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3ptt5b | The United States Constitutional Convention | It was the convention held in the United States which lead to the drafting of the Constitution.
Do you have a more specific question? | c6161f49-0f70-49fc-bf61-e78add21b7b3 |
2bp05d | Why I see cars with Hawaii license plates driving in the continental US? | They can be shipped on ferrys and things yes | b3a9cb16-fd36-43b6-a51a-d133cfafb51c |
5wad02 | If CRISPR changes the DNA of a cell, how does it change the DNA of an entire body? | There's a few ways, but it's all about how you deliver the gRNA and the Cas9 protein and your repair DNA (these are the components required to use Cas9 to cleave a certain site in the DNA).
If you modify germ cells (like egg or sperm cells), then any progeny from these cells will have the modification in all cells because these divide into all the cells of an organism.
You could also use a virus to modify certain cells (not all cells) in an organism.
You could also take cells out of the body, culture them and modify them in vitro and reintroduce those cells. This approach has been [attempted](_URL_0_). Sometimes, to help treat a condition, you don't need to change the DNA in every cell.
If you want to get all cells or most cells, you need to edit while the organism is at a very early stage of development. | 2282510b-f47e-4664-98c1-b948d185afef |
20x4m4 | How does Rita's water ice (or Italian ice for you non philly people) afford to give away free water ice every first day of spring? | Because frozen water is hilariously inexpensive compared to what people will pay for it.
Side Note: Water ice.... | f8fa33e0-8e11-4212-92fe-4a557fd1d8ef |
6fvpfs | Why does the loss of blood result in the 'pins and needles' sensation? | It doesn't. A limb falling asleep isn't caused by a loss of blood flow. It's caused by pressure being applied to a nerve, causing it to stop working. So signals don't make it from that limb to your brain.
When the pressure is relieved, the nerve can start sending random signals as it gets back into equilibrium, which you perceive as the "pins and needles" sensation. | 7bf56209-bbb8-41b9-afee-faf666072ac8 |
1436dw | How factorials of non-whole numbers work | It doesn't. There's no such thing as a factorial not defined on integers. There is something called the Gamma function, which has the property that Γ(x)=(x-1)! whenever x is a positive integer, and it's nicely behaved, so it seems like a natural way to generalize the factorial function to real numbers.
**edit** I said Γ(x)=(x)! and that is wrong. | cf69826d-2d51-4d1e-9775-7c7bdd48d953 |
4reda2 | Why does a sunburn not hurt for several hours after actually being in the sun too long? | As your body's response, capillaries open up, allowing more blood to the affected area. This aids in the healing process but also makes the area feel warmer and more tender. However, the response isn't immediate, taking the noticeable few hours before the inflammation sets in. | 8c6bca3e-95e1-43ce-b726-b6d36db040a5 |
3bvz72 | What would happen if you placed a spherical magnet on a flat magnetized plane? | I don't think there is enough information here. A flat magnetized plane isn't really a thing.
Do you mean that the whole magnet is the flat top of the N side of a large magnet that extends below it? In that case the sphere would orient itself so that the south side of the sphere were pointed at the N plane.
If you mean that the plane is flat and thin and the N side of the magnet is in front of you and the South side is behind you then I don't think that there would any field at all. Nothing special would happen. | 25dac6dc-d954-4c2a-acbd-d73df8f222da |
6xmmqm | do pups in a litter all share the same DNA like human twins? | They are more like fraternal twins, so they have as much in common genetically as normal siblings. Dogs release multiple eggs during ovulation, whereas humans usually release only one, which is why multiple births are the norm in dogs and not humans. It's also possible for there to be two or more fathers to a litter (this is fairly common in dogs, possible but less common in humans). In this case, the siblings would have as much in common genetically as half-siblings (same mother, different father). | 446666f0-b16e-43da-878b-35cdb8bba276 |
1wfpg0 | why do old people talk so slowly? | I can't speak specifically about old people speech patterns as there are many physical reasons they may speak slower, but I know this about myself:
I actively TRY to speak slower and more deliberately as I age. It allows me to think about what I am meaning to say, and breath naturally while speaking. Rapid communication can be a signal someone isn't really thinking about what they are saying, they're just "talking", and it's not really that healthy to not breath naturally during a conversation.
They may have also learned that speaking quickly and out of turn has caused some troubles in their life, and this slowly changed their pace of speech.
Also, old people ain't got no-where to go often, so they're usually not in such a mental-rush that they "could be somewhere else" like a younger mind so often does. | 83df5222-307a-4b44-a0ac-0473b03a6016 |
2yygic | The half-life of a drug | Drugs affect the human body by binding to *protein receptors* (either to turn them on or turn them off). And one drug molecule binds to one drug receptor. The more drug molecules you have in your body, the more protein receptors are bound, and the stronger the drug effect.
However, for some protein, you need to cover a minimum number of receptors to feel the effect at all, thus, the effectiveness of the drug will wear off long before you reach the half-life point. For others, you do not need to cover every receptor to produce the maximum effect, thus, you will feel the full effective of the drug will extend long past the drug's half life. Generally, a drug is considered to be completely cleared from your body after 5 half-lives.
Furthermore, different people breakdown drugs at different speeds, thus, the duration of effect of a drug for you may be different than for other people. | 71724c44-ec2b-49a5-9948-770afea3fb1c |
24etbc | Why do gay guys sometimes have higher pitched voices? | Normal Distributions.
As a population, men have a spectrum of voice pitch.
As a population, straight men have a spectrum of voice pitch.
As a population, gay men have a spectrum of voice pitch.
You've got observation bias. | 50cf355a-5261-4a9b-81a7-c1a328633c50 |
2yjpwe | Why is heroin so addictive? What does it do to the brain? Can anyone explain the feeling? | The human brain has a natural set of hormones that are used to moderate pain and emotional responses called endorphins, the opium poppy based drugs imitate the actions of endorphins, that ease pain and induce and pleasurable sensations. The most potent of the naturally occuring "opiates" is morphine. Hold that thought.
There is a chemical and physical structure in our body called the "blood brain barrier." The brain is a seriously important organ and is isolated from much of the rest of the body's circulation for its own protection, this is good thing but can have it's drawbacks. Certain poisons don't get to the brain, good, but antibiotics may be blocked as well. Now, back to the opiates.
Morphine crosses the blood brain barrier, if eaten, smoked, or intravenously injected it gets into the brain to work its tricks. Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is a drug made from morphine that crosses the blood brain barrier *much more effectively*, it is quicker to get into the brain and do what morphine does. It's heroin in the little baggie from the dealer, it's heroin in the syringe and in the vein but it is morphine in the brain.
If you were perfectly healthy and wealthy and just as lazy as hell you might be able to just hire someone to carry you around to every anywhere you wanted to go, do anything that needed to be done, lift anything that needed to be lifted. This would have serious effects on your body, you'd lose muscle mass and become weaker and weaker over time to the point where you'd not just *want* your helper to carry, do, and lift everything, you would *need* that help. If your helper left you'd either hire a new one or struggle to get up off your ass and *recover* from the mess you'd made of yourself. That's addiction for you.
Heroin (morphine) takes over for your natural endorphin system that is there for the internal control of pain and does all the work to the point where your body *needs* it to avoid pain. When heroin is *withdrawn* your body goes into *withdrawal* and **it hurts like hell.**
Feels real good when you start, up to the point of addiction, and is quite painful to quit after that.
Edit: minor spelling. | d41eb315-23e2-4b32-b015-6a30d843c08a |
maxd7 | Even with enough sleep, why am I still tired if I stay up late or wake up early? | Sleep cycles can play a factor but if youre getting enough sleep (~8hrs/night), you should be hitting about two sleep cycles. I think the reason you're still tired if you wake up early is because its still dark outside. This might seem counterintuitive but it makes sense when you consider your pineal gland. The pineal gland is a small gland that is located in the direct center of your brain. Scientists believe this is an evolutionary remnant of early organisms' "proto-brains". Basically, organisms that eventually evolved into humans started out with pineal glands for brains. They didn't have complex eyes like we have, but had rudimentary eyes that could sense light/dark. The pineal gland processed these light/dark inputs from their basic eyes. As we evolved, the pineal gland retained this functionality. Nerves from the optic nerve directly behind your eyes feed into the pineal gland and tell your body where you are in the typical light/dark cycle of the day. When its dark outside, your pineal gland makes melatonin, which in turn makes you sleepy. Light inhibits this production so you aren't tired. When you wake up before its light outside, your pineal gland is still producing melatonin and it's making you sleepy. When you wake up and it's light outside, the melatonin isn't playing a part in your sleepyness and youre usually less tired (assuming you get a healthy amount of sleep). | 008b7245-1ceb-4fc3-8e64-01891b317596 |
1npxuu | Neon Genesis Evangelion, original series. From GEHIRN to SEELE, the events of the series and the end. | If anyone is still reading this I'll be leading a panel talking about this at Anime Central in Chicago (2014)
Combining most the discussion into one large post for clarity.
> **NGE history**
A group of aliens creates a race of bio-mechanical robots to seed the galaxy with life. There are 2 types of these robots "Liliths" which carry the seeds of wisdom, which will bestoy apon the race the ability to learn and grow. And "Adams" which bestoy the fruit of life which give the race the ability to basically never die and super healing powers.
