that that is what they look like to others. | 50322bdc-cb8e-4d1e-9276-b5d5be0b90a4 |
c8abd4 | Why are hot roads reflective when looked at from a flat angle | Its basically a mirage. Light is actually infinitely interesting.
If you remember refraction from school, you should also recall a phenomenon called total internal reflection (TIR). TIR occurs only when light travels from a denser to a rarer medium and hits the boundary between the two media at a the "critical angle" or any angle above that value, so its a bit difficult to observe in everyday life (since we usually perceive light in air, which has quite a low density).
When the air near the tarmac heats up, the molecules move about more rapidly than the relatively cooler air above it, making the air above denser than the air below. This satisfies the condition for TIR.
An important thing to note is that the road is only reflective a certain distance ahead of you. So when you drive ahead, the reflective surface also moves with you. This is where the critical angle comes into play. Only light hitting the rare air closer to the road is totally internally reflected to your eyes.
TLDR; read up on how mirages are formed. | d36e012e-9757-41a5-8cd2-b4c519d99541 |
c8al1v | How do satellites distinguish between all the billions of signals emitted by all the devices in the world? | Very few of the devices that people use day-to-day communicate directly with satellites (aside from GPS, but it only receives data broadcast from the satellites to every GPS devices). If you do not own a boat or an airplane, you likely also do not own any device that can transmit to a satellite (this is actually true even if you do own a boat or airplane, but you're more likely to find satellite phones and similar devices in these places). You of course *can* buy such a thing, but they're expensive to operate because two-way satellite communication has very limited bandwidth. Satellite TV can send lots of data because it sends the exact same data to every device listening. Rather than working like a whole bunch of individual telephone calls, it's essentially just one big loudspeaker aimed down from space. | 3dc45a9b-788d-46f8-bb98-172c34ce9537 |
c8aqrs | The effect of a ceiling fan on air pressure in a room? | Nope, you have a closed system. Whatever underpressure you get will have equal over pressure somewhere else. | 6354f74e-2357-4f71-b7e2-219760324cb2 |
c8aqut | How exactly does someone die from drinking too much water? | Too much water causes sodium to leave the cells and enter the blood. This gradual dilution isn't a problem except the sodium is lost in small amounts as you urinate. Eventually enough sodium is lost to where muscle cells cannot function and your heart does not reliably generate an electrical impulse to beat. There are also problems with the brain that would lead to death, but the heart is the easiest to explain. | 6825b156-a646-4487-ba4a-6a225c86591d |
c8azsi | How does grass make pollen? | It depends on what type of grass it is. In particular a lot of common lawn grasses like couch will flower when still quite short. For wind pollinated grasses it can be hard to even tell when they are flowering too unless you look closely - because they are pollinated by the wind rather than by insects they've never evolved the need to have colours, etc to attract insects so their flowers are roughly the same colour as the rest of the plant. | e0cae914-df62-4dab-be4c-8403d08294c6 |
c8b61a | Negative tempretures (on the Kelvin scale) | Quantum thermodynamics isn't macro physics as you interact with temperature in your kitchen. In macro physics, 0˚K is "absolute zero", where there is no heat. You can't get a block of metal to 0˚K, even in a lab, though you can get very close.
In exploring why you can't get to 0˚K, scientists have determined that the macro physics of temperature isn't right. Alas, this has happened before when they determined that the macro physics of motion isn't right either. Macro physics is right enough for almost everything you do, like cook or drive a car, but it's not right enough for everything.
Quantum physics of temperature, like quantum physics of mechanics, is quite counter-intuitive, it just seems wrong. However, quantum mechanics has been proven accurate in many scientific experiments. It is our best understanding of the world of the small, though there are still issues and 100 years from now some redditor may be making the same statement about it in favor of a proven string theory.
Quantum thermodynamics has a notion of negative temperature, and heat flows from an object with negative temperature to an object with positive temperature - the macro thermodynamics definition of "hot". However, you can't mix macro thermodynamics and quantum thermodynamics, that's the whole point of quantum thermodynamics. | 751c73cd-c6ea-48ab-b0e7-b68cb0b25384 |
c8bvkh | Why is it easier to learn a new language when you are younger and harder when you are older. | I feel it's because the language-learning methods imposed on adults are often weird and unnatural. Also, adults are often scared of making mistakes. I'll explain more:
Watch how a very young kid acquires a first-language. The kid doesn't care about correct grammar to begin with, they just muddle through with the words they know; often use wrong-tenses and generally pronounce everything wrong. In response, people around them don't refer the kid to a grammar table; they are (often) delighted at the kid's efforts.
However, we often subject adults to all kinds of strange, unnatural language-learning methods.
We don't teach children how to speak their first language by making them write down a list of different verb tenses; or by making them sit in a chair in a classroom. Younger kids learn by doing; by playing. They learn phrases, not discrete vocabulary. They learn to speak long before they read a word (typically).
However, for some bizarre reason, it has been decided that when an older person learns a new language they should (typically) sit with a text book, in a classroom, learning the 'structure' of a new language. They are also made to 'learn' to speak and write simultaneously. They are also often *not* encouraged to just go-for-it and make mistakes (like a baby naturally would). In addition, the education system eventually causes most people to fear making mistakes and getting things wrong. This also fucks up the language acquisition process for adults because many adults have been taught to fear experimentation.
Obviously, there's also the issue of neuroplasticity in the mix: Kids are neurobiologically more receptive to new information. But this is nothing that an adult couldn't simulate with a microdose of LSD. Nevertheless, I feel it's less about neuroplasticity and more about the awful way older children and adults are 'taught' a new language.
TL;DR: The way that older people are taught languages is mostly ineffective; plus adults often fear making mistakes. | 6be34cec-4a60-45f7-bbec-73bb1869f43c |
c8bxto | what does it mean when a game engine is tied to the fps? why is high fps sometimes casuing problem? | So tying a game to frames per second means that certain actions are updated on a per-frame basis. The simplest way to think about this is, consider a ball that bounces up and down. To create this we need to track acceleration, velocity, directional, and current position. Given we have finite resources, we can not track this in a continuous manner. Instead we need to update all these on a schedule. We could set this schedule to be every **X** milliseconds. Alternatively, we can tell the engine to update the numbers every time a frame is rendered. The issue with this, is that as frames increase or decrease, we change how often we update numbers. In this toy example that isn't necessarily a problem.
