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1ptv1j | why am i only bald on the top of my head and not the sides? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ptv1j/eli5_why_am_i_only_bald_on_the_top_of_my_head_and/ | {
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"There's a lot of great articles online that go into the exact science behind it if you'd like to read up on it, but the basic version goes like this:\n\n\n1) The hair on the top of your head is genetically slightly different to the hair on the sides of your head. The hair on the sides of your head are \"closer\" to pubic hair - this is also the reason male pattern baldness (MPB)doesn't generally occur in the armpits / genital region / back / chest etc.\n\n2) The actual hair loss issue is when a hormone testosterone changes into another molecule dihydrotesterone (DHT) which \"attacks\" the hair follicles on the top of your head, causing them to gradually shrink then disappear.\n\nSidebar: Typically MPB is treated by two methods - orally taking a pill of finasteride (marketed as Propecia) which acts to \"disable\" the formation of DHT, combined with topically applied lotions of Minoxodil (marketed as Regaine or the like) which helps stop DHT from attacking the hair follicles directly.\n\nDisclaimer: I'm not a doctor and you should definitely have a chat to your local GP if you're having issues with MPB - they can save you a fortune you would spend with any of those hair clinics!!\n"
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2127vq | what is the tl;dr of terms and conditions that i always i agree to? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2127vq/eli5_what_is_the_tldr_of_terms_and_conditions/ | {
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"This is our stuff. You have to use our stuff the way we say. If our stuff breaks your stuff, it's not our fault. You can't give other people this stuff unless we say you can. That's the basics. There are some other nuances, but not many. I would highly recommend reading through one T & C all the way. Following that you can skim and look for anything fishy with relative ease."
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bt03lt | why do stop lights make you press the walk sign button? | This isn’t all stop lights. At many lights the button doesn’t do anything. But at some of them you do have to press the button. What is the purpose of making you press the button? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bt03lt/eli5_why_do_stop_lights_make_you_press_the_walk/ | {
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"The only stop lights I've seen with that button, are stop lights in places like highways or with high speed traffic that don't need a stop light due to a low amount of people needing to cross.",
"Think of it like the turn arrow. If there’s no car in the turn lane the sensor will never be tripped and the arrow will never turn green. The button is the simplest way to let the system know someone wants to cross so the walk sign turns on rather than the don’t walk staying illuminated.",
"If no-one needs to cross the road, it would be pointless to stop the traffic. By requiring pedestrians to press the button you can keep the traffic interruptions to a minimum and only when there is actually someone who needs to cross."
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56kb7i | what credit rating actually is | I know if I handle debts well it goes up, but if I pay for things with my savings it doesn't. I know that the number is used to help other people figure out stuff with money. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56kb7i/eli5_what_credit_rating_actually_is/ | {
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"The most important thing to remember about your credit rating is that it is **not** for your benefit. It is for the benefit of those you want to borrow money from.\n\nYour credit rating is a conventient way for money lenders to know what kind of risk is associated with lending you money. Basically, how likely are you to pay back the debt you owe? That's why you can't build a good credit score by paying for things out of a bank account: you're not borrowing money, so they have no way to know how you'll handle that.\n\nIt's also important to know that your credit is not adjusted manually by someone looking at your actions. It's handled by a complex, mostly secret algorithm. It has nothing to do with what your intentions are or what they think your intentions are, it just has to do with what the actions you take are associated with statistically. That's why, for instance, checking your credit score lowers your score. Statistically, people who check their score do so because they are about to take out a big loan, to buy a car or a house, and they need to know how much they can afford. Taking out one loan means you're less likely to pay someone *else* back back you already owe money to the first person."
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2g2lrc | how do tv shows with multiple writers avoid the "too many cooks spoil the broth" syndrome? | I was randomly browsing the wikipedia articles of my favorite tv shows (Avatar: Last Airbender, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, just to name a few) and I looked at the people credited as writers and I'm like....O_O!!!
Avatar, for example, has ten, TEN writers, and by some miracle it turned out pretty fucking amazing.
How? Like seriously. For me, it's already a headache just working with two other people in a collaboration, yet the two who created ATLA somehow worked with eight other writers with their own visions, inputs, ideas, etc? How could their not be conflicts with people not feeling some sort of way? Either they're total yes men or that's some amazing teamwork.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g2lrc/eli5_how_do_tv_shows_with_multiple_writers_avoid/ | {
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"A head writer makes final decisions ",
"It's important to understand that for any team to function well they HAVE to get over their individual egos to at least a certain level, or they will not be able to get along and the team approach doesn't actually work. Then it's just a bunch of individuals working together and the odds of a great result decline drastically. \n\nProfessionals that work in teams learn to acknowledge and defer to other professionals. If they don't, either they're a problem or they're really the leader that everyone else simply defers to and executes the orders of (I'd guess trying to act in a movie with Bill Murray would be something like this), or they're effectively a team of one that has to be specially managed around because they bring a very specific skill, or some combination of these. And the team itself usually needs some form of leader that acts as an authority or tiebreaker when others within the team get trapped on some point, which is why there's usually a head-writer for each episode.\n\nPlease don't assume that those writers don't have their own headaches. Collaboration among highly creative people that are trying to develop something new and brilliant takes a lot of management and compromise and is often highly unpleasant for at least some of them and often all of them. But they have to suck it up to reach that goal. \n\nOr occasionally, something *really* clicks, various quirks line up in amazing ways, and magic happens and you get Monty Python's Flying Circus.",
"Usually it's a bunch of people writing a few episodes each, not a bunch of people on every episodes. ",
"The simple answer is that they each work on separate chunks of the show, and work as a team to stay co-ordinated across chunks.\n\nThe situation varies show to show and is obviously more complicated with something like Lost or Breaking Bad (where a continuous story has to progress episode to episode) than with something like The Simpsons (where virtually every episode is completely and totally unrelated to others).\n\nThe most typical situation is to have a writers' room headed by someone informally called the showrunner. The showrunner is an executive producer and the highest-ranking member of the crew. The roster of permanent writers, which can be anywhere from 3 to 15, sit around a table together and take turns giving 'pitches' for story ideas. These can be as little as one-sentence concepts (\"What if Homer became an astronaut?\") but are usually 2 or 3 paragraphs outlining a story and maybe some key scenes. The other writers then give their feedback on it, criticise it, suggest improvements. If everyone likes the idea as it develops, it goes on the board. This goes on until there are a decent number of outlines on the board, then those outlines are assigned to specific writers (sometimes in pairs) to turn into episode scripts, and everyone goes off to work. After a period they return to the writer's room and read out their scripts; at this point, all the other writers will start brainstorming jokes and one-liners and funny situations that can be added. They're incorporated into the draft and then the episode is performed at a 'table read' where the voice actors sit at the table with the script and perform it out loud to get an idea of how the episode will go. Then the writer of the script might go and tighten the episode, remove stuff that fell flat, write in jokes people improvised during the reading, etc, before turning it in as complete. You'll notice that even though episodes are attributed to one or two writers, they actually involve the work of the full team: this is just a necessity of the system, and if you tune into any DVD commentary for The Simpsons, Futurama, Seinfeld, or any other show like this, the writers will always point out details that the other writers added and contributed, thank whoever provided the idea for the episode they wrote, etc. There were writers on staff who pitched thousands of jokes but rarely sat down to write scripts, so there wasn't really a good way to credit them. It's messy.\n\nThat's the simplest scenario. It works for The Simpsons because there doesn't have to be any coordination between different episodes, for the most part the episodes can come in any random order and be fine. The Simpsons writers weren't very cross-coordinated between these meetings; the most prolific writer the show ever had, John Swartzwelder, famously started working from home so he could chainsmoke and drink while working, and would just drive up, leave his script with the receptionist while the car was still running, and go home. (This guy was basically Ron Swanson in real life, they call him at home in the DVD commentary for one episode and he is tipsy and cooking steaks at 9AM.)\n\nShows with continuous stories are where the showrunner becomes vital and force the writers to communicate more.\n\nWith shows like The Office or Arrested Development, where there's some level of continuation between episodes, more attention paid to character development and story arcs, etc, the episodes have to be in a specific order and have to be co-ordinated. That's what the showrunner handles. They will often personally draft the story arc for the season (sometimes with the help of the other writers, sometimes alone), and then sit down with the writers in the writers' room to hear their story pitches. The difference is that all those pitches must fit into the showrunner's dictated arc: episode 5 must end with Jenny having a heart attack, episode 8 must feature a breakup, the season finale must end with Jack's car exploding and the police finding the recording device. When the ideas for individual episodes accumulate, the showrunner puts them into a specific order and orders changes to them to make them fit better together.\n\nShows with *very* continuous stories, like Lost, have the showrunners acting as total dictators. With Lost and with Dexter and other shows in that style, the showrunner(s, Lost had two) would write out episode summaries for almost every single episode. Specific writers were hired to flesh them out, add side stories, write the dialogue, etc -- but the actual plot was all laid out by the showrunner and the episode writers didn't have much freedom to actually change the story. Meetings between the various writers were relatively rare and writers *could* pitch, but they didn't hold pitch meetings like The Simpsons did. This style of writing is closer to the British and Australian styles (where TV shows are often entirely written by one person or partnership) and was historically very unusual in the US, but became popular starting in the early 2000s with the success of The Sopranos (run and dictated by David Chase), The Wire (David Simon), Oz (Tom Fontana), Lost (Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse) and The Shield (Shawn Ryan). Shows that use this model often have coherent serialised stories at the expense of shorter runs (rarely more than 12 episodes a year), because an American 'full season order' (24-25 episodes) is too much for one person to do."
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5b0uag | if life were such a probable event, we don’t have evidence of multiple origins? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b0uag/eli5_if_life_were_such_a_probable_event_we_dont/ | {
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"There could have originally been many potential self-replicating molecules or molecular systems, but likely one type was better at replication than others and there was a molecular form of natural selection. It is thought that RNA preceded DNA, and that the first life was RNA-based. RNA is simpler and capable of storing genetic information just like DNA. However, we don't see any RNA based life (although there are some RNA viruses), probably because DNA is more stable, and was a better mechanism for encoding genetic information. All RNA based life would have gone extinct because it couldn't compete with DNA (or RNA could've formed symbiotic relationships with DNA, but cease to exist as its own life form).\n\nWe have no idea how many forms of life existed, we just know that the \"LUCA\" (last universal common ancestor) had a DNA structure resembling all current life. The LUCA however is in no way considered to be the first living thing... It's just the first living thing to produce a lineage that is not extinct."
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dy67z6 | why are you required to wear specialized eyewear when welding, and in what way the light emitted differs from another light source? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dy67z6/eli5_why_are_you_required_to_wear_specialized/ | {
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"The quality and color of the light varies depending on the materials being welded and type of welding. However, almost all forms are so bright that they'd damage the eye and more practically so bright that they you can't actually see the weld area because all you see is a glowing orb around the work area.",
"The brightness of the arc form an arc welder is bright enough to cause damage to your retina if you looked directly at it. How it differs from other light sources, is intensity. Like the sun, the brightness is so intense that direct exposure will damage your vision. In fact, arc welders are brighter than the light from the sun entering your eye (of course it's travelling much shorter distance, and not through miles of atmosphere).\n\nExposure to the brightness of the weld area leads to a condition called arc eye in which ultraviolet light causes inflammation of the cornea and can burn the retinas of the eyes. Welding goggles and helmets with dark face plates—much darker than those in sunglasses or oxy-fuel goggles—are worn to prevent this exposure.",
"Welding arcs give off radiation over a broad range of wavelengths. The UV C and UV B are absorbed in the cornea of the eye while UV A passes through the cornea and is absorbed in the lens of the eye. Ultra violet light can produce an injury to the surface of the eye, also called arc flash or flashburn. I've had flashburn numerous times and it can be extremely painful for the eyes until it goes away.",
"As a welder I can tell you that the arc and puddle are so bright, you can't see anything with out filter. Now you instagram welders can come boast all uou want, but I can't, maybe I'm just weak and a coward because I wear my PPE.\n\nBut biggest issue is the UV radiation, how much you get depends on what and how you weld. TIG aluminium being the worst thing for you. Welder's eye is basically a sunburn, but on your eyes, it can even burn inside your eyes. It can cause harmful mutations. (which is why you should wear your PPE american instagram welders).\n\nOther thing is Infrared radiation. It will burn you a lot. \n\nRod welding is kinda like old school lime light, little UV, but really bright white light and lots of infrared. Imagine looking at a camera flash, but it is constant, or magnesium flare. \n\nWhile TIG, And Mig/mag cause this electric blue light, heavy in UV. Even reflections are really harmful to you, so the fact you can't see the arc, doesn't mean your are protected from it.\n\nOxyacetylene mean while is a bright gas flame. No UV. But powerful white light and lots of infrared. Imagine looking at a bright gas torch. For this you only need gas googles, DIN3, basically powerful sunglasses.",
"As everyone here has stated, you can obviously burn your eyes if you don’t wear your mask. I also wanted to point out how welding works a little bit. First and foremost, the “arc” in arc welding is essentially a tiny lightning bolt. This tiny lightning bolt heats the metal around it to a high enough temperature to literally melt it. When you are actively welding and have a mask on you can actually see this little melted pool of metal around it, which is commonly referred to as the “puddle”. The “welding” part is exactly what it sounds like. You are joining two pieces or parts of metal together, and you do this by making the little puddles on each piece of your metal combine into one puddle right in the middle of them. Then you add your filler metal by dipping it into that little puddle, move the puddle a little bit, then add more filler metal. This creates that overlapping circle pattern that you can see on pretty much any type of weld. In order to create a strong weld that’s not going to be porous or crack, you need to be able to see all of that clearly. Without the dark mask, you would just see a bright light, so even if you didn’t need eye protection somehow, you would still be working essentially blind, and have a poor product."
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aa5kzx | how will the upcoming hospital pricing requirements help consumers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aa5kzx/eli5_how_will_the_upcoming_hospital_pricing/ | {
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"Who knows, people may start bringing their own medications and nursing staff, many are already opting for an Uber over an ambulance.",
"It'll be helpful for a few different reasons.\n\nFirst, it brings transparency to the process. You'll know *before* you get the bill what everything will cost. \n\nSecondly, it will help to regulate healthcare costs. When Hospital A sees less business because Hospital B is 30% cheaper, Hospital A will have to adjust. That does raise the issue of corner cutting, but we'll see about that when it happens.\n\nTransparency almost *always* helps the consumer."
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314i9e | why does everybody know the phrase "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell?" | Was there a particular textbook that most modern books borrowed that phrase from? It seems like nationally everybody was taught that in Bio when they discussed cells. I looked in the search bar for other people who have asked the same question and another person used that quote in a different context. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/314i9e/eli5_why_does_everybody_know_the_phrase_the/ | {
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"It's simply a statement to remember what it does and people find it to be effective in teaching. Kinda like how Roy G Biv and Please excuse my dear aunt sally."
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1vhihj | why am i able to listen to any song i want on spotify for free as many times as i want but can only skip 5 songs on pandora | And I cant even choose the songs I want on Pandora | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vhihj/eli5why_am_i_able_to_listen_to_any_song_i_want_on/ | {
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"text": [
"Because they're different companies that operate under different business models."
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crue9h | how can nuclear launches be detected and identified? | If Russia launches at The US, how does the US know that it was Russia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crue9h/eli5_how_can_nuclear_launches_be_detected_and/ | {
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"Between satellites and radar, it is pretty easy to track anything that flies like a rocket. Rocket exhaust is really hot, and infrared cameras in space can spot them launching. Once it is airborne, an ICBM flies up to the edge of space and then flies unpowered over to its target. During this phase, it is a large metal object sitting in the middle of a big empty area, and radar has no trouble spotting it. From here, we can extrapolate its target based on its current path, since its engine has turned off. It is difficult to figure out if the payload is nuclear or not, but usually if an ICBM is launched at anything other than a military base, it is probably going to be nuclear.",
"[Here is a rocket launch, seen from the International Space Station](_URL_0_). You can see it with the naked eye (or a regular camera, in this case) over something like 1000 kilometers. Sure, it was the night side of Earth, but you can imagine how easy it is for a network of specialized satellites to pick up such a launch. Radar works very well, too.",
"There's a few arrays of satellites in orbit watching for bright or hot spots on the ground.\n\nA rocket launch is this intensely bright and hot spot for about a minute, far far brighter than anything around which makes it easy to spot. All rocket launches and missile tests are publicized in advance because they'll trip this warning system\n\nThese same satellites can also detect a nuclear detonation on the surface. They work in conjunction with the seismographs around the world which are used to detect earthquakes but were initially installed to detect underground nuclear tests."
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2ap1c1 | why do my pubes itch after i shave them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ap1c1/eli5_why_do_my_pubes_itch_after_i_shave_them/ | {
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"Because the ends of the hairs are sharper than they were before you shaved, the hair curls around and irritates your skin."
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2cvmsx | morals and values | Where do these come from? What I consider morally right or wrong other people might think the opposite. Why do people feel the need to push thier own values and morals onto other people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cvmsx/eli5_morals_and_values/ | {
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" > Why do people feel the need to push their own values and morals onto other people?\n\nWhy do you?\n\nIf you see someone murdering someone else in front of you, surely you are going to stop him and tell him this is *wrong*. So, why are you trying to push your morals onto other people?\n\nYes, most often their morals are not welcomed and you wish they kept it for themselves. But this is the general logic as to WHY people feel the need to push their moral to other people. Because they truly believe that they are right and that they are helping.",
"There are two ways to come at this question - from the direction of psychology and the direction of philosophy. Lots of research has been done in psychology about how morals work, where our ethical ideas come from and how we apply those ideas to different situations. On the other hand, philosophy has been trying to work out what 'the good' *actually is*, whether there's any such thing, and if we can know it even if there is, since the time of Plato.\n\nSome interesting psychology research has come out in the last few years which suggests that we can identify a number of 'foundations' of morality. People across different cultures and of different political persuasions place different weights on these different foundations and this, I think, can explain many of our moral disagreements.\n\nThe foundations they identify are:\n\n* **Harm/care** - it is inherently wrong to harm another (for no good reason)\n\n* **Fairness** - it is inherently wrong to preferentially treat someone better or worse (for no good reason)\n\n* **Purity** - this one's a bit more complex (and a little more controversial) but the idea is that many cultures have a notion that there are certain things (like having lots of sex, having sex in a particular way, being gay) which are inherently wrong, regardless of the harm they may or may not cause\n\n* **Loyalty** - it is inherently right to preferentially treat members of your 'in-group', whether that be your family, your tribe, ethnicity, country, etc\n\n* **Authority** - it is inherently morally wrong to disobey or disrespect people in certain positions. An example commonly given is to imagine that you and your father are both part of a play, and your part involves pretending to slap your father across the face, and he has agreed to this. For many people, in many cultures, this would seem very wrong, regardless of the fact no harm is caused, because you are disrespecting an authority figure\n\n* **Liberty** - it is inherently morally wrong to stop someone doing something they want to do (for no good reason). The freedom of the individual to act as they wish is one that should be morally respected\n\nIt's been noted that political conservatives and political liberals disagree about which of these foundations are important. Liberals tend to not have much time for Authority, Loyalty or Purity, whereas these things do apparently matter far more to conservatives."
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2gzobb | what are the main differences between machines and robots? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gzobb/eli5what_are_the_main_differences_between/ | {
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"Robots are a kind of machine.\n\nGenerally when people speak of robots in a layman's colloquial sense, they mean the popular culture sort of humanoid, advanced AI machine.\n\nThere are lots of industries, though, that use machines that they call robots. It's usually because they have some sort of ability to make decisions/adjustments based on environmental input. So instead of just being a machine that makes the same movement over and over, or a machine controlled exclusively by a human's touch, it's an arm or something that can adjust to the location of whatever it has to pick up/move/assemble or whatever."
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6phz7m | solid state batteries, why are they the future? | It's seems like all the cell phone manufacturers and automakers are saying solid state batteries are 3-5 years out. Why are they choosing Solid State instead of improving lithium ion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6phz7m/eli5_solid_state_batteries_why_are_they_the_future/ | {
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"The main reason is li-ion is unstable and highly flammable, there have been numerous cases of laptops and phones suffering near explosive combustion due to the li-ion battery.\nThere was even a cargo plan that was brought down by a fire in the hold due to li-ion batteries",
"Lithium-ion based batteries can hold a lot of energy, but they're also very sensitive. Fast or overcharging, or short circuiting a pack can cause it to puff up and potentially burst. If the pack ruptures, the lithium inside rapidly and violently oxidizes and catches fire. Obviously not a good thing if say an EV gets into a crash and the batteries get punctured.\n\nThe other problem with li-ion batteries is their energy density. Yes they can hold a lot, but not nearly as much as gasoline, even when you do take inefficiencies in internal combustion engines into account. Range is still a major limiting factor for EVs. \n\nLithium batteries are also very expensive. Which is why you only see range comparable to petrol vehicles in high end luxury cars. Lithium mining is also a pretty dirty industry. There are studies out there that show EVs with current technology may actually be slightly worse for the environment that petrol cars. So your Leaf may not actually be so green. \n\nSolid state batteries promise to be safer and pack three times the energy density of li-ion cells. They also last longer and can be changed faster. They use materials like glass and sodium which are widely available, cheap, and more environmentally friendly to produce. If manufacturing this new technology can be scaled, it could result in the holy grail of EVs. An all-weather, fast fueling, long range econobox car that's price comparable to current petrol vehicles in the same class. \n"
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f23eeg | why can heavy menstrual bleeding sometimes contribute to anemia? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f23eeg/elif_why_can_heavy_menstrual_bleeding_sometimes/ | {
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"Anemia caused my menstruation is more likely as lack of iron than a lack of blood. Women need roughly twice as much iron as men because of this.\n\nFoods high in iron include legumes, red meat, nuts, seeds and wholegrains. Also vitamin C can help up iron intake.",
"Having anemia means you don't have enough red blood cells to carry oxygen effectively. If you regularly bleed heavily, its a much harder burden on your body to replace the blood, which can lead to not having enough blood",
"Iron deficiency anemia is most often associated with the menstrual cycle. As we all know, iron is in your blood and during your period you are expelling more blood than you normally would and you body isnt able to produce iron on its own. You get it from your diet and some people need to consume more than others. \n\nBut combine this answer with the one from garura and you've got it covered",
"Anemia simply, is a lack of red blood cells or haemoglobin. You could read this as a 'lack of blood'. \n\nKnowing that, the idea that heavy bleeding can result in suffering from a lack of blood makes perfect sense really."