Fast forward a few thousand years.
A 'Lilith' lands on earth populating it with Lilith based life, see everything around us. An 'Adam' also lands on earth, but seeing a lilith is already present his 'spear of longinius' activates paralyzing him. Which is an emergency protocol to prevent Adam and Lilith life from combining in what would be a massive explosion.
Now fast forward a few more thousand years.
GEHIRN a secret research council is founded after scientists correctly decipher the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' which are basically a how-to guide on how 'Lilith, Adam, AT-Fields, Spears, moons' all work.
GEHIRN launches an expedition to antiartica to recover adam. What they find is that ADAM was not paralyzed by his spear in an embryonic state, but in a fully developed state, as his spear had gone missing and lilith's spear was used in place. GEHIRN sets out to reduce adam to an embryonic state since its a bit easier to deal with then an EVA sized alien. But this 'contact' causes the First Impact.
The events of SECOND Impact are carried out by Misato Katsuragi father Dr. Katsuragi, she lives to see first impact and is saved by her father.
After the second impact GEHIRN starts the EVA project, in preparation for the Human instrumentality project, and to defend the world from angels. During this project a lot of weird shit happens. Gendo's Wife 'contacts' EVA01 (which is a clone of Adam) which deliberately puts her soul within the EVA body in an attempt to achieve immortality. What remains of her DNA is used to form the bases of the clone Rei, who's soul is taken from Lilith. Multiple copies are produced and she is charged with piloting EVA unit00, which coincidentally is cloned from Lilith, like all the remaining EVA's, and has her own soul in it.
Follow the Murder and Suicide of the Senior Dr. Akagi and Rei1, GEHIRN is shut down to appease the UN. But in reality all of its funds, projects, and personal it transferred to NERV, so basically just renamed.
In the next ~10 years after this the events of NGE take place.
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> **The organizations**
NERV is GEHIRN just renamed to appease the UN after Rei1's murder.
Seele is a secrete society that 'run the UN' in order to achieve human instrumentality.
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> **What is inside an EVA/How do pilots sync with EVA's**
In side an EVA normally (Unit 01/02, and I believe 03) is the soul of the mother of the 'child' this is why they use children inside the EVA's. Unit01 had the soul of Shinji's mother inside of it, it going berserk was the EVA's own soul attempting to protect its own child, the AT field is powered in part by the Mother attempting to protect their child, this spelled out very clearly in end (end of Evangelion).
Shinji sinks with 01 well because of his desperation and his mother attempting to protecting him from his father (we don't have a cannon reason for this just some side evidence).
Asuka syncs decently with 02 because her mother is basically okay with being used as a puppet, hence the multiple Asuka dream sequences of her mother dying. But in End we finally see Asuka open herself to the Eva (which Rei suggested she do around episode 12-13 mark, its been a while) and emotionally bond with the Eva like she would attempt to bond with her mother.
Which the above is what Shinji did, and on several occasions I believe when he is caught within the Dirac Sea, Shinji calls out for his mother but instead you see a massive shadow creature, which is his mother inside the Eva. Shinji's desperate for anyone to bond with and what ever is inside the Eva comforts him at times so he'll take it.
We see this further when Unit01 rejects the Dummy plug and Gendo just growls, "Why do you do this to me Yui." Because this is Yui basically saying, "Stop treating our son like shit."
So why can Rei and whats his name sync with other Units? Because they're Angels (sorta).
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> **Whats up with Rei/Unit00?**
Generally the Fandom believes Rei and Unit00's soul are the same but the evidence is indirect. This is naturally a theory not cannon.
The main evidence is when ReiII destroys an angle by self destructing, and ReiIII is 'born I guess'. You actually see Rei talking to the 'soul' that is within Unit00, which appears to Rei as Rei herself and she identified as being her.
This contact between ReiII and ReiIII also allows us to understand why ReiIII was different then ReiII because ReiIII's soul was taken from Unit00 which had contacted ReiII. Also why we don't see development between ReiI and ReiII since they had to go back to square one and talk another piece of the soul from Lilith.
As much as I hate people who do this, but I feel I have too thanks for gold :) | 8d854347-e41f-48b1-a48c-d637db48e291 |
2likq4 | Why is America so polarized today? And how can it be fixed? | Basically, society changed in the 1960s as institutions that previously brought people together from varied backgrounds to interact (churchs, clubs, sports leagues) fractured and people sorted into groups of mostly very similar people (not just political groups).
How many of your friends have different core beliefs than you? | ab5f6ff6-c90e-4431-ac68-b48a371ac5da |
79qqgw | Why people expect an adult to be able to do something that a child did, only because a child was able to do it? | It's a stereotype because typically your average adult has a wider range of skills than your average child and the 'level' that most children can achieve at a task at a young age is often lower than a 'basic' level for an adult.
E.g. the strongest 8 year old in the world is probably weaker than 90%+ of able bodied adults.
But it's not just physical things. Across many areas of skill you could reasonably expect the *average* adult to be ahead of the *average* child - so yes, physical things like strength; speed; hand-eye coordination. But also mental things like deduction; reasoning; rule-recognition; mental arithmetic; language depth; general knowledge or life-experience things etc.
Of course, like most (all?) stereotypes it's just a rule of thumb and so should not be considered definitive. There are 100% definitely children with skills and capabilities far in advance of the average adult; but because it works in general, it's become a sort of assumed fact. | 498b1634-73e3-445f-8a72-23f1c46d8286 |
nrvyo | How someone can describe themselves as Atheist/Secular and Jewish. | Being Jewish can also be an ethnic or cultural identity, in addition to a religious one. | 1ec53e53-b9fc-4a60-9959-93a0ec8dc640 |
6zqpjf | Why does slice cheese get mold faster than shredded cheese? | Mold requires a few things to grow. The first is a tiny wee little itty-bitty mold spore, and the second is a nutritious perfectly-moist surface, like a hunk of cheese.
The more surface area on a piece of cheese and the more air it gets exposed to or contact it has with slicing blades and stuff, the greater the chances a mold spore (or whole bunch of mold spores) will land on a moist spot and grow, and the resulting mold will start multiplying like crazy to the point where you can actually see it as mold.
But shredded cheese is different - it's dryer on its surface because they pack it with a little powdered cellulose (same stuff in paper) coating to keep it separated rather than clumping up. And then they add a chemical called natamycin which prevents mold growth too. Double-whammy.
Sliced cheese (not the edible oil product cheap stuff) needs to be moister or it'll crumble, so no cellulose.
...and thus no moist nutritious surfaces that are in contact with the air compared to the sliced cheese...
...and thus less moldy ick a few days later when you spot that package in the back in the fridge and fondly remember that insane 4am pizza party from two weekends ago. | 1fbae803-7f5e-4b29-b0dd-b2b298eb3721 |
2krvij | What happenes in the brain during a seizure ? | The brain cells work by electrical current. A charge starts, and passes from one cell to the next, until the original cell stops firing.
Picture an apartment building. You live in Apartment 3B. Your neighbor in 3A bangs on your wall and yells "3I!" So you hollar back, "Okay!" and bang on your wall to 3C and yell, "3I!" and it continues on until the guy in 3I hears his neighbor and the chain stops. But what if you never hear the guy in 3C yell back, "Okay?" You'll just keep banging away. 3C doesn't know why you won't stop so he keeps banging. Every time he tells you he heard you, you keep knocking, so he keeps passing the signal on. It continues down the rest of the floor. Now everyone is banging on their neighbors wall. You can't even hear who the message is for anymore. The guy in 3I can't hear it's for him, so he starts banging on 3J's wall. Now the guys on the floors above and below you are all banging away on their walls, and no one has any clue why.
This continues until the super comes around and tells the you to knock it off. Now you have to wait for everyone else to figure out to stop. When everyone settles down, they're tired and worn out from the debacle.
That's essentially what happens. One neuron fires, activating the next, but for some reason, it keeps firing over and over. It starts a chain reaction of each neuron down the chain repeatedly firing until something breaks the cycle. Depending on where it starts and how where it ends changes what kind/how severe the seizure is. If the signal spreads to your motor cortex, you're going to lose control of your body/limbs and get the jerking type. If it's in your speech center, you'll get some kind of aphasia (inability to speak/comprehend language), etc. | 829037a7-f6d7-492a-ac29-3bb9d7ab9fcf |
5gld44 | Where do the bubbles in caffeinated drinks start off? How do they just appear? | We call them "carbonated beverages" because they have carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved in them. More CO2 can dissolve at higher pressures, which is why it stays in solution while the bottle/can is unopened and therefore pressurized. Once the container is opened, the CO2 begins coming out of solution.