I will give two real world examples where this does become a problem. The first is Skyrim. Their engine is tied to FPS. In fact, when you go over 60 FPS everything tends to go berserk. But a real issue is with attacking and damage. Attacks occcur and then there is a "cool down" before another attack can happen. At higher FPS, these attacks can occur faster than at slow FPS. On the flip side, the player can take far more damage in the same "wall clock" amount of time. So in a way the game does not have "damage per second" but rather "damage per frame." So at 90 FPS, you can take 50% more damage per second, because there's more frames for this damage to occur in." It doesn't work exactly like that, but you get the picture.
The other example works exactly like that is Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. One of the weapons in that game was a laser cannon that dealt damage every frame. This is fine on consoles which all run the same frames per second. On PC however many players have 100+ FPS. Console generally run between 30 and 60 FPS (I believe AW was locked to 30 FPS.) This meant on PC this laser cannon did over three times the damage it did on consoles.
The moral of the story? Don't use frames to updated your game. | f638a759-76c9-4fe8-a62a-5d0524758554 |
c8crhd | why is burning plastics (like polyethylene) bad when it's a hydrocarbon like wood? | There are very hazardous substances out there which are "just hydrogen and carbon". One group of these are called "dioxins", which are produced in high quantities when plastics are burned and are highly toxic.
There is also the fact that plastics don't always totally combust, and small particles of unburned plastic entering the environment (or your body) can be dangerous. Since plastics aren't easily processed biologically this contamination is more hazardous than, for example, wood ash.
Also, as a final note, burning wood isn't exactly great for you. It may produce fewer toxic pollutants but it still produces a significant amount. | caa45dca-5eee-443e-8cc1-3341793799e8 |
c8ctps | How do cops/hospitals track down families so quickly after an accident? | Most people carry ID on them which means someone unconscious can be identified, from there it's generally from public records or other databases. Say you get in an accident and are unconscious and cannot identify yourself - police get your purse or wallet and look at your drivers license. If you're not driving with it, chances are you have registration in your car, or a credit card, or something else to identify you. From there, the government has vast records at their disposal - everything from birth records to marriage and divorce records and tax returns - that could be used to identify a spouse or parent(s) or other relative. As well as such things as place of residence, phone number, employer, etc. | 3e30d58f-8476-471f-8cad-6ddb6e2e749d |
c8d6oe | Why do wine bottles usually use corks instead of lids or caps? | Yes, it is to do with the fermentation process and allowing oxygen to enter the bottle as it ages.
Fermentation is what we call it when the yeast (living organisms) change the grape juice by eating the sugar and creating the alcohol and flavors of the finished wine.
*Many wines develop undesirable aromas under anaerobic –no oxygen– conditions; a small amount of oxygen will eliminate those trace* [*thiol compounds*](_URL_1_) *responsible for the aroma of rotten eggs* [*or burnt rubber*](_URL_2_)*. Oxidation products also react with the* [*red anthocyanin molecules*](_URL_5_) *from the grapes to create stable pigments in red wine.*
*The way a bottle is sealed will directly affect how much* [*oxygen passes into the wine*](_URL_3_) *each year. That will directly affect the aging trajectory and determine when that wine will be at its “best.”*
[*_URL_0_*](_URL_0_) | d7004082-a507-4a6f-b1d2-43ea91f7e906 |
c8dbm0 | How come that my phone sometimes goes from full Wifi reception and seeing several different networks to no reception seeing no networks without me moving at all? | General interference and frequency switching.
Something that draws a lot of power can cause enough interference to drown weaker network signal in noise.
Also over time the phone and transmitter tower switch to different frequencies which can lead to slight difference in their transmission range (towers have directional transmitters) but only when the signal is already very weak | 2c8668e1-8504-4950-bb15-8b1c91f961e7 |
c8dkxz | What do businesses use the app “Looker” for? | Looker is a data visualization tool, like Tableau. It takes data in its raw form and presents it in a friendly, human-readable form. It's very common when people like business executives want to peruse data. | 9c3b631c-4ef7-4fa8-9778-d14e4bc44abe |
c8dwcz | Why are there so many sign languages? | > Are sign languages connected to specific languages, like how English might be connected with American Sign Language?
In most cases, that's how it works, but not necessarily. For example, someone signing in American Sign Language would not be understood by someone who knew British Sign Language. Even though both sign languages are from an English language country, they are nothing alike.
> It would just seem to make more sense if there was one universal sign language.
It would also make more sense to have a universal spoken/written language. | 606649b5-e64f-4680-814d-b846e48ffc88 |
c8dzyx | If you are overweight, why can’t you live off of your fat preservatives and function normally? | You can live off it. That doesn't mean it'll be pleasant in the meantime. Your body generally wants to keep you alive - if you're not doing important things like eating, it's going to make you feel bad until you do.
Over a longer period of time, you'll start running into issues with some vitamin/mineral deficiencies and such as well. | bdecd081-91e0-450c-a925-42b2601d7693 |
c8ezpy | How do video game console emulators work? | A video game console is like a Mac computer - a customized OS designed to run on a limited hardware profile. The games are like the apps you can install on a Mac - specific programs designed to run on that specific OS. When you "install' your game, the Console OS reads the program instructions and then tells the hardware what to do.
When you emulate a console, you have to create a new version of that Console OS that can still read the game programs, but is capable of telling your computer hardware what to do. It isn't particularly complex, but the sticking points are:
- The limited hardware options of the console means that the OS and the games are optimized for a single hardware profile. Emulating it on a computer is usually much more processor intensive
- The console OS is copywritten, so it is usually not legal to emulate, since the emulator would require using copywritten code without permission. | fb6ae5aa-499d-455c-a2b5-fbfdc64235ae |
c8fgrp | Where do vitamins go? What happens? | The vitamins are taken into your blood through your small intestines, like all other nutrients. Then, they either stay there until used or are filtered out (like vitamin C) or they get stored in your fat until you need it (like vitamin A). You don't actually need all that much to work, just a trace amount to catalyze some specific reactions that don't need to happen very fast. We only need the vitamins because we can't synthesize them ourselves. | 81818def-6349-4446-978f-f5a6237f7557 |
c8fhvj | How does a theater projector that is only a few inches wide, create a perfectly clear picture hundreds of times it original size? | Basically you use a super powerful. lamp, shine it through a lens, through the film, and onto a sheet with a really high albedo, and the rest is on the film strips.