]
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3sr36h | how does the paint that changes color by temperature work? | Hot wheels, or plastic cups that change color when hot or cold. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sr36h/eli5how_does_the_paint_that_changes_color_by/ | {
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"Omg. I was at the science festival in sf last week and they were passing out rulers that did this... The kids passing them out had no idea how they work other than to say there are two layers of paint and the top layer becomes transparent with heat. \n\n"
]
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39s8vr | why are cows so sacred in india that they cannot be slaughtered and beef cannot be eaten there | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39s8vr/eli5_why_are_cows_so_sacred_in_india_that_they/ | {
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"Cows aren't harmed in India as a sign of respect. Cow's milk is an important part of every Indian household and several dishes are based on it. They are considered to be gifts from God and people are thankful for them.",
"It's part of Hindu culture, not Indian. Muslims eat beef. \n\nYou don't find cow temples or anything, people do not pray to cows nor are cows given a pimped out life.\n\nIt is simply considered bad to kill or harm a cow. It has a lot to do with them providing milk. \n\nIt's similar to how the USA treats bald eagles.",
"It is just a cultural mindset, similar to the idea of disliking meat of dogs and cats in the world. [An external link to an article with longer explaination](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"For cowherds, cows are literally money. Except that this money can die. When your wealth is measured in the number of living animals, you don't randomly kill them off.\n\nAdvance a couple of thousand years, and the rules about protecting cows no longer make sense, but are followed in a superstitious fashion. Like any other religion.",
"Just to add on to the other points already mentioned here:\nCows are very versatile animals, used not only for their milk, but also for manual labor for plowing the fields, transportation, and, believe it or not, house walls in India are smeared with cow dung for its antibacterial (outnumber the harmful bacteria with commensal bacteria) and mosquito repellent effects. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nCows have been an integral part of Indian society as a whole, and thus they are rarely slaughtered for consumption. Religious tenets were commonly used to reinforce important principles such as this- it is hard for some people to see the negative future implications of slaughtering cattle, even during desperate times. \n"
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1t353r | why does the uk still have a -house of lords? | I understand the need for check and balances, but a group of people who were not democratically voted in, but either knew the right people, or paid their way in, with the power to block any legislation they don't like, seems like a poor way to implement such balance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t353r/eli5_why_does_the_uk_still_have_a_house_of_lords/ | {
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"Because it works fine and most people are happy with it? \n\n\nHow can you have a check system if the way you appoint members in the upper house is the exact same way you appoint members of the lower house? You will just end up with the same result.\n\n\nLords can also be nominated by the public. There are also restrictions on what the lords can and can't reject and they can be bypassed if need be. ",
"They don't have the power to block any legislation. All they can do is ask the House of Commons to think again. \n\nOut of the two Houses, The Commons is supreme, as it contains the elected members.",
"Most people in the Lords will be former civil servants/ politicians or people with long careers in public service. The experience they can bring into scrutinising legislation can be invaluable. \n\nHowever everything the Lords do can be overridden by the House of Commons so they have no real power, and a democratically elected second house could take away power from the commons or be more obstructionist, resulting in the kind of gridlock seen in the US congress"
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2xojup | why is it illegal to share movies, music, etc; but completely legal to borrow books, movies, music, etc from the library? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xojup/eli5_why_is_it_illegal_to_share_movies_music_etc/ | {
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"Because at a library there is one physical copy being shared, it can only be with any one user at a time. With computer files you are creating copies so each user can access the file at the same time. ",
"It's illegal to *copy* and *distribute* properties that you don't have the rights to (that's why it's called *copyright*). The Courts have decided that large scale sharing via torrenting is more similar to distribution than sharing because you wind up giving it to hundreds, thousands of people that you don't know. ",
"It is not illegal to share a movie or music on the original media. For example, you can legally loan or give your friend a DVD or CD that you bought from the store.\n\nBut it is illegal to copy that and give it away, just like it's illegal to photocopy a book and give that away."
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1a1cbg | why any person in front of a judge must take an oath regarding god ( "so help me god" ) irrelevant of religion | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a1cbg/why_any_person_in_front_of_a_judge_must_take_an/ | {
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"Many venues give an option to make an [*affirmation*](_URL_0_) instead (that you will affirm that all of the statements you're making are the truth).\n\n",
"I like what Duke_Newcombe said. But other than that, I think in this context \"God\" is being used as a general entity to refer to many common religions (since most have god/gods in some form). However, this does not account for atheists or the few religions that don't have a God figure.",
"In the UK at least every effort is made to provide witnesses with the appropriate holy book to swear on, or if the witness has no faith, they are allowed to affirm.\nIn my experience as a prosecutor, affirmation had no affect on whether witness is believed."
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dnyhda | so veritasium explains in his video that trees gain their mass mainly from the air, better said from carbon dioxide. how exactly does it work? | Unfortunately he does not exactly explain what exactly happens inside the tree that makes it keep the carbon and "spit out" the oxygen again. And how does carbon make the tree gain mass?
ELI5! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dnyhda/eli5_so_veritasium_explains_in_his_video_that/ | {
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"photosynthesis is extracts CO2 from the atmosphere along with water from the tree's roots. It uses energy from sunlight to split the molecules and recombine them to make sugar; the bulk of most plant's mass is cellulose which is a type of sugar.",
"By photosynthesis.\n\nCarbon Dioxide + water + light transform chemically by photosynthesis into Sugar and Oxygen. Sugar is 6 atoms of carbon, 12 atoms of hydrogen and 6 atom of oxygen.\n\nFrom there the tree will use the sugar to feed his cells, who can divide and multiply, just like in our body. The wood is made of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin which are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms."
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1wearr | if singapore encourages learning standard mandarin and english over dialects, and taiwan encourages standard mandarin, why don't hong kong and macau continue to promote only cantonese? | I've already been explained as to why Singapore discouraged Singlish, Hokkien, and Teochew. But why do Hong Kong and Macau continue to officially use Cantonese? Wouldn't it be better for Chinese integration to promote Mandarin?
Also, why do Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan continue to refuse to use simplified characters? Doesn't this create confusion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wearr/eli5_if_singapore_encourages_learning_standard/ | {
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"It's partly an issue of identity, nobody likes to feel like they're becoming obsolete.\nAlso re-education is very expensive and time consuming and would require infrastructure changes on many levels. think about it, it's not just teaching kids, it's teaching adults who could be spending their time doing more productive things. It would also mean changing road signs and reprinting millions of books whose earlier editions are now worthless. The effects are huge reaching.\nThere has to be a pretty huge incentive for a nation or a jurisdiction to change their languages and acceptance and integration would have to be pretty rewarding to be worth it.\nSimplified characters are found often in places where trade and travel are common, however I know they exist elsewhere and i'm not sure why so can't help you there, would like to know though.",
" > Why do Hong Kong and Macau continue to promote only Cantonese?\n\nAt least when it comes to its education policy, Hong Kong is aiming to make its students biliterate in [Modern Standard Chinese](_URL_4_) and English and trilingual in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English according to [page 8 of this PDF](_URL_5_), though it's admitted fuzzy on how to achieve that goal.\n\nAs to why Hong Kong hasn't abandoned Cantonese wholesale and switched to Mandarin, /u/Losingstruggle covered how important a sense of identity is. It's worth adding that a sense of Cantonese-speaking identity is strong even in Mainland China, [crowds gathered in protest when Guangzhou proposed broadcasting more programming in Mandarin at the expense of Cantonese.](_URL_2_)\n\n > Also, why do Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan continue to refuse to use simplified characters? Doesn't this create confusion?\n\nFrom the perspective of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, they've just been using the same characters they've been using all along and it's Mainland China that's changed; it's not the opposite situation as if Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan all changed and went out of their way to be different.\n\nHong Kong and Macau both are Special Administrative Regions and have a high degree of autonomy. Hongkongers are already resentful of Mainlanders, [as this New York Times article explains](_URL_3_), and I think Hongkongers might not want simplified characters from the Mainland imposed on them.\n > For years, Hong Kongers have nursed complaints about the growing parade of visitors to their city from mainland China. The mainlanders spit, litter, jaywalk and cut in line, the locals grouse; they talk too loudly, eat on the subway and otherwise flout Hong Kong’s more refined standards of public behavior.\n\n > ...\n\n > But the seven million residents of Hong Kong increasingly fear that mainlanders are challenging them for services, for property and to some extent for their cultural identity. Many suspect that wealthier mainlanders see Hong Kong as an escape option, for their children if not themselves, should confidence in China’s future fade.\n\nAs for Taiwan, I'll say it hasn't been eager to rejoin the PRC and give up its de facto independence. President Ma Ying-jeou has flip-flopped on the issue of simplified versus traditional, [in 2009 Ma proposed adopting simplified characters](_URL_0_), but i[n 2011 he ordered the Tourism Bureau to take down the simplified versions of its webpages](_URL_1_).",
" > Also, why do Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan continue to refuse to use simplified characters? Doesn't this create confusion?\n\nOccasionally, but for the most part educated people reading either Simplified or Traditional are able to read a large percentage of text written in the other character set. Chinese and Taiwanese \n\nAs to why, it's mostly a matter of politics, and to a lesser extent regional identity. There's also people who argue that Traditional characters are more beautiful, but that's a fairly subjective standpoint. "
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[],
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"http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gOVIFkd_Q70o23zAkf6k8TXQPeDQ",
"http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/06/16/2003505898",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Television_Cantonese_controversy",
"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/world/asia/mainland-chinese-flock-to-hong-kong-to-have-babies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_vernacular_Chinese",
"http://140.122.100.145/ntnuj/j49/j491-13.pdf"
],
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3dvhh7 | is a mobius strip actually a 2-dimensional object, or is it a representation? | A basic Mobius strip: twist a strip of paper in the middle and tape the ends together. What once had definite length, width, and height now has definite width and height but infinite length. But somehow this is now a 2-dimensional object because you can traverse the entire length without coming to a break or vertex? It's fasinating and interesting, but it is actually two-dimensional? What really is this thing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dvhh7/eli5_is_a_mobius_strip_actually_a_2dimensional/ | {
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"The confusion here comes from the confusion of \"infinite length\" with \"no end\". The Mobius strip does not have infinite length, any more than does a circle.\n\nMathematically speaking, the Mobius strip is a 2D manifold, which basically means if you zoom in enough it looks like a plane.",
"I would add that when you're talking about a physical piece of paper that you have twisted into a mobius strip, that is not truly two dimensional. If you were to zoom in close enough, you'd see that the paper has an edge, the page has thickness. So a piece of paper, while often used to represent a 2D object, is really a 3D object, it's just that the paper is very thin, compared to its length and width. So when you're looking at a physical piece of paper that you've twisted and taped into a Mobius strip, you're just looking at a 3D representation of a 2D concept."
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1z2c58 | why hasn't the us signed the geneva convention? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z2c58/eli5_why_hasnt_the_us_signed_the_geneva_convention/ | {
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"It doesn't want to be held to international law.",
"They don't want to have to follow other people's rules.",
"But the US have signed, and ratified, the four Geneva Conventions, and the last of three amendment protocols, the first two of the amendment protocols have been signed but not ratified. Thus your question is, in every way, a nonsensical question. \n\nSource: [Page 6 of this pdf. Geneva conventions are abreviated as GCI-IV and amendmet protocols as AP I - III](_URL_0_)\n\nGeneva conventions are abreviated as GCI-IV, and amendmet protocols as AP I - III."
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dgz5w6 | why is there a delay with connecting a bluetooth device to a different device? | If you connect for example a speaker to a phone regularly. It will pair in 2-3 seconds. If you try and connect it to a laptop afterwards, the speaker will pair in 6-7 seconds.
Now if you suddenly change and regularly connect the speaker to a laptop instead of the phone. Vice versa will happen. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dgz5w6/eli5_why_is_there_a_delay_with_connecting_a/ | {
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"When a device changes Bluetooth association like you describe, two things are happening. It's terminating the connection to the first device, and performing the handshaking protocols to connect to the new one. If it isn't actively connected to a different device, there's nothing to disconnect from."
]
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417zdc | why are some colds way worse than others? if i have a bad cold and transfer it to someone else, is it guaranteed to be bad for him/her? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/417zdc/eli5_why_are_some_colds_way_worse_than_others_if/ | {
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"It depends on your immune response.\n\nInflammation, fever, coughing and runny nose are mostly caused by your immune system fighting the virus.\n\nDepending on the effectiveness of the immune system it might be a single day of hell or a week of minor problems.\n\nNot to mention that a \"bad cold\" is subjective."
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204wz3 | how are small cell services like boost so much cheaper than large ones like verizon? | I assume there is some thing they are providing lesser service on. What is it about these services (Boost, MetroPCS, etc...) that allow them to be so much cheaper. I want to switch to what seems much cheaper, but I assume it is too good to be true.
If you have one of those services, how is the service? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/204wz3/eli5_how_are_small_cell_services_like_boost_so/ | {
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"They dont maintain their own towers. If you live in a rural area, service will probably be good, however I believe their data works a little different. For example, first 2gb at 4g, then 3g after. I have been thinking about switching myself. I have had att since my first cell phone, but they are pretty expensive. I pay $100 a mo for the minimal package. Stupid. 50 sounds a lot better.",
"The two biggest reasons are lower risk and no subsidized phones. \n\nRisk - They don't maintain towers, just purchase bandwidth from from the big guys. Don't have to worry about building towers, don't have any actual assets (with the exception of some tech support and a billing department). \n\nSubsidized phones - for whatever reason, in the american market consumers don't like to front the ~$600 cost of a phone up front (like pretty much the rest of the world does). So retailers decided to just cut off about 400 of that cost and tack on another 20/month to your plan, and force you into a two year contract (also notice that 20*24 /= 400). \n\nMy wife and I switched from verizon (probably around 150+ a month) to net10 (85 a month). Net10 runs on At & t and Tmobile, so it's not quite as good of service, but it's nearly half the cost. And I can use a nexus 5. ",
"Little FYI:\n\nSprint owns Boost Mobile and part of Virgin Mobile\n\nT-Mobile owns Metro PCS\n\nVerizon owns no known MVNOs\n\nAT & T Owns a SHIT TON\n\nAmérican Móvil owns TracFone, Net 10, PagePlus etc."
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2vgpsn | why are so many famous songs targeted at pre-teen girls? | Popular songs and artists I mean. Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber... I mean, why do those artists get so many views? Is it because girls start listening to music earlier than boys? i don't know | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vgpsn/eli5_why_are_so_many_famous_songs_targeted_at/ | {
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"Because Preteen girls normally have a higher rate of buying things they don't need. ",
"Preteen girls are a very important demographic. They are considered more responsible than boys the same age, and therefore generally have more spending money; but that conception of them is utterly wrong, because they impulse-buy at a greater rate than any other demographic.\n\n**TL;DR** Pissing away Daddy's money like tomorrow will never come.",
"Puberty and new emotions.\n\nThis makes them an easy target for emotional pop songs about feeling upset over boys as they are chemically wired to react to this.\nSame reason 12-16 year old boys corner the metal market... wired for agression.\n\nParents will buy their kids their favorite album, which is basically an emotional support kit.\n\n\nTie this in with teen channels and magazines that portray the artists and deserving worship, especially the dreamy boy type ones... tell the girls they should crave validation from these teens idols then have them pay for an album of vague songs saying they love you. Or that sound like every breakup ever.\n\nThey're just a prime demographic for the emotional product the artists are selling.\n\n\nWatch this video for a catchy musical explanation _URL_0_",
"All best selling music and movies now days is aimed at kids and morons because kids and morons don't know how to steal music and movies. "
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1z6psn | when a plane banks left or right, why doesn't everyone's drinks fall off the trays. surely gravity is still in effect? | If the plane was at that angle when on the ground then I expect it would cause everything inside to fall over, but unsure why this does not happen when it is airborne | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z6psn/eli5_when_a_plane_banks_left_or_right_why_doesnt/ | {
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"Consider water in a bucket on a string. No matter what you do with the bucket, as long as the string is at strain, the water will stay parallel to bottom of the bucket, not the ground. Why? Water is affected by gravity, \"G.\" The bucket is affected by gravity \"G\" AND the strain of the string \"S.\" So from the frame of reference of the bucket, water experiences force G-(G+S) = -S, which pulls it towards the bottom of the bucket. ",
"Gravity is balanced by the (imaginary) centrifugal force.\n\nCentrifugal force is a perception that, when you go around a corner, you're thrown to the outside of the corner. In fact, what's happening is your body just wants to go in a straight line, instead of around the corner, but from your position it seems like you're being pushed out of the corner.\n\nWhen an aircraft turns left, it banks left, and gravity makes you want to move to the left of the aircraft. But centrifugal force makes you want to move to the right. These two forces balance out.\n\nWhen a pilot flies a turn so that these forces are balanced, we call it a \"balanced turn\", and we describe the aircraft as \"in balance\". Pilots nearly always fly balanced turns, because they are more efficient than flying out of balance.",
"Not an ELI5, but cool related pic:\n\n[Imgur](_URL_0_)"
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bwc9i7 | how does a massive government like china just deny that an event like the tiananmen square massacre didn't happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bwc9i7/eli5_how_does_a_massive_government_like_china/ | {
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"China has a massive power called, “controlling education.” they disposed of all evidence that it happened and not put it in the education. just like what happened to the Tank Man incident. they also did it through propaganda.",
"If the media is not allowed to report on it, teachers aren’t allowed to teach it, and your internet is heavily censored then its easy. \n\nIf you are one of the people that knows about it because you travelled overseas and found out. Do you come home and tell your family and friends? Or do you just pretend you didn’t hear it or it’s not true?\n\nIf they killed 10,000 people peacefully protesting its better to just pretend you didn’t find out about it.",
"Simply put. They control, censor or spy on everything. They have state run media too, so all of the large media outlets in China are controlled by the government. You also can be fined or jailed for speaking out against the government. They also control the schools, so they try to mold kids to be very nationalistic from a young age.\n\nSo if you try to shout to everyone on a street corner in China that their government slaughtered thousands of people. You'll be harassed by the people first, then probably jailed by the police later. No one will believe you and you'll become a criminal."