As to the bubbles themselves: they are actually forming on imperfections in the surface of the container or small particles of dust, etc. | be74f406-c813-4285-bf54-23a1c2dab422 |
38lfca | Why do certain word/ name pairings sound "better" one way than the other? Example: peanut butter and jelly sounds better than jelly and peanut butter. | only because you're been exposed to pbj more than jpb. maybe pbj is easier to say than jpb?
let me ask you, which sounds better?
computer tv and telephone.
or
telelphone computer and tv ? | 06847883-060d-441b-8f0e-246407831729 |
6nx4mf | Why are "Moscow Mules" always served in a copper mug - what is special about the mug? | The reasoning that the mug gets cold is obviously a good thing, but that implies that copper has a very high exchange rate of temperature. It does, that's why they use copper for computer heatsinks. Very good at heat transfer. Which is bad. Your drink will get warmer faster and your body heat will transfer to the drink faster than a glass. If you drink it fast, great, if you spend more than a few minutes, nope. Basic physics. | c30dbaff-d478-4e1b-b004-2fa3df403db0 |
4doqj2 | If HIV has a 0.11 chance (if circumcised) and 0.62% chance (if not circumcised) of being contracted through sex, why is it such a massive epidemic (at least in western nations)? | Because some people have sex a large number of times.
Also, because some people use intravenous drugs and reuse the unsterilized needles. | fb6234a3-7552-44e1-a285-f007e83b1c7e |
1uwicx | Why does orange juice with pulp have the same fiber content as pulp-free? | Fiber is soluble in water (try it with some Metamucil!) and the actual pulp adds an insignificant amount of fiber to that already in the OJ. | 6972952b-6fa0-42b5-aefe-a895b739178a |
16pg3k | What is the difference between PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E? | The different versions were optimized for different purposes. Basically, they have different requirements for the information contained within them so that they can be used properly PDF/A was developed for electronic document storage. PDF/X was for graphics and printing. PDF/E was for documents used in engineering workflows. | e50ce029-3251-49eb-91ff-4f9f1c60cd3a |
2r4lrg | Why do dogs enjoy Tug o' War? | same reason many hunting dogs (especially terriers) love squeaky toys and will shake them mercilessly and pull all the stuffing out.
Instincts. They're trying to brutally kill the fucker. | f6848cc0-172d-47dd-b40a-1134cea6c537 |
370msa | Why is it that after we crack our knuckles, we can't crack them again until a little later? | When you crack your knuckles, youre popping air bubbles in the synovial fluid between your joints. After you pop them, it takes a few minutes for air to join back up together and form bubbles again, at which point you can crack them again.
And by the way, contrary to popular belief, cracking your knuckles doesn't harm your joints. You can do it as many times as you want, it's just air bubbles getting popped. | 06100427-e1c2-49ac-8f9a-1c8d425b6f65 |
22k4zv | Notarization/Notary Public | Notary here,
A notary is a person recognized by the state to verify that a person(s) are who they say they are when they sign a document of "importance". | a89084a5-77bf-4cc9-b14c-4c0297a33189 |
32cxvf | What the hell is happening in Yemen? | Yemen has never been a democracy. It has been ruled by the same guy for over 30 years. That guy resigned from presidentship in 2012 after protests. The guy following him wasn't much better in terms of participation. In contrary to the other states on the Arabic peninsula, Yemen is very poor, so the goverment has problems to find any reasons to justifiy their rule. Because of this the old president had some problems with al-qaeda and smaller revolts in parts of the country but he managed to get along.
That new guy who is still president as now has not been able to stabilize his rule. He is a Sunni. At the same time there is a group called the Houthis. They are not Sunnis, but Shias. In late 2014 they started a bigger revolt and captured the capital of Yemen.
Shia and Sunni are two different branches of Islam. Iran is mainly Shiitic, while Saudi Arabia is the biggest Sunni player. After the revolt began, Saudi Arabia suspected Iran to support the Houthis, because they belong to the same branch of islam. As a consequence Saudi Arabia (along with some other Sunni countries) started an intervention in Yemen. Now things in Yemen are getting tough and foreigners are being evacuated. | b3ade724-51d8-46c7-a2d6-54cc13c91b0c |
23wa4f | How do Bush and Obama's policies differ when dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan? | Afghanistan is pretty easy. Both Presidents agree on the basic war objectives - to kill the leaders of the 9/11 plot, destroy terrorist training camps, and demonstrate the consequences for harboring terrorists who conduct an attack using weapons of mass destruction against the US.
Bush didn't have an exit strategy because he knew the exit wouldn't happen during his time in office. Obama's exit strategy is to keep a force of US military in Afghanistan to provide backup and training to the Afghan forces, so that eventually the US can fully withdraw leaving a stable Afghanistan behind. But if necessary, Obama is prepared to pull out all the US forces unilaterally, then let future Presidents deal with the fallout.
Iraq is a stark difference. Bush prosecuted the war because the Hussein regime represented a clear & present danger to the United States, and unlike North Korea, it did not have the ability to threaten an attack using weapons of mass destruction on large civilian populations, and unlike Iran it did not present a logistical and military quagmire. Of the three most serious threats to US national security, Iraq was the one that a full-scale war would actually fix.
Bush's team botched the post-war transition to US occupation which triggered an insurrection and a civil war. He dodged that bullet when the terrorists and foreign fighters that comprised the most radical parts of the insurrection overplayed their hand and lost their safe havens in the Sunni Triangle. His exit strategy was to not exit. Bush's team wanted Iraq to look like Japan or South Korea - a US ally with a security agreement that permitted the US to base a large military force within its borders. That military force would be used as the stick when negotiating with Iran on a wide range of national security issues and it would be a stabilizing force reducing the odds of any of the many likely suspects in the region of invading their neighbors.
Obama just wanted out. So he unilaterally withdrew all US forces from the Iraqi theater and left the Iraqis to fend for themselves. | 6f03cb49-d5e6-496f-b399-7d90b9451055 |
64oizt | Why do people just watch when something is clearly being done wrong by an authority figure? For example, the recent incident where the doctor was knocked cold on the flight. | There is a common and frequently studied thing called the "bystander effect". Basically it states that if someone is doing something or someone is having something done to them, that the larger the crowd the harder it is for someone in that crowd to break the mold and do something to either intervene or assist.
In situations like that, there are added pressures like the intervention of law enformement/security personnel that make people subconsiously interprit "someone else is going to handle this".
This is the same that happens when there is a car accident as you're passing by and you see a dozen other cars. You're going to most likely assume that either someone else already called 911, or someone else is going to stop. You'll look, but continue on about your business. | 201c408d-0c0a-40f0-8d8a-38d03fb3c48c |
3g5oe2 | Why are female pornstars paid more than male pornstars? Isn't that illegal? | How many beautiful women do you know that are willing to let a complete stranger fuck them in the ass and spray semen on their faces? Now, while you're pondering that I ask you, how many guys do you know that would fuck a beautiful woman they've never met in the ass and spray semen on their face? I believe it all comes down to supply and demand.... | d1326151-e26f-42f0-b5ba-2a9bf0edabfe |
r8ue6 | Why do reporters constantly refer to Pres. Obama as Mr. Obama? | This is actually a tradition going back to George Washington. James Madison and the House of Representatives insisted that he use "mister president" because they were really wary of nobility and executive power. You know, since they had just fought a war to escape from exactly those problems.
_URL_0_ | 29dc40a9-c981-46b2-b47b-aac61eb24fc6 |
2w2s2t | What makes a peanut a common allergen? Of all foods why is it more common to have a peanut allergy? | It's not clear why peanut or tree nut allergies develop. Tree nuts, like walnuts, are another common allergy. At first they thought it was introducing these foods too early and more recently now they tell pregnant women to eat nuts to reduce the allergy.
Peanuts also may not be the most common, but clearly has the most hysteria around it. 1 in 4 parents believe their kid has a peanut allergy while testing estimates that 1-5% are peanut allergic. | 51b9209c-a367-4937-906c-2a2d2f970861 |
14vatn | How does video compression work? Why am I able to comfortably stream high quality video while still images take a few moments to load? | In short, most video compression works by storing each frame as a difference from the previous one. You load a picture once, and then just change the pixels that are different in each subsequent frame, thus eliminating a lot of redundant information.
(Is this too ELI5 for you?) | aff0db42-fdea-4dc5-819f-3d7ca2fdf297 |
jxf7q | Why water makes your skin dry? | water that comes in contact with skin evaporates and takes with it many of the skin's natural oils. The more frequently that skin comes into contact with water the drier it gets, unless the oils are replaced. | ffd6b8d0-6ae0-424f-a27b-e83f0bda0220 |
3rtwva | Why are vegetables "good for you"? | Basically they're an all natural way to get vital vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, & fiber in a low calorie, unprocessed way.
With the proper consumption of vegetables and fruit an average adult can forego a daily multi vitamin. | c6f9a32d-0db7-4482-9832-218343f730ba |
4ggw9y | If the common age of consent in The United States is 16, why is being 18 required to watch adult films? | Federal regulations limit ages on adult films. States decide age of consent. There are several states in the US with consent age of 18. | ab5b9b68-8e7d-40c9-9d94-f65cea80b327 |
74aqnr | Are there planets in interstellar/intergalactic space? | Yes, and quite a few. It is not uncommon for planetary bodies to get a gravity assisted slingshot out of orbit of their star.