Getting it all in focus is the hard bit. | f9124bf5-9f21-4f5b-ae21-973883f33bba |
c8frb2 | What causes water to magnify images? | Between the water and your clear container that is holding the water, light that passes through isn't traveling at the same angle all the way through. It's getting bent (refracted) before it hits your eyes.
& #x200B;
So imagine light is traveling like this ========
& #x200B;
A small object, with light moving in one direction, but then the light hits water, and it goes ======== <
(it's hard to show with ASCII).
& #x200B;
Anyway, the light is now traveling at different angles, so the top of the object is now further up and the bottom of the object is further down, making it seem larger when you see it. | f940a7af-f34a-4bfe-981d-399f8f5fa27e |
c8fuof | my mom has brown eyes and my dad has blue eyes (with slight heterochromia) and i have green eyes. how did this happen? | Eye color is controlled by at least 15 genes, so its heredity is not trivial. You have a mixed set of genes. | a15b24f8-2792-47c5-b2fc-766d333e9a65 |
c8g1ms | Since the hypothalamus is located near the brain and it regulates the body's temperature, how would the human body react if the head is at one extreme temperature and the rest of the body is at an opposing extreme temperature? | The hypothalamus doesn't sense its own temperature in order to regulate the body. It gathers the data from nerves all over the body and uses that. If most of your body is hot but your head is cold, the hypothalamus will "know" that and will tell the body to cool itself down.
Also, your body is usually pretty good at evening out the temperature throughout, because of the blood flowing around. So even if your head is in a much colder *environment*, that doesn't mean that the head *itself* is much colder (except a few extremities like ears and nose). What's more important is the total or average heat exchange between your body and the environment around you. | 34ed39ca-5725-4315-ac87-1a2822377918 |
c8guio | At what point in human development do specialized molecular structures such as ATP synthase form? Are there stages of development for molecular structures or they are already developed as soon as they come to exist? | ATP synthase exists in human egg and sperm cells, so it's there before the time a new human begins to develop.
How it works is you have an egg cell from the mother, which has all the parts a normal cell needs to function, except it has half the normal amount of DNA. A sperm cell from the father enters the egg and provides the other half of the DNA needed to make a human. This fertilized egg then grows into a person, if all goes according to plan.
So there is no point where a human is coming from some pre-cellular material. All known life currently came from some previous life form reproducing.
If you would like to know about the origins of life itself, that's a bit more complicated. | 3116dfc0-6db9-40f5-adbf-a93e7a01a90b |
c8hj5v | Why do people shake when they are scared? | When you start to feel scared/nervous your body releases stress hormones that send energy to your cells because your fight or flight response gets triggered. | e54dd339-c74b-4c81-9fee-350c576a4038 |
c8hpjm | What is the self-torque property of light? | Light is a *transverse* wave, and a *particle*. As a wave it can even be circularly polarized, (Imagine a wave down a rope but instead you send a corkscrew wave down.) however what scientists discovered wasn't actually about circular polarization at all. As a particle light has *angular momentum* and this spin of the particle is separate from it's polarity. Scientists found a way to shoot a Lazer pulse of photons that seem to speed up their spin or *increase their angular momentum* in midair. | 9f1e6631-0ec1-46a5-aa85-c2dd02a0a134 |
c8hv1z | How does exercise lower your resting heart rate when exercise itself increases your heart rate dramatically? | Your heart is a muscle the pumps blood. As you exercise your heatrate increases. This strengthens your heart over time. As your heart grows stronger, it can pump more blood per pump. Your body only needs a certain amount of blood moved at a time, so stronger pumps means less pumps needed per minute. | a2409738-c417-4ca1-a7db-1a97047778ab |
c8i3az | Why is it lightbulbs have to be replaced every so often but seemingly small lights (like those that indicate a TV is off/on) can last for 10 years or more? | Older light bulbs are incandescent lights. They make light by heating a small metal filament with electricity. Over time that filament wears out and eventually breaks.
Small lights like the power light on an appliance have been mostly LEDs for probably 30 years now. LEDs have a *much* longer lifespan, but until the last few years were pretty expensive to use in applications where you needed an actual bright light source.
Now LED light bulbs are getting pretty cheap, and those will go years and years without needing replacement. | d128a81d-8e00-49bd-818b-afd2ed9f32cc |
c8i6lu | How does instinct work? How does an organism know how to do something without learning it from something else? | Everyone is missing an extremely important distinction between "DNA" and the expression of that DNA. ALLIRIX alluded to this but I'll go into more detail.
We have a ton of DNA, many times we have multiple copies of traits that you may have learned in school are dominant and recessive. Well we also have a vast amount of DNA that is not "turned on" or expressed. These pieces make up an incredibly complex ecosystem of traits that can be turned on or off throughout an organisms life in reaction to external stimuli. A great example of this is Jews that survived the Holocaust. If we simply went the evolution route we would say that people who are able to survive famine better would be the most likely to survive and reproduce. What we actually see is a change in genetic expression of how their metabolisms reacted to food.
Epigenetics is such an amazing study that we still know very little about. But one thing that is very impressive is the ability to change the expression, or in simplified terms "turn on or off" specific traits. While we simplify this in middle/high school science and say dark hair is a dominant trait while light hair is recessive, there are many traits which are controlled by multiple pieces of DNA which combine to create an outcome (or in this case a protein) that causes certain physical or mental manifestations of said information.
Epigenetics is so curious that we can actually change the expression of our DNA simply through thought. Now this seems like some crazy witchcraft but there are studies showing things like meditation, saying positive things about yourself and the way we treat others can physically change our expression of our own DNA (which may be more complicated as these actions also reduce stress and increase oxytocin levels which could be causing or compounding the changes in expression).
Now the kicker, epigenetics is also a really great tool in genetic modification because instead of adding or removing DNA, which comes with a slew of ethical issues and is very difficult to do to EVERY cell in the area you wish to effect, you can simply turn on/off the genes that are already there to cause your body to change/react/suppress certain processes or traits that may not be beneficial (such as allergies or susceptibility to disease etc.)