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22bii4 | when movies make horses fall, is it real, and if not, then how do they do it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22bii4/eli5_when_movies_make_horses_fall_is_it_real_and/ | {
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"In the past, a device known as the \"running W\" was used to trip horses at a specific point, but it is now illegal. It is possible to train a horse to fall over on command in such a way that neither it not the rider are in much danger, and this method is used currently. As with any trick, teaching the horse to do this requires practice and the correct incentives. There may be other ways of getting a horse to fall over, but I'm not aware of them.",
"No, the horses are trained to command, either verbal or physical cue by rider. Source: My ex wife is a professional horse trainer.",
"After the filming of the movie *The Charge of the Light Brigade* killed dozens of animals during its climactic battle, the tripping of horses with concealed wires was made illegal. In newer movies involving horses falling, watch the rider just before the stunt. He will pull the horse's head sharply to one side, which is the command to fall. The horse will then curl its body and roll on its side. Contrast this with older movies made before Congress's ruling and you'll see horses violently flung forward onto their faces, completely surprised by the hidden wires, many landing with contorted necks.",
"Sorry this is not an answer to your question. But related trivia here! There is a horse scene in Conan The Barbarian that is very real where horses hit large palisades. I believe it sparked the beginning of animal rights in movies and the famous \"No animals were hurt in the making of this film.\" It was the last scene to feature a horse being hurt. \n\nA lot of stuff now is CGI. Others are saying the real horses are trained and I believe it. That is also extended to dogs etc... \n\n_URL_0_\n\nHere is a scene from the new movie. I watched it over and over. I don't really know what is going on but It does look like it is a trained horse. Also if you watch it over and over you realize the chain has no real weight to it. So if there is no CG there it is probably just a really light chain (plastic?). Look at how it lands after impact. It feels light. \n\n The \"dust\" that comes off from the impact is ridiculously easy to add in in CG. A lot of impact in movies is sound, camera shake, camera angle, and CG crap on top of it. ",
"I believe there is a featurette on the django unchained blu ray where they talk about trained horses for falling over (this was in reference to the \"Jonah hill horse charge scene\"). ",
"I don't know about many other movies but in the Lord of the Rings films when ever a large group of horses and their riders were taken down at once by the Nazguls or whatever, they were all CGI.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Here's an interesting way they did it in The Last Samurai... jump to around 0:50 to see the technique\n\n_URL_0_",
"Here's a clip from the indian movie \"Alluda Mazaaka...!\" (1995), here you can see the wire that is attached to their hooves/legs making the horses trip and fall HARD! :(\n\nClip:\n_URL_1_\n\nImdb movie link:\n_URL_0_\n\nA user review on the IMDB page wrote this.\n\"According to one web article, 157 horses were killed during the making of this movie.\"\n\nO_o",
"_URL_0_\n\nI thought of this scene instantly lol",
"As many others have commented, in the past the horses were made to fall with hidden wires, which often led to the deaths of the horses. Now-days there are three main options: CGI, animatronics and trained stunt horses. [Here](_URL_0_) is a short video about one of the better known stunt trainers out there who combines classical dressage and circus techniques to train his horses. This video gives you an idea about the methods that they use to make the horses fall but is not particularly in depth. There is another feature length documentary about training stunt horses that is fantastic but I can't recall what it was called. I think it was a bio pic on Mario or another European trainer.\n\nIf you feel like watching a film with some superb horsemanship in it I recommend taking a look at [the horseman on the roof](_URL_1_).",
"I actually know this pretty well because a good friend of mine has capitalized on it in the film business. Yes, they used to be incredibly cruel to animals in Hollywood. Then Animal rights groups got involved (as they should have) and it was outlawed. Now the current standard is to use life size puppet horses. You've seen my friends horses in movies like The Last Samurai, The Lone Ranger and True Grit. Here's an example of how the horse falls worked when they did 300 _URL_0_\nOther behind the scenes examples can be seen on their web page. \n\n*edit: Bad Link",
"In the movie Braveheart there was a horse collapse that looked so real that the ASPCA was going to fine them\n\nLuckily they filmed backstage footage and could prove it was an animatronic horse ",
"For the filming of LOTR Return of the King, CGI renderings of horses falling we're added to the raw clip of actual charging horses for the battle of Pelennor Fields. There is supposed to be one genuine fall in the raw clip, however this was not intentional.",
"Interesting behind the scenes video about how they got the horses to fall on command in Django Unchained. _URL_0_",
"While we're at it : How do they make all the toddlers cry on cue? Just scare the shit outta them?",
"Were you watching The Lord of the rings on television, because I was and I was thinking the exact question",
"In the Lord of the Rings during he battle of Pelennor Fields, every horse that falls or dies in some way is CGI.\n\nThey filmed with ~2000 horses and none of them ever falls.\n\nA trained eye surely can tell the difference between animated and real horses but the average cinema-goer doesnt recognize it.\n",
"I just created /r/sfxexplained . I think this questions and its answers are great and deserves its own subreddit.",
"A widely used technique also consists of using a fully rubber horse with a barrel/drum as stomach to give it weight by filling it with water. \n\nSource: worked for special fx company",
"It is real in some circumstances, especially in older movies. It still happens a lot with Asian movies, and recent examples include Red Cliff.\n\nIn the UK, this is banned under the 1937 cinematograph act for cruelty to animals, and films with real horse trips, must be cut to remove them before release. You can find many examples by searching for the relevant UK releases at _URL_0_\n\nExample for Red Cliff (bottom of page) - _URL_1_",
"I think it was in the commentary on braveheart where they talked about this actually. The set got shutdown for a day because the animal rights guy did not believe the brutal stuff was special effects. Generally though, they mentioned that certain ways of a horse falling are acceptable. Watch any recent movie and you will notice that all the horses fall the same way. Everything else is special effects. Zooming in, etc to hide the fact that it's not a real horse.",
"One of the more famous horse stunts. Blazing saddles:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nI have heard the horse was trained for it. You can see the rider pull hard on the right reign. Mongo never actually touches the horse.",
"I've often wondered how Mongo did this...\n_URL_0_\n",
"Had to watch the 1939 John Wayne movie named Stagecoach for an intro to film class. In the end battle there are several horse falls and they used what's called a running w to trip the horses, and many ended up dying in the process. You can read about it here. They obviously don't do this anymore thank god.\n_URL_0_",
"In Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, there is a scene where they are showing a desecrated battleground filled with horses. To capture this, they tranquilized all the horses and filmed them as they were struggling to wake up. ",
"That’s one of the things CGI has made obsolete. They used to use a harness that pulled their legs out from under them. If a leg broke.....Oh well, the cost of the horse was in the budget.",
"Can someone tell me how they tripped the horses is the 2011 movie Shaolin? There's one scene where the horse falls down a set of stairs. I assume wires were used here too.",
"Hey, you're in luck, I happen to have a friend who's helped her dad out, and been involved with this in some major films. And I mean major, like the Christopher Nolan Batman films, the most recent Superman movie, etc. His name's [Frank Calzavara] (_URL_0_).\n\nThe currently used method is a progression of several different steps. The first thing you have to train a horse to do is bow, like [this] (_URL_1_). This really isn't all that hard, and can be done with most horses. You have to start off by working with them, and teaching them to lower their head, generally by lightly tapping on a front leg with a stick. Eventually you teach them to extend the leg and do a full bow. \n\nAfter you do that, you train the horse to fall into the leg that it has extended, by pulling their nose the opposite way, and teaching them to give into pressure and fold over. It's really not all that different than learning how to take a fall in a basic martial arts class, they have to learn to roll with the momentum. Obviously, some horses are better at this than others. I couldn't find any real great still photos on google showing this motion, but basically, when you see the horse's head turned to one side, the rider will generally give a verbal or physical command that the horse is trained to, and it will move into a similar stance as the bowing motion, then roll over. It looks kinda bad because they almost flop down, but as someone who's spent a lot of time with horses, trust me, they're not that easy to injure. Anyways, I hope that was clear enough!"
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wxua9 | direct x | I know that it's not a gaming engine, but if affects games? What is it exactly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wxua9/eli5_direct_x/ | {
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"DirectX is the way that your game communicates with your graphics card. Microsoft takes requests from game developers and makes a list of features that game developers want, but can't do right now.\n\nMicrosoft then goes to AMD and NVIDIA, and says, \"Hey, these are some things that game developers want to be able to do. We're going to expose these commands to those games, and here's what we're telling them to expect. You can build these commands into your graphics cards however you want, as long as you make them accessible to games in a particular way- and we'll call the group of these commands, brought together, DirectX.\n\nBasically, if game developers had to write games at the level of the computer's base hardware, it'd take forever, and certain games would only work on certain graphics cards. DirectX is a layer in between. It lets games make specific, predetermined commands, and then uses a driver made by the graphics card's vendor to convert those into commands that the graphics card can understand."
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32o86s | why don't states ever try to secede from the us, opting to keep their tax money and run things exactly as they would like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32o86s/eli5_why_dont_states_ever_try_to_secede_from_the/ | {
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"A bunch of states tried that back in the 1800's. It didn't turn out so pretty good.",
"Because they can't. A state can't ever *legally* secede from the union of the United States.\n\nA state can *revolt* against the union, though - That's what a lot of states had tried to do during the American Civil War. When a state (or states) tries to revolt, the US proper can (and will) fight to make sure the states trying to secede can't.",
"We had a whole civil war over this. We are the UNITED states of America and not the United States of America and Texas. We've had supreme court rulings over this as well states can't leave the united states. If they do we federalize the national guard and declare martial law. ",
"The USA is a Union, not a Unitary Republic. However... The rules are... Once you join the Union, you don't get to take a \"Mulligan\" and back out of the Union.\n\nHowever, the States do still enjoy a great degree of autonomy... That's why they are called \"States.\"",
"Also states recieve a huge amount of money from the federal government. A state that was independent would need a big increase in taxes to maintain their state spending.",
"CGP Grey covered it in a brief 3 and half minute video, and I recommend giving it a watch [here](_URL_0_). ",
"A lot of the red states rely on federal aid or programs to basically survive. ",
"Supporter of peaceful secession here: I think the Civil War sort of ruined the idea for a lot of people. \n\nI suspect much of the country would be happier by having different policies. For example, do Texas and Utah really have that much in common with New York and California?",
"They do, but they always fail. For a number of reasons:\n\nThe amount of Federal infrastructure that they'd have to remunerate the government for is beyond the means of the individual States to muster.\n\nAlso, the agreement to become a State is eternally binding...no backsies. ",
"Because the Union is good for the states. It provides them with financial support and security when they need it."
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6c0x1u | why do we more commonly associate bad memories with songs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c0x1u/eli5_why_do_we_more_commonly_associate_bad/ | {
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"Any highly emotional state will induce powerful memories of associated sounds, smells and other senses. Evolution probably coded this into us in order to ensure we would remember both dangerous situations and opportunities to thrive. This would be especially important for mating rituals in young adulthood because the propagation of the species is biologically crucial. Hence the common experience of remembering songs we associate with early love, both happy and sad."
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1e97g5 | how do ad networks work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e97g5/eli5_how_do_ad_networks_work/ | {
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"Ad networks generally have agreements with a lot of popular websites. The ad network pays the sites to place their ads, and vendors pay the ad networks to display their ads in those spots.\n\nWhen / if you click on one of those ads it brings you to the vendor's website. The ad network tracks where you saw the ad, when you clicked on it, and where you went. If you actually purchase a product after that, it is called a \"conversion\".\n\nAd networks often use a \"pay per click\" business model as well, where the vendor will pay the ad network for every ad click. In other words, they are paying the ad network just to get people to click on the ads... thereby visiting the vendor's site. More traffic to the site means more chances for sales to be made."
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4hno7r | why is st. louis not as important in the united states as it once was? is it likely to continue shrinking? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hno7r/eli5_why_is_st_louis_not_as_important_in_the/ | {
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"It was very important when the Mississippi was a big hub for transferring industrial products out of the Midwest. The small arms factory my grandmother worked at during WWII in Davenport, IA shipped through St. Louis, for example.\n\nAs Midwestern industry declined, so did the shipping of those products out along the Mississippi. \n\nThat said, the shrinking of St. Louis is exacerbated in the statistics. While other cities expanded their borders as their populations sprawled, St. Louis couldn't because it was not part of any of the neighboring counties. Chicago, today, makes up something like 80% of Cook County. St. Louis couldn't expand in a similar way because it couldn't take land from a county it didn't belong to."
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5vm9na | why do different countries have different electrical outlet layouts and voltages whereas (almost all) cars/trucks are standardized at 12v and the little round outlet (cigar lighter)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vm9na/eli5_why_do_different_countries_have_different/ | {
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"Cars wear out and get replaced, so over a period of two decades 99% of all cars on the road will be replaced with new ones. The last several decades in the auto industry have been ones of consolidation into a few enormous multinational companies that sell cars in dozens of countries around the world. So they've standardized, and that standard can be seen in every vehicle you're likely to enter. There are still the odd 6V and 24V vehicles out there, just not many. Same thing with computer/phone connectors: a few standards take hold and spread worldwide.\n\nOn the other hand, electrical outlets installed in the 1920s—when even different parts of the same country might have different standards—are still in use in millions of homes. The cost and difficulty of retrofitting is not inconsequential, nor is there much need to, so long as appliances are imported country by country.",
"From my understanding about cars and trucks, most are made European, American, and Asian. Asian nations started a little later in time. It was competition that made voltage and outlets become universal. \n\nThere isn't a competitive drive for countries to change their ways in accord with another. \nThere's a lot more to it, hopefully someone knowledgable elaborates clearly"
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3xvm9q | whatever happened to piracy? | Seemed like a few years ago every few months we'd hear about pirates capturing a ship and holding the crew for ransom. When did that stop being a thing and why?
Also, why wasn't piracy a problem for ~150 years between the age-of-sail and the Somalia pirates? Back in the 1700's - early 1800's there were all kinds of famous pirates, and state-sponsored piracy like impressment, Barbary corsairs, letters of marque and reprisal, etc. Then it's like suddenly there are no pirates from like 1850 to 2008, then piracy is in the news for three years, then it stops again. Why?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xvm9q/eli5_whatever_happened_to_piracy/ | {
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"It's still going on but isn't getting the same level of attention is was a few years back. According to the news, they've moved on to Iranian vessels. ",
"It's still very much a thing, although it has slacked off a bit. There was a huge surge in piracy around the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden/Indian Ocean region a few years back. Most of the pirates were based out of Somalia.\n\nSince then there has been a large multinational effort ongoing to interdict pirate ships and protect merchant shipping in the region. The US has also conducted a number of strikes against suspected pirate headquarters ashore.\n\nSomalia's situation has also improved a bit in the last few years which helps to divert people away from piracy which was a really last-ditch option for many.\n\n\nWhat killed historical large-scale piracy was the advance of effective government into the New World. (North and South America). Pirates need places to repair and refit their ships and markets on which to sell their stolen goods. Once the colonial governments in the Americas became strong enough to control their territory pirates ran out of safe havens. This also coincided with the major powers in the Caribbean having a prolonged period of peacefulness and thus no incentive to support pirates.\n\nPrivateering continued through to the end of the 19th century when the Declaration of Paris laid out a framework for international maritime law that forbade signatories from engaging in privateering.\n\nSmall-scale piracy is still incredibly common in places like the Gulf of Aden and Straits of Malacca but is cracked down on pretty hard due to it's detrimental effects on trade and commodity costs.",
"[Anarchy at Sea](_URL_0_), an article from The Atlantic, September 2003, talks about piracy already re-emerging as a problem.",
"Right now the narrative that news networks wish to push has changed.\n\nMany issues come and go, but many more only appear to do so. With the advent of 24/7 News channels, we have a very odd phenomenon culturally where news stations tend to cannibalize one another's stories.\n\nWhen piracy was the flavor of the month, that's all we got. Now, they've moved one to other topics. Might be news... might be \"info-tainment\". But the actual occurrence of events in the real world vs the amount of reporting done on said events seems to have a bit of a disparity. "
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10ect6 | why germany has maintained economic stability while greece has faltered | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10ect6/eli5_why_germany_has_maintained_economic/ | {
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"Germany produces a lot of stuff. ",
"I think the answer that terminal_velocity gave has a lot of truth to it; namely Germany has a diverse exporting infrastructure, as well as a controlled import system. \n\nBut the most important thing to remember is that Germany has taxes, okay? Greece in the meanwhile has had huge problems with tax-evasion and under-taxing. [\"With the economy losing as much as $58 billion a year in undeclared income, the administration has made tax collection a priority. But so did previous governments, which failed miserably at the task.\" ](_URL_0_)\n\n**In short, Greece has very little exporting diversity, and horrendous tax policies, while Germany has a fairly rigid tax system and a wide variety of things they sell, that helps them pay for things they need to bring in**",
"Does anyone else think it might not be a coincidence that the northernmost European countries (Norway, UK, Germany etc) seem to be doing fine while the southernmost (Greece, Italy, Spain) all seem to be having troubles? I'm not European, but could geographical culture differences (work ethic, education, traditions etc..) be a factor?",
"Greece didn't falter...Greece didn't have any real economic stability to begin with.\n\nGreece basically lied their way into the EU while the other countries looked the other way, then lied about their finances for the better part of a decade. When things go so bad their couldn't lie any longer, it all fell apart.\n\n"
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7vo96p | why do our eyes/brains struggle to figure out how many numbers/letters are in something when one repeats it self vs when all are different (12333332 vs 60292813) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7vo96p/eli5_why_do_our_eyesbrains_struggle_to_figure_out/ | {
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"text": [
"This is because it is easier for the human brain to count different numbers since you can know at which number you are looking at (The criterion is that the next number is visibly different than the previous).\nWhen you have to deal with a repeatitive number, you \"have\" doubts whether you skipped or count twice a number , so you instictively start take more time to make sure you read the number correct."
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3e0op2 | how nearsightedness and farsightedness work | How does ones eyes only see objects far away or close up? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e0op2/eli5_how_nearsightedness_and_farsightedness_work/ | {
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"text": [
"It has to do with a problem with the lens in your eye. Normally, your lens focuses the light onto the fovea of the retina, which is an area that has a high density of light sensing cells (called photoreceptors). When you are farsighted, light from close up gets focused onto a different part of the retina (not the fovea) and this causes the image to appear blurry. In nearsightedness, light from far away gets focused away from the fovea. \n\nGlasses (and contacts) work by adjusting the light so that it focuses back onto the fovea and the image isn't blurry any more. ",
"With nearsightedness, the eyeball is too long for the lens, so that the image often focuses *in front* of the retina. With farsightedness, the eyeball is too short for the lens, so that the image (if we pretend the retina is transparent) would focus behind the retina. \n\nThe result is that people who are nearsighted can still see things close up, while people who are farsighted can see things far away but not close up.\n\nFarsightedness, which is uncommon, is often confused with presbyopia, which happens with age and is believed to be caused by the lens in the eye getting less elastic, and thus having less focal range. The symptoms are pretty similar, the inability to focus on near things. "
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1oebvs | why are savings account yields in australia 4%/year, and in the u.s. they are .025%/year? | My Sister in law just moved to Australia and she is getting 4% / year compounded monthly where in the states we have a negative real interest rate. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oebvs/why_are_savings_account_yields_in_australia_4year/ | {
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"text": [
"Because the Australian Federal Reserve bank has a cash target rate of 2.5% - banks charge more than that for lending (I pay 4.9% on my mortgage) and also more than that for certain high interest online bank accounts (the 4% your sister is getting). _URL_0_. Australia has typically had higher interest rates but at the moment we are one of the strongest economies in the world, and if our interest rates were cut much more inflation would be triggered. \n\nThis is distinct from the US interest rate that is 0.25% right now (_URL_1_). \n\nI have Canadian family who talk about sending money here to make better interest. However, the interest earned in an Australian bank account is pre-tax and is counted as income for the purposes of income tax - so if you sent $1,000,000 to your sister (for example) she would have to declare the $40,000 as income subject to tax. So the effective rate is a bit lower. You would also be exposed to the risk that the Australian dollar will sink lower once the US interest rates start to rise again.\n\nI wish I could borrow from the US or Canada on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, put in a nice futures contract for the foreign exchange risk because I'm pretty sure that would still end up well, well ahead.\n\nTL:DR; Australian economy good, US bad, better economies have higher interest rates all other things being equal."
]
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|
2gsmmr | why does it often say when trying to download something "download should start soon, if it does not press this button" instead of triggering the function of the always working button. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gsmmr/eli5_why_does_it_often_say_when_trying_to/ | {
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"They're trying to load balance server requests so that no one server gets nailed with all of the download bandwidth. They give you the link so that if the fancy load balancer doesn't work you can still get the file from the main server. \n\nAlso ads.",
"Usually the file is mirrored, located on several servers. When you click the initial \"download\"-button, the web-server will query all of its mirrors - asking who is doing the least amount of work at that moment. It will then pick the mirror that can offer you the highest download speed. When you click the \"if the download doesn't start\", it can pick the first mirror, a random one or a separate server.\n\n\nOther times, when you're presented with a countdown. \"Your download will start in 3,2,1 seconds\", they just want ad revenues."
]
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[],
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||
95ylhp | how did manual telephone switchboards work? | Thank you | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/95ylhp/eli5_how_did_manual_telephone_switchboards_work/ | {
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"Your phone (and all phones) were wired to the switching center, where a person would have to manually complete the circuit between the two phones and then manually disconnect when you were done.\n\nLong distance calls required switching at multiple locations, hence the added cost back in the day.",
"In your local switchboard, everyone in the locality who had a house phone had a connection on the switchboard. If you lifted the receiver at your end, at home, a light would illuminate on your connection at the switchboard. \n\nOn the desk in front of the operator, there were two rows of jack connectors sticking out of the desk, plug up [like this](_URL_0_). Each pair one above the other were connected together. That's all they were, like giant aux cables. \n\nAs well as that, for each of those pairs, there was a switch which could be in one of three positions. The middle position just treated the cable like an aux cable, as above, one position let the operator speak to that connection, and the third position made that connection ring. \n\nThe switchboard operator would then plug one of the rear plugs into your lit up socket on the board in front of them to connect them to you, and flip the switch to let them talk to you. They'd ask you where you'd like to be connected to. \n\nIf it was a local number, you'd give them the local number (which would probably be something like \"185\", and then the operator would ask you to wait while they connected you. The operator would then take the other plug sticking out the desk, plug it into the number you'd requested, and then flip the switch to the Ring position. At your end, you'd hear the ring signal, at their end the phone would ring. The operator would wait for the light to illuminate on the connection you're trying to ring, which would tell them they'd picked the phone up, and then the operator would flip the switch back to normal mode, (or if they felt like eavesdropping they could leave the switch in talk and sit there silently listening to the phone call) and you could then talk.\n\nThe operator would know when you'd hung up, because the lights on both connections would go out, at which point she would pull both plugs out and they would reel back into the desk ready for use again. \n\nIf you were calling long distance, there would be some other connections that could be used, called 'trunk lines' which would connect to another switchboard perhaps in another city. Then the operator would connect to one of those, and talk to that operator, to establish an eventual connection between you and whoever you wanted to talk to long distance via these trunk connections. Because this would take time, they would probably tell you to hang up while they established the connection and then ring you back when the call was ready. \n\nAs you can probably begin to imagine, if you were in a busy city, it was quite a fraught job. \n\nAlso, if you ever wondered, the classic old movie trope of rattling the hook switch and shouting \"Operator operator!\" down the phone was actually a thing. Of course, tapping your hook switch would cause your light at the exchange to flash, perhaps increasing the likelihood of the operator connecting to you faster. \n"
]
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"https://78.media.tumblr.com/052b9cc3d70ea4647eab5054db0549c7/tumblr_ny82rhxd8r1umbo56o1_1280.jpg"
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acj8mw | scientifically speaking, is there a hypothetical cure for every disease? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acj8mw/eli5_scientifically_speaking_is_there_a/ | {
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"the short answer is that we don't know.\n\nWe've cured a lot of diseases and accomplished amazing things with science. at times it seems that everything is possible. But unless we cure ever disease, we won't really know. \n\nMy guess would be yes. But we can really only guess.",
"_Hypothetically_, yes. All a disease is is the malfunctioning of a biological process. If a process works correctly, then something happens to cause it to malfunction, it is theoretically possible to correct the malfunction and restore the process to working order.\n\nHowever, _how_ one does that is the tricky part. "
]
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6hmn3m | what does the 'end task' command do differently than normally exiting out of a program? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hmn3m/eli5_what_does_the_end_task_command_do/ | {
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"Imagine you are in a restaurant. And then you're asked to leave. You pick up your shit and leave. That's closing a program normally. Now when you end task. They bring in some bouncers and kick your ass out before you get to pick up any of your shit.",
"Programs usually have various operations to do before they shutdown. If a program is frozen, it is unable to perform/finish these operations, and does not shutdown. 'End Task' closes it regardless.",
"There are three main ways to stop a program. \n\nYou can quit from inside the program. The program does whatever it's programmed to do when you click quit, saving data and closing files and such normally.\n\nYou can use End Task (on windows), this is the operating system sending a signal to the program that tells the program \"Time to quit, finish what you're doing and then exit.\". The program (hopefully) responds to the signal, finishes up what it's doing, saves data and such, then quits.\n\nYou can use End Process (also Windows). Windows just ends the program, and frees up any memory associated with it. There's no communication with the program.\n\nIn terms of the other guy's restaurant metaphor: Quitting is finishing your meal then paying up and leaving, end task is being told to pack your shit and leave, and end process is being thrown out. ",
"One of the main parts of a desktop application is called the \"message loop.\" It is code that continually runs, checking for new messages from the operating system or other programs. Messages include things like user input (you clicked a mouse or pressed a key) as well as other notifications that an application is supposed to respond to.\n\nOne of the messages that you can receive is the Quit message. This is how the operating system tells an application that it should shut down. The application should respond to this message by trying to exit in as graceful a manner as possible - for example, giving the user a chance to save any unsaved work. This is generally the same flow as normally exiting out of the application.\n\nSelecting \"End Task\" from the Task Manager in Windows sends a quit message to the application and then relies on the application shutting itself down. Because it's up to the application to handle this, there is a valid response which is \"No.\" For example, if you have an unsaved document the application might ask for confirmation if you want to quit and you could click no. So the OS does not actually enforce that the quit message results in the application terminating.\n\nHowever, if the application is in a bad state this message might not ever be received, or the application could still fail to shut itself down. In that case, the operating system can terminate the program by simply not running its code any more and unloading all of its code and data from memory, as well as cleaning up any shared resources it was using such as files or network ports. This means any saved work will be lost so it is the method of last resort. The OS will generally ask you if you want to terminate a process in this way if the message loop stops running for an extended period of time.\n\n",
"I've always heard it explained this way. Closing a program normally is akin to being in your car driving down the interstate @ 70MPH, taking the off ramp, braking slowly, coming to a complete stop, shutting the engine off and exiting the vehicle. \nEnding the task is like having someone throw a cinder block through the windshield while driving @ 70MPH. "
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6fp08l | how someone can have a big belly but is relatively skinny/normal? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fp08l/eli5_how_someone_can_have_a_big_belly_but_is/ | {
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"Fat deposits vary from person to person and from source to source. A few of the hormones racing through your body affect the location of fat (cortisol directs it to the abdomen, for example) as well as your sex. (Women tend to have a 'donut' or bigger legs, men tend to have bigger bellies.) I don't know enough on the subject to give you a specific answer, sadly. On the bright side; as long as it's hanging in front or on the side of you, the dangers are relatively low. Fat between the organs or 'hard fat' is where you need to be scared.",
"In some cases this could be a sign of an underlying illness, such as celiac disease (which can cause a bloated belly on a skinny person). As to other cases, I can't say.",
"A swollen abdomen is also a sign of malnutrition. The boy needs to make proteins to circulate in the blood or osmosis pulls the water out of it, typically expanding the abdomen as it isn't constrained by bones like the chest or head.",
"Sometimes it can be caused by alcoholism causing a swollen liver although that looks a little different because the \"belly\" might seem a little high and off center."