There are even brown dwarfs and other dark stellar-mass bodies floating around interstellar space (think binary stars where one gets flung).
edit: They are known as Rogue Planets, here's the wikipedia: _URL_0_ | 2252a3f8-ce91-4d98-a39c-7ad4e1111047 |
3pees4 | Why don't we milk pigs? | Although pigs' milk is high in fat (around 8.5% compared to cows milk at 3.9%) and is an excellent source of nutrients, sows are very difficult to milk. They have around 14 teats compared to a cow's four, and they don't take very kindly to having them touched by humans. | 0b66e945-a523-42bc-81ed-9fd3c439cb0e |
4wgdsz | how does extradition from the UK to the US work? | In general for an extradition to succeed, it has to be for a crime that would also be a crime in the UK. It goes via a normal court proceedings and while they won't goes into the nitty gritty details of the case, the court has to be convinced there is a reasonable chance of a conviction. I guess something like a Grand Jury would do in America? But with appeals.
In the special case of the US, the UK will also ask the US to promise that the death penalty is off the table, because the UK is not allowed to extradite if there is a chance the death penalty will be applied. | 543689d4-e2e3-4942-a53c-89948b42a158 |
1qav6w | Placebo effect and how does it work? Also, what is the limit of what the body can achieve by truly believing it to be possible. | The Placebo effect is essentially the belief that something will have a positive effect on you.
For example when you drink a cup of coffee you immediately feel more awake thanks to the caffeine? Well nope, caffeine take approximately 45 minutes to kick in.
The extent of which the Placebo effect works is pretty hard to categorize, in some cases giving people fake pills can actually deal with pain and such. It really depends on the person at hand and what the Placebo is acting on.
Generally however things like pain, anxiety, nervousness, high heart rate, low heart rate, sweating etc... will go away even with a placebo.
Wiki link if you're interested:
_URL_0_
Edit: Changed definition of placebo from "an effect" to "a positive effect" thanks to /u/SpiderHuman. | 0a381e54-31bf-46cf-a82f-27deea75a8f3 |
70f217 | Is Sound Affected by Gravity? | Sort of, but you're probably too dead to notice.
Let's say a tree falls and you hear it. If we could change the amount of gravity between you and the tree would the tree sound different?
Probably not.
Gravity can change the density of whatever sound might be traveling through, but in gases like air the effects of increasing the density are cancelled out by increased pressure. If gravity were compressing a gas enough to raise it's temperature then that would change the speed sound travels. It takes a lot of heat though before you would notice a difference. The inside of your oven doesn't sound weird when it's turned on. Not enough is going on to notice.
Liquids are effectively not compressible under conditions you can survive. Again, yeah, if the liquid is compressed enough to change its viscosity then sound is affected. Sound travels much further in water than air (for example) but we would need to be talking about water at oceanic depths before you would notice any meaningful changes. Trees don't grow in the ocean anyhow, so again, moot.
Solids, again, enough gravity to change the elasticity and resonance of the material through compression would change sound but it's indirect and you are talking about gravitational forces that are incompatible with your interest in philosophy.
Other situations where there is extreme gravity (very near stars) you are probably too dead to hear the tree or there is a vacuum somewhere between you and the tree that stops the sound. | ab7d7217-acae-41bf-914e-1bbd7022fdcb |
8idaam | How do news sites get their new articles, which are just minutes old, to the top of search engine results? | They don't get them there, search engines are programmed to find news articles with frequent crawls, and put them there. | 4837a1c8-cbbb-45e1-8c54-23e177bbd439 |
8kxavs | If I’m sitting in a car going on the interstate, and I drop a small ball from the ceiling, why does it fall in a straight line relative to me? How come it doesn’t get pulled to the back of the car as it’s in free fall? | Because it's already traveling at the same speed as the car. When it's falling, it's actually falling at an angle compared to the Earth's surface. It would be like if you were sitting on the couch and dropped something and as it dropped it went sideways too really fast. You just don't notice it because both you and the ball (inside the car) are going the same speed. | 3a7cf1a5-e074-4b6b-b643-54c9df5c80f5 |
37y07o | The difference between YouTube's buffering and loading an image from anywhere else on internet - and why buffering is so much faster | This might not be the complete answer but a part of the answer. Try loading a video in Youtube, and then a video from a website which is not primarily a video-hosting site (Like IMDB). You will notice that the IMDB video takes significantly longer to load for the same quality of video. Google has some amazing compression algorithms, and a great network of servers which ensure you are always getting the best speed possible. | dbae32ff-2278-428a-a2d1-72a76866f0bb |
1qa3v5 | Why are the majority of the tallest buildings in the world located in the Middle East and Asia? | Tall buildings are created for two reasons. One is that there is no space to move out so you have to go up. The other is because people need to prove that they are better than other people. If you have lots of money and plenty of space as some people do in the Middle East then you build to outdo. If you have little space and lots of people as they do in Asia then you build to accommodate.
*/u/mackana is right. There are 3 reasons. I'm not sure how I overlooked tourism. If you build it they will come. | 64ae0727-d321-4808-9051-9895afc3380f |
769x3x | If an infinitely fast car was on a finite loop, (ignoring physics laws which throw it off the track) wouldn't it just ram into itself? If not, why? | It's a truly meaningless question. An infinitely fast thing is everywhere at once, defying any notion of "where it is" or of "hitting or not hitting" anything. | ede0eaef-20c0-4ef8-8884-7ea68607b7ff |
589a15 | What to internet speed tests really show you? | 90 Mbps means a little over 11 MB/s. (Megabits vs megabytes.)
Internet speed tests show the speed from your computer to the nearest (usually) testing server. It's tested by downloading and then uploading a standard file. That testing server is usually in a big industrial datacenter with really good connectivity, so there is no bottleneck on the server end.
For real-life usage, you're talking to servers that can be far away, with complicated routing paths from your computer to them. (Routing complexity matters much more than physical distance.) It's also possible that your Internet provider either keeps a testing server on their own network, or has configured their systems to recognize traffic to a testing server and give it high priority, so you get better numbers.
In general, tests show you the best case scenario, and real-world usage is going to be a lot worse. | f8d3ce75-19fb-4e3b-9780-eb16fc1c5e3b |
2psutz | Why can I hold my pees in for much longer when I'm just lying in bed? | Gravity, mostly! Also, when you are lying in a supine position, your core muscles are not contracting as much as they would be to stabilize a standing position to keep you upright. Both of these things contribute to the "urgency" feeling you get when your bladder is full. | 2fb75933-ce68-4172-9acc-62540ce1423a |
7edaf0 | Why did Google Fiber's replacement "Google Wireless Broadband" fail to expand/develop more? | Google probably realized that it wasn't going to be as profitable as they expected and decided to stop dealing with the hassle that is being an ISP with physical lines to maintain | 87f66796-8e43-469f-b473-625429e96870 |
3aws9k | Why aren't there any normal 5.5% alc./vol beers that are also light in calories? | There is a direct correlation between alcohol content and calories. Calories are units of heat. Alcohol is literally flammable. Your body can absorb a pretty tremendous amount of energy by metabolizing alcohol. The high the alcohol content, the more calories, pretty much as a rule. | 095b600c-9fa4-4c75-87f3-b1577c8d117a |
2rjm5j | How do developers make "better" compression algorithms? | The algorithms are usually around for years before they get widespread acceptance. The catch is that better compression algorithms require more CPU time and memory to run.
When you see a new algorithm start getting used, that usually just means that modern computers have improved to the point where they have the resources to practically compress & extract data with a better algorithm. | e87e7a4d-6327-4947-a9ad-a89ef43b2b2b |
4okigl | Instructions given to pilot by co-pilot in rally car racing. | I'll break it down in parts.
> 50 flat left easy left maybe 30 long easy left
50 means the distance to the next corner, in meters.
Flat left describes the corner itself. In this case it's a corner that can be taken with full throttle. Some drivers use a number system, for example from 1 to 5, where 5 would be a flat out corner and 1 would be very tight one.
Easy left maybe means that while fast, not completely flat out, and has possibly a stone etc. on the inside.
The rest I think you can manage yourself.
It's worth noting that each driver has his/her own preferences when it comes to notes. Some want the notes well in advance while other like them quite late, almost at the corner. And there's no standardised system. Some like notes like described in what you posted, some like rating the corners based on numbers. Some guys even use two languages in their notes.
So the drivers hear the above notes, and applies them. He might go flat out in the first corner and then brake a bit for the next. If he needs to catch the guy in front, he may cut that corner a bit or take it flat out or both. | e4110fde-d87f-4723-b9ef-5ca62ce6b8d6 |
qumaq | Why does every nightly news report on the major networks run the same stories every night? | Here's pretty much how they pick stories:
1. What can we get from the Associate Press (AP)
1. Did anyone mail us a VNR?
1. Is anything important actually happening (this is rare.)
2. Election? Talk About Candidates.
3. Relevent Historical Events.
4. Anything on the Police activity report today? Go stand in front of it and read the one line of news.
5. Weather.
The AP is a big organization and "The News" buys a subscription. Anything the reporter sees in there that's interesting, they run with. It saves them time on actually finding stuff out.
A VNR or Video News Release is a fully filmed and produced video from some else's PR team that you just air and don't have to do anything to. Usually the PR team just gives them to every station. The stations like them because they don't have to do anything, but press play on the tape. | 33ec00a1-7b43-4408-bed7-41dbbb9909b6 |
20tzmj | Why do humans need purified water when animals can drink whatever water they want? | It's a safety thing. You could go drink water out of a spring and probably be fine. Maybe. But you run the risk of the water containing harmful bacteria. It's the same reason we cook most foods but animals eat it raw.