I originally learned of epigenetics in my botany classes and many plants have the ability to grow in completely different morphological forms based on their environment. My professor compared it to people who could get extremely dark from sun exposure. We all have these abilities that we don't really see as epigenetic expression but it's there. When you go to the gym often and yearn for that feeling of afterglow you get from working out, when you find your love for cooking, when you learn to play an instrument, when you spend time with loved ones. Everything that happens in life is constantly effecting our expression of genetic material that is already inside of us.
We all understand that we pass down physical copies of our DNA but scientists are starting to show more and more that we actually can pass down our epigenetic expression of that DNA as well as in the example of Jews that survived the Holocaust above. Recently there has been a lot of discussion on the effects of PTSD and anxiety on epigenetic expression and children of parents who had either of the aforementioned issues are more likely to have it as well. Interestingly enough, before having children if you seek help and treat these issues with counseling and therapy you can prevent the passing of this trait (or so scientist theorize based on the limited data and studies so far). | 446d7830-e425-47d0-aff9-56bdbb19f473 |
c8icve | why does squinting make your vision better when you’re near-sighted? | The reason things are blurry is because light is scattering onto your retina when it passes through your lens. Normally your lens is supposed to bend in order to focus the light so you get a clear image.
Squinting lets less light into your eye, therefore less light will be scattered, and the resulting image will be less blurry. | 2b22ed6f-8e21-4b91-b47f-8dee8274a040 |
c8ihat | How do some humans have a naturally beautiful singing voice, while others can’t carry a tune to save their life? | Part of singing well is listening well.
If you can't hear the difference between one note and another, or if you can't hear the detail in the sounds you produce, how are you going to know how to produce the right sounds? | 460daec4-db0c-4258-b85b-8fb41e93141a |
c8iixt | how does performing music change their ability when normally they have trouble speaking, like Mel Tillis or Kodi Lee? | If I follow your question correctly [this video ](_URL_0_) from a rapper and poet called Scoobius Pip might help. He's a really talented and unusual artist who suffers from a stutter. In really basic terms your brain uses a number of different parts while singing that it does not need for speech alone. Somehow having to follow the rhythm of a song can allow people with speech impediments to bypass the part of their brain that causes something like a stutter. I would also highly recommend checking out the book "This Is Your Brain On Music," which is a great exploration into the neurology and psychology and our deepest understanding of what music is. | 739338cf-6471-4cdd-a906-f974c7b55eec |
c8iozl | Why & How are signatures ever legitimate and acceptable throughout the world? | It serves a function to say “a person was here.” As opposed to a non-personal transaction. Similar to a chip in your debit card.
Let’s say whatever transaction you are referring to didn’t require a signature. The business next store requires one for the exact same transaction. Does that prevent a non zero amount of fraud for nearly no effort on the part of the business? Does requiring a signature chase away potential business? Would a reasonable person avoid that business rather than sign their name?
It’s safe to say that it’s not preventing business and may prevent a small amount of fraud. Not all of it, but if something negligible helps, it’s something. | 70085ecd-8f86-4b88-8da6-551e354a68f4 |
c8ipl0 | How does fabric work? As in, going from say, raw cotton, to a cotton sheet or T-shirt | Friction
Consider this.
Take two pieces of paper and lay them on top of each other. Now pull them apart. Easy.
Now take two phone books and overlay the pages one at a time. Now try to pull them apart. The friction from all the pages is so high you would need two semi trucks to pull them apart.
_URL_0_
Same goes for rope. You have all those small short fibers. They get wrapped around each other into tiny threads with the friction between individual fiber preventing them from separating. They you wrap the tiny threads around each other to form larger threads. Then you wrap the larger threads around each other. Eventually you have a rope. | bb9d275f-0455-493e-afa3-8f290e48560e |
c8iujh | How does dopamine affect the brain? Is there a finite amount of it? | There is a finite amount of it, but it's not quite as simple as "used" dopamine being "useless". It can be and is taken up into the cell that released it (and others nearby too) and repackaged into vesicles for re-release when needed.
As for how dopamine affects the brain, that's a complex answer. Like so complex that people devote their careers to trying to answer it. The biggest takeaway is that dopamine's effects on the brain depend on a ton of things, like where the dopamine's coming from, where it's acting (both region- and receptor-specific), how much is released or how it is released, etc. (Side note, as a neuroscientist, I'm inclined to believe *everything* in the brain is complex like this. If someone tries to tell you some pop-science garbage like "dopamine is the reward chemical", understand it's probably wayyy more complicated than that.)
For a very quick overview, dopamine is broadly involved in movement, motivation, reward processing, and lactation.
For example, Parkinson's results from the degradation of dopaminergic neurons in a specific area of the brain, and with that you get trouble initiating purposeful movement and trouble stopping non-purposeful movement.
Dopamine's also heavily involved in reward processing and cue learning, which are both disrupted in drug addiction. All addictive drugs (e.g., heroin, cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, etc) increase dopamine concentration in the nucleus accumbens, which is thought to mediate the rewarding effects of the drugs.
Not going to post any links at the moment cos I'm lazy, but you can do more reading on wikipedia if you're interested. | 81c1efdc-d256-4139-ab3f-bf39b9e1f34a |
c8j0gh | the controversy around transfats | Can you link an article that talks about the contreversy? | 1f5a0d0c-9f1b-459b-9e45-e22b7c4cd638 |
c8j0y4 | How to montage/video/tribute editors edit clips to have the dialogue but not the music attributed to the actual scene in the TV show/movie? | They can go to the source material which has separate audio tracks for each audio. The actor speaking, sound effects, music, ambience. The original production of the film means mixing the sounds to the final product. | 44147dbe-ebaf-4484-af36-d81f11f360a4 |
c8j66r | Why is August (in the northern hemisphere) almost always hotter than when the sun is most directly overhead the north in June? | Think of the earth as a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Now think of pouring water into that bucket, starting off slowly increasing the rate and then decreasing the rate. The level of the water will increase as long as the water going in exceeds the water going out. So the peak level may not be at the peak input.
