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1kdjs4 | why do contestants on "jeopardy" pick the lowest amount of money questions first? | I have been watching a lot of Jeopardy lately and I can seem to come to a reasonable conclusion to this question please help! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kdjs4/eli5_why_do_contestants_on_jeopardy_pick_the/ | {
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"because \"Potent Potables\" is not an immediately obvious topic. If you take a few easy questions first, then you can gauge the rest of the questions in that category. So by the time you take 500, you have a better understanding of what's about to be asked of you and are more likely to answer first. ",
"Daily doubles are often hidden in the larger amounts, they are not useful when you only have $500 to bet on. Also some categories want answers that aren't quite straight forward (like \"before and after\"), so contestants want to get the hang of it before forfeiting larger amount questions.",
"With only the title they usually can't understand what the category actually is so if they choose the most expensive first then they wouldn't know what they were getting themselves into. However, recently the strategy is sometimes choose from the middle first then go down to the expensive ones.\n",
"Usually the easier questions are under the lower amounts and the questions increase in difficulty as you move towards the higher amounts. Taking the lower amounts also lets you see the type of questioons without risking a lot.",
"What everyone else said about increasing difficulty is correct, but the contestants are also encouraged to choose the clues in order, if possible. The producers will tolerate some skipping around, but they don't like it very much. (source: I was a Jeopardy contestant)"
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a7it01 | i know why animals/humans store fat, but how and why do plants that grow fatty fruits collect and store fat (avocado, coconut, olives, etc)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a7it01/eli5_i_know_why_animalshumans_store_fat_but_how/ | {
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"I believe sometimes a fruits/seeds will contain nutrients for making new plants/trees. The growing plant will find it easier to find sustenance\n\nI also believe that sometimes it is to trick animals into eating the seeds and pooping them out far from the original tree.\nBut I am not a scientist"
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4ux4zr | if we were able to remove the brains ability to release dopamine and serotonin, would we be able to feel happiness? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ux4zr/eli5_if_we_were_able_to_remove_the_brains_ability/ | {
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"Nope, because we'd be dead. While those neurotransmitters do affect mood, they also have other very important functions. For instance, Parkinson's Disease is caused by a loss of dopamine. And serotonin deficiencies often cause babies to just suddenly die."
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62g508 | why are some features of humans, like hands and skulls, so innately hard to draw? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62g508/eli5_why_are_some_features_of_humans_like_hands/ | {
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"Due to the depth and variety of each finger, and the complex curves and angles, hands are relatively difficult to master. It's tricky ensuring everything is totally proportionate. Similarly, heads/faces require attention to detail and proportion, as I'm sure no one wants their drawings' faces to look like a cow with down syndrome. ",
"Our brains see faces and bodies all the time and can easily recognize where features like eyes, nose, mouth, arms, legs, etc. belong but we don't commit skull or hand details to memory as well. The spatial depth and proportion of them make it difficult to sketch.",
"Aside from their intrinsically complex shapes etc that others already mentioned, we are also more adept at detecting aberrations from the norm regarding human anatomy. If someone draws a weirdly warped car or chair for example it might not look as strange as a bizarrely drawn face or appendage, because our brains are fine-tuned to extract a lot of information from the former."
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1o5i4m | why are logos and layouts getting simpler? | It seems to me that logos and graphics generally are getting simpler and less colored. It seems that they are throwing away the shadows and losing depth. Why is that?
Examples:
* [Google Logo Evolution](_URL_2_
)
* [Pepsi logo evolution](_URL_0_)
* [Android evolution](_URL_1_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o5i4m/eli5_why_are_logos_and_layouts_getting_simpler/ | {
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"It's just the current popular style. Flat simple forms are the current \"in \" look, so that's what companies are adopting to seem more relevant. In 5-10 years, odds are good some other basic design trait will be the new fad.\n\n",
"Graphic designer here, reporting.\n\nIn general, the more clean and simple something can be made [without being unoriginal] the more recognizable and timeless it will be. Compare the [original Apple logo](_URL_1_) with [the glyph they use now.](_URL_0_) Which one's easier to recognize? That's the sort of thinking that went into the changing Pepsi logo–they're distilling their brand into something cleaner and more recognizable. So there's that, but there's also...sigh...\n\nIn the past year or two, there's been a trend towards \"flat design\" by all three leading tech companies [Apple, Google, Microsoft] in their mobile interfaces, as part of an effort to fix their interfaces. When you've had a massive product ecosystem being developed over a decade, a lot of inconsistency crops up. \n\nSo Google redesigned all their web services to have a unified color scheme and style. And Microsoft redesigned Windows and Windows Phone [and even their logo] to be more consistent. Apple's always been the least cluttered, visually, of the rest, but they've still got a lot to fix. With Jony Ive now responsible for leading the visual design of iOS7, there was a massive push inside Apple to redesign iOS to have a consistent color scheme, grid, typography, etcetera.\n\nA lot of graphic designers, in an effort to be trendy and hip, are copying what these companies are doing. \"Flat design\" is much easier to ape than a lot of other trends have been, so a lot of developers and smaller companies are happy to comply."
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amghw3 | why do devices such as phones take such little time to get to around 80%, and then take ages for the last 20%? | I'm gonna assume this is a result of the rate of charge of the capacitors of the device, as they're an exponential curve.. but I don't know for sure.. because that's a capacitor and they're using batteries.. right?
As a side note, if you only charged it to 80% would it last as long as if you were to charge it to 100%, run it down to 80% and time from there? Or is it less, because it didn't reach the full charge or something. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amghw3/eli5_why_do_devices_such_as_phones_take_such/ | {
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"The charge stored in a battery when supplied by a constant voltage is exponential, depending on the type. \n\nELI5: you’re at a public pool on a 105° degree day that only lets people in 1 at a time. They are gonna fill that pool up until they’re shoulder to shoulder, but each person goes to a random open spot in the pool. When the pool has no one in it, people enter from wherever and they can find their spot quickly. The more full the pool gets, the more time it takes for each person to find their designated spot. "
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51f6b5 | why does adrenaline in certain circumstances give people super human strength? (being able to lift extremely heavy things off of people, etc.) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51f6b5/eli5_why_does_adrenaline_in_certain_circumstances/ | {
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"Adrenaline tends to come with the dulling of pain for obvious reasons; you don't want to worry about wounds when fighting for your life.\n\nThe application of your strength is also limited by pain so you don't hurt yourself in your exertions. Someone who is fit is able to tear their muscles apart or even break ligaments if they contract to their fullest but the body avoids this by governing it with pain.\n\nBy dulling pain the muscles can be used beyond safe bounds at the cost of potential damage. So it doesn't actually make the person stronger just more able to use what they have. ",
"When your body gets a jolt of the good stuff, it opens up the blood flow & increases your heart rate; which in turn provides more blood & oxygen to your muscles. This is also why it can help save people's lives who are having an allergic reaction & getting major swelling.\n\nOverall it stimulates the whole body, almost like downing a half-dozen cups of coffee in 1 second.\n\nFun fact: The word \"Adrenalin\" was originally a trademarked brand name for a synthetic version of what the body actually produces; epinephrine.\n\nFun fact 2: Your Adrenal glands are actually located on your kidney's, not in your brain like some people think.\n\nIf you'd like to read more about this topic, [click here](_URL_0_).\n\nEdit: Fix spelling; I didn't get my Adrenalin this morning.",
"From my understanding its part of the bodies stress reaction to dealing with a situation. You walk into your house and there's a trap door spider the size of a chicken in your living room. Adrenaline is the part of you that see that and automatically disconnects the fire alarm and hands you the flamethrower.\n\nIt has roughly always been an option for you to take those actions but the inherent dangers of self-damage in taking those actions makes the brain limit them. It gives you the best it can think of for the situation at hand (see above) and decides it will deal with the consequences later. But right now, you have a problem and its pulling out all the stops (almost literally) to give you solutions.\n\nSome people handle this better than others.",