Now, if you had always drank from that pond, your body might have adapted to those bacteria and they would be rendered harmless by you. But since you mostly drink purified water, your body isn't ready for contaminated bacteria. My dog has always had tap water, so he sometimes gets sick if I let him drink of natural water sources because he's no more used to those bacteria than I am. | 4851d138-ea6e-4941-88bf-5c3620daeb27 |
49krfe | Why are those last few drop's of pee such a relief? | As a male I cannot relate to this, might just be me though. I just never heard of this.
Theoretical I assume it is because of the pressure. When you pee it forces a pressure on your urethra, and the walls expand. When the pressure stops, the expanding of urethra stops, and you feel a relief.
I presume someone has a better answer. This is just what popped into my head. Again I have never experienced what you explained. | 72320f2e-81c1-453c-9191-2bf92bf1fa2d |
17lyk3 | How does clearing your throat work? | Your respiratory system is kind of a paradox. On the one hand, in order to work properly it needs to stay well lubricated. But on the other hand, you can't breathe snot! So your body needs a way to keep things lubed up down there in your chest, while also having a way to get excess mucus out of the way.
Essentially how this works is that your body makes respiratory mucus in the lungs and all up and down your airway, and gradually "nudges" it up the pipes to your *pharynx* — that part of your throat that's right behind your mouth, that you can see when you open wide and look in a mirror.
As this mucus "migrates" upwards, it collects in your pharynx, giving you the urge to clear your throat. When you do, you expel some air from your lungs in a sharp blast that dislodges the mucus from the walls of your pharynx. It typically comes up into your mouth — sorry, this is a little unpleasant to describe — where you reflexively swallow it. Your digestive system then breaks the mucus down into its base components and "recycles" it, essentially. | 9266a0ef-22ce-4cd5-8fae-7a53171fff34 |
3hva8z | Why do Formula One look like super technological advanced driving vehicles, while NASCARs just look like cars? | Nascar and stock car racing evolved out of redneck bootleggers with a carload of moonshine trying (and usually succeeding) to outrun law enforcement back during prohibition. They did this using every day vehcles, perhaps with modified angines and suspension, but they were still "off the shelf" or "stock" cars.
These days, they only LOOK like regular cars, of course. They are extremely high tech cars, nothing really "stock" about them at all. But they LOOK like regular cars because of tradition. | c5db6c82-7fc9-40aa-a360-c67fde631670 |
46c7lr | How the body knows when to start digesting food and when the food exits the stomach? | When you eat something, it goes in your stomach. In your stomach, the acids eat away at the food, but not all of your food. Then it gets thrown into your small intestine, the intestines have little things kinda like an antennae which touch the food and go, "We got food in here from the stomach, bring the chisels and the hammers". The stuff that came down now breaks up the food in your intestine. Then tentacle like things grab onto the smashed up food and eat it with smaller tentacle things. What doesn't get eaten goes into your large intestine and water gets taken out, and little bacteria eat the food and poop out other stuff we need. Then we poop out the stuff we don't need. And if you eat a lot of beets, it turns red. So don't eat a lot of beats.
TL;DR eat food, antennae tell body to send stuff to break food, food gets broken up, tentacles eat food, we poop it out. | 5d93741e-f85c-4f97-a4db-2c5100503227 |
1cobhh | Why would Chechen terrorists want to attack the US? | I'm Chechen. It's because those two were fucking idiots that's why. I hope the survivor is interrogated and put to death. They are traitors to the country that took them in, and traitors to every Chechen alive. I'm at work, but if you got questions ask them. As somebody who's fiercely pro-American and pro-Chechen.... you can imagine I'm on damage control today.. | fc38656b-80ca-4a2d-bde4-db1430c81e80 |
62utxi | Why do we only sneeze while we are awake? | Do we only sneeze when awake? Now I've gotta try to get my family to sneeze in their sleep. For science! | aff0a981-6e38-4046-9dae-46a007b05966 |
2job2h | Why does my body crave exercise even though I hate it when I'm actually doing it? | I believe the body releases hormones that make your physical well being better after exercise and thus not having those endorphins for a while will cause withdrawal like symptoms. They improve your mood, circulation, sexual hormone intensity and also stimulate your metabolism and digestion so that your body is aware of it's fuel burning properties. It's not at all a bad thing; if however you really do dislike running while you're at it, perhaps switch to resistance training to keep things interesting? Same effects, I can vouch for that. | f27f6b56-f725-4b69-848a-efe97f527eaf |
5ga6vt | If Matter Cannot Be Created or Destroyed, How is the Universe Able To Keep Expanding? | It's the space that's expanding, not the matter in it. We aren't getting new matter, there's just more space for it to be in.
Also, matter can be created from energy and "destroyed" back into energy. It's the amount of energy in the system that can't change, not the amount of mass. | 2347a086-331f-448b-b2ef-2e4683806358 |
6d69tq | Who takes over essential jobs during a strike? | If you are referring to essential services such as police, firemen, emergency rescue etc, in many jurisdictions it is actually illegal for them to strike. For example in New York State the Public Employees Fair Employment Act has banned all public employees from striking since 1967, and in the UK the 1919 Police Act bans all police from going on strike. In exchange, many of these laws have a binding arbitration clause in case of an impasse in labor negotiations. | aca48ddb-d5bd-4d3c-90a8-15a197197bfc |
w828r | The rules of Rugby | I'll do what I can for you here, but there are some intricacies that will probably be missed:
In general, you can't throw the ball in front of you, only directly to your side or a little bit backwards. This is to make you carry the ball across the field, or even to kick it. This is why you see the team with the ball creating a diagonal on the field: by the time the ball gets to them, they should be running full speed and hopefully run right through the defense.
Points are scored for "tries" which are like American Football touchdowns, only they actually have to touch the ball down in the try area. These are worth 5 points. If you run into the try area and drop the ball, then it doesn't count as a try! You can also score bonus points after scoring a try (similar to an extra point in American Football) and here, you have to kick the ball through the uprights from the same spot on the try line where you crossed. I know that sounds tricky: say you score a try right in the middle of the uprights. Great! Now, you can bring the ball back out as far as you want and you have an easy kick that is worth 2 extra points. You'll probably get this since you're in such good position. If you score a try way over on the side, you can bring the ball out far, but you have a crummy angle and you're far away from the uprights so it'll be very hard for you to get those extra points. This is why you will sometimes see players even after they've crossed the try line, keep running to the middle before touching the ball down; to give the kicker better position. You can also score during normal play by kicking through the uprights (worth 3 points) and this only counts if the ball touches the ground before you kick it. So, you can drop the ball and when it bounces, kick it through the uprights OR if someone does something bad to you and you get a free kick, you can also try and kick it through the uprights.
The scrum is like a big shoving match where your friend puts the ball in play and you have an advantage, because he's your friend so you kind of know when to expect the ball. Even though the rules are that your friend has to put the ball into the scrum perfectly straight so that both teams have a fair chance, you have a bit of an advantage because he's your friend. When the ball is in the scrum, there is a big pushing match to try and get over top of the ball. At the same time, everyone in the scrum tries to keep the ball in between their legs so that no one else can touch it. If the ball comes out, then the big pushing match isn't really helping the team any more so it stops. If the people in the scrum are really good, they can push the other team back AND keep the ball in between their legs and the other team won't really be able to stop them. The guys that you see on the outside of the scrum are called the scrum halfs (this isn't super important but it's a pretty easy position to identify). These two guys (on opposite teams) have the job of putting the ball into the scrum and taking it out and giving it to their team. So when the ball really close to the outside of the scrum on their team's side, or when the guys in the scrum kind of kick it back out to them, they pick it up and decide what to do with it.
Now, the person with the ball will run forward, run backward, kick the ball down field, pass it off, whatever, so long as they have the end goal of scoring on the other end of the field. If they get tackled with the ball, you have a "breakdown". What happens now is that each team tries to push over top of the breakdown and keep the ball on their side. Like a scrum, you want the ball to be behind your team and someone (usually the scrum half again) will come by and pick it up. In a breakdown, you are not allowed to run around the side and pick up the ball. If there are two opposing players there standing over the tackled person on the ground, you have to push them back over the ball so that it is on your team's side before your team can play it. This is why MOST of the time the team that gets tackled keeps the ball after being tackled: the person on the ground can move the ball closer to their team's side and they had friends close by to push over top right away.
Lineouts are like the rugby version of throw-ins. Instead of choosing where to throw the ball though, it has to be perfectly straight in from where the ball went out. This is to give each team a fair chance to get the ball, but like the scrum, you have an advantage when your friend is throwing in the ball because you know what to expect. Sometimes you'll see on or two people being lifted up high to try and catch the ball. this can be a huge advantage! If you're lifted up high and the other team is just standing on the ground, it will be much easier for you to grab the ball out of the air and hold on to it. When you have the ball (even in the air) you can throw it away to your teammate or you can be lowered back down and your team can try to push together like a tiny scrum, or move the ball out wide to the players farther away from you; you have options.