]
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4i0a08 | why does windows 10 take over 2 gb of ram to sit there doing nothing, while windows 95 needed less than 0.004 gb? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i0a08/eli5_why_does_windows_10_take_over_2_gb_of_ram_to/ | {
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"1. It's not sitting there doing nothing. There's tons of stuff running in the background- updaters, anti-virus, Cortana, and more.\n\n2. It doesn't actually need a full 2GB. But RAM that's not being used is just wasted, so it will load extra things into memory to speed up the computer if you have more RAM than you need.",
"If you have RAM that you aren't using then Windows 10 will 'preload' things that you use a lot. That way when you actually go to use them it doesn't have to waste time to load it. It tends to make the OS more responsive for things that you do on a regular basis. "
]
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[],
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||
33iigz | does the united states government heavily regulate media outlets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33iigz/eli5_does_the_united_states_government_heavily/ | {
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"text": [
"No. The concept of [prior restraint](_URL_0_) is almost completely foreign to the US legal system.\n\nNow, the government can always *ask* an outlet not to run a story, or at least to delay it, and sometimes the network or newspaper will oblige. But it's almost impossible to legally prevent a US newspaper or television network from releasing any information at all."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_restraint"
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||
e64kn2 | what is a name server, what is a network domain, and how are the two related? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e64kn2/eli5_what_is_a_name_server_what_is_a_network/ | {
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"So a name server is like a telephone book, it takes the name of a website and converts that information into a usable IP address which is an internet protocol series of numbers like 8.8.8.8 which is used in this case to connect to _URL_0_",
"Sorry if this gets rambly; I'm at the stage where I intuitively know what these things are, but explaining them in ways that make some amount of sense is challenging.\n\nDomains are an abstraction that tells us what groups of computers have some degree of connectivity to each other. The form of this that most people will be familiar with is your standard corporate or education network; on a hardware level you have one or more main lines out to the outside world, and these have routers in front of them; then the routers connect to special servers called *Domain Controllers* that handle functions like IP address assignments and authentication and holding an authoritative directory of computers and users on the network. If you're hired by a new place and they give you some form of a \"corporate login\" then they're probably adding a user account for you on some sort of domain controller.\n\nThe domain generally has a name, and some networks can have multiple domains that may or may not be able to see each other, but (importantly) the IP assignments and authentication from other domains won't work there. \n\nAnother place we don't think about domains, are the sites we use daily. _URL_2_ is what's called the *domain name* for a site that is open to the entire internet, and every server in the Reddit domain is under this hierarchy.\n\nName servers, or Domain Name Servers, have a particular function that is most evident when talking about domains like _URL_0_: making your computer know where you want to go when you type \"_URL_0_\" into your browser. At the most basic level it's a huge table with one side being the network address of the computer, and the right side being the \"friendly\" name that humans can remember. This happened because, funnily enough, most people didn't want to keep a list of IP addresses for their favorite websites, and companies who wanted to use websites for marketing purposes found that it was much easier getting people to visit a site like \"_URL_1_\" than \"66.248.19.154\" for instance (note: no idea where that IP leads, investigate at your own risk)\n\nBack to your work domain, this gets used if your work has specific sites like a work intranet page with internal tools for your job, or even just an online company newsletter; in this case anyone on the domain for, say, widgets inc, can put \"widgetnet\" into a browser and get to the internal widgetnet page, or say \"payroll\" for HR to be taken to the server that hosts the payroll software; these are very customizable and (importantly) not routable from the internet in general; you generally have to be inside that domain to access it.\n\nHopefully that's a somewhat decent explanation."
]
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"microsoft.com",
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||
1r9av2 | how can long water fasting periods be healthy? | My best friend Is overwieght and has been fasting for four days but he plans on going for fourty days in total. How can this be healthy? Should I encourage him to rethink things? A person needs to eat right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r9av2/eli5_how_can_long_water_fasting_periods_be_healthy/ | {
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"That is insanely unhealthy. I had a friend one time do a 40 day fast, did it more for some personal factors, not weight loss. He discussed it with his doctor and took the proper precautions and he did it.\n\nFasting should **never** be a method of weight loss. His obesity will simply complicate things... Terrible idea. ",
"It's not healthy at all. In fact, it's often lethal. ",
"First off, fasting is an absolutely terrible way to lose weight. Your body actually takes the lack of food as a signal of danger and makes your body burn less in order to sustain itself longer.\n\nWater fasting may seem to make someone lose weight, but they're just losing water weight and nothing else."
]
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5qufpa | why us telecos still use cdma technology, when majority of the world uses gsm for the communication? | What's benefit of using CDMA in the US ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qufpa/eli5_why_us_telecos_still_use_cdma_technology/ | {
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"The main reasons are a matter of timing, corporate greed and legacy.\n\nBack when the US networks where starting to form, the switch from analogue to digital cellular technology was also happening and CDMA had some interesting advantages over GSM.\n\nOne of the most appealing features at the time (And still continues to be) was that it is easier to lock a CDMA user into the network that provides the phone than it is with GSM technology whose spec demands that they be interoperable between networks. CDMA makes it harder for a user to leave a network for another one and take the phone with them (In some cases it's impossible).\n\nThere where other benefits to CDMA as well such as greater capacity on the network, a questionable theory that call quality was better and so forth but GSM caught up very quickly and eventually leapfrogged CDMA in the quality and feature departments.\n\nNow of course, some of those network operators have folded into the big players you see today and frankly switching from CDMA to GSM is a BIG commitment those network operators don't really wish to undertake.\n\nCDMA as a technology outside of the USA and small parts of Russia is dead with the advent of 4G. GSM has been taken up by most of the world, mostly driven by Europe's mass uptake of it. Though 3G briefly was based on a variance of CDMA, 4G uses a technology called LTE which is a further refinement of GSM technology.",
"The selection of CDMA over GSM was mostly based on the distances and number of users supported by an antenna. CDMA was initially superior to GSM on both, therefore cellular networks could have better coverage with fewer macro cells (towers). However with the adoption of LTE, as well as refinements to 4G over GSM (contrary to popular belief, modifications to both CDMA and GSM were allowed to call themselves 4G without supporting LTE), and subsequent future migration to 5G, the differences have become moot.\n\nBut as the US was an early adopter of cellular technology, and Qualcomm was the leading provider of CDMA technology to both Verizon's predecessors and cell phone manufacturers."
]
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[],
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5rk0bm | what is the difference between relative humidity and dew point? | What is relative humidity and dew point?
What is the differences?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rk0bm/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_relative/ | {
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"text": [
"They are related in that they are both measures of the amount of water in the air.\n\nRelative humidity compares how much water vapor is in the air to how much water vapor the air could possibly hold at the current temperature. It is a measure of how saturated the air is compared to how saturated it could be.\n\nDew point is the temperature at which the current amount of water vapor in the air would be the maximum amount. Since as the air temperature cools, it can hold less water vapor, there is a temperature where the air can no longer hold the water vapor it currently has. That's the dew point."
]
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[]
] |
|
3sgu4l | why are governments post-actively banning the filming of slaughter house cruelty instead of pro-actively following animal abuse laws? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sgu4l/eli5_why_are_governments_postactively_banning_the/ | {
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"cwx3khl"
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"text": [
"I don't know where the government is specifically making it illegal to film that - it already is based on normal privacy and employment law. If you trespass onto a private property to film, that's illegal. And if you gain employment there to film secretly, you've committed fraud - and you've probably violated a clause in the employment contract you signed. \n\nA USDA Inspector has to be present at all times a slaughterhouse is operating. However, the agency is massively underfunded given the size of the industry, and they have a shortage of inspectors. If the abuse happens where the inspector doesn't see it, and it doesn't affect the meat after slaughter, it's not going to be noticed. And those videos, horrific as they may be, are illegally obtained by private individuals with no way of verifying their authenticity, so they wouldn't be admissible in any type of legal action.\n\nAlso, if a violation was observed, I believe it would be handled as a regulatory issue, unless it became a repeat or widespread violation, or seriously affected the safety of the meat. The company would be issued with a finding and be given a time period to show that they had corrected. (I'm more familiar with FDA procedure than USDA, but I assume it would be similar.) So, if there are cases where violations were found and corrected, you'd be unlikely to hear about them."
]
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[]
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|
77y8tw | how do recycling plants process liquids? | Like if a water bottle still has some water in it, or a soda can still has some soda in it. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77y8tw/eli5_how_do_recycling_plants_process_liquids/ | {
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"dopot57",
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"text": [
"Yay! Something I can finally answer! \nI work as a chemist at a waste disposal facility. At our plant we sort liquids into various catergories depending on what we think is in the containers.\n\nThese containers are then shipped off to a machine which essentially crushes all the liquid out of the containers making cubes of plastic or metal. \n\nThe liquid itself is gathered in large 1000L drums and shipped off to another facility to be chemically treated to be safe for release into the environment.\n\nIf this can't be achieved the liquid gets incinerated in small batches. \n\nHope this helped! ",
"I think your question has been answered, but there's also cool machines that use lasers to estimate the amount of liquid and determine what type of material each container is, then blasts air jets to sort each type off the conveyor belt into different streams. \n\n[Here's a crappy video I found of something like this.](_URL_0_)"
]
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6vuxyw | why do we feel the weird banging in our body when listening to loud live music | When the music (mostly at the concerts) is loud, I feel like the music vibration is shaking my lungs and heart. What is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vuxyw/eli5_why_do_we_feel_the_weird_banging_in_our_body/ | {
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"Sound is pressure waves moving through the air that vibrate your eardrums.\n\nYour ribcage doesn't have much that is solid behind it to stop it vibrating to large, low frquency pressure waves.",
"Sound is just waves of pressure or vibrations moving through a medium like air. What you're feeling is sound, the same sound that you are hearing. Your ears just have structures that turn those pressure waves into the thing we know as sound.\n\n"
]
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[],
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|
9zdrzx | what is more dangerous for the human body. high ac or dc and why? | We had a Discussion in physics if high ac or dc is more dangerous since high frequent ac isnt as dangerous as low frequent so we were not sure | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zdrzx/eli5_what_is_more_dangerous_for_the_human_body/ | {
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"The biggest advantage to AC is that it fluctuates the level, which gives you more of a chance of disconnecting from it. DC will lock your muscles and keep you from letting go.",
"Low-frequency AC is more likely to disrupt your heart rhythm than DC, but DC can still do that. High-frequency AC is extremely unlikely to stimulate nerves in a way that causes damage, which is why there are surgical tools that apply HF currents to body parts.",
"Well high AC will make you less likely be hit and avoid damage at all. But high DC is also hard to beat, especially if your saving throw is low and the failure can be critical.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n\\#Dndthings"
]
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244y1q | how do enzymes actually lower activation energy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/244y1q/eli5_how_do_enzymes_actually_lower_activation/ | {
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"text": [
"The reactants don't immediately form products, they'll form a transition state first, and the energy needed to form it corresponds to the activation energy.\n\nA catalyst (including enzymes) will make a transition state available which is lower in energy than the one which is used without the catalyst. Therefore the activation energy corresponds to the new lower-energy transition state.",
"Basically they grab the substrate and hold it in the right configuration for the reaction to go.",
"Enzymes alter the chemical structure of the substrate slightly to make it more likely to undergo change. \n\nSo, you have your enzyme and substrate which collide at the right angle and with sufficient energy to form an enzyme-substrate complex. The bonds between these two cause a small change in the structure of the substrate for the change to happen, then then the new molecule (substrate) is released by another chemical change. \n\nIn my Biochemistry I class we focused on the mechanism for chymotrypsin goes through. See the mechanism [here](_URL_0_).\n\nHope this helps! \n\nEdit: spelling.",
"An answer I know! \n\nThere are several reasons that enzymes lower activation energy, the primary reasons being that:\n\n* an enzyme aligns two substrates together in such a way that make the substrates react better/faster. Think of two lego blocks being two substrates and our hands being the enzyme. Our hands align the legos in the appropriate way to stack together, or “react”. Otherwise, legos by themselves would fall on each other any such way, which won’t always make them stackable (imagine the top ends touching, for example). Less energy is needed for a reaction when the legos are arranged to bond more favorably, versus just being randomly mixed together any such way. **Enzymes align the substrates in such a way that make them easier to react.**\n\n* when an enzyme is bonded to a substrate to form a substrate-enzyme complex, the concentration of the substrate by itself is temporarily “decreased” around the enzyme, because the substrate alone becomes part of a substrate-enzyme complex. So this substrate-enzyme complex actually causes substrate concentration to readjust, bringing more substrate closer to the enzyme, to equalize concentration. In terms of equilibrium, substrate and substrate-enzyme complex concentrations are two different entities, but realistically, if forming a substrate-enzyme complex causes additional substrate to move closer to the enzyme, a reaction will more easily take place due to the greater availability of the substrate. **The concentration of substrate molecules naturally increase around an enzyme, due to the formation of substrate-enzyme complexes. With substrate molecules more readily available, reactions are more favorable.**\n\nWith both of these reasons combined, it is apparent why less energy would be needed to make a reaction occur with an enzyme. An enzyme arranges substrate in energetically favorable ways while also attracting additional substrate towards the enzyme. \n"
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57ss1w | why do some people believe ai (artificial intelligence) will take over the world | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57ss1w/eli5_why_do_some_people_believe_ai_artificial/ | {
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"One of the larger concerns with AI is that if not programmed correctly, it will pose various risks to humans by simply being too good at its job. This is illustrated pretty well with the \"paperclip \nmaximizer\" thought experiment: \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn addition, popular media has done a pretty good job of hyping up malicious AI as a possible doomsday scenario.",
"In theory, it might be possible for an AI to improve itself, becoming smarter faster than humans can keep up with it. It could become capable of doing anything with any computer system in the world (that isn't physically isolated), such as taking control of power grids, banks, dams, satellites, military hardware, etc These things are all vulnerable to human hackers but are defended by human means; an AI could overcome any possible defense.\n\nAn AI may be smarter than humans but lack morals, or have it's own alien morality system, for example it might see humans as the greatest threat to itself/the planet/the universe and so it may decide it should eliminate humans.\n\nAn AI controlling a toaster oven is not dangerous, but an AI that could both improve itself beyond it's design and take control of other systems would be incredibly dangerous.\n\nIt's just as likely that such an AI would seek to help humanity instead but that's less interesting as a literary conflict."
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2sfem0 | how is normalizing relations with cuba going to affect the us economy? | Bonus question: Why does the process take so long to do so?
I completely understand the reasons for lifting the embargo, but everyone I speak with says it's going to completely improve our economy. The most research I've found is by the US Chamber of Commerce, who said we're losing $1.2 billion in potential exports each year. Isn't that pennies to our economy?
Anyways, I've just been finding bias in the whole topic. I just need someone to explain as best they can how lifting it would affect our economy--both the positives and negatives. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sfem0/eli5_how_is_normalizing_relations_with_cuba_going/ | {
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"It will have some positive effect, but I think you're right that it's not going to be hugely impacting one way or the other.\n\nLifting the embargo will take quite some time because our laws will have to change. There's no clear agreement that lifting the embargo is a good thing, and our lawmakers seem to be having a hard time doing anything at all lately.",
"From what I understand, this is a potentially great opportunity for many north american companies to start investing in a new market. If the embargo were to be lifted, and a while after Cuba restructures its local infrastructure and economy, we'll start to see companies such as GM or Ford shipping their merchandise over to Cuba. To keep this short, both the American and Cuban economies will be exposed to each others products which in turn will drive up the profits in a win win scenario for the U.S and Cuba.\n\nAs for negatives, the only that comes into mind in terms of economy, is that this lifting of the embargo could potentially affect Puerto Rico's economy. This is due to the fact that the U.S might shift market investments towards Cuba instead of P.R 's flailing economy. Then again Puerto Rico could benefit from the embargo if the countries leaders and businessmen decide to ship our local products and companies over to Cuba."
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6ostsb | why does baking soda help get rid if mouth ulcers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ostsb/eli5_why_does_baking_soda_help_get_rid_if_mouth/ | {
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"Baking soda is a base and often ulcers are irritated by the acidity of our saliva. So if you the baking soda with the saliva create a neutral environment for the sore to heal. "
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2c55li | why do commercial airplanes board passengers using the seemingly inefficient "zone" system, rather than filling the seats chronologically? | It seems crazy to me from both a customer satisfaction standpoint, and an economic standpoint for the airlines (wasted turnaround time). It seems like they would both save money AND have happier customers, if they would just board passengers more efficiently. There have been studies (linked in comments) by mathematicians and economists, so why haven't they been adopted?
It seems like every time I fly, after a few minutes of boarding the entire plane is backed up waiting for 1 person to load their bags into the overhead bin. Even when I have a low zone number (board early), there are completely full rows much closer to the door than where I'm sitting.
I know people are probably averse to splitting up families during boarding time (to load windows to aisles, back to front, or something similar), but it just seems like the zone or block method has to be the most inefficient.
Also - what determines your zone number? If it's the order in which you purchased your ticket, as I've always suspected, I'm going to be even more baffled by the process.
There was a helpful [comment](_URL_0_) in a thread from a couple months back, but I am not convinced why some enterprising airline wouldn't even _try_ a different method to see how it works, and to show their passengers that they are trying to give them a better experience? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c55li/eli5_why_do_commercial_airplanes_board_passengers/ | {
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"[This](_URL_0_) article from CNN implies that airlines are indeed doing some research in this area, maybe even testing. \n\nHere is a description of a [method](_URL_1_) modeled by Dr. Steffen, a physicist at Fermilab, which seems to cut boarding time roughly in half. ",
"Generally, the zones are based on where the seat is on the aircraft -- they fill back to front, with two important exceptions:\n\n1 - First/Business class board first.\n2 - Preboarding. Generally designed for very frequent flyers in coach, as well as elderly or people with small children, many people do preboard. And there's really no enforcement -- if someone feels they need extra time to preboard, then they will preboard. As a result, when the back-to-front zoned boarding begins, there are already people seated all over the plane.",
"There was research done into the fastest way to board a plane. The result? Completely random boarding.\n\nImagine passengers get in line to board the plane in perfect order from rear to front. The first person in line reaches the back of the plane and proceeds to load his bags in the bins. The passenger behind him must wait for him to finish because he is in the same row, same with the one behind him and so on. There are six people in the rear row but only one of them has reached the back of the plane. The entire line is now backed up. In this case *only one passenger* is actively in the process of boarding *the whole time*.\n\nNow imagine you line the passengers up randomly. Yes, you will get times where one person is blocking the line up at front, but now you will also get times where multiple people are boarding at a time because you have some mixes of people in the back and people in the front getting seated simultaneously. Make sense?\n\nEach zone has people from all over the plane to ensure a random mix of boarding throughout the plane as much as possible.\n\nI suppose if you could be perfectly ordered the best way to do it would be to line everyone with a left window seat rear to front, followed by everyone with a right window seat rear to front, followed by middle seats ect. Realistically the logistics of lining people up like this would just be impossible, especially because now you have to separate families and groups. Random is the easiest way to ensure somewhat efficient boarding.\n\nOne idea I have to slightly speed the process is to board all lone travelers with window seats first. Maybe that's just me being selfish :) though.\n\ntr; dr: Airlines researched the fastest way to board. Random (though it may seem counter intuitive at first) is the best answer."