"First its important to note that so called feats of \"hysterical strength\" are not scientifically recognized, although they are well documented. They clearly happen, but science has a hard time testing them, because its obviously very hard to reproduce in a lab. \n\n\n\nHowever, they have given small tests, like testing grip strength, and then electrically stimulated the muscles and tested again, and found that people exhibit about 25% more strength under electroshock, which definitely verifies people are in general stronger than they're normally able to access. Additionally, you may have heard of people being flung across an entire room after being electrocuted. This isn't because of the electricity - electricity doesn't move things like that - its because the shock caused massive muscle contraction, and the people flung *themselves* across the room, jumping far further than they would have believed possible under normal circumstances.\n\n\n\nSo, because they can't test hysterical strength, we can only hypothesize why adrenaline causes it. More than likely it is because your muscles are under several inhibitory systems, including pain as well as the neurological restriction of simply having not enough signaling at any given time to activate all the muscle fibers in a group. Strength isn't just about raw strength, its about *timing*; you need one perfectly timed electrical burst to signal all fibers to work in concert when exerting force. The more fibers activated simultaneously, the more strength you'll have. \n\n\n\nAdrenaline most likely acts to remove several different limiter systems. Your pain sensation is dulled or removed entirely, your blood vessels are dialated and your muscles are more heavily oxygenated, and your neural activity increases; more brain activity = increased signaling, which means you're better able to activate more muscle fibers at once. \n\n\n\nThe reason we can't do this all the time is fairly obvious - it puts much more strain on the body and consumes far more energy. Since our bodies evolved in times of scarcity, our bodies evolved a logical mechanism for limiting the bodies ability to use its full strength and energy; only when the brain sensed certain stimuli (a tiger, a child in trouble), would it release its natural chemicals that overrode its own internal limiters, allowing for a brief state of higher muscle performance. \n\n\n\nEDIT: Thought I'd throw this out there just 'cause: what people normally call \"adrenaline\" is actually called \"epinephrine\". The name \"adrenaline\" comes from a company that tried to patent a synthetic epinephrine compound, and then name stuck. There's another hormone called \"norepinephrine\", which some scientists theorize may actually be responsible for \"hysterical strength\". It operates much faster than epinephrine, and acts as a primer, which engages the body and officially switches it to \"fight or flight\" mode. It can also cause the muscles to start dumping their glucose stores (your muscles store glucose for quick, instant feats of anaerobic strength, because aerobic energy doesn't engage instantly). The fact that norepinephrine greatly increases brain activity, and causes a massive release of muscular energy, may be the contributing factor to huge bursts of extra-natural strength. \n\n\n\nEDIT EDIT: Some people have (correctly) indicated that \"adrenalin(e)\" and \"epinephrine\" are called different things in different countries. True! I mostly included the edit to point out that the common reactions of the body to adrenaline / epinephrine in the case of hysterical strength can actually be attributed to several molecules, and refer to \"epinephrine\" so that it can be seen in relation to \"norepinephrine.\" I would just add that the \"proper\" name for the molecule is still under debate, and this site does an excellent job summarizing the conflicting nomenclatures and debating for a unified name: \n\n_URL_0_ \n\n\n\n\nEDIT THE THIRD: Wow, surprised and thankful for so many upvotes! In honor, I thought I'd go a little deeper into an ELI-a-very-bright-fifteen-year-old explanation of the topic, for those who are interested, and talk about some of the things many people have brought up in the comments. \n\n\n\nThe brain controls muscles by sending impulses to \"motor units\", which is a motor neuron and the various actual muscle fibers that are activated by that neuron. This is called recruitment. If you want to curl a 20lb dumbell, your brain has to \"recruit\" all the proper motor units in your arm, hand, and shoulder necessary to lift it, by sending the \"contract\" signal to them. Humans have many, many motor units, which allows us for very intricate, refined movements. You can play guitar, dextrously use tools, and figure skate! \n\n\n\nBut it also means your brain has to work a lot harder, and disperse signals a lot farther and wider, to fully activate a muscle. Comparatively, chimps have much fewer motor units, but the motor units they *do* have control many more fibers. So a single \"contract\" signal now applies to a MUCH wider group of muscles, which makes them *appear* stronger. \n\n\n\nNo one is precisely sure, but on a given basis, for a given task for a large muscle like your bicep, you may only use as little as 25% of the *total muscle fibers*. Even though it seems like you're trying your hardest, your brain simply isn't signalling all of the fibers inside that muscle. \n\n\n\nBut lets take a scenario of hysterical strength. Adrenalin and norepinephrine activate your sympathetic nervous system, dialate your eyes, increase brain activity, and more importantly, *consolidate your focus*. If you think about lifting a dumbell in a gym, your concentration is branching out in many directions. You're thinking about your day, your surroundings, your hunger, aches and pains. All of these detract from your brains ability to send recruitment signals to motor units. But now, in a state of supremely focused motivation - rescue a loved one - *all* your focus is dedicated to a single task. NOW when your brain sends a recruitment signal, its sending it to MANY more motor units - 80, 90, maybe even 100% of the total muscle fibers in a given muscle, across many muscles. \n\n\n\nIn the moment, this may seem like superhuman strength, but in actuality, its only because we so rarely experience the full extent of our strength. Athletes get to where they are by practicing specific and timed recruitment of specific motor units. This study: \n\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\nShows that in athletes, the physical volume of their cerebellum (the part of the brain responsible for sending the coordination & motor recruitment signals) is larger than non-athletes; i.e, they can recruit *more* motor units, faster, while in a \"normal\" state than the average person. By contrast, in a high-stress adrenal state, your brain has to divert processing power to recruiting motor neurons in order to achieve your greater state of strength, compromising things like external focus, logic, etc. Athletes, because of a greater volume in their cerebellum, can achieve physically profound feats *without* compromising these functions, and don't need to rely on a sudden huge influx of Adrenalin to do so - they can summon it at will.",
"There is no real 'strength', when any person's muscle cell gets hard it's the same rigidity. Adrenaline lets people ignore many different mental and physical attributes (fat, short, light, bare minimum muscle mass, and no practice in muscle use), that would normally prevent them from using 100% of the muscles we ALL have connecting our bones. Bones are insanely hard, so 99.9% tightening of all muscle cells from adrenaline and the right leverage positioning can allow most able-bodied people to spontaneously do serious feats of strength/endurance/jumping/holding breathe etc.\n\nAccidental Injury and/or self injury are almost always a consequence of the complete mobilization of an unprepared human, however.",
"You don't care if you are ripping your muscles apart on adrenaline.\n\nThink of a race car being run all the way around the track in the RED...sure it's faster but it's going to seize the engine.",
"I'll explain this very simply as I understand it. Basically humans are capable of lifting far more than they actually do, but their body inhibits their ability to do so as to avoid tearing their muscles. This is also the case in flexibility- your body is much more flexible than allowed but your brain stops your muscles from stretching what it thinks is too far as to avoid injury. Adrenaline can overrule the brain essentially in these cases, allowing you to access full capability of your muscles basically. ",
"In the academy we were taught one thing I found and still find hard to believe. Any relatively strong man who really wants to has the strength to break out of handcuffs. The only thing stopping him - pain. This is why super-coked up perps are the scariest. Narcotics dull the pain which enables a motivated person to break handcuffs, because he simply doesn't feel his own bones breaking in the process.",
"Let's say you have a balance scale. On one end, you have your body's regular need to protect itself. When this side is weighed down, your body is in \"Safe Mode\". Your body almost ALWAYS prefers Safe Mode so that you can live a long time and take care of/produce offspring, etc. On the other end of the scale is your need for the extra strength provided by \"Awesome Mode\" in extreme situations. This side weighs almost nothing unless your body perceives danger. The bigger the threat, the heavier the weight.\n\nNow say you're trying to lift a really big rock to impress your friends, but it's a little too big. Your body weighs down the \"Safe Mode\" side of the scale by making you feel pain in your muscles, as well as limiting the total number of muscle cells you can activate at once. If your body didn't do this, you might be able to lift the rock, but you'd likely be injured as a result, and need a while to recover. But what if you're trying to lift the rock because your leg is stuck and there's a big hungry animal on its way and you smell like breakfast. Sensing the immediate danger, your body quickly loads weight onto the other end of the scale. This is adrenaline sending your body into Awesome Mode. It lets go of all the safety locks on your muscles and turns the pain dial way down. Suddenly it is easier to move this rock and get out of this life-threatening situation. This time, the need for that extra strength far outweighs the need to prevent injury caused by muscle strain. Basically, your body would WAY rather have injured arms for a month than see what happens when that big hungry animal shows up.",
"Epinephrine and nor-epinephrine, also called adrenaline and nor-adrenaline, are released into the bloodstream during times of stress where the body's fight-or-flight response is triggered. This response enables you to either face the threat and deal with it head on or to run away from it fast. Which one you decide is usually determined by your mental conditioning and can be learned. Simply put, this response helps you and your loved ones survive.",
"Humans exchanged strength for fine motor control once we started building tools. This is why a chimpanzee of similar muscle build to a human could easily rip the arms off of that human, but we would be unable to do the same in reverse.\n\nThankfully, we never did loose that ability to ‘hulk out’ -- it’s just biochemically restrained. When we end up in extreme stress situations, we can overcome that biochemical restraint and employ our full strength.",
"power lifter checking in (international level, multiple all-time records at the state level); almost everyone is MUCH stronger than they know, the weights that I can move while properly \"psyched\" are ~10-15% higher then what I am capable of while calm, even though it is a highly focused calm.\n\nIMO the difference between Ok lifters and really good lifters is the ability to access that anger/rage zone in a pragmatic way.",