Just for fun, I'll run through what it might look like in a game (I think I've covered most of the general things that happen):
So we have two teams, Red and Blue playing a game of rugby. The Red team is kicking the ball first. So one of the players on the Red team (usually a good kicker) starts off by dropping the ball on the ground and kicks it far into Blue's end. A blue player tries to catch the ball, but he makes a mistake and accidentally hits it forward. Since it's against the rules to throw the ball forward, even accidentally, the referee calls for a scrum. The Red team has the ball here, and the scrum half puts the ball into the middle of the scrum. Right away, both teams start pushing against each other, but Red is a little bit quicker because they had a better idea of when the ball was coming in. The Red team is able to keep the ball in between their feet and push Blue back a little bit. While the ball is still in the scrum, no one outside is moving, just waiting for the ball to come out, and then suddenly Reds scrum half picks up the ball and throws it to his friend beside him. Unfortunately, this red player gets tackled. But, he is quick and turns his body over on the ground to give the ball over to his team much easier. Because they are still so close to the scrum, there are lots of players to help push over their tackled friend and the the ball, and Red is able to keep the ball without blue picking it up. The scrum half again picks up the ball and this time throws it REALLY far, all the way to the furthest guy, who catches it and runs into the try area, touches it down, and scores a try! YEA RED! Red's kicker now takes the ball back out onto the field directly from where the try was scored until he thinks he can make the kick based on the angle to the uprights in the middle of the field. Red's kicker lets the ball bounce before kicking and comes close, but it was a very difficult position to score from. Now Red is up 5-0 to Blue and play will continue with Red kicking to Blue just like before.
Hope that last bit helps tie everything together. Cheers | cec40e6a-fcfb-40a1-b1d5-54a792e7507f |
lx1o0 | Why do clothes shrink when you put them in the washer? | thats true clothes shrink in the dryer not the washer.
they shrink because the moisture leaving the cloth forces the weave of the cloth to tighten together.for natural fibers such as cotton, linen they will shrink when washed then heat dried for the first few washes only then they should wash with little or no shrinkage.
but man-made fibres such as lycra and acrylic tend to be much weaker than natural fibres and cant handle high heat. so when you dry it at high heat you weaken the fibres and it will lose its shape, shrink or even disintegrate.
some man-made wont shrink, such as polyester,nylon, vinyl, and rayon.
if ever in doubt if something will shrink of not look at the label! if it is made out of man-made fibers or says to wash at low heat, then do. if your ever unsure wash on the lowest possible setting and be esp. careful with 'machine wash cold' synthetics. | 66f902eb-e4bc-42ef-8d4b-34a717e9c710 |
86hmaz | How is it we can make zero calorie sodas, yet we can't figure out how to make zero calorie beer? | Fermentation occurs as yeast breaks down the sugars in the grain. While we can synthesize things that taste sweet without any calories, we can't change the fundamental laws of chemistry that govern the brewing process, and those laws state that you need fermentation to make beer, you need sugar for fermentation to occur, and sugar contains calories. | 042d9218-4fdf-40e3-8fe4-786ba809066e |
3zw1ji | Why isn't tax added on to the list price in the US? | This has been asked before: _URL_0_
But every time it gets asked again, I appreciate how many people here aren't from the US, which is good. | d6c7396f-b145-4079-a1d2-6459cdd2b70d |
79wuoo | How does pain medicine work? | "Analgesics," the technical term for pain relief medications, actually refers to several different *categories* of medication, each with a *very* different mechanism of action.
TL;DR: we're not really sure how the most common over-the-counter pain medications work, but have a pretty decent idea how opioids work.
One of the more common categories is non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ("NSAIDs"). This includes ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), and good, old-fashioned aspirin, among many others. These all work by interfering with a specific category of enzymes that are involved in the production of certain hormones. . . which in turn has anti-inflammatory and pain relief effects. We're not exactly sure why, but there you go.
Then there's acetaminophen, also called paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol. We're even less sure how that one works. It's *not* the same mechanism as NSAIDs, we know that much. Also, whereas NSAIDs have anti-inflammatory properties in addition to analgesic properties, Tylenol and related medications have "anti-pyretic" (i.e., fever-reducing) properties, again via a mechanism we don't really understand.
*Then* there are opioids. Morphine. Codeine. Hydrocodone. Oxycodone. Opium. *Heroin*. Etc. These directly bind to "receptor" sites (i.e., locations on the surface of cells that detect the presence of particular proteins) in the brain and nervous system generally having a variety of effects. One of the most notable is pain relief, as opioids basically block your nervous system from registering pain by occupying all of your pain receptors. But they'll also do a number on your gut and suppress your breathing to the point that you'll *die* if you take too much. Far, *far* more powerful drugs than either of those discussed above. Which is why they're very strictly controlled in most jurisdictions, and some of them are just outright illegal pretty much everywhere. | 1f4b4bf0-3cd2-449b-862b-fd4316d2c8df |
1stbvo | Why do women still go to Chris Brown concerts while knowing he abuses women? | Because they like the music, presumably. Plenty of people don't change their buying habits just because they don't like what the person they're buying from does. | 9256e126-d8fd-4ecc-89fc-abe9ef45ec8d |
5cbogm | What would be the affect of an asteroid striking the ocean as opposed to it striking land? Would it cause a mass extinction? | It depends on the size of the asteroid, but I assume you're talking about something on the scale of the "dinosaur killing" impact which was about 10km (6 miles) in diameter - all units from here on in are metric.
The asteroid strikes between 11 km/sec and 72 km/sec (typically 17 km/sec) so it punches through the atmosphere in 1 to 5 seconds and then strikes the ocean. Anything looking at the asteroid as it makes the atmospheric transit is likely to be blinded as the huge rock temporarily outshines the sun.
Then it strikes.
The asteroid immediately smashes through the ocean and impacts the sea floor. This will occur no matter what depth of water that it hits. The fireball is nearly 10x the apparent brightness of the sun which would cause flash burns and blind any creature unlucky enough to look at it. The fireball is nearly 50km in diameter.
The rock embeds itself into the sea floor and a massive column of water is vaporised along with gigatons of rock and the asteroid itself. As a fun fact, the impact crater is not deeper than the diameter of the asteroid itself (Newton proved that).
The outgassing steam prevents the water from filling the void and the mother of all storms forms. From orbit, the water ejected would quickly reach the upper atmosphere (and may even be ejected out of the atmosphere) and obscure the impact. If the clouds weren't there then you would be able to see all the way to the ocean floor and the molten debris in the newly forming crater.
The impact throws up hundreds of cubic kilometers of material into the atmosphere (and possibly into space) which would then form dust clouds and slowly fall back to earth over the course of months/years.
A massive tsunami is formed which radiates out in all directions. In this instance, it's better that the asteroid strikes in shallow water as there is less to displace. Either way though, the tsunami will strike the nearby land with a wall of water over 100m high.
The blast fireball creates a shockwave that sends out winds in excess of the speed of sound. Hundreds of kilometers away from the impact, the wind is still far more powerful than even the strongest tornado and would smash trees, buildings and pose grave danger to living creatures. The sound would be tremendous, louder than the loudest thunder and it would persist for 5 minutes or more. Deafness is a real possibility.
The heat from the shockwave would ignite paper, twigs and other flammable substances. Unprotected creatures would be severely burned. Fires are everywhere and burn out of control.
Hours after impact, the water slowly starts to recede even though the asteroid is still boiling the oceans and will do so for days to come.
The sun is darkened due to dust in the atmosphere and a salty rain falls over large portions of the planet. The good thing is that it puts out the fires. The bad thing is that the dust and rain persist for months during which time, many plant species die along with the animals that depend on them.
Global temperatures plummet and crop failures are everywhere. Nothing works due to the dust, rain and food supplies run out. Billions starve, species die.
But we don't go extinct. It's pretty hard to kill **everything** and humans are quite resourceful. We could survive underground for months to years until the worst of the effects are past and then attempt to rebuild. | dc9bfa3e-0d22-4d2f-994d-e7a3cbc46362 |
5m9eyd | How come sometimes lightning seems to crawl across the sky and other times a giant bolt just appears instantaneously? | When it "crawls," you're probably seeing a bunch of near instantaneous small jumps rather than one big near instantaneous jump.
Lightning happens when there are big charge imbalances, big enough to overcome the resistance of the stuff between. If a high charge evens out with a lower charge beside it, that area could then be higher than the next area over. That continues on.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but it sounds good in my head. | a531cb04-a1c9-478c-bd8a-189b93507368 |
2ccid7 | Why does my stomach "growl" when I'm hungry? | Normally, your stomach muscles goes through a process called Peristalsis where it expands and contracts in order to move food around and keep digestion going. From what I understand, when you are hungry your stomach is moving a lot more to get every scrap of food and use it for digestion. This movement is the "growling" that you sometimes hear.