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4nfa7k | where do nicknames for enemy soldiers come from? | In the US the bad guys are "Charlie" in the UK they are "Jerry" I assume that other countries have similar names for enemy troops. Where do the names come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nfa7k/eli5_where_do_nicknames_for_enemy_soldiers_come/ | {
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" > In the US the bad guys are \"Charlie\"\n\nNo they aren't. That specifically refers to Vietnamese forces in the Vietnam war. The Vietcong (VC) is \"Victor Charlie\" in radio speak. That's where the charlie comes from.\n\n > in the UK they are \"Jerry\"\n\nAgain, it refers to just Germans. Not just any aggressor. Jerry is just an abbreviation of German.",
"No. Each war gives a nickname for enemy troops unique to that war. It is normally related to the short hand for the country/governments of the enemy or it is a common name used by the culture of the enemy. \n\nThe Vietcong (communist Vietnamese) were called Charlie by the US because of the military alphabet \"victor charlie\" being VC. \n\nAll the English speaking world used \"Gerry\" pronounced Jerry for short hand for German. It is derived from the \"Ger.\" abbreviated form of Germany. \n\nThe Germans called Russians \"Ivans\" in both world wars. \n\nDuring the American civil war you had \"Johnny Reb\" for the South and \"Billy Yank\" for the North. As well as just \"Yankee\" and \"Rebel\" used. ",
"From WWI until now:\n**Pejoratives for enemy troops from whichever side the user is on**\n\nGermans- Fritz, Hun, Jerry, Boche (French), Kraut, Alleyman (from Allemand), Hans\n\nOttomans/Turks- Wog\n\nJapanese- Japs, Nips, Tojo\n\nBritish- Tommy, Limey, Les rosbifs\n\nFrench- Frog, Franzmann, Franzacke\n\nRussians- Ivan, Commie, Red, Bolshy, Russki\n\nSerbs- Jugos, Turks\n\nChinese- Slant-eye, Chink, Gook, Chinaman\n\nKorean- Gook, Commie\n\nVietnamese- Charlie, Gook, Slope, Zipperhead\n\nSomalis- Skinnies (unburdened_by_wit)\n\nAfghans- Raghead, Towelhead, Goatfucker, Haji, Muj motherfucker, Terry Taliban (Mr_Katanga) \n\nArabs- See Afghans plus: Ahmed, Derka, Camelfucker\n\nAmericans- Yankee, Gaijin, White Devil, Kuffar/Kaffir, Round Eye\n\n\nFeel free to add to the list if you see something or a whole people missing. Hope this doesn't get me banned.\n\n*Edit: Formatting",
"I see you getting a lot of examples of \"nicknames\" for the enemy, but let me tell you \"Why\" they happen in the first place. \n\nSoldiers have likely done this since the beginning of time and the real reason is that it serves the purpose of dehumanizing your enemy. It's logically easier to \"waste a gook\" or \"smoke a hadji\" than it is to kill a man. When combatants think about the other side as being human beings with mothers and children, killing them becomes tougher to reconcile than a stereotype. It is a very human coping mechanism.",
"It's usually derivations of the phonetic alphabet for the US.\n\nVeitcong = VC = Victor Charlie\n\nTarget = T = Tango\n\nJerry would be German, but more just a derivation of the initial consonant sound.",
"It derives from the enemies culture. Germans were called Krauts because it's a popular food in Germany. Japanese were called Nips because Nippon is the Japanese word for Japan",
"It depends on the war, who's saying it, and who they're describing. They're usually either an abbreviation, slang, and/or a pejorative. Oftentimes they describe a visible aspect of the enemy, such as ethnicity, uniforms, vehicles, insignia, etc. In certain cases, they would be considered racist today (and perhaps racist back then, but no one would have cared too much about that fact). Examples:\n\n*U.S. Civil War\n > North describing South: \"Rebels, Rebs, Dixies\"\n\n > South describing North: \"Yankees, Yanks, Feds, Federals, Blue Bellies\"\n\n*WWII\n\n > Americans describing Japanese: \"Japs, Slits, Meatball\"\n\n > British describing Germans: \"Krauts, Jerry, Hun\""
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1ld379 | what exactly fills up when computer memory is full? | When a computer, hard drive, mp3 device, etc is full why can't any more information be saved. I know there is a maximum amount of information that can be put on drives, but is it physical space or is it simply that the device cannot process more information? Very large drives that hold vast amounts of information are larger, so is physical space relevant at all or is that simply for more ram and computing power? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ld379/eli5what_exactly_fills_up_when_computer_memory_is/ | {
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"Imagine your device as a blank notebook. Now start writing all the 'data' or 'songs' down in the notebook. When it's full, so is your device. To put it as simply as possible. As far as the physical size of the device is concerned I'll go back to the notebook. As we get better at making notebooks we can make them with smaller and smaller lines allowing you to fit more information on each page. The more data per page the more info you can put in a smaller notebook. ",
"All storage on electronic devices is related to physical space. All data used by electronic devices is stored as either 0's or 1's. The 0's and 1's thing confuses many people right off the bat. By 0's and 1's, we actually mean sequences of binary states. What does this mean? Basically sequences of bumps, dots, magnetic fields, voltage states, or anything that can be read as either having, or not having. Think of Morse code. A short beep is a zero, a long beep is a 1. If we come up with systems to separate huge strings of 0's and 1's into numbers and letters, we can store data, like sounds, images, and text. Hard drives (for example) store these strings of 0's and 1's with a magnetic coating on the disk, which is sectioned into pieces for each 0 and 1. When you read files, a scanner moves along the spinning disk and finds whatever file you accessed, then it reads the magnetic field on the disk to assemble a series of 0's and 1's, and that's your file. Various forms of error correction are built in, so that even if part of the magnetic section is lost (disk gets scratched, etc.), the data might still be readable. So yes, the amount of space a device can store is related to physical space, but as technology gets better, we can make the space required to hold a 0 or a 1 smaller. Flash memory, which is what usb sticks/phones/music players use, stores the 0's and 1's in a special circuit board system which retains power even when unplugged."
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1nt5d0 | why do we use radioactive metals in nuclear power plants? | Why can't we just use like, iron, or something? Is it impossible to split the atom of a non-radioactive element? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nt5d0/eli5_why_do_we_use_radioactive_metals_in_nuclear/ | {
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"We don't choose uranium and plutonium because they are radioactive. We choose uranium and plutonium because they happen to split easily when they absorb a neutron.....AND produce more neutrons when they split to continue the reaction on their own.\n\nYou can split just about any element, but most atoms will require you to put a lot of energy/effort into splitting them. "
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1111w0 | why are you supposed to always add acid to water and never water to acid? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1111w0/eli5_why_are_you_supposed_to_always_add_acid_to/ | {
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"If water splashes up at you, it's not a big deal. If acid splashes up at you, it can be.",
"Water can absorb a great deal of heat. Acid, not so much.\n\nSo if you add acid to water, there's more water than acid. As the acid mixes into the water, it produces heat. There's plenty of water to absorb the heat.\n\nBut if you add water to acid--initially, at least--there's more acid than water. It can't absorb the heat, so the relatively small amount of water that you have only just begun to add to the acid has to absorb the heat, and there can be enough heat to boil the water, which can cause the acid to be splashed on you.\n\n*Always* add acid to water.",
"If you add water to Acid,acid is more than water and the temperature rises and could also splash onto your face.Or the test tube would melt due to excessive local heating.\n\n\nWhile adding acid to water,water is more than _URL_0_ the hot acid goes into the test tube and cools down in water and no splashing or excessive heating occur."
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dvr30j | what is a cocaine analogue? | Hi Everyone!
I work in a Nuclear Medicine department in a hospital. We use Ioflupane (Otherwise known as DaTSCAN) as a means to diagnose Parkinson’s Disease. Ioflupane is a cocaine analogue.
My question is: Why does ioflupane not cause the same effects as cocaine in patients if it is a cocaine analogue?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dvr30j/eli5_what_is_a_cocaine_analogue/ | {
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"It means it acts on the e.g. brain receptors or whatever it is you're interested in, in the same way as cocaine does without all the other effects. Usually such analogues either take cocaine as a starting point for their synthesis or have a synthetic component very similar to part of the cocaine molecule.",
"An analogue is just a compound that has a similar chemical structure to the one of interest. \n\nCocaine bind to a receptor on dopamine neurons in the brain called Dopamine Transporter (DAT). Normally, DAT transports dopamine back **inside** the neuron. However, when cocaine binds to DAT, it prevents DAT from working. ie. DAT leaves dopamine neurons out in the synapse where they are still active. This excess of dopamine alters perception; therefore, cocaine is *psychoactive*. On the other hand, Ioflupane can fit into and bind DAT but it does not inhibit DAT's function very much at all. Therefore, Ioflupane is **not** psychoactive. \n\nFor an analogy, \n\nImagine you drive a Honda Civic (the honda civic is DAT, which cocaine & its analog, Ioflupane bind to). **Your** key to **your** car (cocaine) turns fits in the ignition **AND** starts the car. If you got someone else's key from a different Honda Civic (Ioflupane) it would fit in the ignition BUT it would **NOT** start."
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2ih061 | what led to the end of people's beliefs in mythology as a religion? | EDIT: Specifically, Greek Mythology (e.g. Zeus, Hera...). To say that the vast majority of religions today are based on a mythology doesn't really answer the question. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ih061/eli5what_led_to_the_end_of_peoples_beliefs_in/ | {
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"That never happened. The vast majority of religion today are based on a mythology. Abrahamic mythology is still very prevalent today as organized religions. The Garden of Eden isn't any different than Pandora's Box or Thor crossing the Bifröst. The religions around some mythology's simply died out as other religions converted people. ",
"Mythology is just what you call a religion that doesn't have many active followers in the modern world. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and all of the others can be called \"mythology\" exactly the same as Egyptian, Greek, Roman or Norse beliefs.",
" > Specifically, Greek Mythology (e.g. Zeus, Hera...).\n\nYour uneditable title is very misleading, and although I don't have an answer for that specific case, I'm quoting this here to point people at your true question, which is about the **greek** mythos in particular. ",
"They were supplanted by new beliefs, through various means. For example states giving funds, resources, and legal backing to strengthen the messages of new belief systems, like the Roman empire adopting Christianity, persecution of those who held onto old belief systems, assimilation of old belief systems into the new system, and so on.",
"The end of classical Greco-Roman religion can be mainly attributed to the rise of Christianity. Once the first few centuries AD had set in, paganism/polytheism were often persecuted, and people gradually made the change. I believe the last few groups who worshipped the Greek gods converted or died out by the end of the first millennium AD.\n\nStill, I should point out that your title is poorly worded. Not only are there many ancient religions that we currently study as mythology (Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Etruscan, and Celtic, to name a few), but you're conflating the words \"mythology\" and \"religion,\" which are two different things.\n\nMythology: the stories developed by a culture to explain nature, customs, and history\n\nReligion: a collection of beliefs, cultures, and morals that relate humanity to some sort of reason or order for existence.\n\nBy these definitions, even modern religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc, can be said to have, at their core, a specific \"mythology,\" and that term shouldn't be taken offensively, as though it's belittling or invalidating people's beliefs. It's just the word to describe their explanations for the history and physical rules of the world.\n\nSource: Minored in (and briefly double majored in) Classical Civilizations/Mythology). Plenty of ancient religions and modern religious studies credits.\n\nEdit: Added my source.\n\n",
"I think there is a common misinterpretation of the word mythology, due to it's association with \"Greek Mythology\" or \"Egyptian Mythology\". \n\nFrom wikipedia: Mythology can refer either to the collected myths of a group of people—their body of stories which they tell to explain nature, history, and customs—or to the study of such myths.\n\nWith this definition in hand, one could define the collection of Christian or Islamic beliefs as \"Christian Mythology\" or \"Islamic Mythology\". Beliefs evolve over time and are slowly swallowed up by other religions. Hinduism is a religion that did an excellent job of this, which helped it to spread. Christianity adopted many of the beliefs of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism such as the belief in a \"end of days scenario\", otherwise known as eschatology, and the Saoshyant, or savior figure. \n\nI'm no expert, but Greek \"mythology\" was probably left behind as more and more people adopted more popular religions. The religion of the Egyptians was probably in conflict with those of their frequent conquerors: The Hyksos, the Kushites, the Assyrians, the Macedonians, the Ptolemaics, the Romans, etc. \n\n"
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3vk9nm | if nothing can exceed the speed of light, how can we measure something as being 10,000 light years away without it taking 20,000 years to measure? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vk9nm/eli5_if_nothing_can_exceed_the_speed_of_light_how/ | {
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"If we were measuring the distance with something like a laser range finder, that would be true.\n\nObviously nobody measure the distance to such far away object be pointing a beam at them and waiting until it gets bounced back.\n\nThis method is actually used with close by objects like the moon where astronauts left some mirrors just for that.\n\nIn astronomy however many interesting object are far to far away for this to work. So other methods are used.\n\nOne for relative close by object is measuring the stellar parallax.\n\nYou know how you can hold a thumb up and close your left and right eye alternatively and have the thumb move left and right against the background.\n\nIf you stay awake in math class and learn trigonometry you can use the distance the thumb appears to move to calculate the distance of objects in the background.\n\nThe same works in astronomy but the left and right eye is our earth travelling half a year around the sum and instead of the thumb being a fixed distance we have the really far away stars as 'fixed' and calculate the distance of more nearby stars by comparison and how much they move back and fourth against the background.\n\nThat is why the unit parsec (for parallax arc second) is sometimes used instead of the similarly sized light-years for such distances.\n",
"A lightyear is a set distance. If we know how many miles away something is, we can use the speed of light to figure out how many lightyears it is. \n\nBefore we knew how far the Earth was from the sun, everything in space was set at a relative scale. We said \"the earth is 1 Astronomical Unit away from the sun\" and used geometry to figure out the relative distances of the rest of the planets. We couldn't convert that to miles until we had two people in different countries observing a planet's position relative to stars. We knew how far apart the people were in miles, and with the geometry of parallax, we then learned how many miles were in an astronomical unit. \n\nAside on how parallax works: hold your arm straight out in front of you. Close one eye and use your thumb to block something. Now don't move your arm, but switch eyes. Notice how things seem to jump? That jump is related to the distance between your eyes. Put two telescopes at a known distance. Your thumb represents the star you're trying to measure. The background object represents background stars that are so far away, they don't appear to move.\n\nWhen parallax stops working, astronomers have different methods. Measuring spectral lines is one of them. Basically, we know stars have a lot of hydrogen. This means that they produce a lot of extra light at very specific wavelengths. This spectrum gets shifted around, but the relative position of the lines remains the same. If we can figure out which lines are which and how much they've been stretched or shifted, we can figure out (1) how far a star is, (2) whether there are actually two stars moving around each other, (3) if the light is from a single star or a whole distant galaxy, and much more. ",
"The light scientists use to observe distant astronomical objects is light which was emitted a very long time ago; if it's 10,000 light-years away, they observe light that is 10,000 years old. The scientists did not shoot a beam of light at the object, they're observing the light which is already there.\n\nIn order to determine how far an object is, scientists use a whole series of tests, depending on the distances involved. For relatively near objects, (such at those within 10,000 light years) they use parallax, a technique you can actually try out for yourself. Hold a finger up a few centimeters in front of your nose, and then look at it with only your left eye, and then only your right eye. The fingers seems to move back and forth as you switch from eye to eye, yes? This is because your eyes are not in the same place; they need to look at different angles in order to see the finger (this is true of all objects you look at, but the effect is most noticeable with something right in front of your nose). If you were to measure those angles, and the distance between your eyes, you could construct a triangle using those measurements, and figure out the distance from you to the finger using simple geometry.\n\nScientists do the same thing to figure out the distance to stars and other objects. Of course, astronomical objects are much too far away for you to be able to do the one-eye-at-a-time trick; instead, what they do is measure the object's position in the sky at one point on Earth's orbit, and then measure it again when they're on the opposite side of the orbit. Since we know how big earth's orbit is, we now have two angles and a side, and can use geometry to work out how far away the star is.\n\nOf course, this doesn't work for objects which are very far away; past a certain point, even our most precise instruments aren't able to detect the change in position from one side of orbit to the other. Fortunately, Astronomers have other methods they can bust out when working on those sorts of distances. For more details, I suggest reading [this article](_URL_0_) which describes them in significant depth, without being TOO overwhelmingly technical."
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3mgqp5 | what happens to food when exposed to air that justifies having a "consume within x days of opening" date? | My bottled smoothie has a shelf life of 4 months, but needs to be consumed within 24 hours of opening.
What happens when it comes into contact with air that doesn't happen during production? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mgqp5/eli5_what_happens_to_food_when_exposed_to_air/ | {
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"Air has bacteria in it. Smoothies are great environments for bacteria to live in. Once it's opened, the number of bacteria will rapidly become high enough to threaten your health (and the taste of the smoothie). \n\n"
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3g8j76 | kernels (computing) | I hear they're important, but I've never heard a good explanation of them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g8j76/eli5_kernels_computing/ | {
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"A kernel does all kind of commonly needed stuff for you:\n\n* interacting with hardware and provide a standardized interface (so you don't have to write separate code for - as an example - each different sound card in each program that wants to use sound)\n* make sure your programs don't mess with each other, like overwriting each others memory\n* providing mechanisms for controlled communication between programs and components (eg. your program wants to send a message to the notification area, which is another program)\n* other useful functionality (getting random numbers, implementing common communication protocols, and so on)",
"A kernel standardized interacting with hardware. \n\nFrom a programmers perspective all you normally see is read, write, open, close. While in reality all these operations work on tapes, CD's, DVD, thumb drives, hard drives, and TCP/IP connections. \n\nAll of these devices are different. Have different physical jobs, and different standards. The OS manages that for you.\n\nAt the same time it manages memory, CPU clock frequency, power saving, task switching, and library loading. \n\nThese things are done to save the programmer time. So you don't have to worry about what device your talking too.",
"The kernel is the heart of an operating system. The most basic kernel does very few things. It manages and restricts access to memory, it manages processes and threads, it manages communication between processes, and controls access to the disks.\n\n1) Memory access. In order to run more than one program at a time, you need to have space in memory set aside for each program to use. Each program needs to be restricted to using it's own space in memory, and *only* it's own space. If you don't do this, badly behaving programs will damage data from other programs. Commonly, each program won't even know the memory used for other processes exists.\n\n2) Process management. In order to run more than one program at once, you need some code to keep track of all the programs, and to schedule time for each of them to use the processor.\n\nIn most desktop and server operating systems, this is done in some semblance of fairness, allowing each program to request time on the processor, and rotating through each program in turn to give roughly equal access to each, though a process can give up some of it's time voluntarily.\n\nThere are other ways to do this, like real-time computing, which allows programs to request hard deadlines, a time that they *must* be finished processing by. This is often used in some kind of control system, where the computer must take input, and process it quickly enough to respond to whatever is happening in the real world.\n\nThere's also the fact that most modern computers have more than one processor available. This can allow programs to split themselves into multiple pieces that are more or less independent, in order to run in parallel to each other. Making sure that programs actually gain performance out of this takes some adjustments to how you schedule processes.\n\n3) Communication between processes. Often, programs will be divided into smaller units that perform some task, and then hand a result off to another part of the same program. Or you want to be able to take advantage of multiple processors available, and run some of your code on each. Or your code uses some standard library or device driver in order to perform a standard task, or to talk to some piece of hardware.\n\nTo split your code into multiple processes, you need a way to communicate. In kernel land, this mostly takes the form of semaphores, pipes, message queues and shared memory.\n\nSemaphores let two or more programs control how they execute in relation to each other. It's essentially a flag that each program can raise and lower to let the other process know they've reached some specific point in their code. They're commonly used to let parallel processes share some common resource without stomping all over the other processes using it. If the flag is up, one program is using it, and any other programs using the same resource shouldn't touch it until the flag goes down.\n\nPipes are common in the Unix based world. They take the output from one program, and feed it into another. Usually, they're very temporary, only existing long enough to transition from one program to another.\n\nMessage queues are used for longer term communication. One program can put data into a queue, and when another related program gets it's turn on the processor, it can read from the queue. Messages stack up in sequence, so the reading program reads them in the same order they were sent.\n\nShared memory is actually just a careful breaking of a concern from 1). Normally, each program should be kept separate in memory, so they don't stomp all over each other. But, if they want to communicate large pieces of data, the kernel can set aside another piece of memory that they both have access to. Each program can read and write to this spot in memory when it's their turn.\n\n4) Disk access. Programs need to have access to disk, and while it's less critical than memory and processor time that it's shared equally, you also don't want programs stomping all over each other's data.\n\nThe more important point is actually that disk access is slow. In computing time scales, it's glacially slow. It's so slow that it would be a really stupid idea for the processor to be idle while waiting for a response to come back when it could run through a few more turns for other programs in the time it would have just been sitting there.\n\nThe kernel controls this. When a program requests disk input or output, it will send the request off to the disk, then put the program in a waiting state. When the response comes back, it triggers an interrupt, a special circuit in the processor that stops everything and loads up the kernel to process the response. The kernel then loads whatever program was waiting for the response, and lets it finish what it was doing as if the processor *was* sitting idle instead of letting other programs cut in line.\n\n---\n\nYou'll notice that all of these functions for the kernel have something in common. They're all about letting you run more than one program at a time. Before we'd written any operating system's and kernel's, running one program at a time is just how using a computer worked. You'd manually load a program into memory, manually start it processing, and the computer would do only that one thing until it had finished and gave you some output.\n\nAlso, it should be pointed out that modern kernels do more than just these four things. They typically come with all kinds of additional tools to make writing programs easier. A modern kernel is a one-stop shop for every programming shortcut you might need.\n\nBut, if you wanted to write something that would be called a kernel, at a minimum, you'd want it to do these four things."