"Your body usually limits itself, without you even realizing it, because if you over do it you can cause damage (tearing muscles, ripping cartilage and tendons, breaking bones, etc). Sometimes with a surge of adrenaline, your blocks on using your strength is somewhat hampered. For a short period of time until your body adjusts to the adrenaline, you get access to more strength than usual and the risk of hurting yourself if you use it.",
"The other explanations are fantastic, but here's a TL;DR: EL-you're-actually-5\n\nIn order for a muscle to activate (contract), it must receive a signal from the brain. How strong the signal is determines how forceful the muscle contraction. Normally, there are a bunch of safety mechanisms (inhibitions) that prevent the brain from sending signals as strong as possible to the muscles, because maximum-force muscle contractions can cause injury. Adrenaline is a hormone that is released when you sense danger, and it (among other hormones) in effect turns off the safety switches, thus allowing near-maximum force muscle contractions.",
"Like everyone else is saying:\n\nWhen your brain detects a true life-or-death oh shit situation your endocrine system (the brain-endocrine bridge is the pituitary gland, it's responsible for encoding brain decisions as hormones) dumps enough norepinepherine and epinephrine to shut down your entire inhibitory system. Basically when you really really need it the body shuts down the safeties.\n\nIt does a few other things as well, cuts down blood to nonvital systems like the liver, kidneys and most of the GI tract. Your whole digestive system freezes while in fight mode.",
"There was a post or comment not long ago where a redditor was on a muscle relaxant, when the drug kicked in, he realised he could do so many things he never knew he could! He could touch his toes, do yoga positions he never could think of trying! Edit: The point of this part was to say that he woke up the next day and he had severely damaged his muscles, so just because you CAN do it, your body knows not to for painful reasons.\n\nThis is a similar thing that happens, when anything takes the \"don't hurt yourself\" out of the situation, your body can do amazing things, you could bite through your tongue or finger through relative ease, but your brain KNOWS it would hurt you, so it keeps It's self in check. Your body knows that if you successfully lifted a car, your muscles would rip and you would be in a LOT of pain, but the adrenaline would damper the instinct to protect yourself from this minimum in the long run pain, in order to do whatever you need to do in the moment.\n\nI hope that made sense.",
"I'm too late to the thread, but nobody has mentioned this. In extreme circumstances, your body will use all of its muscle groups for strength. This isn't done in normal circumstances because there's a huge chance of damaging the muscle. But if you need to lift a boulder off of yourself, you can risk a little muscle damage.",
"It's also worth noting that it's not actually superhuman strength. It's almost always well within the bounds of human strength, just not within that particular individual's definition of 'normal'. An olympic class powerlifter can line up a few cars and just roll them over at will.",
"I witnessed one of these, err...\"events\" some years ago. Car was parked and brake wasn't set. Driver had left car in gear but it rolled anyway. Rolled down a hill, into yard and over a short-ish retaining wall. Kid was playing below, car landed on him and pinned him. Mom immediately ran over and \"lifted\" the car off of him as everyone was running over to the scene. Kid was legitimately pinned, but okay. The car was resting most weight on the wall as it had rolled down at a good angle. Everyone around immediately started in with the \"Oh my gosh, superhuman!\" talk. I'll grant you, mom lifted a shit-ton of weight that, in any other circumstances, she wouldn't have attempted and likely would have failed to do. In reality though, she only lifted a tiny fraction of the cars weight, the full brunt of which would have certainly torn joints asunder and snapped nones. I'd suspect that many of these sorts of stories are similar. In an excited state, an outside observer to the situation could certainly walk away with an embellished tale of supernatural events when in reality, physics readily explains things. Also, even if muscles could do some sort of magic, bones break and joints come apart. No magic hormones to avoid that.",
"Most the explanation are good on here however I'm surprised noone has mentioned the primary neurological aspect of strength. \n\nWhen you lift weights, there are 2 ways to get stronger. 1 is your muscles literally get bigger and the 2nd is your body recruits more muscle strands at a time (numerologically stronger). I don't have the exact numbers but as an example, on any single max strength lift you are only actually using like 50% of your muscle at a time. This adrenal spike could theoretically remove this restriction and all of a sudden just from that variable alone you are twice as strong. \n\nThis is why new lifters gain the most strength when they just start, versus veteran lifters. The initial gains are mostly CNS (neurological) gains. Your body going from recruiting 40% of fibers to 60% (sample #s, I don't remember the exact ones). Then as your CNS gains are mostly maximized (for safety reasons) your strength gains start to normalize as slow and steady as your muscle grows. ",
"Simple words(you prolly got answer already): \nIf you feel like something is too heavy for you or is hurting your muscles/body you will stop even if you could lift it a little more or do it. When you are under adrenaline stops dont work anymore. You will end up damaging your muscles but you will get job done and realize effects after it fades away",
"This series dId a good job explaining it.\n\n_URL_0_",
"It doesn't. It just makes you forget you are pretending to be weak. Your body pretends to be weak so your brain doesn't try dumb shit all the time. ",
"Sorry to piggy back on OP question, but I think it's relevant...\n\nI was researching this once and read about an interesting phenomenon. Basically, when people get struck by lighting they are sometimes \"thrown\" 10-20 feet in a random direction. Like a 55 year old fat guy will get struck and he's alive, layin go the ground 15 feet away. Well, what is weird about this is that the electricity can't move you directly. It can only cause a muscle to contract (as in a compound motor unit action potential.) \n\nTherefore, it appears that with the proper stimuli, the human body is capable of INCREDIBLE shit. Like little old ladies jumping 12 feet when they prob have a 6\" broad jump if they actually tried, or fat guys doing the same shit.\n\nSource: I read this years ago and only post b/c I'd love to know if anyone can confirm that or has more info.",
"basically you are far stronger than you think because your brain puts a limit on your muscles. \n\nAs you train and make those muscles stronger, the limit gets moved because your muscle can now handle the extra strength. \n\nAdrenaline allows the muscle to remove the limits for a period of time to varying degrees in order for you to complete a task such as lifting a car or fighting off a lion. \n\nWithout those limits your body and muscles would tear itself a part because they are simply not capable of using 100% of your strength 100% of the time, it's reserved for emergencies only.",
"Anecdotal evidence here: I would posit that the vast majority of people are stronger (*much* stronger) than they think they are. And when put in that situation, they forget how strong they \"think\" they are, get a slight boost from the adrenaline, and then hit their max potential.\n\nYou see this all the time in people who don't lift weights and start hitting the gym. They will build initial strength at an astronomical rate. I would argue that they aren't really building strength at that point, they are just learning to use what they already have. Lot of people aren't used to lifting heavy things. Doesn't mean they can't, just means they give up before they actually need to.\n\nThere's also the pain factor to consider. When adrenaline hits and your heart is pumping hard, you aren't going to feel the same pain response you would otherwise. There's nothing telling you to stop. I'd be willing to bet a lot of the people experiencing these crazy feats of strength pay for it the next day.\n\nA LOT of strength is psychological. A LOT of it. It's almost sick how much better the human body can function than most people are aware of. It's ridiculous.",
"It's because your body protects doesn't let you use 100% of its power to prevent yourself from overworking and injuring your muscles.\n\nIt's similar to how the redline and governor works on a car. You don't want to be running in the red all the time or something will break.\n\nAn adrenal response basically shuts off that system. so your body can go into the red zone and your muscles will work at their maximum possible efficiency.\n\nAfter the experiences people often suffer from serious muscle fatigue and can be in pain for weeks well the tears in their muscles heal.",
"For an /r/askscience level answer see /u/ninemiletree \n\nFor ELI5:\n\nHumans are a lot stronger than we think. We are also stronger than we normally use. In cases of extreme stress we forget about these things and are pushed beyond our \"limits\".\n\nHumans are lazy, we don't want to expend any more energy than we need. We have a built in blocker that adrenaline is able to override.\n\nIt's like your bathroom faucet. You can turn the water on as high as you can, but that's not as high as it *could* be if you broke the faucet off.",
"You are much much stronger than you think. Your brain just doesn't allow you to use your full potential most of the time because then you're out of juice completely. In the wild this would have been death to our ancestors if we were able to choose when to go all out. But if you really really need it and the adrenaline (and other hormones) is flowing is when we get glimpses of our full power because you aren't feeling the pain and your brain isn't saying stop.\n\nSame with our jaws. Humans have fairly strong jaws, strong enough to crush all your own teeth if you bite hard enough, but again your brain just won't let you.",
"The answer is \"it doesn't\". At least not to the degree people talk about. You get a slight increase in strength from increased recruitment of muscle fibers, but nothing like lifting cars and bench pressing boulders and shit. The hysterical strength phenomenon is a myth that's propped up by stories that misrepresent the more tame events that actually transpired.\n\nIf the adrenaline rush worked as people claim, we would have videos of Russian powerlifters using epi and deadlifting 1,500 lbs or more. But we don't, because it's not real (in the sense that people typically think of).",
"What about those people that cant feel pain?\nWould they be able to break through this? Seeing as their bodies lack these natural inhibitors (Pain etc)",