The same is true of heat in the Northern hemisphere. While the maximum input of solar energy peaks in June, as long as the energy input is above the level of energy lost the temperature will continue to rise. | 9894de1c-9a44-4fea-be16-95292ea13c98 |
c8j8fy | How do clothing retailers operate and profit? | No they sell them at 400% price and then mark it down as 75% off so people buy them. And if someone like it so much they buy it at 400%? That's even better | 602abbc1-a128-44dc-8a73-7c88405e81eb |
c8j9ga | Since saliva production decreases during sleep, what causes drooling while sleeping? | The important word in your title is "reduces". You don't stop producing saliva while you sleep. And depending on how your head is laid on the pillow, the muscles holding your mouth closed can go slack, resulting in saliva slowly dribbling out of your slightly-open mouth. | 7cb2c3aa-39dd-4fad-9e55-a3bda99c4abb |
c8jdhx | What did people do about wisdom teeth before dental surgery? | Well they would pull them if they could and if not you lived with the pain or died of infection. | 08d983a8-d367-499e-a1db-169f990a3ea9 |
c8jkop | How do flea collars work? | The collar produces a scent that ticks don’t like. Since the ticks do not like the scent, they don’t bite you or the animal the collar is on. Others like mosquitos work in a similar way | c3ef1d0f-6939-4ca1-9381-9d598bb82a0c |
c8jslz | Why is Jurassic Park not possible in real life? | Because DNA simply doesn't last that long. DNA degrades over time after an organism dies. Even under the best circumstances, DNA completely degrades in about 6.8 million years. Dinosaurs have been dead for nearly 10 times longer than that. There's simply no dinosaur DNA left to use. | 1ff23ce8-f1d8-445d-9d56-59ee5ba25f77 |
c8ju1t | What is solar wind? | a constant flow of electrons, protons, alpha particles, and other particles with large amounts of kenitic energy, magneticly charged | f983402f-440c-4dc0-a119-ef3b7a149770 |
c8jxip | How do digital video game "keys" work? | Think of it like a receipt number or proof of purchase. It’s just a serial number used to prove that you purchased the game. | ba0e10d1-980f-4089-ac33-2c268cc8a0a9 |
c8k0wk | How does prosthetic arms recognise the function they are supposed to perform? | Your arms have nerves that go all the way down to the ends of your fingers. Even if you lose the arm or part of it, you still have those nerves. What prosthetics that are able to be controlled by the mind do is pick up the electrical signal that is sent down the arm and perform that task, such as grabbing and letting go. | 25f069a8-2af0-4e00-9a22-1b9b3668aac4 |
c8kii6 | In a closed loop system such as earth, how does animal production contribute to rising CO2 and CH4 levels? | Earth is not a closed system. It receives, at the very least, constant energy input from the Sun. This energy input allows for chemical and biochemical processes to occur (e.g. plants growing), and these processes in turn allow for the chemical synthesis of various things - such as the molecules comprising greenhouse gases - to occur as well.
Consider this, for example, happening on any given day:
* Sunlight provides energy for plants to grow, and these plants convert various available chemicals into complex molecules and compounds
* Animals eat these plants, breaking their complex bits into simpler constiuents that may include the things that make up greenhouse gases
* The animals excrete or die, either directly releasing the converted chemicals or being decomposed by microorganisms which then excrete them
This is a simplistic portrayal, but I think it may make the point. | c51f4da9-de06-46c0-bb94-7a3927a61d1a |
c8kkj2 | How did Hard Drives become so small over the course of 1956 to today? | The discovery of the "giant magnetoresistant effect", honored by a Nobel price, allowed the magnetic read head (and such the magnetic track) to become substantially smaller since the 1990s.
Then of course improvement into the magnetic layers and mechanics. | 3e20690b-5682-435d-82f0-2fdc83333f95 |
c8kpyg | What happens if someone joins the Navy and doesn’t know that they get extremely sea sick until after they are underway at sea? | They go to sick bay and get given anti sickness drugs, put up with the symptoms and eventually get used to it. Usually just before they hit land for a while and then have to go through the whole process of acclimatisation again. Souce: my dad was in the navy and gets sea sick. He still enjoyed his time as he did so much more than just feel sick on a ship. | afc4fb07-3557-43bf-86bb-02b92c804829 |
c8ksq2 | Why do people usually have to fast before an operation, and how does this work in case of an urgent, unplanned operation where the person has not been fasting? | Because of the general anesthesia. General anesthesia and the intubation process can make people vomit or regurgitate, and since you're unconscious and your normal reflexes are suppressed, you could aspirate stomach contents into your lungs, which can be fatal. Also for surgery on part of the digestive system itself, obviously you don't want food in there while surgeons are operating.
As for emergency surgery, doctors will determine the risk of performing the surgery right away vs the benefit of waiting. Usually if it's that serious that you need emergency surgery right away, they're just going to do it. Aspiration is pretty rare anyway, so if you can avoid it, fine, but if you're gonna die without surgery, they don't really have a choice. | 59509344-64c9-4927-b4bb-cc23512325f3 |
c8kz0k | Why do all mammals have two eyes, but specific insects and arachnids have more? | Actual ELI5: All vertebrates evolved from fish which already had two eyes. Spiders evolved from some of the earliest land Arthropods. Hunting spiders tend to have evolved extra pairs of eyes, which help them detect things to their sides and give them depth perception. | 91238184-0fdb-41a3-b901-fc67ce3ba005 |
c8l9b7 | Where is your DNA, and can it be changed by receiving donated blood or organs? | It's in every single cell in your body. It can not be changed, as every cell would have to be changed.
Donated organs and blood have a different DNA but are accepted in your body. They can't change what "your DNA" is though.
DNA can be altered in single cells through chemicals or radiation. This means we can modify the DNA of a single cell that turns into a whole human (a fertilized egg).
If you change the DNA of a cell in a living human you have a chance to end up with a cancer cell. | 81be89c7-95c6-45b3-b489-9c46c3ec7bcc |
c8lje6 | Why is it harder to open the door of a room when the AC is on? | The AC creates a positive pressure in the room, which pushes the door closed. As you open it into the room, you increase the pressure in the room further for a moment, which wants to force the door closed. If that’s what you meant. | b0db966e-8929-4fda-a657-5c16b3791f61 |
c8ly03 | How do prosthetics work? Like the really good arms with the individual moving fingers? | Most prosthetics with internal mechanisms work by using the muscles left behind after amputation in the upper limb. Electrodes are placed on them, and contraction of the muscle triggers the mechanism to move joints or extremities in the prosthesis. Others have toggle switches that can be operated by the amputee manually.