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6wkps8 | according to data we have discovered 14% of all organisms on earth. where does this number come from, if the other 86% of haven't been discovered yet (and therefore we don't know if they exist)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6wkps8/eli5_according_to_data_we_have_discovered_14_of/ | {
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"Well it's a bit outside my area of expertise, but if I had to make such an estimate, I would look at the rate at which we're discovering new species, and how that rate has changed over time. That would allow me to estimate how many species we're likely to find in the future. If the number is much larger than the number of species we already know, that would get your 14%.",
"It's based on the difficulty of finding new species, if everywhere we looked we found a new species, then we must not have found very many. If we've looked for decades and nobody found any new species then it's likely because there aren't any more left to be found.\n\nObviously, we find new species at a fairly consistent rate, and there is a very large number known already. I'm sure someone has used these numbers to make a guess, I have no idea how accurate they are.",
"Not an exact answer but two that may help.\n\nMany of the worlds species are insects, and many of those are thought to be beetles.\n\nOne bit of information that supports this theory comes from an attempt to document the number of species within a, relatively, small forest encampment. The researchers found that with each tree that was shaken to gather the insects on them, that there were many unique beetle species. Almost a new species per tree.\n\nAditionally, and unrelated to beetles, is that fact that we havent explored our oceans all that much. And that means that we've yet to find all the species that inhabit the oceans.",
"A large chunk of it would come from barely explored / completely unexplored areas, i would be curious to see the source from which you got these 14/86 numbers and its age. \n\nBut back to the point, we barely understand the ocean and have trouble even fathoming the deep ocean. \n\nbased on the phrasing of organism this would include bacteria and other single cell organisms, which is where a vast majority of that percentage would be made up, as well as Extremophile {things that live in previously thought unlivable places, super cold/hot/acidic ect.}\n}\n\ni hope that helped, i'll try to get back to any replies \n \np.s. this is not my field of expertise just a thing i find interesting and have recently been refreshed on with a book and some youtube vids.",
"(Undergrad Marine Bio student here) From my understanding, organisms that we may see as a singular species because they look identical could be very genetically different, to the extent that what we thought one was one species 10/20 years ago could be 2 or 3 different examples. \nOfcourse there's going to be species we haven't discovered but I think atleast half of that number is down to misidentification or lack of technology to analyse DNA. \nThe term species has changed a lot over the century too, which doesn't help. \nHope this is alright; I can find some examples if you want. ",
"Statistics like this are created based on looking at what is identified within a group.\n\nPerhaps an easier example.\n\nLet's say people are inspecting defects in a product. Someone in charge intentionally adds 10 defects. Then they watch and see what comes through the line, what is discovered by the process. If people only find 3 of the defects, then they can estimate they're catching 30% of the defects overall, letting 70% of the defects go through. On the other hand, if all 10 defects are discovered, then they know they're catching all or nearly all of the defects. The percentage of things they know about should roughly match the percentage of things they don't know about.\n\nIt applies to other statistics as well, like crime stats. They can look at crimes they know happened but weren't reported through official channels, and look at crimes they know about and were reported. Looking at the difference shows about how many crimes go unreported. It is not exact, but if people are careful about how they create the stats they can be fairly accurate. \n\nFor counting species there are several ways it can be done. One way is like above, to have one group track the number of species in an area and another group figure out how many are new. Another method is a linear regression, figuring out an approximately how many species there should be based on estimates and comparing it to how many have actually been identified.\n\nAlso, most of the species that aren't discovered are small things. We're down to small numbers of new birds and mammals, often they are sub-species that get reclassified as a new species, or they're highly specialized species living in a remote and small geographic area. \n\nIt is mostly bugs, fungi, and other small organism that are being discovered in large numbers. These are things that are hard to spot and identify, many only identified because of genetic testing on tiny or microscopic organisms.\n",
"It wouldn't surprise me of 84% is bacteria, viruses, plants and minuscule animals and only 2% are \"normal\" animals.",
"At least in the microbial world, scientists have catalogued genes found in a random spoon of soil and found that only a minuscule percent of genes belonged to organisms they knew of, which led them to conclude that only 2% of microbes are classified based on percent of known and unknown genes, or something to that effect. \n\nEdit: ELI5: People have looked at DNA found in dirt and figured out we only have seen very small percent of it before and most of it is unknown. ",
"Assuming this includes microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, we may not even have methods available to detect some existing species. Some bacteria can't be differentiated from one another unless using genomic data or other molecular markers, and these methods weren't invented until recently. There could be millions of microorganism species left to discover.",
"So it's like in Pokémon where you only know the outline of the animal but have to actually see it to get the full picture/\"discover\" it.",
"Humans probably wrought their extinction. Just like half of the vertebrae we have annihilated in our timely progresión. ",
"Fun fact related to this:\n\n25% of all known organisims in the animal kingdom are beetles: come from the order, coleoptera.\n\nI learned that from visiting the insectarium, in Montreal.",
"You just make a grid, say 1 foot by 1 foot and you check and see how many species are known within that grid. ",
"All sounds good, next question do we Exist?",
"My knowledge of cryptids and inner earth beings as well as air beings suggest this number is accurate. ",
"An estimated 86% of species are undiscovered, but not 86% of organisms. Many many many of this 86% will either have teeny-tiny populations, or will be so similar to already-discovered species that only an expert could tell the difference. \n\nAnd don't forget boring stuff that's easy to overlook like all the different kinds of lichen and bacteria. \n\nI don’t want to be too much of a killjoy though, there's almost certainly a bunch of mad shit in the deep oceans we haven't discovered yet. When we develop the technology to properly explore them it's going to be a whole new age of discovery for biologists. ",
"Scientists look at the rate of new species discovery each year for the past however many years and fit it to what is called a Logistic Growth Curve. The simplest way to think about it is like this: every time someone encounters what they believe is a new species they do some work to verify if it's really new or not. If the rate at which this actually results in a new species discovery is 50% then we are at the 'inflection point' of the curve and we know we've identified about half of the species on the planet (with slight variance). This percentage is tracked every year for the scientific community as a whole and from millions of these data point we can predict both where we are on the curve right now and where the curve will eventually level off. We aren't anywhere near the inflection point yet so the rate keeps increasing every year. \n\nWhere we are right now tells use the percentage discovered and where it levels off is the scientific prediction for the total number of species on the planet. To the average person this might seem really uncertain but the statistical significance of a result with millions of data points would only be off by a tiny fraction of a percent 99.9...% of the time at which time scientists use the data to claim a high degree of certainty.",
"I think the number is a fraud. The number has been created by people looking for grants. The more research which can be paid for, the better, in their eyes.",
"First of all - I found this story shocking and disturbing when I first heard it and I certainly don't condone these actions....but they happened and were detailed in the video I saw.\n\nI remember a documentary in the 90s where a guy would take a large tarp of plastic or cloth and stretch it out underneath a large tree in the Amazon rain forest. They would then shoot some gas up into the air that would kill like 99% of all creatures it contacted....or maybe it was just insects, I can't remember but I think it only affected insects.\n\nAnyways, for the next several hours the jungle would \"rain down\" the carcasses of dead insects onto the tarp and these scientists would collect the insects and categorize them. \n\nThey said that every time they did this they would get something like 20,000 different insects but what was surprising to them was that ~~90%~~ (correction it's 80%) of what they found were \"new to science\" every time they did this experiment.\n\nIt didn't seem to matter where they went.....they repeated this many, many times and every time they did it, ~~90%~~ (correction it's 80%) of what they catalogued was new to science.\n\nIt literally blew the top off of the previously held estimates for the number of species on earth and at the end, the scientists had to conclude that they simply had no idea where it would end nor how many species of living things were on the earth anymore.\n\n**EDIT - Found The Vid but not the clip I was referring to. It's called \"Web of Life: Exploring Biodiversity\" and was produced by PBS back in the 90s.** \n[Here's a clip...but not the one I referenced](_URL_2_)\n\n\n**EDIT 2 - [The original clip I was talking about](_URL_1_)** \nThanks to /u/QuietLuck for finding this (_URL_0_)",
"Well the way you calculate it is with a bit of estimation.\n\nSay that we have a box with a hole, and the box has 1000 colored balls inside you can take out through the hole. What we don't know is which colors, or how many colors the balls are.\n\nSo we take out one ball, and it happens to be blue! So now we know there's blue balls in the box. Great!\n\nNow imagine that there's only blue balls coming out. You pull out 10 balls and they are all blue, you keep pulling out 100 balls and they are all blue. Now we've only seen 10% of all balls inside the box, but we can start guessing that the chance that we never got another color means that most, if not all, balls are blue. Maybe we got lucky and only found the 100 blue balls first, but the chance of that happening are really small, theres 5958926632240478155489389057946132722598279588777288866613428027720091866834339557556406953783393337191792337384343797137527180562707601151082428455887739138152983603695993602780124665235348032787297990137398327480690965409929969664334240631387010833309096272433060469800960000000000000000000000000 different permutations (that is groups of balls we would pull out in an order) of balls we could have had, but only 1 of them would be if all of the balls were blue.\n\nNow lets imagine what would happen if instead the second ball we pulled out was a red ball. This time we know there's more than just blue balls in the box. Now imagine that every time we pull a ball it comes out a different color, and after pulling out 100 they are all a different color each. Now there's a chance that there's 100 colors and nothing else, and we just happened to pull out one ball of each color with no repeats. The chance of this is a little bit higher than taking out all the balls of one color, but it still is very very very small. You'd have to be very lucky, it's a better guess to think there's still many colors we've yet to find. Maybe not 1000, but certainly more than 100.\n\nSo we can use the history of how many new colors we discovered as we saw each ball and create a good guess of how many colors probably exist in the box, and how many we know already.\n\nThe same thing can be done with organisms. We know more or less how many insects, fungi, plants, animals, bacteria etc. exist on earth by knowing how many resources they need, how much spaces is available, doing thermodynamic studies, etc. From there we notice that as we look at animals and see what species they are, we find new species every so much. Just like with the colors, we can guess how many species we probably haven't seen yet.",
"The vast majority of distinct living organisms on earth are single-celled bacteria and archaea. Greater than 90% of these cannot be cultured in laboratory conditions to enable their study and classification. Consequently, the majority of currently extant, distinct species on Earth have not been described.",
"Progress towards any achievement such as this can usually be found through the main menu, reached by pressing the 'start' button.",
"Scientists have estimated ranges for the number of organisms that have yet to be discovered. All of the methods involve extrapolation from known data. For example, some scientists have used size estimates. The bigger the creature, the more likely it is that we have found it. The opposite is true for smaller organisms. So scientists make estimates that there are x number of small creatures yet to find. Another example is to use discovery rates and types of organisms. We are discovering fewer and fewer new mammals but are still discovering new fungi or bugs. So therefore the amount of bugs yet to find is greater than mammals. Another way is to use symbiotic or close relationships. If we know that there are x types of trees in the forest and know that each type of tree is likely to be home to x number of unique bugs then we can estimate how many unknown trees may have x unknown bugs. ",
"It would help if you were to point us at where someone said that we have discovered 14%.\n\nAnyway, here's an example: you want to know how many tigers there are in a forest. You can't measure that directly, but you can do the following:\n\n* Capture some tigers (say 100) and tag them.\n* Come back later and capture more tigers (100 of them). See how many that you caught this time have tags (say 10).\n\nYou can use that to calculate how many tigers there are. The best estimate is that 10% (10/100) tigers have tags on them. If you have tagged 100 tigers and that is 10% of the tigers, then there are 1000 tigers in the forest. This is all approximate, and you can do statistics to determine the probability distribution of tiger numbers.\n\nYou would also tag the second set of tigers, so a total of 190 tigers would then have tags. The third time, you would expect that of your 100 tigers you catch that about 19 (190/1000) would have tags on them. \n\nYou can do the same thing with anything that you are sampling. Find an organism, see if we have found it before, and repeat. That will tell you how many of the things that you find are new and how many we have already discovered. \n\n",
"I do this! Woohoo!\n\nEducated guesses are how science works. When enough educated guesses are unable to be disproved, there's a consensus. In this case, a bunch of people came up with different statistical methods to estimate diversity (fancy examples include Chao1, Simpson diversity index and rarefaction). A pretty good estimate can be made when enough scientists approach it enough ways.\n\nMore advanced: Take a given sample or dataset (e.g. soil sale or ocean) and perform relatively standardized genetic similarity analysis to estimate species (known and unknown categories). Then do bootstrapped subsampling of species diversity per fraction of the sample (e.g.\n10 unique species at 0.1 of the total sample, 50 unique species at 0.2... Repeat a lot). Fit a regression (usually nonlinear) and estimate the total unique species, including those you never observed, in that sample with CIs. Do this for a bunch of different types of samples, build a final model and you get a good idea of what we're missing!",
"From a recent paper:\n\n > Global species richness, whether **estimated by taxon, habitat,\nor ecosystem**, is a key biodiversity metric. Yet, despite the\nglobal importance of biodiversity and increasing threats to\nit (e.g., [1–4]), we are no better able to estimate global species\nrichness now than we were six decades ago [5]. **Estimates of\nglobal species richness remain highly uncertain and are often\nlogically inconsistent** [5]. They are also difficult to validate\nbecause estimation of global species richness requires\nextrapolation beyond the number of species known [6–13].\nGiven that somewhere between 3% and > 96% of species on\nEarth may remain undiscovered [4], depending on the\nmethods used and the taxa considered, such extrapolations,\nespecially from small percentages of known species, are\nlikely to be highly uncertain [13, 14]. **An alternative approach\nis to estimate all species, the known and unknown, directly.\nUsing expert taxonomic knowledge of the species already\ndescribed and named, those already discovered but not yet\ndescribed and named, and those still awaiting discovery,** we\nestimate there to be 830,000 (95% credible limits: 550,000–\n1,330,000) multi-cellular species on coral reefs worldwide,\nexcluding fungi. Uncertainty surrounding this estimate and\nits components were often strongly skewed toward larger\nvalues, indicating that many more species on coral reefs is\nmore plausible than many fewer. The uncertainties revealed\nhere should guide future research toward achieving convergence\nin global species richness estimates for coral reefs\nand other ecosystems via adaptive learning protocols\nwhereby such estimates can be tested and improved, and\ntheir uncertainties reduced, as new knowledge is acquired\n\n > Current Biology\nVolume 25, Issue 4, 16 February 2015, Pages 500-505\nSpecies Richness on Coral Reefs and the Pursuit of Convergent Global Estimates\n_URL_0_",
"There's a lot of information that goes into this. For example, Charles Darwin once predicted the existence of a type of moth with an unusually long proboscis. He based this prediction on the existence of a flower, varieties of which were pollinated by moths elsewhere. This particular flower held its important bits at the bottom of a long, narrow shaft. \n \nDarwin was right; the moth was discovered years later. It could have been something else, but the point here is that *something* had to be pollinating that flower, and it was nothing that was known at the time he made his observations. \n \nSpecific niches, like the above, are one factor. Mathematical studies are another; \"in this kind of environment elsewhere, with similar temperatures and other conditions, we see 'X' in terms of diversity.\" It's never guaranteed: most of these factors are educated guesses, but when estimates are published they actually lean towards the conservative end of the range -- just to be safe. \n \nThis is why popular news often presents new discoveries as \"surprising scientists\" and \"upsetting estimates\" in terms of their diversity, range, etc. Science has to fight tooth and nail for recognition and funding as it is -- so, when scientists think there might be 4-12 of ABC, they'll say \"we're expecting to find 4 ABC; even 3 would be remarkable, really.\" \n \nThey wind up finding 6-8 ABC, whereupon the public shakes its head and goes \"Silly scientists don't know what they're talking about, but let's support more research, since there's obviously a lot more ABC out there than they thought.\"",
"Imagine you sample every organism in a 1m patch of grass, and find 25 species. Next, count all the species in a 5m patch, and you get 60 species, but 20 are the same as before (so 40 are new). Keep doing this over multiple habitats and habitat size, and you build a curve that describes how many new species you expect to find in a new area of size x. This is called rarefaction, and extrapolating over the area of earth gives a rough approximation of how many species we expect to find. \n\nMany ecologists have studied this statistical phenomenon. Search species - area curve, biogeography, or MacArthur to learn more. ",
"I think it's kinda like how we haven't discovered all the different types of sandwiches yet. Every time I go to the deli there's a couple new ones on the menu.\n\nYou're welcome.",
"I assume by \"organisms\" they mean \"species\".\n\nBut, what does it even mean to be a species? \n\nAn article in Science just demonstrated that all the Major Big Cats (lions, leopards, etc) have been interbreeding for millions of years.\n\nThey all have pretty much the same genes, just shuffled around.\n\nSo, every time you find a different combination or permutation, is it reasonable to call it a different \"organism\"?\n\nThe accident of infertility between certain combinations can hardly be taken anymore as the definition of a species.\n\nLife begins to look more like a multi-dimensional continuum, with some neighborhoods being more densely populated than others. \n",
"85% of statistics are made up on the spot. I know because my dad was a statistics professor at UGA. ",
"There are various methods of population estimation.\n\nA common method is as follows: \n* You spend a set interval catching the critters of interest. \n* You tag all of the critters you catch and release them. \n* A short while later, you do this again. \n* Some of the critters in the second round are _already tagged_.\n\nThe total catch per interval and the fraction of repeat catches can be plugged into some relatively straightforward statistical functions to estimate the total population.\n\nYou can do this for as many iterations as you like to get an arbitrarily accurate estimate. \n\nAnother method is to designate a certain amount of space and count _everything_. It might be all the fish in a cove, all the plants in a 2mx2m patch of field, all the bugs in a tree, etc. You do this a couple times, and then multiply your critters/unit number by the total number of units.\n\nThe figure you're quoting can be arrived at by a combination of the two. If you catalogued _everything_ in some space, and you'll consistently get about 14% previously-identified species and the other 86% would be new (and probably mostly beetles).",
"So there's hope for samquantch?",
"Earth scientists and biologists: What do they know, do they know things? Let's find out!",
"I have heard that most organisms are actually in the ocean, since the earth is mostly water, and we don't have the ability to explore the ocean that far beyond the surface. "
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ar9n23 | how do showers pump water to the highest floor? | So a "pushing" is applied to water in a pool somewhere underground. But what is doing that pushing?
& #x200B;
Is it air pushing onto the surface of the liquid? How do they fit the extra air in without some leaking back out?