"Makes me wonder if athletes like say the shot putter or long jumper have trained their bodies to access these hormones? Seems they would be good test candidates.",
"I'd venture to guess that a lot of the time, what looks like \"super human strength\" just isn't. Cars can be at angles and gravity can help tip them off of someone. Doors can look crushed, yet not much is preventing them from being opened, etc. These may look like great feats of strength to a casual observer and really be quite average.\n\nI'm a power lifter and one time a friend was having a hard time taking a motorcycle shock apart. He tried and tried and could not get it to budge. He asked me to give it a try and I easily removed the two parts. He thinks I'm a bad ass, but honestly? He did the hard work. I just easily pulled it apart at the end and got all the credit. Lol. (Of course I growled like a bear and strutted off as he dropped to his knees unworthy.). Hahahaa ",
"Just like the ruby slippers, the power to get you where you want to be has been with you all along.",
"Everyone is talking about how adrenaline removes your limiters am im wondering, can people remove their limiters mentally? Like be in such control of their body that they can choose when to remove the \"limiters\"?",
"I have a feeling virtual reality will enable science to better document and measure these counts of hysterical strength.",
"Simple explanation: our muscles may be strong enough to lift a car, but our body can't handle that much weight. We'd risk breaking bones, tearing muscles, and other damage if we tried to do that. The brain automatically limits our strength to prevent that, unless it's a life or death situation.",
"To keep it short people are much stronger than we think we are but our brain keep as \"safety lock\" on it to keep us from accidentally hurting ourselves, the adrenaline essentially turns off this switch. Although this does open the risk of self injury.",
"My question is, how does all of this work in people who have anxiety disorders or suffer from chronic stress?",
"Most of the explanations on here are super long. Here's a short one:\n\nIt's not that you get \"stronger\" with adrenaline, it's that it helps you ignore all the pain receptors which usually scream \"THAT'S TOO HEAVY, DROP IT!\"",
"This reminds me of that guy in new York who looked like he shouldn't be able to knock out 3 separate goons one after the other for hitting his wife\n\n1 Guy Knocks Out 3 Guys For Hitting His Wife In T…: _URL_0_",
"It doesn't give you super human strength. It can certainly help but stories about mom's stopping cars or doing all sorts of amazing things because of adrenaline are just fake stories. ",
"I remember being 13 and i was playing at the park with my friends. I was a little bit of a mean person back then and i flipped this kids hat off of his head. He then hit me in the head with his skate board. At that point i realized i was in my first fight and everything went into slow motion and i hit him in his face a few times and he ran. I'll never forget the slow-mo. Adrenaline is crazy.",
"For OP, as I posted it in another thread, here some videos.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_",
"I knew a girl who's twin sister was in a car accident when they were sixteen. The girls sister and her boyfriend were driving and were t-boned by an elderly woman going well above the speed limit. They were in a Jeep Wrangler, the type with an open roof, and the girl was ejected from the car and hit a telephone pole and died instantly. The boyfriend was pinned beneath the car, and was so full of adrenaline that he was able to lift the vehicle off of himself and spent twenty minutes searching for his girlfriend. As soon as he found her he collapsed and died. It's absolutely insane what the human body is capable under such stress. \nP.s., please don't ever forget your seat belts. ",
" Our bodies are built to conserve energy for survival but is capable of quite a lot when it's in \"survival mode\".\n\nFor example, when I was around 16 or 17 I out-ran a cousin of mine who ended up being recruited for and playing collegiate football as a WR by about 5 yards when we thought we were spotted by police while TPing someone's house. In normal circumstances he would leave me in his dust. I couldn't explain it at the time. I had never run that fast in my life, nor have I since.",
"Don't know if this is of any relevance or not. When I was about 20 years old I had a motorcycle. After a month or two of ownership I got into my first and last motorcycle accident. I was on a 4 lane road in the #2 lane. A car attempting to turn left pulled out in front of me and stopped. I was doing approx. 50 mph and had less than 100 feet to react. I had a car to the right of me and 2 lanes of traffic coming head on on the other lanes. I hit the guy directly in the center of the drivers door. \n\nHere is the good stuff: When I hit the car i went over the top of the roof and supermanned down the road and landed headfirst and rolled out of the crash. My sneakers were still by the bike. I literally flew out of my shoes. When I got to the hospital the inside of both of my thighs were black and blue. I tried to hold on with my legs on the gas tank. A few days later I made my way to the wrecking yard that had towed the bike. The Gas tank was pinched in half where my thighs would have been. I'm not talking dents in the side of the tank, but both walls of the tank touching together. I don't know how to explain that other than super human strength is possible when placed in a grave type situation. \n\nBTW: Bike was an early 80's Yamaha XV 750",
"the reason I recall hearing about has to do with the evolution of fine-tuned motor skills in humans.\n\nthe first thing to note is that the raw power a given muscle in your body, if it contracted all its muscle cells in synchrony, is much greater than what you can ordinarily exert if you try to flex it as hard as you can. this has been demonstrated in lab settings. the human brain, and/or its complex neural network for coordinated muscle movement, actually inhibits the 100% coordinated contraction of all muscle fibres at one time. This is because there are so many processing and sub-processing junctions, kind of like an army base with many levels of decision-making commanders and sub-commanders. or better yet, like asking a federal government full of bureaucrats to fix a problem fast. the neural routes may be fine-tuned, but they won't all act in synchrony and the end result will not be enacted in a perfectly synchronized manner (on the cellular level). many staggered contractions rather than a single *contraction*, and this evening out on the large scale to a more tempered, even movement. this was a good thing, generally.\n\nThese neural processing junctions/feedback loops are highly useful for delicate, fine-tuned body motions, many of which we have needed through time, from deft delicate touches and manipulation to threading needles, making fine tools and using them, making fine weapons and using them, or anything that involves intricate thought and motion, etc. But they have the draw-back of interrupting the path of a single, coordinated muscle impulse. most of the time, that was fine. we humans got by without needing our full strength, trading it for a calculated delicate touch. and that has been instrumental in our development of powerful technologies from the Stone Age forward.\n\n*however*, even though we developed these fine-tuned movement abilities, our species retained the ability to call on brute strength when it was deathly necessary. obviously, there's a huge adaptive advantage to that. the fight-or-flight response is a special adrenaline-fuelled state when the body forgoes complexity and normal rules. it's not about due process or red tape, it's about sudden, unequivocal action to prevent death or tragedy. the spike of adrenaline overrides the complexity processing for our muscles' neural network, and allows burst signals to fire through, telling muscles to *contract* in a coordinated fashion, albeit with less finesse, giving power and speed in a burst. the power to rip the door off a car to save your baby, or stuff like that.\n\ngiven that it's an emergency system only, our bodies are no longer adapted to handle the stress, and there can be injuries associated with the extreme forces. but that beat dying, so it was passed on. \n\nas an interesting side-note, I also recall hearing that other ape species have better access to their full muscle power, which is why they are terrifyingly strong even though they seem similar in size to us. but the trade-off is they never developed the same level of delicate muscle control we did. who won that round? probably the species reading this via their smartphones and computers that we built with fine-tuned muscle control.\n\nTL;DR adrenaline cuts through the red tape of our useful but complicated neural network and makes our muscles coordinate abnormally better to escape death with power and speed\n\n (forgive me, I can't recall the source I heard this from, which makes this sound really unscientific. I believe I was watching a documentary)",
"The physical limits of human strength are unknown. Most victims of lightning strikes will be found a distance away with multiple broken bones as a result of muscle contraction alone. ",
"Here's my go; your body has limits on what it can do without hurting yourself, but adrenaline allows your body to surpass those limits in order save your life, because survival is valued higher than your back muscles or biceps in certain circumstances.",
"Here's my amateur biochemical explanation. The other responses talk a lot more about transmission of epinephrine than the actual function of epinephrine. \n\nThere's what's called the epinephrine pathway. Epinephrine is more or less the \"key\" that unlocks long(er)-term cellular energy storage - glycogen. Along with an investment of ATP, epinephrine sets off the chain reaction within a cell that cleaves glucose off of glycogen. The glucose is then used to generate more ATP, which more or less enables more action at the cellular level on up. \n\nSource: did projects ad nauseum on this in Biochemistry",
"My favorite example is to have people research the 'WEP' (war emergency power) systems in WW2 fighter aircraft.\nIn the earliest ones, the engines were designed to run at 100% and when you throttled forward this is what you achieved, however in the event of an emergency (getting shot at), you could push the throttle forward hard and snap a physical limiter cable that held the throttle to that 100% safe limit and could now achieve 105-107%.\n\nThe reason this was not the norm is different depending on the engine, from heat to internal stress from the speed, etc. Basically, 100% was what the engine could operate at safely long term, whereas activating WEP would push the engine to the maximum it could actually output, not caring if it failed later or needed a major service.\n\n\nThe human body works exactly the same way. Your normal strength is what your body believes it can constantly output without serious damage or wear, however when you hear the 'click clack' of a shotgun, your body suddenly has bigger concerns than what damage it sustains, 'snaps the cable' and removes all the limiters, allowing you to use the actual full power of your body.",