If you had no remaining muscles, there's no way to currently get a prosthesis to function using brain signals (like regular muscles would). Research is ongoing, but it's still early in development. | 17b102f0-f665-4f04-9955-1d16e4646271 |
c8m3lo | Why do so many ancient cities, especially the big ones, have dissapeared geographically after being abandoned? If nobody destroys them, shouldn't the structures and general architecture remain intact? | People like to reuse stuff. There's an abandoned city nearby? Free building material!
And anything that's made out of wood will rot away eventually. | 35e7947a-3f19-410b-b750-7f5e9f980a30 |
c8m3ru | Why do people move around and shake when they want to pee really bad? | Urine puts pressure on the bladder which in turn signals via nerves the need to pee. People instinctively move around to shake that urine so the bladder is under less strain and the nerves transmitting the idea of "I have to pee" ease off, resulting in a less severe need to go to the toilet. | 4cc276be-1b53-4674-9ca7-a3eb99ced2de |
c8mlxn | What would be the real dangers of putting water on a nuclear meltdown? | Very basically, explosions aren't always fire, simply, they're rapid expansions of matter, so in the show, they were worried about the extreme heat of the melting core touching a tank full of water. Now water when liquid is quite dense sitting in its container, but when it boils, it expands and becomes a gas (see where this is going?) so the scientists were worried that the massive amounts of water being touched by extremely high temperatures would instantly vaporise the water, creating a very rapid expansion of a great volume of water, creating a very large explosion. This explosion would cause even more damage to the reactor, totally damaging the other reactors and spreading radioactive material even further around. Hence they drained the water tanks :) | 6608b559-b827-43e6-9496-5f0203d7027f |
c8mocp | How are logic chips (AND/OR/NAND/etc) actually built to work like their chosen logic gate? | The basic building block of electrical/electronic gates is the transistor. You can think of a transistor as an electrically operated switch. This switch has an input, output and a "switch" (also an input). If the switch is "on" it connects the input to the output, if the switch is "off" the input is disconnected from the output.
By differing configurations of this switch (several transistors connected in different circuit patterns), all logical gates can be constructed. | 438c6c6c-fff6-4f42-8dcb-51c4d228d23e |
c8mzhy | How did the emergency services work during times of segregation in cities like NYC? | Everything was very community based, and most solutions arose out of need, not governance.
What I mean is, a community needed law enforcement, so they hired the best person for the job and called him sheriff. He deputized folks he thought were good for the job, and boom. You have a police force.
This is why Sheriffs (in most cases) are elected. It is a community driven service. | 855bdb7c-41fb-47d9-8686-2be1f3d1c99a |
c8n6jj | Why is rolling our eyes a natural response to something we perceive at dumb or annoying? | It’s a cultural, learned behavior., not a natural response to something dumb or annoying. This is backed up by literature and media from Shakespeare all the way up to the early 80’s where eye rolling was actually still seen/used as an expression of lust/attraction. The use of eye rolling to express annoyance is a very recent development. Studies have also shown that women use this far more than men and in some cultures only women do it. | 5afcfa10-583d-44f9-97c1-950f88ff0d06 |
c8nagy | what is the purpose of serving “consecutive sentences”? | A life sentence doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in jail for the rest of your life. It could mean that you’re eligible for parole after a certain number of years and so consecutive sentences would prevent that where “life without the possibility of parole” isn’t an option.
Also, it’s possible that one sentence may be over turned on appeal at some future date so it sentences are running concurrently, the other life sentences would already be running and getting towards a parole date.
Finally, it’s a statement to the victims, their family and society that each of the crimes is individually acknowledged as a separate harm. | dc6dc0e0-f3d7-406b-a45f-aa241222a0c0 |
c8nh92 | Why is the human anus hyperpigmented brown? | It's not uncommon for people to have anuses (and genital tissue in general) that's darker than the rest of their skin. In regards to the anus, it's for a few reasons. The first is that the skin around the anus is a transition area from external epithelium (skin) to the internal epithelium that lines the end of the digestive tract. These layers overlap and make that area of skin thicker. The epithelium surrounding the anus is also more keratinised than the surrounding skin and thus appears darker. Also, the area around the anus has a higher concentration of blood vessels, which also contribute to the skin appearing darker.
It does **NOT** have anything to do with poop. I can't stress that enough. | b6d85453-25ed-44af-941b-f305c6ad1969 |
c8nhn9 | How do our brains suppress traumatic experiences? And why? | Actually, from what I've read, the idea that people tend to suppress traumatic memories isn't scientifically supported.
To cite: "The 1980s saw the peak of an idea that was never based in science: the notion that people can suppress memories of traumatic events and those repressed memories can manifest as seemingly unconnected mental health issues, such as anxiety or eating disorders. The idea was popularized by the book The Courage to Heal (1988), in which the authors took the position that their therapy clients, especially women, who had such issues should be encouraged to recover memories of abuse, and if such memories could be dredged up, then they were real.
The concept of repressed memories led in part to the satanic panic of the 1980s, and many of those subjected to recovering techniques “remembered” not only being abused but also being part of satanic ritual abuse.
Recovered memory syndrome was a massive failure on the part of the mental health profession. The ideas, which were extraordinary, were never empirically demonstrated. Further, basic questions were insufficiently asked: Is there any empirical evidence to support the incredible events emerging from therapy, for example? Is it possible that the recovered memories are an artifact of therapy and are not real?
Now, with three decades of hindsight, we can say a few things with a high degree of confidence. Recovered memory syndrome is mostly, if not entirely, a fiction. People generally do not repress memories of extreme trauma (the existence of rare exceptions remains controversial). Further, as Elizabeth Loftus pointed out, memories are constructed and malleable things. Also, independent investigations by the FBI, other law enforcement agencies, and scholars never found any evidence of the satanic ritual abuse, murders, and other atrocities emerging in recovered memory sessions. The events simply never happened.
What emerged from the entire sad episode was an increased understanding of what is now called false memory syndrome, the construction of entirely fake memories. This is accomplished through guided imagery, hypnosis, suggestion, and group pressure. These techniques violate one of the basic rules of investigation: Never lead someone by putting words in their mouth. This is especially important if the person is vulnerable and confused.
While there is some legitimate controversy over whether it is even possible to repress such memories and accurately recall them later, there is no question that the massive repressed-memory industry of the 1980s and ’90s was not evidence-based." | 411a7ddb-e58e-42b9-a32f-08a27926f414 |
c8nkmv | How did the United States historically handle previous mass migrations into the country? | > Is the current event on the southern border unprecedented?