Is the liquid essentially being compressed and its volume maintained by being forced up a narrower pipe? (this sounds very unwieldy)
How is a force even transmitted everywhere in a liquid? The molecules at the top experience an electrostatic repulsion which probably induces more repulsions in the next layer. But when this downward pushing reaches the bottom of the tank, presumably the third law pair between the bottom layer of water and the tank results in no overall upward motion (and no downward motion because the tank is fixed to the Earth)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ar9n23/eli5_how_do_showers_pump_water_to_the_highest/ | {
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"I would say that it mostly depends on your location. A lot of places such as New York City have water towers placed on top of the buildings that feed via gravity.\nA lot of small towns where you see large water towers up high above the town essentially do the same thing.\nThen there will of course be situations where gravity cannot be used and that's pressurized system will be put in place.",
"Pumps mostly. The pump puts pressure on the water in the system. They also push water up into water towers so that when there is a lot of demand on the system, gravity on the water in the tower can help keep the pressure high enough.\n\nThe liquid doesn't need to be compressed to be under pressure. You can have a cinder block and put a heavy weight on top and the cinder block remains the same shape, but there's still pressure on it.\n\n > How is a force even transmitted everywhere in a liquid?\n\nWhen you put the liquid in an enclosed space like a pipe and you start applying pressure, it can't compress the water because of that electrostatic force that you mentioned. So that pressure has to go somewhere. One section of the pipe pushes on the next, which pushes on the next, and so on. It's just like a train pushing cars.\n\nIn something very tall, the building will have additional pumps inside the building to help maintain pressure up on the higher floors. They will often also have their own water towers on the roof to help keep the pressure even at all times.\n\n\n[Here's a neat video about water pumping and water towers.](_URL_0_)"
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177lwi | the american game-show 'jeopardy' | As a Brit I have never been exposed to the game-show apart from the odd bit through pop culture. Would anyone mind explaining it to my simple British mind? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/177lwi/elif_the_american_gameshow_jeopardy/ | {
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"just a trivia show. There are three rounds. First and Second rounds have 7 (I think) categories with 5 questions each. Wrong answers deduct dollars.\n\nLast round is a single question. Players are given the category ahead of time and can wager whatever amount of money they have on whether they'll get the question right.\n\nMost money at the end wins.",
"Not much to explain. It's a trivia show quiz show where answers must be given in the form of a question.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Standard quiz/trivia show. The players' scores are in \"jeopardy\" throughout because wrong answers subtract from their total. Another gimmick is that the clues are provided in the form of a statement and the participants have to respond in the form of a question.\n\n3 rounds: Jeopardy, Double Jeopardy, and Final Jeopardy\n\nJeopardy has 6 categories of 5 questions each (ranging from $200 to $1000). \n\nExample: \nPlayer - I'll take Websites for $400, Alex. \nAlex Trebek - It's a place where user-submitted links are voted up or down by the rest of the users. \nPlayer - *rings in* What is reddit?\n\nFailing to phrase your response as a question counts as incorrect, but you have a few seconds to correct your mistake if you forgot.\n\nDouble Jeopardy is the same, but the values are doubled (ranging from $400 to $2000 per question/answer).\n\nThe first two rounds have Daily Doubles as well (one in the first round, two in the second). When selecting a clue, the player gets a special clue just for them (the other players can't ring in), and they get to wager how much they want to earn/lose on the result. So making something a \"true Daily Double\" means betting your entire score.\n\nFinal Jeopardy is like a Daily Double for all players. The category is given, players get to decide how much they want to bet on a single question, then they hear the clue and have 30 seconds to write down their response.\n\n*edit* Daily Doubles are hidden, so there's no way to know which clue is going to be one. They tend to be in the lower half (i.e. higher-scoring clues) of the board.",
"Contestants are given the opportunity to answer questions with associated monetary values. A correct answer credits the contestant with the associated value; an incorrect answer debits the contestant in the same amount. So there's a penalty to just guessin'.\n\nThe questions are well known for being challenging, but the range is quite broad. Some questions have obvious answers anyone could guess; others have obvious answers but are worded in such a way as to make them tricky to guess. Still others are questions you either know the answer to or you don't. Who was Henry VIII buried next to? Either you know that or you don't. (It was Jane Seymour.)\n\nThe gimmick of the game is that the \"questions\" are phrased as if they were answers, and the contestants are required to provide the questions to which those are answers. In the above example, the \"question\" might have been \"She's the wife of Henry VIII next to whom he was buried,\" and an \"answer\" might be, \"Who was Jane Seymour?\"\n\nThis is a formality more than anything. Many consider the game to be *slightly* more challenging because the \"questions\" must first be parsed to figure out what the correct response needs to be. First you must unpack the \"question,\" then you have to come up with the correct answer to the question, then you must phrase the correct answer in a way that's acceptable to the judges. This makes the whole game a *bit* tricker and more interesting than just answering questions. How much tricker, and how much more interesting, is of course in the eye of the beholder.",
"It's essentially a trivia game. \n\nYou pick a category and a dollar value and then you get a clue in the form of an \"answer,\" for which you have to provide the question. So, you might get an \"answer\" like \"This president was elected in 2008.\" The correct response would be \"Who is Barack Obama?\"\n\nThere are three rounds. In the first, the clues are valued at between $200 and $1000, and there is one \"Daily Double,\" a clue for which you can bet all, part, or none of your current winnings. In the second round the clues are worth $400 - $2000 and there are two daily doubles. The third round is \"Final Jeopardy,\" in which the players are given the name of a category. Then they must bet all, part, or none of their winnings before seeing the question. The winner's the person with the most money at the end of Final Jeopardy. ",
"Answer questions, get money. ",
"To add a few more details to the other excellent descriptions:\n\nThe winner from the show gets to come back the next night and play against two new contestants. This continues until the person is defeated.\n\nThe interesting thing about Jeopardy is that it's a show where you have to have pretty good breadth of knowledge to do well, and contestants appear to be pretty smart individuals. On many other game shows in the U.S., contestants seem to be more like \"regular people\" and aren't necessarily that exceptional. Yet the prizes for Jeopardy aren't that lavish--you can be a jeopardy winner and take home less than $10,000, depending on how the game goes. Taken together it means that being a contestant on Jeopardy, or even just playing along at home, has more status & intellectual cachet than competing on/watching other shows.",
"Probably the most confuddling thing about it is the way questions are posed and asked. Jeopardy! was created at a time when there was a big scandal about game shows being rigged, where contestants were \"given the answers\". \n\nSo when Jeopardy was created, the joke was that the contestants *were* given the answers, openly. The task for them was to provide the questions. So that's why the questions are always nonsense like like \"what is Damascus?\""
]
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6zlgr0 | what is the premise of the 'shadow' that carl jung wrote about? | I've tried reading about it but it keeps going over my head, it won't stay in! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zlgr0/eli5_what_is_the_premise_of_the_shadow_that_carl/ | {
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"The idea is that we look at ourselves in a good light, and this casts a shadow that hides from us our true selves.\n\nHe believed that we had to face that shadow in our journey to self realization. Facing that shadow means recognizing that all the worst parts of humanity are in you too. If you were born in Nazi Germany to a German family, there is a good chance you would have been a Nazi. You wouldn't have had some moral epiphany and rallied against your people, you would likely have taken part in the Holocaust.\n\nFor a better look at that idea. What it takes for a normal person, you or me, to turn into that kind of a monster, read Ordinary Men. "
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40le3p | how can the suns rays make you feel mentally/psychologically better? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40le3p/eli5_how_can_the_suns_rays_make_you_feel/ | {
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"Mostly your brain (pineal gland) produces two kinds of \"drugs\" (hormones): one for the day (serotonin) and one for the night (melatonin). This is part of your inner clock. Serotonin keeps you awake and melatonin makes you sleepy. Light, specially sunlight, stops the production of melatonin. So if you would stay in dark places without (sun)light over a long period of time, the levels of melatonin would be very high and you would be, more or less, feeling sleepy all the time. When the balance of serotonin and melatonin in your body is messed up, your inner clock is also messed up. This leads to e.g. sleep disorders, depressions and some other stuff that isn't very healthy either. \n"
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fq5jqz | how can people take old videos and upscale them to 4k? | The video that made me ask this is this one [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
A-ha: Take on me in 4k. How is this possible when 4k didn't exist when the video was made? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fq5jqz/eli5_how_can_people_take_old_videos_and_upscale/ | {
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"That video was recorded in 1985 on film from my understanding.\n\nFilm itself has a resolution way beyond 4K depending on the grain size. As long as the film is preserved, it can be re-scanned using a higher resolution scanner.\n\nWe will probably get an 8K cut in a few years.",
"The video would have been recorded onto film given its era. Photographic film has really high resolution we just don't associate high resolution with the old analog TV era because the TVs didn't have much to work with, but movie film is somewhere in the 4k-16k range depending on the size and quality of film. If they had a good quality recording then its just a matter of scanning it in really nicely and you have a 4k music video.\n\nThis is why old movies can also be upscaled to 4k(but they often have film grain and anomalies from years in storage) but more recent movies that were shot and edited digitally cannot be. If the movie was captured on an early digital camera at 2k resolution (roughly 1920x1080 or 1080P) then you don't have the raw data to work with. You can fudge it in post processing(which your TV will do) but its not quite the same"
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byeeg1 | why does water and air feel different at the same temp? full question below. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/byeeg1/eli5_why_does_water_and_air_feel_different_at_the/ | {
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"Transmission of energy. Water holds and absorbs tremendously more energy than air, that's why it takes so much more airflow volume to create the same cooling effect as water."
]
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dy1d3b | why does some movie theaters get to show a movie a day or two before it's actual release date? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dy1d3b/eli5_why_does_some_movie_theaters_get_to_show_a/ | {
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"They're called advanced screenings, and they have several purposes.\n\nThey're leveraged for publicity and marketing for many shows. A private screening for film critics means getting reviews out early. Including a few VIPs and well-connected people can build hype. A few people describing how they saw the show early and they loved it can help pump the excitement before the big launch.\n\nThey serve another useful purpose. They allow theaters to test that the movie is all present, that it is the correct movie, and that all the equipment is functioning normally before the big initial showing. Occasionally there are mistakes made, such as theaters being sent mislabeled reels or reels being incompatible with the viewing equipment. An advanced showing gives an opportunity to verify those things.\n\nIn some locations an advanced screening is required by law, since \"blind sales\" are prohibited. Somebody representing the theater must view it at least once to verify that they're receiving the thing they expected.\n\nThey can serve all the purposes above; the screening provides a teaser and advertising for the community, and it is a test of the equipment on a small scale, and it meets the terms of the law. \n\nFor some shows --- especially the shows of lower quality --- sometimes the advance showing is done privately, with no critics or private audiences except for the theater owner and only to satisfy the law and ensure the equipment works."
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6q0dhp | how are damages caused by disasters calculated and reported? how accurate should i expect them to be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q0dhp/eli5_how_are_damages_caused_by_disasters/ | {
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"Hi there molycow,\n\nJust as a disclaimer, I'm not an expert in disaster losses calculation.\nHowever, based on my experience from the hail storms that occurred in Sydney (it's happened many times, always every 2-3 years).\n\nUsually if you have insurance for your home or car, and your property is damaged you usually call up the company and they bring in an assessor. I'm not sure if that assessor is a third party, or is part of the company.\n\nFrom there, they usually estimate the damage, usually they might have other examples to go by. Though if this disaster hasn't been seen before, I would imagine that the process of estimating the losses would have to take longer.\n\nIf that is the case, I reckon they would get you to breakdown what losses have occurred and how much it has cost you.\n\nBut then again it really depends what type of damages your talking about. It could be damages to residential, commercial or industrial property.\n\nIf you include commercial/industrial you will need to take into account not only the damage that has occurred already, but also the losses that will occur as a result of not being able to continue business. Usually if this is a long period this cost can sometimes outweigh the costs of damages that were caused \"physically\".\n\nThen again you could expand to a whole city that has been affected by a whole disaster, which is a more difficult task to estimate.\n\nI'll probably leave it there for any other more experienced people to answer your question. But hopefully that provides some clarity to what you have been asking.",
"I have done damage calculations for FEMA for flooding in two scenarios:\n\nWhile a flooding event is going on, we take live data from water gauges, run them through models, estimate the size of flood waters, then calculate the number of structures (data quality varies) that intersect with the estimated flood extent, and take the estimated flood level. We run this many times as the flooding event unfolds. We figure out how many homes are impacted by 1-2, 2.01 - 5, 5.01 - 8, and 8+ feet of water. Unfortunately, I don't get to see what happens after we ship the data but I am told that the data really helps to better direct resources. Later the points (often tens of thousands) are checked for accuracy by comparing the damage estimation to aerial photography.\n\nAfter a flood event, (this is massively simplified) FEMA may supplement local communities work forces by sending building inspectors into the field. They spend about 15 minutes at each structure collecting the high water mark (the most important piece of data) and a few dozen characteristics of the building. It goes into software thay spits out a damage estimation. This goes to the local community who then uses it for permitting for reconstruction and whatever else. The structure owner has the opportunity to contest the determination (whether they think should have a higher or lower rating, it depends) with the local community. \n\nThe accuracy really depends in the data quality which is far from perfect but keeps getting better every year. "
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519pa8 | how does social science work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/519pa8/eli5_how_does_social_science_work/ | {
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"Social science is very much a soft science. It is a science, in that the Scientific Method is applied to try and find facts. However, there is an inherent, recognized difficulty in accurately measuring and testing in these fields.\n\nPhilosophy itself, while under the umbrella of social science, is not necessarily a science. In fact, science itself is a form of Philosophy. Science is a set of rules and ideas that are used to evaluate the world around you. How do we then evaluate philosophy? Through the use of logic. Logic is probably the one Philosophy that is agreed on. Without it, all analysis becomes impossible. \n\nThe \"proof\" of a Philosophy is that it is logically consistent and has supporting evidence for its validity. As was mentioned earlier though, there are inherent problems in accurately gathering and analyzing evidence. The human brain is INSANELY complex. We understand some of the chemical reactions, but know one really knows how the brain does what it does or thinks what it thinks. Even without that, you need to filter out cultural and societal biases and deal with the reality of humans being dishonest about their thoughts and actions.\n\nGoing back to Social Science as a whole, some of it is well researched, and some of it is pure drivel. The best thing to do is go back to the original studies and experiments done. You will be surprised to see that many of \"truths\" about humanity are supported by poorly done studies with comically small sample sizes."
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36tsg4 | why, despite the various laws against it, is vigilantism wrong? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36tsg4/eli5_why_despite_the_various_laws_against_it_is/ | {
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"Per the Constitution, accused criminals have a lot of rights. They need to be investigated by the police, tried by the DA, represented by a lawyer, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced by a judge. There's a lot of people involved in that, who should be making sure everyone else is doing their job correctly, and affording the accused their civil rights.\n\nWith vigilantism, you're removing the whole criminal justice process, and basically deciding guilt and punishment based on one person's whim."
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l6787 | the difference between a url, urn, and uri | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l6787/eli5_the_difference_between_a_url_urn_and_uri/ | {
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"The simplest explanation starts by categorizing: The first thing you should know is that an URL or a URN are **both** URIs.\n\nAn [**URI** (Uniform Resource Identifier)](_URL_3_), is a way to identify some type of resource on the Internet, they are handled by browsers and other network capable applications.\n\nSo the two types are the [**URL** (Uniform Resource Locator)](_URL_2_) which is the one you come across everywhere on the Internet.\nIt's divided into:\n\n scheme://domain:port/path?query_string#fragment_id\n\nYou can see these parts explanation on the wikipedia link above. But you should recognize the format already...\n\nAnd the [**URN** (Uniform Resource Name)](_URL_0_) which is a way to link to a particular item in a category. The examples seen on wikipedia you might recognize are the [ISBN](_URL_4_) (books) and [ISAN](_URL_1_) (audiovisuals).\n\nI actually haven't seen these being used, which is a damn shame because they intended to be location independent. But what we usually see are the same ISBNs or ISANs identifier keys used as parts of the query string in URLs to some online retailer...\n\nHope that's clear enough kid :)",
"The simplest explanation starts by categorizing: The first thing you should know is that an URL or a URN are **both** URIs.\n\nAn [**URI** (Uniform Resource Identifier)](_URL_3_), is a way to identify some type of resource on the Internet, they are handled by browsers and other network capable applications.\n\nSo the two types are the [**URL** (Uniform Resource Locator)](_URL_2_) which is the one you come across everywhere on the Internet.\nIt's divided into:\n\n scheme://domain:port/path?query_string#fragment_id\n\nYou can see these parts explanation on the wikipedia link above. But you should recognize the format already...\n\nAnd the [**URN** (Uniform Resource Name)](_URL_0_) which is a way to link to a particular item in a category. The examples seen on wikipedia you might recognize are the [ISBN](_URL_4_) (books) and [ISAN](_URL_1_) (audiovisuals).\n\nI actually haven't seen these being used, which is a damn shame because they intended to be location independent. But what we usually see are the same ISBNs or ISANs identifier keys used as parts of the query string in URLs to some online retailer...\n\nHope that's clear enough kid :)"
]
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mpmh1 | credit default swaps | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mpmh1/eli5_credit_default_swaps/ | {
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"So ShittyBank offers loans to people buying homes (mortgages.) The bank writes you a mortgage, buys your home for you and lets you live there as long as you make monthly payments to pay off the loan. ShittyBank does this hundreds of thousands of times all over the country.\n\nNow ShittyBank turns around and says \"hey, we've got all these mortgages providing a stream of income. Anyone wanna buy a piece of them? If you buy a piece of them, you'll get a portion of all the payments made on them for the next 30-45 years.\" The bank is selling \"collateralized debt obligations\" or CDOs--huge bundles of active mortgages, organized into tiers according to the creditworthiness of the person paying off the mortgage. You buy a CDO, and you get a piece of the payments for every mortgage contained in that CDO.\n\nThe problem is, ShittyBank now has to pay anyone who purchased its CDOs, even if the people holding the original mortgages fail to pay. The bank doesn't want to be left holding the bag if a bunch of people decide to stop paying their mortgages.\n\nSo the bank decides to get some insurance. It goes to an insurance company--let's say, AIG. AIG says \"pay us a little fee, and if your mortgage borrowers default on their loans, we'll step in and keep paying out to those who bought CDOs with those loans in them.\" This is a *credit default swap.* \n\nMake sense?",
"This American Life has a couple of fantastic programs on this very topic. I highly suggest you seek them out if you're interested in learning more about the financial meltdown.",
"So ShittyBank offers loans to people buying homes (mortgages.) The bank writes you a mortgage, buys your home for you and lets you live there as long as you make monthly payments to pay off the loan. ShittyBank does this hundreds of thousands of times all over the country.\n\nNow ShittyBank turns around and says \"hey, we've got all these mortgages providing a stream of income. Anyone wanna buy a piece of them? If you buy a piece of them, you'll get a portion of all the payments made on them for the next 30-45 years.\" The bank is selling \"collateralized debt obligations\" or CDOs--huge bundles of active mortgages, organized into tiers according to the creditworthiness of the person paying off the mortgage. You buy a CDO, and you get a piece of the payments for every mortgage contained in that CDO.\n\nThe problem is, ShittyBank now has to pay anyone who purchased its CDOs, even if the people holding the original mortgages fail to pay. The bank doesn't want to be left holding the bag if a bunch of people decide to stop paying their mortgages.\n\nSo the bank decides to get some insurance. It goes to an insurance company--let's say, AIG. AIG says \"pay us a little fee, and if your mortgage borrowers default on their loans, we'll step in and keep paying out to those who bought CDOs with those loans in them.\" This is a *credit default swap.* \n\nMake sense?",
"This American Life has a couple of fantastic programs on this very topic. I highly suggest you seek them out if you're interested in learning more about the financial meltdown."
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5j2iot | what factors contribute to cultures advancing at different rates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5j2iot/eli5_what_factors_contribute_to_cultures/ | {
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"Cultures advance for two reasons, because they have to and because they can.\n\nCultures have to advance when they are facing a threat. Common threats include another nation attacking you, a new disease, or localized climate change.\n\nCultures can advance when they can spend time doing thing other than just surviving. This is usually caused by access to food that allows for less farmers to feed more people.\n\nSome cultures advance faster than others because they have the right combination of outside threats, and the ability to not be destroyed by those outside threats.\n\nIf you are interested in digging a little deeper, check out [CGP Gray's Americapox](_URL_0_). If you want to go even deeper than that, check out [Jared Diamond's *Guns, Germs, and Steel](_URL_1_)",
"If we are talking about culture in the sense of human civilizations, I highly recommend that you check out *Guns, Germs and Steel* by Jared Diamond. \n\nBy and large the most important factor contributing to differing rates of advancement is geography. For example, although agrarian societies arose in both Eurasia and the Americas, Eurasian civilizations have an early advantage because crops native to Eurasia (barley, wheat, etc) are easier to cultivate and provide more nutrition than their American counterparts (bananas, maize, etc). Consequently, Eurasian societies required less manpower to feed a given population, which allowed for increased specialization (where people took up professions other than farming due to surplus food).\n\nAnother example of geography affecting the development of civilizations is the Western hegemony on the world stage during the last 500 years. The Asian societies (particularly China) enjoyed geographical features that are conducive to the formation of large, stable empires more or less immune to external influence. On the other hand, Europe's natural barriers led to the formation of competing nation states. This forced European countries to innovate while causing technological stagnation among among Asian states. \n\nObviously this is a very big topic so not everything can be answered at once. But give the book a read, it's worth it!"
]
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dm23vn | why do scientists think hubble constant (a characteristic of the universe expansion rate) is actually a constant? | There is already a [partial answer](_URL_0_) to this question; it explains that the expansion rate can be considered a constant at this time (the time human civilization exists). But why do scientists think the acceleration is the same across the universe? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dm23vn/eli5_why_do_scientists_think_hubble_constant_a/ | {
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"When you look farther away you also look back in time, so when you detect light that has been travelling for 10 billion years from a distant quasar you're also detecting the results of whatever happened to it during that time.\n\nThe amount of redshift (energy loss due to the expansion of space while it was in flight) we see in these ancient photons suggests that the rate of local expansion was the same at all times and at all places while the light was traveling.\n\nIf the expansion *wasn't* constant over time or location, you would see light unexpectedly under/over shifted compared to its age and point of origin.",
"The simple answer to this is that scientists do not think the Hubble constant is actually a constant. Even Hubble himself did not think it was a constant value but for the sake of his argumentation he simplified it to a constant factor for his calculations to make them fit at a moment in time. The previous theory was that the universe was constant and did not expand or contract. However Hubble were able to chart the movement of distant galaxies on a chart which gave him a constant rate of expansion. This is the constant he observed at this point in time and in this part of the universe. However we now know that the Hubble parameter changes but for most cases it is close to the Hubble constant."
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3skm9d | how was nyc able to build and afford their entire subway system over the past 100+ years, but the 2nd ave line keeps running into budget issues and delays? | I've tried to do research on the subject, but I can't figure out the financing and the timing of it all. There have been hundreds of miles of tracks and tunnels and hundreds of stations built over the past 100+ years, but the Second Ave. line has been moving at a snail's pace. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3skm9d/eli5_how_was_nyc_able_to_build_and_afford_their/ | {
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"I would say the construction costs have soared. Wages are high for construction workers compared to the past. An immigrant was willing to work for low wages. Now there are unions, OSHA, overtime rules, etc. "
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22vlna | how do marketers get so much data on me? | I recently bought a house, and not even a month later, I've been getting all this junk mail marketed toward people who are moving (I haven't moved yet). For example, yesterday I got a mailer for setting up Comcast at my new place, and I don't even currently have Comcast. How does this system work so quickly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22vlna/eli5_how_do_marketers_get_so_much_data_on_me/ | {
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"They check the listings in the county tax assessors office, which lists dates of sales, as well as amounts and names. It's also more than possible that the realtor sold your data.",
"It's a result of \"big data\" analytics and marketers' increasing ability to gather and process information about you based on a variety of inputs, public info about real estate transactions being only one of them. Other inputs include your web browsing history, your shopping patterns, etc. Here's a decent overview of how marketers use big data and the debates surrounding it: _URL_0_\n\n(Sorry for not just embedding link - am posting this from my phone and not sure how to do that in Alien Blue yet.)"