"Imagine that the human body is like a computer.\n\nNormally the processor/brain limits things to (for instance) 1ghz. Everything runs fine day in day out. Won't break a sweat.\n\nHowever - the processor can be overclocked to 1.5ghz. Maybe 2ghz... \n\nPush it to 1.5ghz and you will probably be ok in the short term.. So some geeks (athletes) push their computer/body to that limit..\n\nPush it to 2ghz and you may be ok for 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.. Beyond that something will go pop. Either the processor or a blood vessel/bone... Chances are you could have caused damage in those 30 seconds..\n\nSo that 2ghz mode is twice what your body/computer normally does - and will get away with it for short bursts but that's why it's set up to run at half that... And that's why your body will only allow you to enter this mode in extreme danger...\n\nThat's how I see it....",
"Actually I have a theory that it's not due to muscles.\nNot directly anyhow. More it's that the fascial aspect surrounding the muscles can also be influenced by increased adrenaline to act as a hydraulic amplifier.\n\nIn much the same way the medial collateral ligament is not just a ligament and has adjustive qualities to it depending on the influence to some surrounding muscles and as well as some fascial having both a contractile aspect (yes small) or at the very least muscles that are more intimately related to it and can have a direct action on it. As example trapezius has a direct cranial nerve input meaning it can respond rapidly increasing tone through the fascia.\n\nHydraulic effect.\nThink of the fascia like the inner tube of a bicycle tyre glued along the inside of the gutting in a skeletons spine. By inflating the tubing you would hydraulically erect the skeleton as well as increase its stability.\n\nBy Certain muscles with direct cranial nerve attachment and response in a sense pre-pumping the inner tube or putting tension in the fascia it allows normal muscles to have an increased power by this amplifying effect.\n\nAlthough the cost will be Damage or compartment type issues.\n\nAnyhow only a quizzical theory I have while sitting in a taxi. \n\nSee how you think.\n\n ",
"Ok, so potentially stupid question. But could you introduce small dosages of epinephrine/norepinephrine to an individual over a long period of time to retrain a brain and make it more apt to accessing that strength? Even if it took a few generations? ",
"Looking at these explanations, adrenaline is like overclocking! Removing your limits at the risk of damaging your body/cpu",
"The human body is capable of more than we think it is because it naturally limits itself to avoid injury. You can't bite through your own tongue, even though you're fully capable of it, because your brain stops you. However, if you have a seizure, those systems suffer temporary shut down, and people can cause themselves serious injury without meaning to. Adrenaline does the same thing; your brains safeguards against injuring itself are overridden to deal with the matter at hand."
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1ezdc2 | high gravity beer | What does it mean when a beer is high gravity? Also what does it mean when beginning/ending gravity?
Here is an example of what I'm talking about: _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ezdc2/eli5_high_gravity_beer/ | {
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"Did you look at the wikipedia article? \n\n_URL_0_\n\nIt sums it up pretty consicely. \n\nAnyway, gravity refers to the specific gravity (density relative to water). Beers are considered high gravity when the density of the wort (beer before fermentation) is high. The density is of the wort is higher when there are more things dissolved in it (sugars). All these sugars are metabolized by the yeast (this process is called fermentation). The yeast turn the sugars into alcohol. Starting gravity refers to the density of the wort before fermentation, ending refers to the gravity after. Several things effect the difference in starting and ending gravity (this difference is called attenuation), including mash temperature, fermentation temperature, yeast alcohol tolerance, yeast health, addition of sugars during fermentation, etc. \n\nThe term 'high gravity' itself is kind of arbitrary, and would probably vary depending on who you ask. Typical gravity readings for beers range from 1.035-1.1 before fermentation, and 1.0-1.03 after fermentation. There are cases where the readings would fall outside of this range depending on the style of beer, but it probably encompasses 95% of beers. I could go on and on about beer. Let me know if you have any other questions.\n\nedit: I just looked at your link, and realized they give the gravity in plato. Plato is simply a different scale to measure gravity, like Celsius vs Fahrenheit."
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e8f6th | why did all the mice die in the mouse utopia experiment, as opposed to reaching a stable population | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e8f6th/eli5_why_did_all_the_mice_die_in_the_mouse_utopia/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nIgnore my previous comment if anyone read it, I was very incorrect.\n\nBasically the tl;Dr for OP's question is that overpopulation conditions in animals (such as rats and mice) with social order of some kind results in disorientation in individuals there in, and causes pathological behavior changes ranging from mild deviations from what would be called normal such as self-isolation and failure of maternal instinxts, to severe and extreme deviations such as cannibalism and unprovoked aggression.",
"Because of the social and psychology effects that was engraved into the rats. Even those who survived exhibited the same traits.\n\nThe death of the rats is caused by several factors, but all of them lead to the declining future generations. Inability to raised the youngs, fewer births, social behavior, and unsimilar traits to the original rats ultimately sealed their fate.",
"His whole experiment had a poor study design, so it can't really be considered science, and we can't draw any conclusions from it."
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4thnjf | what happens when home owner dies and there is a mortgage left? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4thnjf/eli5what_happens_when_home_owner_dies_and_there/ | {
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"There are two options.\n\nOne option is to get the mortgage life insured, which means that you pay a certain fee every month, that, in the event of your death, pays off your mortgage for you.\n\nThe alternative is that the mortgage stays with your estate. At that point, it's up to whoever inherits your estate what they do. Chances are that your estate will sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and distribute the proceeds according to your will.\n\nFor what it's worth, a lot of couples separately life insure the house, meaning that if one spouse dies, the entire mortgage gets paid off. The idea being that you don't need to worry about paying for your house in addition to having had your spouse die..",
"When a person dies, their property makes up the *estate*. Creditors can make a claim against the estate, and what is left after the debts are paid is distributed according the last will of the *decedent*. If the estate does not have enough assets to pay all of the debts, the creditors are out of luck regarding the remainder (and the heirs get nothing). That is one of the risks of lending money.\n\nHowever, a mortgage is secured by the house. If the estate does not have enough money to pay the mortgage, the bank gets the house (and with priority over other creditors), just as if the decedent was unable to pay while alive. That is one reason that mortgages have lower interest rates than unsecured loans. If the heirs really want the house, or any other part of the estate for that matter, they can agree to pay off the creditors with their own money."
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k8sfa | eli17: what's so great about "the great gatsby"? | I can understand a deep idea in literature because I've seen many, I just can't see one in "The Great Gatsby" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k8sfa/eli17_whats_so_great_about_the_great_gatsby/ | {
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"The reason its great is because of Jay Gatsby. All the people around him are shallow and materialistic. Jay is the last American dreamer. Fitzgerald sees the 20's as a time when morals were decaying. The people who attend Jay's parties are social climbers. They have an insatiable desire for wealth and pleasure; they're corrupting the American dream. Jay dreams of a time and place where social status didn't prevent him from being with Daisy. He romanticizes Daisy until his idea of her is no longer reality. When Jay realizes that he will never get his time with Daisy back, his dream is corrupted (much like the American dream...see the symbolism?), and all that's left for Gatsby is death.\n\ntl;dr Jay's dream of Daisy = American dream. Both are corrupted, and die.",
"Heykittums sums up pretty well.\n\nThe main negative thing I often hear when talking of this book is \"the characters are shallow\". \n\nYes, that is partly true. We can say that Daisy is bland (although this is not, in my opinion, completely true). Gatsby (and Nick) are far away from this idea. Gatsby: love, fascination for the rich and elegant; Nick probably a liar, polite, nonjudgmental.\n\nAnd the writing is fantastic (someone even says that is the best book ever written).",
"The reason its great is because of Jay Gatsby. All the people around him are shallow and materialistic. Jay is the last American dreamer. Fitzgerald sees the 20's as a time when morals were decaying. The people who attend Jay's parties are social climbers. They have an insatiable desire for wealth and pleasure; they're corrupting the American dream. Jay dreams of a time and place where social status didn't prevent him from being with Daisy. He romanticizes Daisy until his idea of her is no longer reality. When Jay realizes that he will never get his time with Daisy back, his dream is corrupted (much like the American dream...see the symbolism?), and all that's left for Gatsby is death.\n\ntl;dr Jay's dream of Daisy = American dream. Both are corrupted, and die.",
"Heykittums sums up pretty well.\n\nThe main negative thing I often hear when talking of this book is \"the characters are shallow\". \n\nYes, that is partly true. We can say that Daisy is bland (although this is not, in my opinion, completely true). Gatsby (and Nick) are far away from this idea. Gatsby: love, fascination for the rich and elegant; Nick probably a liar, polite, nonjudgmental.\n\nAnd the writing is fantastic (someone even says that is the best book ever written)."