Well, no, it's the largest number of immigrants *since President Bush* -- only one before Obama.
Historically, [the current increase isn't really new](_URL_2_). More accurately, there was just a slow period that's the exception to the rule, which is that between 10 and 20% of the United States population has always been foreign-born.
> Did the centuries earlier migrants from Europe to the U.S. experience similar actions or circumstances?
Somewhat, yeah. [For example](_URL_1_), the Irish were widely despised and discriminated against by Anglo-Americans in the 19th century. [Italians too](_URL_0_). And Anglo-Americans hated Chinese so much they got Congress to pass the [Chinese Exclusion Act](_URL_3_).
The United States is accurately described as a nation of immigrants: Chinese-Americans, Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Mexican-Americans, etc. And each time there's been a wave of immigration that's been different from previous demographics, there's been a xenophobic backlash. | e06345f7-c4be-4c2b-a29c-a9c68b50b6b8 |
c8nuq5 | Why does Christian Rock have such a distinct identifying sound to it? | Someone once said to me that rock comes from a place of angst and hate and Christian rock always comes from love. Sounds legit. | db80149f-7c82-42bb-a70a-5b6d880b0225 |
c8o6sj | Why does humidity makes it feel hotter? | Your body regulates its heat in warm weather primarily through sweating. What happens is that your body excretes sweat, which then evaporates. As it does this, it takes some of your body heat with it, cooling your body overall.
In humid weather, the air is saturated with water vapor already. This actually slows the process of evaporation, which means your body will retain more heat for longer. | 9e786454-6ed6-420a-a489-ecc6b046b47d |
c8o7ep | What exactly was the prism surveillance program of the NSA and how was it implemented? | PRISM is a US government surveillance program where the NSA will work with US-based internet companies (Google, Yahoo, etc.) to collect data. Under PRISM, the NSA will have a list of "court-approved" search terms and these internet companies have to turn over any information they have on communications that use those terms. For example, if the word "crayon" is on the list, then Google will have to turn over any communications (emails, gchat messages, google searches, etc.) that contain the word "crayon" to the NSA. PRISM alone accounts for 91% of the NSA's internet traffic acquired. Basically PRISM is how the NSA collects people's internet data.
As far as how it was implemented, it was started under the Bush Administration as part of the "Protect America Act of 2007." | 37a31bb9-1f52-4341-8620-62da9f90ce80 |
c8ohpq | The physics that make the double bounce on a trampoline so effective and at launching kids so high in the air. | A trampoline works by storing energy in springs. When the trampoline is pressed down the springs extend and will then contract lifting the trampoline back up, launching the person standing on it.
The double bounce is just a way to store extra energy for an extra powerful launch. So one person press down on the trampoline, storing energy in the springs. Then the other person lands, pressing down further and storing even more energy. Then all this energy is released into the person who just landed who is launched twice as high. | 7ec0ed3b-d209-469e-a492-40709cc6e983 |
c8ohzy | Can you catch up on sleep? | You needed the sleep, so your body took the opportunity to fully rest. Short term sleep deficits (like if your 36-38 hours) if very occasional can be overcome with a lengthy sleep. The issue is more complex with longer, more frequent sleep deficits. For example if you are only able to get 4 hours of sleep per night during the week, a much longer 'sleep time' on Saturday/Sunday won't erase the effects of the sleep deficit.
& #x200B;
The long term implications of not enough sleep are not reversible simply by occasionally taking 'a long nap'. | 98e450f8-430c-44f5-b4c3-91b35dd98381 |
c8ozrc | How computer processors (and computers) get faster nowadays | There are a few factors that affect the speed of CPUs.
1. Temperature - higher temperature physically makes your CPU slow down. The more you can cool off your CPU, the more optimally it will perform.
2. Number of cores - more cores means your CPU can do more things at the same time, but code has to be written to take advantage of this, and most apps just don’t need multiple cores.
3. Transistor size - a core is made of transistors, and the smaller you make them, the less heat your CPU will emit for a given amount of work. But the smaller you make them, the more error-prone your CPU becomes due to quantum physical effects
4. Circuit design - typically a CPU is a CPU, and they are interchangeable to some degree. But this is not required, and you can make specialized CPUs, such as those for graphics processing, motion processing, security, etc etc. The closer a circuit represents the work being done, the more efficient it will be at performing that specialized task.
5. Clock speed - increasing clock speed gives you a temporary speed boost, but increasing the speed will inevitably increase the temperature which will decrease the speed unless you have a really nice cooling system.
Moore’s “law” states that the size of a transistor is cut in half every two years, and it has been correct so far. What this means is CPUs are running less hot, and therefore more optimally.
But eventually we will hit a limit on transistor size (or discover new physics) and the pace of faster CPUs will come to a grinding halt.
New physics example - If we can make a superconductor CPU at room temperature, ~~we can eliminate the need for cooling because superconductors do not emit heat~~ temperature becomes a negligible problem because superconductors emit minimal amounts of heat. The catch 22 is that (most) super conductors don’t exist until temperatures reach absolute zero (the coldest possible temperature) and supercooling is not cheap nor portable.
Edit: grammar
Edit 2: correction by comment below | 352d40c2-13a4-4eaf-aa92-e0a4afd36191 |
c8pcod | How are robo-calls using my cell phone number? | They're obviously lying. They will say anything to keep you on the line. If you don't recognize a number, DON'T ANSWER. If it's legit and important, they'll leave a message. | a5253a47-cd24-41f9-bbab-35ffee124655 |
c8pny6 | Does diet play a part in how the facial appearance of people in a region look? Does it change your skin complexion? Your “glow” due to difference in oils you consume? Does it alter DNA? | Clothing. Demeanor. Hairstyles. Body language. These are some of the (many) factors which you unconsciously "read." For example, Americans are more likely to make direct eye contact and maintain in in a conversation, Asians less likely so. Fashion choices are more likely to be different in Asia vs US. The idea of "personal space" will also likely differ greatly between nationalities.
My guess is people say "looks" because that is the most obvious choice but fact is there is so much variation even among nationalities that your assumptions of "50%+" would be off by a wide margin if tested scientifically.