]
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[],
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3q5r5v | how do mom porcupines and hedgehogs give birth without the babies' spines causing any harm to the mother's insides? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q5r5v/eli5how_do_mom_porcupines_and_hedgehogs_give/ | {
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"I'm not a porcupine expert, but my guess, is they the baby's quills are still soft/not fully hardened, and the babies are probably pushed out head-first, so that the quills lay down. ",
"A porcupine's quills are hair, not stiff rods. When they give birth, the quills are soft and wet. That is also why the quills can be replaced constantly.",
"The real question is how do they have sex? I'm guessing missionary "
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z0l8l | the oil business | Why are people who are involved with oil usually so filthy rich? Often I hear about these magnates in the Middle-East who make more money in a week than in the entire life of the average Joe. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z0l8l/eli5_the_oil_business/ | {
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"Let's say you have a lemonade stand. You charge a thousand dollars per lemonade, and since it's really hot, you make a million dollars a day.\n\nWell, obviously, that can't last. Someone else will open up a lemonade stand and try to take your business away by only charging $750. Pretty soon there are so many lemonade stands that lemonade is selling for $1 and nobody makes crazy money anymore.\n\nBut that's because anyone can make lemonade.\n\nIf lemonade were only found in certain spots in the ground, and you owned a lemonade well and nobody else did, you could keep selling lemonade at $1000 per cup and nobody could undercut you because they wouldn't have access to the well.\n\nThat's how oil works; once you've found it, it's no work at all to pump and sell it (as BP showed us in the gulf, the stuff pumps itself). And you can sell it for a high price because, while other people might be happy to sell oil much cheaper, they can't because they don't own the wells. ",
"Oil costs very little to find, produce, and refine per barrel. The profit from a single barrel of oil is about 8%. The catch is that people consume very many billions of barrels per year. \n\nLI5: You buy lemonade for $.10 per cup and sell it at $.11 per cup. It's nice that you now make $.01 per cup right? Now imagine that you sell to 6 billion people and you can make 100 billion cups every year. You're filthy rich! You now make $10,000 per year. Oil is the same. When you find it, you find millions of barrels all at once and you can sell each one for $10 more than it cost to get it out of the ground. ",
"Those magnates you speak of are, in the main, royalty. \n\nThey are paid vast sums of money by companies who drill for oil on their land. Those countries sell oil taken from underneath their land to the very big companies (the companies must be big because there is only so much oil and the cost of getting to it and making it right for cars and shipping it to where we **need** to buy it etc. are so big that it only makes sense for a few companies to be in the business and they can make money from it by being very big) who can only buy oil from a few places. \n\nNot only that but these magnates have formed a 'cartel' called The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or 'OPEC' that contains the world's biggest oil producing countries that they are the kings (often 'sheikhs' in Arabic) or leaders of. That means that they have grouped together and decided to tell the rest of the world how much they want to charge them to buy their oil. That way, the group makes a healthy amount of profit and doesn't have to fight within itself to sell oil cheaply and win business- they win big bucks this way if they work together.\n\nAnother thing is that we need oil. Our cars run on it, we use plastic a lot and that's made from oil, our food is driven to us from factories and farms using oil-consuming vehicles and so on and so forth. \nThat means that pretty much no matter how much we are charged for oil, we must pay because we use it so much and there aren't that many alternatives that are so widely available and used.",
"I'm liking the lemonade stand analogy, but there's another step that has led to the explosion and price movement of oil:\n\nYou've got a lemonade powder company, let's name it \"Saudi Arabia\". You call up all of your friends who also have lemonade powder companies, and form a club. In this club, you all determine how much you're going to sell. You can choose the number based on the temperature outside, how many people are in line for lemonade right now, or a number that you think will allow you to charge a lot of money for your powder. There are a bunch of other lemonade powder companies who aren't part of your club, but your club is large enough that you can have a major effect on the amount of lemonade people can buy. Still, you have almost no control over price, which is set by a bunch of people in New York. They buy and sell cups of lemonade based on what they think lemonade will cost in the future, frequently leading to large swings in the price of lemonade. They may blame the swings on a neighborhood bully's threat to close all the lemonade stands on his block, but in the end they are mainly changing the price in the hope that they can buy your lemonade powder for a low price and sell it for a high one. You may not always like their prices, but there isn't much you can do because your lemonade powder needs to be sent to someone else to be turned into actual lemonade to be sold."
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a5tamj | why is it that bands/singers can have wildly successful careers sometimes spanning decades, dozens of albums, and countless recorded tracks, yet only have those 3 or 4 songs that really get any airplay/recognition? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5tamj/eli5_why_is_it_that_bandssingers_can_have_wildly/ | {
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"Short answer, program managers are lazy. It's easy to stick with the 'classics'. It's safe. \n\nAlso if a band is around long enough they may not fit the style of the station with their new/old stuff. Classic rock stations are going to play the hell out of 60/70 era Rolling Stones, but wont touch anything they have released in the last 2 decades as it diesnt fit their format. "
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4b8yzm | how does bracing yourself for an impact actually make the impact worse? | You know, like if you dont see something coming like that car about to slam into you, you'll be generally less harmed than if you see it coming and you brace yourself. Why is this?
Edit: thank you all for the replies! I think I can say this had been answered :) you guys rock | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4b8yzm/eli5_how_does_bracing_yourself_for_an_impact/ | {
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"Because your muscles tense up and become rigid and have no \"give\" at that point. If you don't know it's coming, you will be loose and more flexible which would help with NOT further jarring the flexed muscle.",
"It's all about pressure. My favorite example for this is explosions. Explosions send out a shockwave in several different levels: air being forced outward, sound being forced outward, and of course the thermal release itself. If a being is rigid like, say, a dry board of wood, the force of the blast will usually shatter the board. But compare that to a live tree which has give and bend from the liquids flowing through it will sway through the hit and take it better. \n\n\nSimilarly a human eardrum is a tense piece of flesh; it has to be to work as intended. But hit it with enough force...pop. They don't show the bleeding eardrums in the action movies. \n\nAnyway, muscles are designed to tense up when struck to protect your internal organs. It hurts less to be punched when they are tensed as opposed to slack. However something like a car hits with so much kinetic energy your tense muscles work against you, putting all the strain on your skeleton, which is hard but is rather brittle. Your organs will fare better, but the bones guarding them will be damaged.",
"If you jump off of a high place ans brace yourself- aka tense certain muscles (leg muscles in this instance)- when you land the impact will be taken harder by that certain part of your body (legs). The part that was 'braced' will take the most damage and will likely shatter as a result of the impact.\n\nThe correct thing to do, jumping from a high place, is land on your feet and immediately relax those muscles, to the point of falling. You'll still get hurt, but you're less likely to break anything or cause serious damage.",
"It's all about time of impact and force. If you allow for more time of impact, it reduces the force because of physics. Jump off a table. If you bend your knees a lot, it reduces the force a lot and it won't hurt a bit. Now jump off the same table but keep your knees locked. It will hurt you quite a bit, depending on the height of the table."
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5m1gf6 | how does the u.s. government owe money to itself? | I can't quite grasp this based on stuff I am finding through Google. I am not savvy with economics. Thanks in advance.
Edit: Thanks to everyone for your responses. I need to study up on bond markets apparently. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m1gf6/eli5_how_does_the_us_government_owe_money_to/ | {
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"Governments borrow money by issuing bonds, which are simply agreements to pay back the money, along with a modest amount of interest, by a particular date (the bond's maturity date). Try googling \"How do government issued bonds work?\" or similar.",
"The Federal Government \"borrows\" money from the people by issuing Federal Bonds and printing more cash, which devalues whatever money you have in your pocket.\n\n\nHypothetical situation. 2017 budget rolls around, we have a $1 trillion deficit. The Fed issues $1 trillion in bonds and prints that much in cash. If there's $100 trillion dollars in circulation, printing that $1T just devalued your dollar by 1%. \n\nThis is a result of the official abolishment of the gold standard in 1971\n\n",
"The US government may have a fund set up to hold money and disburse it later for a specific purpose (for example, the social security fund). \n\nNow, the government could just keep that money in a bank, earning no interest. But that would be stupid because inflation would cause the fund to lose its value (the price of everything else will go up to keep up with inflation but your dollar figure in the bank stays the same, so when you draw on fund years later, you will end up buying less of the goods than you could have years before). \n\nSo the government has a choice on how to invest that money. With the financial world considering US government bonds to be essentially risk-free, and the interest on those bonds can in general keep up with inflation, the people running that specific fund will invest the money in US government bonds. Now the US government owes money (through its bonds) to itself (its own fund).\n\nThe government is likely avoiding other investment strategies (stocks, corporate bonds, etc) because they could be perceived as too risky. For example, imagine if the social security fund was invested in large bank stocks or even real estate in 2008 when the market tumbled. The person who made that investment decision, and his overseers (ultimately Congress/President) would face lots of political scrutiny, to put it mildly, for the losses incurred. Granted the stock market rebounded, but at the time, people would be very angry at the losses mounting in the social security fund. They would see it as the government taxing them and then just losing the money. It's too politically risky.\n\nIn the end, the government doesn't \"raid\" the social security fund. The fund managers are making a choice to buy government bonds.",
"I'll try to make it more simple than the other correct answer. \n\nThe US government is a set of different departments, each with their revenues and expenses. \n\nSome departments, like the Social Security Administration have more revenues than expenses today, but anticipate the trend to reverse itself soon, so they save their surpluses. They often do this by buying US Treasuries through the bond market.\n\nThink of government debt as any other asset, be it a gold coin or a stock in Apple."
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u8abm | the sufi sect of islam. | I understand they're sort of similar to Christian/Catholic monks, and have a history of nomadism, but that's about it. What caused the Nomadism? What key points do they differ on from the Sunni and Shiite? Have they ever been on the wrong end of a religious purge, similar to the other branches? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u8abm/eli5_the_sufi_sect_of_islam/ | {
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"I won't be able to go into much detail on account of illiteracy, but just for starters:\n\nSufiism is not as much a 'sect' of Islam as a way of thinking. It is kind of an 'approach' to how to treat the philosophies of your sect (be it sunni or shia or whatever). That said, it is very distinct and 'almost' a sect because it differs in some basic aspects and is very prominent in those differences.\n\nThe main point of Sunniism is the idea that nearness to Allah is not restricted to the traditional activity-reward cycle of other sects. Sunniism attaches a very philosophical and non-physical domension, wherein sufis can be closer to Allah and can be 'at one' with Allah's universe and his creations by relishing the spiritual world and shunning the physical world.\n\nThe primary realization of a sufi is of the Oneness of Allah, which causes him to understand the falseness or temporary-ness of everything else, including himself. Thus, as a result, there is no one and nothing, except the Divine.\n\nThey are not like monks, as in they don't live in secluded groups, but instead it is a lonely journey for whcih they might or might not be physically aloof, but mentally should be.\n\nI'm not aware of any Nomadic rituals or religious requirements of sufis. There was a mass exodus of such people from Turkey, Egypt and Iran in the first half of the 20th century due to these countries banning Sufiism outright (Turkey formally, Iran & Egypt informally). The sufis then, naturally, gravitated towards the Arabian peninsula and Middle East, but were ostracized by the strict 2+2=4 ideas of Wahabism and further moved on. They largely reside now in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.\n\n"
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6zdvpc | how/why does our brain mishear lyrics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zdvpc/eli5_howwhy_does_our_brain_mishear_lyrics/ | {
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"Because rappers need to demonstrate better diction!\n\nDammnit, i love hip hop but if i hear another rapper garble nonsense into my headphones im gonna lose it.",
"Being a plastic organ, the brain is adaptative and predictive, as proven [here](_URL_0_).\n\nAs such, when information is scarce and/or not complete, the brain will try to complete it using past experience. Regarding music and mishearing, those two factors contribute (1. Brain completes incomplete info + 2. Uses past experience).\n\nThe first time you hear a song, if the lyrics are unclear (which can be the case quite often) your brain will try to replace misunderstood words with a known word of similar pronouciation. From then on, this will be the word you will most often hear. Knowing the correct words corrects that problem."
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a2c6dx | what is *first run syndication*, how does it work, and how is it different from standard *broadcast syndication* | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2c6dx/eli5_what_is_first_run_syndication_how_does_it/ | {
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"A first-run syndication show is one that is sold to individual local TV stations instead of to a national network. The show won't be available in all regions and will play at different times in different cities.\n\nA TV station has certain hours of the day when they decide locally what programs to air, and certain hours in which they have to carry the programs of the national network. In the US an NBC affiliate will have to air the Today Show in the morning, a couple of midday soap operas, NBC Nightly News, and then NBC's primetime shows in the evening. (I'm sure I'm overlooking some programs, but you get the idea.) In between those slots, the local station decides for themselves what goes out, and it'll be different from one city to the next.\n\nShows like Judge Judy and Ellen aren't acquired through the national network. The local TV station buys the rights to those shows directly from the producers of the show. I don't think people are making fiction syndicated shows like they used to now that there are a bazillion cable networks and five national broadcast networks to distribute TV shows, but some of the iconic TV shows of the 80's and 90's were first-run syndicated shows, like Baywatch and Star Trek: The Next Generation. No national network carried them. They were spread around the country by hundreds of individual contracts with local stations instead of one big contract with a national network.\n\nWhen I was a kid in the early 80's, my city had five TV stations, but there were only three national networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. (Oh, and PBS.) Two stations weren't affiliated with a network, and they aired exclusively syndicated programming. Some of it was new, some of it was reruns from a generation ago.\n\nThat brings us to rerun syndication, where a network will sell rights to previous seasons of a show to local stations that may or may not be affiliated with the original network that aired them. I think this may be what you mean by broadcast syndication, and it's why as an adult I was able to watch old episodes of Friends in the early afternoon on our Fox station even though it was an NBC show."
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2dpex6 | how those little baby doll toy bottles work where you hold it upside down and the liquid seems to appear like he drank it, but when you hold it right side up, it refills...? | I've always wondered how those work lol | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dpex6/eli5_how_those_little_baby_doll_toy_bottles_work/ | {
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"The bottle is actually two containers (one inside the other). There is a thin gap between the two which is filled with liquid.\n\nThis allows a very small amount of liquid to appear to fill the entire bottle. When you tip it, the liquid flows through the gap and down into a resevoir in the top, making it appear empty."
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29rwd6 | why is it considered immoral to outsource labor to workers in countries willing to work for very little money? | A common criticism I hear of Nike and other corporations is that they outsource their labor to certain factories in the developing world where the poverty rates are so high that people there are willing to work for very low wages, relative to the minimum wages in North America. In my view if these companies didn't hire these poor workers, then these workers wouldn't have a job so they can at least provide something for their families. So why is this considered bad practice? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29rwd6/eli5_why_is_it_considered_immoral_to_outsource/ | {
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"The problem is many of these companies fired people just to have the work done elsewhere for people. The companies took away the ability for people to provide for their families and sent their jobs elsewhere just so the company could save a little bit of money.\n\nEdit: Also, these outsourced jobs were often very low-paying and borderline illegal in some places. Imagine if you were fired from your job just so a small child could do it for a few cents a day in horrible conditions. That's why it's immoral and unethical.",
"Usually it's the working conditions that people are protesting. Factories in developing countries with little regulation and workers' rights can be downright abysmal to work in. They're not called \"sweatshops\" for nothing.\n\nIn addition to poor working conditions is also worker safety. A man might lose an arm operating a press or similar machinery because the safety regulations aren't written into law or enforced. So a man without the factory might not have gotten that pay, but they might still have both arms and have been able to farm or some other small-time employment, whereas the man in the factory might have earned a year or two's worth of wages before becoming a cripple.\n\nIt's a value judgement, nothing more.",
"If you employ people in North America or Europe, you are subject to a stunning number of regulations. On the whole these regulations ensure that you do not overwork, poison, maim, or kill your workforce, that your building will not collapse on their heads, that they will not be gassed or electrocuted, and that they will not be too grossly underpaid. \n\nNaturally these luxuries cost money, which is why they have to be regulated to bring them about. In an unregulated environment of extreme poverty, where people will do almost anything to scratch an existence, one can produce things more cheaply. If you can then sell at prices which do not relate to the cost of production, this is what capitalism is all about; immense profits for the 1%, perpetual poverty for the workers. If a few hundred are killed in a building collapse, don't fret; there are plenty of others to take their place.\n\nMuch of the difference in working standards between developed and undeveloped nations can be ascribed to the efforts of unions. Unions are now under attack, and offshoring is one way to weaken them. Your support for Nike and their ilk may soon present you or your children with the opportunity to work under the same conditions as the poverty-ridden workers who are currently providing your running shoes.",
"In my opinion, it's mostly people who are upset that their jobs have been shipped overseas, but who dress it up as concern for foreign workers so that they won't look like racist assholes. Now, I'm not saying sweatshops in Bangladesh are awesome places to work or that nothing should be done about it, but I do think that many people protesting this are more concerned with lost jobs in their country than exploitation of workers in another.",
"what i wonder is why outsourcing is considered immoral, but its moral equivalent, wholesale amnesty for unskilled workers in the us along with far more lax immigration standards is considered a noble, just, and compassionate cause\n\n\"we have a bunch of unskilled americans without jobs! we need to get our people back to work! theres only one solution! we must allow more non americans into the job market! do we want immigrants with college degrees! no! our healthcare system sucks and our infrastructure is literally crumbling! but do we want more doctors? no! do we want more engineers? no! give us unskilled labor by the millions! whats more, we need a higher minimum wage! a glut of labor plus price floors are *guaranteed* to spur our economy back into boom! that will right this ship!\" ::uproarious applause::"
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fhk1uc | how does standard bar soap clean your hands if it does not have any antibacterial additives? especially when the soap uses animal fat as a base component. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fhk1uc/eli5_how_does_standard_bar_soap_clean_your_hands/ | {
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"It emulsifies the dirt and oil on your skin letting it be washed away.\n\nTo be fair all the antibacterial this and that really only makes us feel safer as it and people not taking tgeir antibiotics properly is leading to drug resistant bacteria.\n\nThis pandemic however is a virus so antibacterial soap doesn't really do a whole lot",
"The reason regular non-antibacterial soap still works at _removing_ - not killing - bacteria and virus carrying stuff, is because thats what soap does: soap molecules have a water loving (philic) end and a carbon chain (oils etc.) end. When you wash your hands with soap, oil and other gunk is on your hands. The soap molecules surround the gunk molecules in little bubbles with their water loving ends sticking out and thus all of these little water loving pockets of gunk, oil, grease, bacteria etc. are easily washed away. With enough scrubbing and water, you can do the same, but soap just makes it easier. \n\nYour body naturally has a rather robust barrier (your skin, mucous membranes) and it will do most of the work at containing things like the corona virus, hanging out in blobs of saliva, or mucous or whatever that might have come from another person. But when you rub that stuff on your hand in your eyes or put it in your mouth, well, you essentially just opened the door in that barrier to the bad stuff. \n\nYes, if you ARE infected, you stand a really good chance of surviving with nothing more than really strong \"regular flu\" symptoms; the ones who will die from coronavirus are those who would be susceptible to any flu like thing (elderly, those with already compromised immune systems), its just that this one is so much more contagious than regular flu....\n\nSo if you take one thing away here its WASH YOUR HANDS A LOT and don't go licking things.",
"There is a good thread on twitter from an Icelandic chemistry professor about why soap works so well with viruses:\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"Everyone answered this question very well, I'll just add this. Stop using soap with antibiotics, we will create a world we can't live in.",
"The animal fats are treated with strongly basic (opposite of acidic) chemicals. These cause the fat to undergo a chemical reaction called \"saponification\" that turns the fat into soap. Yes, that's literally what happens. Fat into soap using caustic lye. (This is something of a plot point in Fight Club but if you're actually 5 years old, you should wait a decade or two before watching that movie.)\n\nSoap works because it's made of molecules that have a water-loving end and a water-hating end. The water-hating end sticks to things like blobs of grease or oil, germs, and such. The water-loving end just sort of flaps in the breeze until you get enough soap particles surrounding an something.\n\nOnce an item is completely surrounded with a blob of these soap molecules, they stick to water better than your hand (because the water-loving end is pointing outwards). The final rinse with water washes the soap and the soap-encased dirt, oil, germs, and other stuff away.\n\nThe catch is that you have to scrub vigorously enough and for long enough time. The dirt and germs are all stuck to your skin (often inside microscopic pits and valleys). The vigorous rubbing or scrubbing action dislodges the dirt and germs. Without the soap, a lot of them would just stick back onto your skin. However, if your hands are all soapy, everything gets surrounded by the soap molecules and can't reattach. The water washes them down the drain. But, if you don't dislodge the germs, they don't get surrounded by soap and stay stuck to your skin.\n\nNow, soap does have some limited ability to kill some bacteria. Those water-hating ends of the soap molecules wiggle into the cell walls of the bacteria and make them fall apart. But, it doesn't work on all bacteria and it's just an added bonus. The primary function of soap is to prevent the germs from re-attaching to your skin and letting the water wash them down the drain.\n\nOf course, for marketing purposes, many soap manufacturers add extra antibacterial agents to their soap. However, those additives haven't been proven to help in normal hand-washing situations. As such, in the USA, the FDA has told soap companies to stop using them unless they can prove that they actually help out. This is actually a difficult thing to do because washing your hands with regular soap is already very effective.\n\nThis is also why soap and water are better than hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer does kill a lot of germs but not all of them. Hand sanitizer just evaporates away instead of being washed away like soap and water. So, all the germs that aren't killed by the sanitizer will be left on your skin.\n\nAlcohol hand santizers should only be used if there isn't soap and running water near by."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[
"https://twitter.com/PalliThordarson/status/1236549305189597189"
],
[],
[]
] |
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