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1v62xy | how does pintrest make money? | How does a site like this sustain itself with no ads or subscription fees? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1v62xy/eli5_how_does_pintrest_make_money/ | {
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"Investors is a channel where they get to keep the company running. With platforms like these, the norm is to create a solid user(fan) base and improve their services to a point where subscribers have invested enough content and won't mind seeing relevant ads. \n\n\n\n "
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2sxgxl | if i was to travel away from the earth at sub-light speed then travel faster than light for a time, stop and look back at the earth, could i see myself leaving? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sxgxl/eli5_if_i_was_to_travel_away_from_the_earth_at/ | {
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"If you had a ship the size of a big city you probably could yes. If it was something the size of our current spacecrafts then no. \nFor the same reason not even all the telescopes in the world put together could ever see something like the lunar rover we left on the moon.",
"I'm not sure if this is against the subreddit's rules, but if you don't mind, I'll leave [here](_URL_0_) an ELI5 (or, maybe, ELI9) video of why the answer is \"no, unless you kill yourself\".",
"Technicaly if you traveled away from earth with regular speed and accelerated to a higher speed than light speed yes you could stop and look back at you since the light from back then hasn't reached your new possition",
"Plus if your going faster than light you would look back and see yourself going backwards. "
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7fymd0 | how do online rewards sites know you’ve downloaded the app they are offering. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fymd0/eli5how_do_online_rewards_sites_know_youve/ | {
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"I am not sure about that exact use case (user level tracking), but in general there are a few ways that advertisers use to check which marketing campaign generates more app installs.\n\nOne of the approaches is that the apps have a Tracking SDKs (like google analytics tags, but for apps) that can post back (send the url that generate the download) to the advertiser. If you click on the url to download the app, you will probably notice a lot of parameters. Those parameters can uniquely identify your click, so when you open the app, it posts back that same click ID."
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e8euo4 | can phones read your mind? on more than one occasion an ad or something on my phone has aligned with a previous thoughts i’ve had. explain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e8euo4/eli5_can_phones_read_your_mind_on_more_than_one/ | {
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"It's called [Confirmation Bias](_URL_0_). You don't even think about the thousands and thousands of times that you've seen stuff on your phone that had nothing to do with anything you've been thinking about. But when there's a random match-up, you're amazed. \n \nPlus there are targeted ads. Stuff that you've been browsing on your phone or similar to stuff you've been browsing is going to show up. Because they are spying on you, for real.",
"Online companies track *everything*. Even if you didn't explicitly search for something, AI can learn that an ad is a good fit for someone with certain behaviors. Target famously sent a girl coupons for baby products before she herself knew she was pregnant just based on her recent purchases.",
"My wife is a data analyst in advertising. This is literally her job and profession.\n\nFirst, your life is is awash in spyware. It's literally hopeless, you can't interact with technology and not get tracked. Your phone is reporting your location to your service provider and a host of other participants. They know where you are at all times. Even if you have tracking turned off (because that setting only applies to certain 3rd party apps). They know if you're near a McDonalds and start showing you ads because it's either on your route, if you're using directions, or on your deduced route, because you drive around here frequently enough. They know if you go inside or through the drive-through.\n\nSo the thing is you've done something that keys off the advertisers data model. And their data model, about you, is so well trained that it can accurately predict what you're thinking and when. And you trained it, unknowingly, with every interaction with technology you do.\n\nEver wonder how you can sit down at a brand new computer, one you've never touched before, one you haven't logged into any of your sites or email before, and in a few minutes, you start seeing the same old advertising you always do? That's because advertisers are tracking upwards of 150 data points on any given computer. They need only 15 to differentiate you from anyone else. Incognito mode? Doesn't matter.\n\nYou would be terrified to know how much they can CORRECTLY deduce about you from astonishingly little information, never mind if they do a data scrape for you. They can determine age, race, gender, habits, health, political alignment, etc. I'm not exaggerating, this isn't fake, this stuff really happens. You can imagine how paranoid my wife is.\n\nTo give an example, Target correctly deduced a teenage girl was pregnant, after she found out, before she ever told anyone, based on her tracked behavior. They began sending her ads for baby products. The father was furious with Target until she admitted her pregnancy. That's how the family found out. It's a famous case.\n\nSo there it is, Bob's your uncle. Either you did something to key off an advertiser, or you trained the advertisers data model about you so well it accurately predicts what you're thinking. Now honestly, this isn't mind reading power, it doesn't know what you're thinking before you do, but the thing you're seeing advertising for is something you not only think about, but act on. Either you're in the market for a washing machine, or you looked up how to fix your washing machine, or you just bought a house, and now you're seeing ads for washing machines. For example."
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4dltbm | how do binary explosives work, and how do they not explode if they are dropped? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dltbm/eli5_how_do_binary_explosives_work_and_how_do/ | {
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"They are explosives that come in two parts. Only combined do they become explosive.\n\nOn their own they are inert.",
"You are probably thinking about tannerite specifically. It just happens to be a very shock resistant explosive and also a binary explosive. \n\nThere are shock resistant explosives that are not binary, and binary explosives that are not shock resistant.",
"They're two separate, non-explosive chemicals.\n\nWhen mixed, they make an explosive.\n\nIt's actually more complex than that. For an explosive to go boom, there has to be chemical potential energy somewhere. That energy isn't added by the mixing process; it has to be in one or both of the original ingredients.\n\nNormally, one half has a lot of chemical energy but isn't triggered by a shock wave. That means that it won't add to the force of an explosive primer. The other half is a \"sensitizer\" which makes it possible to set of all at once."