Diet has very little to do with this, if at all. The fats/oils in a diet have very little correlation with skin complexion, despite what marketing would LOVE to tell you. Some nutrients do interact with DNA, but not on the level that it is going to markedly change your outward appearance. | a93fda2c-186d-468d-a96a-1ec77649c5b9 |
c8psgz | Activated charcoal food | Activated charcoal is indeed used as a way to effectively dilute any poisons before it gets fully digested. What makes it "activated" is that it have gone through a process that increases the surface area of the coal by several orders of magnitude by creating lots of tiny pits in it. This causes the charcoal to become more like a sponge and will work as a very good filter. The charcoal itself does nothing to you and will just pass straight through your digestive system and end up more or less intact in the other end. This is why it is used as a general treatment to poisoning as it does not require any examination of the patient and does not come with any complications.
& #x200B;
I am not sure why you would put activated charcoal in your food as I have not heard of this before. I can not see much culinary use as it does not taste very good or alter other aromatic molecules. It might be used as a filter during the cooking process, for example it is used in both water and smoke filtration. However it would not do much good in the food itself. It might be used in an attempt to loose weight. But you need to be very careful with this. Eating activated charcoal might filter out some of the nutrition better then other and cause an unbalanced diet. So even if activated charcoal does not have any direct effects on your body you should be careful about long term use. | d608b28c-d278-4d56-849c-4134ada74eae |
c8q4ho | How does lathering work? | Soaps almost universally are *surfactants* which significantly lower the surface tension of water, allowing the thin film which makes up a bubble to exist without surface tension pulling it apart immediately. Whisking up soapy water or rubbing a bar of soap in your hands is just trapping air in this surfactant-water mixture, forming a foamy lather.
Shaving cream is a slightly different story. The foam is produced by the propellant in the can instead of outside air. The can contains a pressurized gas which dissolves into the liquid shaving cream much like CO2 is dissolved into fizzy beverages. When the pressure is released, the bubbles come out of solution and it foams up. The cream is of high viscosity and low surface tension to keep the foam stable for long periods of time. | 33f3489d-0711-410a-b7f9-431c4b26e555 |
c8q6ln | How does the stomach separate food and water from the stomach acid? | The duodenum, the part of the digestive tract just past the stomach, adds sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid from the stomach. This is supplied by the pancreas as one of the major roles it plays in digestion. | ccea68b1-89ea-4fa8-9e66-5564fc9458f7 |
c8qao1 | How bees and wasps are able to get the hexagon shape to perfection? | take a bunch of toilet paper tubes and pack them together. They will squish into a hexagon shape. | acb0b5ea-cacc-4bec-ac47-4df680d78295 |
c8qz4e | How does recycling work? | It differs for different materials, but the steps are:
* Separate the materials as much as possible, metals from plastics from paper from glass etc. This step often requires people to do the separating, manually.
* Shred the material to small pieces.
* Re-form the material into a different shape. In the case of metals, glass, and some plastics, melting works, so the material is heated to whatever temperature is required to melt it, and then re-shaped. In the case of paper, water / steam can loosen the fibers that paper is made of, and turn it into a paste (slurry). This is then re-pressed into new sheets, typically cardboard or toilet paper. | 3a0dfae3-a37d-4b5c-87a9-03f6389eab37 |
c8r0p8 | When one person talks or even yells it’s only so loud. How does a large crowd talking or yelling seem louder than the max volume of one person? How does the number of people affect the amplification of the sound? | As you know, decibels shouldn't be able to stack up. Otherwise, since normal talking would be around 60 decibels, then theoretically 2 people talking normally would be nearly enough to match the sound output of a gun.
& #x200B;
But then comes the question, how is it possible then that two sounds of the same volume would generally produce a larger volume?
& #x200B;
The answer is the fact that... sound DOES add up together. There is an old post that I'll simply quote because it just explains it better than I could.
"
This is called the superposition principle. Now I use the word "add up" a bit loosely, there are certain configurations when you can add two waves in such a fashion that the overall intensity (loudness) perceived by an observer would be lower than if only one of the waves were present (this is roughly how noise canceling earphones work). This is because waves can interfere with each other, and this interference [as shown here](_URL_1_) (link is long dead). New image that's easier to picture: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
However, when you have a bunch of waves produced from all directions and with a wide variety of frequencies, you can largely ignore the effect of interference and to a decent approximation you can estimate the intensity at a given point to simply be the sum of the intensities of each of the individual waves. So if five people are talking equally loudly and you are in the center, you will hear a noise five times louder than if a single individual stood there.
"
Though many factors disrupt this sound. You may hear a noise 5 times louder than a single individual, however the decibels perceived is much lower. Sound waves are lost significantly from its place of origin. They don't come from the same place, and they don't travel in the same direction. Other surroundings can disrupt sound waves significantly. This is why even 50 people talking wouldn't be as loud as you might think if you were to just add up their sounds in a singular point. The thing of course, is that they aren't. | c894e207-49da-4fb9-b7b8-416a90642480 |
c8r1tt | The belief of pre-existence in the Bible. | _URL_0_
The idea is that your soul existed before you were a person on Earth. The Bible doesn't really say this, but some people have decided it could be interpreted that way. | 2ff41831-901d-4af9-8460-5fa9b6759fea |
c8r95k | How does so much plastic end up in the ocean and what could we realistically do about it? | It starts in the hands of a human, and gets dropped on the ground. It then is blown into a river. That river goes somewhere...you guessed it...the ocean.
It is mostly due to undeveloped countries having no guidelines and access to plastics. There are still places that literally allow people to just dump trash in their riverways.
_URL_0_
New Dehli | 1d1eeb6e-debf-4fe1-bfd2-adbae5a9322e |
c8rvia | Why do planes take curved flight paths instead of flying straight to their destination? | It only looks curved because you look at it on a flat map. The earth is a globe - a direct path on a globe will be curved when it is projected on a flat map. | 76b9332d-708e-4f2c-8fca-fb902f36703c |
c8rvnt | What is the mechanical process for recycling disposable coffee cups like the ones from McDonalds, which are made from a combination of plastic and paper? | Depends upon your local recycling program. Most programs would not recycle these because it is too expensive. Most programs separate the products that are cost effective to recycle and send the rest to the landfill. Just because you are encouraged to put it in the blue bin, does not mean it actually gets recycled. | c45ac2a8-c645-4521-a710-82fe1bc2a5fb |
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