This what I understood from my biology class, if I am wrong someone please correct me. | 2e65f751-b6c2-4271-8b1b-5da745ab9479 |
3nho5n | Why does it seem like more technological change happened between 1900 to 1950 than from 1950 to 2000? | Seriously? Since 1950, we've turned into a computerized society that understands how to manipulate our own genomes, we're building robots and actually getting somewhere (slowly) with AI. There are literally robots wandering around on Mars right now. We are reprogramming viruses to defeat genetic diseases. The internet contains a huge portion of human knowledge, and the amount is increasing daily, and millions of people carry around devices that can access it anywhere they go, and each of those devices are computers ridiculously more powerful than all the computers on earth back then. We're building massive physics experiments like the LHC, an array of space telescopes orbiting the Earth, the Moon, and Mars as we speak. There's a gigantic international space station orbiting above us which is now being resupplied by privately run space companies. We're tying electronics directly into nervous systems.
The world's barely recognizable compared to 1950 :) | aa092f87-491e-454a-bc40-75272b8bcf62 |
2rr1wu | If you were to rip out a person's eyeball without snapping the optical nerve, and then made it face the other eyeball (aside from pain and whatnot) how would your brain put together the image? | I assume it would try its best to make "sense" out of the information.
You might get two superimposed images and just see a "single" eye.
You can definitely do this with mirrors and some plywood. | efe26e8e-d0a6-4df8-9c7b-e0e2aa3ac4e9 |
6zm74h | If every major country is in billions (if not trillions) of debt, where are they borrowing from? | You can borrow from your own people. The money that is printed is **FEDERAL RESERVE** (thanks for the corrections) notes--it's *technically* a debt that the Reserve owes the bearer of the note (but printing money does not technically increase the debt supply--the role of money has changed since fiat currency).
When you print more money, you are devaluing the rest of the currency that is already in circulation. This means that if the govt decided to print $100,000,000,000,000,000 (1 quadrillion dollars) in the span of a week, the value of the dollar would probably crash pretty hard (probably...). This is related because people use money to buy US debt--we're loaning the US govt the very money it prints. The only reason that this results in anything favorable is because people all over the world value USD and that paper currency represents potential labor, new assets, etc.
If you own a baseball card of Sammy Sosa, there is a chance it could be worth a lot of money. Now imagine if the card company just mails a Sammy Sosa card to every family in America. Your Sammy Sosa card isn't worth anything anymore because there are so many of them and everyone has it now. Now imagine if they mailed another 5 to everyone--the value crashes even harder because there are SO many of them now.
That's the same idea with money. You can't keep printing more money or else the value of it will deteriorate. But the gov't keeps issuing more debt and we still look at $20 like it's $20, right? Eventually, there could come a time when we look at a $20 bill and it means nothing to us.
This is what happened in Zimbabwe where a billion dollar transaction might happen for a loaf of bread. They printed so much money (without proper secure backing by the gov't) that it just became worthless. So they started to just increase the numbers on their currency so you can actually pay for something.
Because the gov't theoretically owes its population money, they issue paper as a certificate of this. You might not have physically went to the bank and traded something in return for paper but you did something that warranted the earning of that dollar. If you work for a company, they pay you that money because it has value and you can buy things with it.
The only reason it has value is because the US gov't says it does. You can pay gov't-related fees and bills with the money they issue and because the gov't is well-secured, people accept it. If our gov't was unstable, no one would trust the dollars they slept under for warmth because the gov't could just come out and say, 'Sorry we're not paying you guys back'.
Well what would they be paying back? To whom are they paying back to?
It used to be gold. But as we grew as a planet, we ran out of gold to back every dollar with and it just became a nightmare to handle. Enter, fiat currency, a piece of paper that means nothing except what the gov't says it means.
People used to go to banks with gold and receive 'money' for it. The banks would literally hold their gold and give them an certificate that says they own a claim of gold in their vaults. If ANYONE brought that certificate to the bank, they could expect to receive gold for it. That's what gave it value.
You could say you want that farmer's potatoes and he can go get $1 of gold from the bankers at his convenience or he could hold onto it and use it just like the person did before him--'trade' it for something else like new shoes. Why? Because everyone liked gold and everyone believed gold had value.
Eventually, this took off and people stopped trading for things and we developed currency with quantitative values that allowed for easy exchanges to take place.
So you might think, 'Well, now that there isn't gold behind my dollar, how is it worth anything even if the gov't say it is? They won't give me anything in return for it".
The same thing applies to gold. No one wants gold unless other people want gold. If you can't reasonably trade your gold for something else, then what value does it have? (Someone did point out you can shave gold flakes into your water and drink it, like some companies have chosen to do, but that's on you)
As long as people continue to value dollars, it doesn't matter what it's worth, sans some certain supply and demand laws. So gold is no different in that regard. The ONE difference between paper currency and gold is that $100,000 in cash weighs a lot less than $100,000 in gold and is a lot easier to hide too.
EDIT: I made some slight revisions to correct errors and to try and relate things better to the main topic at hand. Sorry, I kinda started rambling. I have also posted below in response to u/penny_eater to correct my errors and explain them in a little bit further detail but it kinda strays away from ELI5 territory.
This kinda seems all over the place but it should be good starter information for someone trying to understand debt markets and macroeconomics, in general. Monetary supply and debt are pretty hand-in-hand, even if they're not exactly the same thing.
Larger and more complex economies warranted the development of fiat currency which ultimately changed the role of currency, in general. It no longer represents a claim, per se, but it represents value because the gov't says it has value and will accept it for gov't related transactions and business with foreign entities.
Also, don't get me started on the petrodollar.
-------------------
**Sorry I wanted to just double clarify. My main answer to the question "Who does the US Gov't borrow from?" was "It's own people". My money talk (everything after that first sentence) was just to lead into the topic of increasing debt, economics, and the value of this debt in the coming future. **
I thought "It's own people" would be a sufficient answer to that but started to get into the reasons why that is starting to look like a bad idea especially in our current economic environment. | 2b4c97a6-6304-4810-b2d5-260b85b6fc2a |
2botxy | Can someone please explain witch craft to me in detail? | Witchcraft isn't a single thing, many cultures throughout the world preform different versions of 'witchcraft'. The term originates from Christianity and related to any religious practice that wasn't Christianity. When Christianity became a dominant religion some cultures retained certain ceremonial practices from their old religions, Voodoo for example is a blend of Christianity and African tribal religion. There are also certain fringe new-age religions that expressly practice witch craft, the Wicca religion is based on pre-christian pagan religions and has an emphasis on nature with mother nature being the Godhead. | bb7bf1c9-2e3b-44a2-a0a3-4bc6c1ad6d1a |
1bfh88 | WTF is going on with the scoreboard & items?? | (x-post from the other thread)
Alright, I got this.
So today, Reddit is a text based Team-Fortress 2, but Orange vs Blue as the colors.
All user accounts have been assigned to one of the teams. Evenly split, I would assume. At random intervals, you gain hats in your inventory, much like TF2. You can apply these hats to other users as if it were "flair" throughout today.
Also in your item inventory are weapons. The weapons are one-time use items that do a variety of things, such as the ability to change the formatting on other people's posts. It would be advisable to use these against the enemy team. There are subreddits for each team to strategize on. /r/periwinkle and /r/orangered
The fight will probably last all day and points will be tallied in four-hour intervals, presumably for more arbitrary internet points. So go out there and fight for your side!
(also fuck team orangered) | fca7b0f1-d072-4481-9608-ac4b92c6b9c0 |
3ma6ph | How does one go about learning a language when they don't have anyone to speak it with? | There is no way to become fluent in a language without speaking with people who are native to the tongue. That being said I would recommend a free website called Duolingo. You could also try watch videos online in French or reading articles. I am no way an expert but these are some great places to start. | 33113373-7025-45ec-8aec-fdff691e1f9c |
1wpr2f | Why is it hard to make a fist when you first wake up? | When you go to sleep, in a simplified sense, your brain deactivates your muscles. When you just wake up, your muscles are also beginning to "wake up" so it would be hard for you to have total control of them right off the bat. | 3996f894-97d9-4171-bfc7-e0df1ebc5e2a |
8p04ra | Why is women’s handwriting generally better than men’s? | This has been asked many times before (don't use reddit's search to check for previous answers, google seach on reddit ... works much better).
While there are some physical explanations, like development of motor skills happening earlier for girls... There are also social reasons, like girls being encouraged more to care about looks and boys to be fast and rough.
Whichever is more important we can argue about but I doubt we will be able to reach a conclusion. Personally I'd argue for the social part because there is too much variation in the development and age of children in the same class, so by that logic the boys born early should be able to learn to write as nice as girls born late in the year (or vice versa).
Personally I can write as nice as a girl if I want to take my time to do so but most of the time I write fast and rough because used to be a little boy many years ago.. I'd really like to be able to write nice AND fast though, but I have not mastered that yet.