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4q287v | how does it come that helicopters are so widely used in military even though they seem so vulnerable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4q287v/eli5_how_does_it_come_that_helicopters_are_so/ | {
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"Their ability to maneuver and to drop into and out of areas. This provides quick drop off of troops to strategic areas, the delivery of needed supplies, and the ability to pull out trapped or wounded soldiers.\n\nYea they are loud, but you cannot always hear them coming until they are almost on top of you. Hitting a moving target in the air with small arms is very difficult unless the target is hovering. In addition, most helicopters have a means of shaking off targeting from AA systems. I'd suggest they're most vulnerable when landing and there's really no way around that although they hardly land in an unsecured area and smack in front of the enemy . Taking down a helicopter though is not the easy task that video games make it out to be. \n\nIn addition, they can move in, fire on a directed point with more time to pick individual targets, and move out where as planes have a pass over and short window for targeting with indiscriminate targeting (usually)",
"they have a lot of tactics. they're much harder to hit than you think, and you'd be amazed at how quickly a cobra or apache can sneak up on you. one minute you hear no helo, next minute all you hear is helo and it's definitely within range to mess your day up. also, they rely on fixed wing aircraft to keep the skies clear as well as ground forces and indirect fire to keep the area relatively safe from enemies from rockets. a lot of pilots can evade RPGs (which aren't all that accurate to begin with) if they get enough time to react, and there are defense mechanisms built in such as IR flares for more high-tech stuff. there is still some risk that they could be show down, though. this risk is just outweighed by the valuable support that a helicopter provides to ground forces. it's a very versatile platform which can fulfill many different roles. ",
"Vertical take off and landing is very useful for troop transport, medical/casualty evacuation, and anti armor.\n\nEven early helicopters in the Korean War were utilized effectively by Marines and the Army.\n\nLater in Vietnam the Army used helicopters on a tremendous scale to move large number of troops quickly.\n\nAs to their vulnerability, they can easily stay out of range of small arms and even 12.7 mm/50 caliber weapons. They are somewhat at risk while landing but US troop transports have 7.62 mm machine guns, and I believe larger ones may have 50 caliber. \n\nPlus, Apache gunships do a lot to secure a landing zone. \n\nPersonally as a crewchief who has been to Iraq on unarmed UH-60s for a few deployments 2005-2007 I rarely saw situations where our helicopter was in great risk. Flying at roof top at high speed makes it difficult to get detected by someone with an AK-47. By the time there aircraft was heard it is too late to get ready to shoot at it, then it's gone.\n\nAlso helicopters have various countermeasures for heat seeking missiles.\n\nRocket propelled grenades are another story though. \n\nSource: UH-60 repairer and crewchief for 7 years",
"By the time you can see or hear an aircraft, it's already close enough to fire its weapons. It's more important to catch them with radar systems long before they get into firing range. That's where a helicopter has an advantage: It can fly very low to the ground, so low that objects on the ground and the earth's curvature can hide it from radar.\n\nIn addition to that, helicopters can start and land everywhere, while combat jets require a proper runway. That's why they are often used for transporting and evacuating soldiers.",
"The Helicopter is today's version of cavalry. Helicopters can immediately outflank any position on a battlefield. And while we're accurately taught that air superiority is how you win wars; you can't actually win a war without boots on the ground. \n\nFurthermore attack helicopters can bring the same destructive value as some jet aircraft with increased precision. If you want to move a large amount of troops or ordinance to a specific point in the front? A flight of transport helicopters is perfect for that.",
" > it cant br that hard to hit them with something.\n\nCombat helicopters are decently armored against small arms and are quite rugged, so they generally must be hit with something fairly powerful to take them down.\n\nAnd they can do quite well against jet fighters:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
" The ability to unload or load troops, equipment and supplies almost anywhere.\n\n Conventional fixed wing aircraft are mostly restricted to airfields. The alternatives, used up to WW2/Suez/Korea are parachutes and/or gliders. Both of these are usually more vulnerable. \n\nParachutes need trained troops & they get dispersed over a wide area. Gliders (Airspeed Horsa, Hamilcar, etc) still need a flat field and are single use: you could probably do the same with some modern short take off aircraft. Both work only in the unload mode.",
"Vertical envelopment. Probably the most significant advancement in military technology to come out of the Korean War.",
"Some varieties of helicopter utilize radar domes mounted above the rotor system to effectively spot targets over the horizon, like a tank in WW2 shooting from a hull-down position. This gives them an advantage when targeting radar stations for AAA, and allows for missile strikes on other ground targets without exposure to ground fire. \nAlso, helicopters can lift a lot of weight. So they can be designed with a lot more armor than a jet. Plus their increased maneuverability also means better control and accuracy with strafing fire from chainguns. Plus, whereas a jet has to attack and overshoot and fly off, a helicopter can hover and keep firing as long as necessary in a single sweep. \nThat said, you can't put an ejection seat in a helicopter unless you're Russian. So pilot safety is different.",
"Don't imagine it like the movies with the gunships flying directly over the enemy.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) is all the target can see of an Apache Longbow using terrain as cover, it's only a [tiny part of the helicopter](_URL_1_) and can identify targets for the Hellfire missiles it carries. These missiles can hit targets 5 miles away, putting the helicopter well out of range of small arms fire.\n\n",
"The capability of VTOL/STOL utility vehicles cannot be overstated. They can move troops and materiel to just about anywhere. \n\nFor offense, they act as stable weapons platforms with a high view of the battlefield (see more, less obstruction etc.), which can also become highly mobile in order to flank, strafe or pursue an enemy. They have a wide range of armaments which means their purpose can change from anti-infantry to anti-tank to anti-helicopter, scouting, submarine warfare or mine clearing, launching ASM's at ships etc. \nHelicopters are indeed vulnerable, though they can take cover they don't have the speed or agility of jets to outrun AA systems. This means they need to be deployed in an intelligent fashion, as with all battlefield systems. You wouldn't deploy tanks on a plain when the enemy has ATGM's, you wouldn't deploy a company across a minefield, so you don't operate helicopters in a monitored airspace. You mention the noise, but you only have short warning between hearing them and being vapourised. Instead, the concern is in being targeted by SPAAG or IR AA systems, which are built to take out helicopters at these sorts of close ranges. ",
"Let me give you another perspective: I served as an officer in a STINGER air defense battery (not US), and from a tactical perspective as well as from simulator experience let me tell you: helicopters are the worst!\n\nFirst of all, in the beginning you think how fighting jets is so hard as the fly so fast. And it's true, in the beginning when you first step into the simulator, the required reaction time and the weight of the weapon do make it hard! Getting the weapon of 16kg ready fast enough while the jet flies over your head is challenging. But thats pretty much it. And you can train strength and speed. After a few months of training (we had like over a 1000 simulation runs each) you have ingrained all the movements to such a degree you could do it in your sleep. \n\nAs the jet flies fast it needs to fly high not to hit any obstacles, meaning usually you will have no problems seeing it. Time window to shoot is small (depending how good the position is), but you've trained for this abd it's usually not a problem (unless you have to do it with a gas mask on).\n\nNow a helicopter doesn't fly fast, but it flies low and a good pilot will always try to abuse the terrain to stay as camouflaged as possible. If there are trees and small pieces of forrest, the pilot will fly behind them to get cover. While you might hear it, it is really hard to tell where exactly it is. Even if you see it, your weapon will have difficulties getting a clear lock-on. It relies on infra red and ultra violet target recognition and something flying between trees will get it to constantly drop the lock. You have about 60 seconds to get a lock before you have to change the battery unit - hardly enough against a skilled pilot abusing the terrain. And once he sees you, he just has to come out of hiding for 2 seconds to take you out.\n\nSo just from an air defense and infantry perspective, I'd fight a jet over a helicopter any day, as they are ridiculously effective against most air defense tactics.\n\nThis of course applies only if the helicopter pilot is aware of enemy presence, terrorists shooting down helicopters from hiding is a different story.\n\n",
"I like to call these threads...\n\n\n\nArma player or ex army ranger? \n\nThe choice is yours! \n\nAre they qualified to have an opinion? \nDo they even understand the bernoulli principle? Find out next time on ELI5!!",
"Vulnerable?! Dude, do you even [Airwolf](_URL_0_)?"
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6e3nbh | if dying of old age is not an actual cause of death then could one live indefinitely(not immortal) provided they have enough money and a constant supply of vital body parts to replace with? | I am going to preface this by defining an indefinite life span as being able to avoid all complications that come with age that typically lead to death but one remains vulnerable to physical injury,disease deliberate acts of murder therefore not immortal but at least in theory can live eternally provided they avoid causing all physical harm that can lead to death.
Now hypothetically speaking If one was a billionaire for example I can't see why they could not afford to have a doctor on retainer living on the premises,nurses,hospital grade equipment in house,etc in order to meet all their medical needs on a daily basis,monitor changes and respond immediately to minimize health problems and risk of death.
The only thing I see that might be a challenge is replacing failed/diseased body parts like kidneys,other organs,and what not since there is a global shortage of organs and other vital parts. To my knowledge these parts are also mostly donated to hospitals for use at their own discretion with long waiting list and not for commercial sale which creates another obstacle in attaining an indefinite life span.
However if one could somehow obtain a constant supply of hearts,kidneys,etc(maybe from relatively healthy suicide victims or perhaps artificially grown parts from stem cells) as ghoulish as it sounds could said individual possibly live indefinitely? Is there any purely medical reason why death would be inevitable at some point assuming all variables remain constant and all procedures go according to plan? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6e3nbh/eli5_if_dying_of_old_age_is_not_an_actual_cause/ | {
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"No, you couldn't, and the reason is your DNA. Your DNA has bits of blank information on the end of it that are called telomeres. They act as a buffer to prevent damage to your DNA, because every time your cells reproduce, there is a risk of losing a very small amount of data from the resulting DNA. Think of them like aglets on your shoelaces. The telomeres are there to absorb the damage, leaving the important data in the strands of DNA intact. This can't happen indefinitely, however, because eventually the telomeres will wear away. This is what causes aging. Once the telomeres wear away, any damage that happens to the DNA strands happens to actual, vital data, causing the body to slowly function less and less efficiently, until eventually it simply cannot operate well enough to function anymore. ",
"Not 100 percent sure how AMA rules work but I'd lie to throw something in her--\n\nI like you're question, in high school we talked about something similar to this, at what point do we not become who we are. If we replace every organ one by one as they fail, at what number do we become not human? Is it the brain? Or is everything but the brain still considered \"a living human\"\n\n",
"You don't die of old age because your body parts need replacing, you die of old age because your body stops replacing them. Keeping your body in shape with transplants isn't a viable method as many tissues have to be replaced quite regularly. The only way you could live indefinitely is if you could figure out why your body stops repairing itself and fix the problem."