_URL_0_ | 52197f37-1769-49ff-a033-103153bb2889 |
3hpnf4 | Why is one side of aluminium foil less shiny than the other? | When the aluminum foil gets really thin, it could be torn by the tension required to further thin it. To prevent this they run it though the rolling machine in two layers. There the aluminum is on the polished steel rollers, it is shiny. The side that's against the other sheet of aluminum is not as shiny. Here is a [Video explanation](_URL_0_ ). The doubling up starts about 5:40 in the video. | 051950e5-f859-4246-8dd2-6cb0c0814710 |
3n3zse | Why do companies state that your refund would take 5-7 business days to appear in your bank account, when in reality I always get it on next business day ? | It's better to under-promise and over-deliver on services than to over-promise and under-deliver. | 614101f8-dd43-473f-bc62-56d9c2af656b |
uqmt5 | Magnetos in a Cessena 172 | Aircraft use magnetos, which are driven off the engine instead of a battery, making them more reliable at the cost of some performance. Remember, a car with a busted ignition will fail and coast to the side of the road, a plane with a failed ignition will turn into a glider and crash. Think of magnetos as a crank generator hooked up to a transformer stepping up voltage to neon sign levels. This high voltage is used to create a spark. As long as you have a turning engine, you'll have a spark to keep things going.
Your Cessna has a dual spark system, which improves efficiency and redundancy, two separate magnetos power a two sets of sparkplugs, independent of each other. Switching the ignition key to isolate each magneto as part of your pre-flight checks will show you that both ignitions work.
[More info](_URL_0_) | 2cc85db3-b9dc-43b4-ab2d-af164f5258f0 |
2za7ld | If websites like google take a double shot using the CAPTCHA (first makes sure you are not a bot, second using you as a worker to do a job for them by reading let's say a house number that is not legible for a machine), how do they know what is that so-called number? | **tl;dr: machine learning**
Google is running machine learning algorithms on these images to predict what those numbers/letters are. Note that, we are at a point that Google's system can outperform most humans. Anyways, the way machine learning works is essentially training. You tell the algorithm what is right and what is wrong and tell it to learn from it. It already knows that the number is, but it will also take a human answer to check how right or wrong it is.
For example, if the algorithm predicted that some picture had the numbers "8233", but almost every human that it ran the test across responded with "8238", it knows that it must've made a mistake. It adjusts it's parameters to that error. The whole point of machine learning (especially neural networks, which is the method Google uses to predict these numbers/letters), is to reduce the error on guesses and adjust parameters to fit these errors/corrections. | 26ca60cb-5419-4bce-abdd-e5e9b555b7ea |
2smcmw | Why would females want to follow the religion of Islam when there are clear preachings about them being worth less than a man? | Almost all religions treat women worse than men. Islam, Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism, Hinduism... all essentially identical when it comes to women as far as the respective holy books are concerned. Of course, people pick and choose what parts of the book stop follow and only the more extreme or fundamental follow the oppression aspects of their books.
But now I've gone off topic.
Why do women want to follow Islamic religions? The same reason why anyone wants to follow any religions; it gives them comfort. Everyone has something different that comforts them, and maybe they see something they want in Islamic religions.
Oh, and if you weren't talking about those who convert; almost everyone who is religious is the same religion as their parents. Converts are rare. This is just how it works. | b60f68dc-a8fa-441a-baf5-01a206568960 |
6hndrz | why do downloads start completely over when interrupted? | It's far easier to implement.
Essentially, your web browser communicates to websites using a whole set of protocols. One of them is HTTP.
HTTP has a command called GET. You can use this to retrieve files. Due to the nature of this protocol (which was developed a long time ago) there is no way to GET **part** of a file. So if you have to download the whole thing again anyway then you may as well discard the corrupted file and start over.
When the protocol was created, they probably weren't expecting such large files to be send over the internet. So the idea of starting again probably wasn't so scary!
There are other protocols that exist. For example this isn't a problem when downloading Torrents. But in that case you use a torrent program instead of a web browser. | 7c4c4e7a-2a56-48dc-a30f-a9e8e73543d4 |
4hqjdb | Why didn't the big bankers go to jail after the Wallstreet collapse? | Because the government hasn't believed it can prove violations of criminal laws. Simply issuing an investment that drops in value isn't a crime and proving fraud is hard. It's like the difference between inattentive driving resulting in a collision, and intentionally driving one's car into a pedestrian. It can be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what a driver was thinking, unless the driver tells someone or leaves other evidence of their thoughts.
The settlements the banks have signed with the government contain admissions of misrepresentation and don't generally settle firm nor employee criminal charges. Allowing the government to continue investigating any criminal charges it may have been pursuing, but criminal trials require a higher standard of proof than a settlement. | 18fc8bbf-14db-47bc-ac70-4759b16062ee |
217o63 | This is a little late, but explain how wind chill works. | It doesn't get colder with more wind.
However, it *feels* colder. Your body loses heat to the air around it. The wind carries away this warmed air, and replaced it with more cold air so that you can lose more heat. | 22352d97-4ddb-438d-9f74-4c3785cf9abd |
4k4x2x | Why do old people's voices change? | True ELI5-Their vocal cords get stretched out.
There is a surgery that can fix this. I seem to recall seeing an older person who had it done, and it was jarring to hear them with a young voice. | 5388b2c2-ed6f-48ca-b51b-fa554388dd36 |
1uqbwl | What's different about the air inside a bag of chips from the air outside of the bag, that it doesn't make the chips go stale? | The bag is filled with nitrogen. Because the chips sit in this altered atmosphere, no moisture, no oxygen, and no micro organisms, the chips stay fresh, crisp, and in top quality longer.
Here's more about modified atmosphere packaging _URL_0_ | 996f25d2-9e95-478e-aa9a-212efa4ca578 |
48kdo6 | Why aren't you supposed to wake somebody who is sleepwalking? | because of the old wives tale that the trauma would kill them. in fact, you can wake up a sleepwalker at any time to no detriment. it would be just like waking them up from bed. | 1016cbd2-9a49-4ac8-8e4e-e41b4b9db6f3 |
7vlgem | How does air horn generate such a loud noise? | U/Blesshope is talking out of his ass ,he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Sorry brother.
The airhorn uses a diaphragm similar to reed in a wind instrument. The cone is there to amplify the sound/ direct it, but the sound is actually created by vibrations on the diaphragm.
_URL_0_ | 3c3560d2-ad54-4565-9f1a-e281b9fbbc75 |
8wtj4j | Why is it that most animals can crawl or walk immediately after birth, but it takes human babies months to be able to? | Humans have not had a regularly occurring need to run away from predators since we gained enough intelligence to make fire and spears.
Because of this, the inability to immediately walk was not evolutionarily selected against, and so traits that improved intelligence and the ability to run extreme distances were allowed to spread through the population, despite any early disadvantages they might give.
So yeah, as many others have said, we're born incomplete, but this is why we have been able to succeed despite that. | db4cdb59-7193-48fc-ae47-d7e443c2d8e0 |
6i2qxq | How did our ancient ancestors in Africa deal with sunburn? | By being black, black people don't burn as easily and since the sun is so bright they don't need the skin to absorb as much sunlight to produce vitamins. | 1369d705-d778-4439-8a0e-4dc86ceb3991 |
899syc | How does anything exist tangibly outside of the 3rd dimension? | Dimensionality is a mathematical concept. It's used to describe properties of spaces.
If we lived in a 2D world, we would only be able to perceive lines. Any intersection of our universe with a 3D universe would appear to use as a line.
We live in a 3D world, so everything we perceive is in 3D. However, we can **describe** everything we see in 3 dimensions: width, length and height.
We can also describe our world in 4D (adding time).
> If you make a dot on a piece of paper with a pen the point would have measurable height, length, and width no matter how minuscule it be;
The dot as you describe it, is a mark made of ink on a cellulose surface. It's a visual representation, not really a 1D dot.
There may be multi-dimensional universes out there that we can't experience since we can't perceive more than 3D+time. | bbc37421-ea89-47a3-a1d8-2b9f77616945 |
3d7k3k | What would happen to North Korea (and subsequently the world) if Kim Jong Un suddenly vanished? | It would be kept silent for weeks at first while they tried to locate him. North Korean news might fabricate some stories about what he's up to here and there, but mostly they won't talk about him.
Something similar happened last year when he took some time off for his health.
The entire country would be completely locked down. No unnecessary travel permitted. The Kaesong Industrial Complex will be shutdown. Nobody will answer the hotline phone. Everyone will know something is up.
After a while, the military will take over. Everyone in the country will be ordered to tune into television at a certain time for an important announcement, similar to what happened when Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung died.
The newscasters will announce that Kim has vanished and that the US are almost certainly to blame. They'll announce that the military is working to figure out exactly what's happened and name whichever general is now in charge of the country (perhaps Hwang Pyong-so) as leading the investigation.
After that, who knows? The North Korean military aren't dumb; they know that all-out war would be hell, but whoever winds up in charge is likely to be twice as old as Kim Jongun and nostalgic for the days where North Korea was truly prosperous.
Other world powers will start talking with this new military leader, in secret at first. They will probably be generous with the new leader, trying to court a friend and not wake the giant. Other countries will probably offer enough good deals to placate the new leader, and the status quo will be maintained. | 9adb2098-7040-4a41-a615-e22638bf74dd |
4rirpu | Why is it good for Canada to get more residents ? | Far from a complete answer here but it has to do with aggregate demand. People come to Canada and need jobs, but they also need to spend money and buy things, like gas, food, housing which gives people who work here already either more business or the chance to have a job they maybe didn't have. It is similar to why the central banks always try to keep inflation, you always want some growth otherwise the economy would turn into a crappy swap meet. | ac9ccc96-9706-4d6f-bf81-accaf6263a06 |
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