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5r2vv7 | how is malpractice handled in countries with universal healthcare? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r2vv7/eli5_how_is_malpractice_handled_in_countries_with/ | {
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"It's actually pretty similar to how it's handle in the US. I'm from Canada so I'll talk about our system.\n\nMedical professional have a professional order which regulate their practice. They are the one that choose which professional can or can't do, they also are the one investigating any case of malpractice or things like that. If they find you guilty they can make decision like excluding you from the order and you can't practice if you are not a member. In Canada, healthcare is mostly a provincial competence so each province have their own College of Physician (name vary province to province).\n\nThen there is criminal charges if the case is serious. And of course nobody is stopping people or their family to bring charge in the civil court. That depend which province because we actually have two different legal system. One come from the French and the other come from the British and one of the main differences is the Civil Code. But that's a whole other discussion.\n\nThe responsibility of the physician and hospital are pretty much the same compare to the US to be honest. The consequences for the physician is also pretty similar. The difference is for the Hostpital.\n\nBecause the hospitals are own by the Governement, they are never really in trouble, it's the board of direction that might lose their job if they did some wrong doing for example by employing bad doctors. The other differences is that there isn't any financial discussion for the patient. Basically, the patient will be schedule for whatever they need to fix the situation if possible.\n\nHere is the website for the College of Physician and Surgeons of Ontario, as well as an insurance company for malpractice. Give you some idea of the coverage and the legal protections if you want.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
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3qyb0i | what kind of things does mi6 and the secret service actually do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qyb0i/eli5_what_kind_of_things_does_mi6_and_the_secret/ | {
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"The Secret Service investigates and prosecutes counterfeiters, and protects the president and vice president.",
"MI6 is nothing like the Secret Service. You're asking like they're the same and it's like asking what garbage men and pool cleaners actually do.",
"MI6 is British foreign intelligence. A lot of what they do involves planting agents in British embassies around the world, who make contacts in local governments to find out their secrets.",
"The Secret Service is in charge of investigating counterfeiters, and provide protection services for the President, Vice President, Senators, Congressmen, and various other Dignitaries and their families in the US. \n\nMI6 is the British Foreign intelligence Service. They spy on other countries, and attempt to counter spies in Britain though that is the primary purpose of MI5. The US counterpart to MI6 would be the CIA, and the counterpart to MI5 would be both the FBI and NSA. ",
"In the UK, Mi6 handles our overseas secret intelligence. This officially means keeping tabs on other world powers to make sure the British government has an early warning of any potential threats to it's well being. Unofficially this probably means spying on other countries by inserting agents into their main industries and government agencies.\n\nThe Secret Intelligence Service is the group that MI6 belong to. So remember that MI6 handle the overseas stuff - MI5 handle all of the internal stuff in the UK. GCHQ is another agency that handles secret communications and monitors things like phone lines and the internet. \n\nNow remember the main role of these three services is to gather the intelligence. Above and outside of the Secret Intelligence Service is the Defence Intelligence. These are the analysts that carefully look over the intelligence that has been gathered. Think of them like detectives looking over a case for any clues.\n\nBringing all of these services together and making sure they all work as a cohesive unit is the Joint Intelligence Committee. "
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3j7fma | when dogs have so much better ears than us, why isnt their barking hurt them? isnt it extremly loudly for them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j7fma/eli5when_dogs_have_so_much_better_ears_than_us/ | {
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"Dogs have better ears means they can pick up sounds too quiet for us to hear or frequencies, it doesn't mean that all sounds they hear are amplified. A dog will hear sounds just as loud as us, but they will also pick up sounds we can't hear, that's what them having better hearing means.",
"For the same reasons that our own shouting doesn't deafen us.\n\nThe small bones that link the eardrum to the inner ear have muscles attached to them, and when you (or the dog) is expecting or experiencing loud sounds, those muscles tighten and prevent the severe vibrations from reaching the inner ear."
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3fnor8 | why do the southern states have the highest rates of obesity in america? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fnor8/eli5_why_do_the_southern_states_have_the_highest/ | {
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"Lots of research has found a negative correlation between obesity rates and wealth in the US (as wealth goes up, obesity rates come down). \n\nLooking [here](_URL_0_) you can see that household income (which I know isn't wealth but this is the data I could easily find) tends to be lowest in the Southern states.\n\nIf I had to guess the relative poverty of the South is mostly the reason.",
"There are several reasons.\n\n1. Poverty. As others mentioned, states like Mississippi and Alabama have very high poverty rates. Obesity and poverty are correlated strongly in the U.S.\n\n2. Cuisine. Southern food isn't known for being terribly healthy. While Southerners don't eat fried chicken for every meal, the sort of restaurants that are ubiquitous in the South--McDonald's and the other national fast food giants, but also more regional chains like Chick-Fil-A, Waffle House, Bojangles, Popeye's--are especially ubiquitous in poorer areas.\n\n3. Lifestyle. Even the South's big cities--Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Jacksonville, etc.--are very car-centric and sprawling. Most people drive everywhere, so walking is rare. \n\n4. Climate. I doubt this is really a strong factor influencing it, but [the South's climate](_URL_0_) may go further in discouraging physical activity. I've lived in Georgia and outside of the South (Colorado, mid-Atlantic region). What most of the country calls \"summer\" starts in April in states like SC, GA, MS, AL and continues on into early October--sweltering heat, high humidity. It's very unpleasant to be outside. While winter is fairly mild in the South too, it's still not that pleasant to be outside in. \n\n5. Reaching a bit further, I would also expect that the legacy of segregation plays a role as well with creating big areas of poverty in black communities. Those areas are more likely to lack transit infrastructure, decent grocery stores, and so on, resulting in food deserts and similar barriers to health. "
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6j3isn | what classifies something as a plastic and how can the same type of plastic (e.g polyester) be used from slick, waterproof shirts to fluffy blankets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j3isn/eli5_what_classifies_something_as_a_plastic_and/ | {
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"Plastics are synthetic or partly synthetic polymeric materials. (Basically materials made from enormously big molecules, compared to other materials.) \n\nAs to why is there a wide range of plastics. Simply because we spent the last century with trying to make new kinds of plastics that could be applied in different situations. Our technology has evolved so much, that we can now make plastics how we want them. \n\nTheir properties are mainly controlled by the actually plastic, so PET (PETP) will act completely differently than Teflon. (PTFE) This is caused by them being made from different macromollecules. You can then adjust the properties of plastics by additives, you could make them more heat resistant, you could change their density, you could make them more durable, you could make them conduct electricity better... Pretty much anything. \n\nI'm not sure how well did I explain it as English isn't my native language and this is hard to explain to someone who doesn't work or study in the the field even in my native language. But fell free to ask more questions. \n\nAlso polyesters are category of plastics that PET falls into. They don't have that wide use as you stated, but they can still get pretty useful, not only to make bottles. \n\nBut the wide range of uses is possible thanks to the additives I wrote about above. "
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12x8bp | is the "fiscal cliff" actually bad for our economic recovery? | I understand that more money will be taken out for taxes, but isn't more funding for the government a good thing (won't it help reduce the debt)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12x8bp/is_the_fiscal_cliff_actually_bad_for_our_economic/ | {
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"Probably really bad for the economy. \n\nIt does a lot of things all at once. 1- End Bush Era Cuts, 2- Cuts in Defense Spending, 3- End of the payroll tax holiday, 4- Cut in Unemployment Benefits, 5- Cut in Medicare payments to doctors. \n\nA lot of people will lose their jobs because of point 2. (Military contractors and some government employees).\n\nIt is also a bitter pill for both sides of Congress to take. \n\nIn regards to reducing debt, it will probably reduce the debt but its taking money from the entitlement section of the budget to do so. \n\nELI5 - Probably bad. Maybe some good. But more than likely bad. "
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2i299t | what makes a coach watch or something designer worth so much money? | is it literally people just want to say "this is a designer clothing item".. what even makes something "Designer".. is there any like actual value or like better fabric or something in these designer clothing to make them better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i299t/eli5_what_makes_a_coach_watch_or_something/ | {
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"They do tend to be very high quality. That is how they make a name for themselves and then on top of that they have become status symbols and the fact that they are expensive makes them more valuable to some people \n\n\n\"I want people to know/think I'm rich so I buy things people know are expensive\"\n\n"
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89odjf | how a ufc fighter can drop 26lbs in 6 days to make weight, then manage to fight the next day? | _URL_0_
Max Holloway is fighting this weekend but he has to drop 26lbs to do make the weight category and he has 6 days to do it. Is it even possible to drop that much weight in 6 days (when you're already pretty lean?).
Even if he does make weight, how could he be in good fighting condition considering the extremes his body would have gone through this week? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89odjf/eli5_how_a_ufc_fighter_can_drop_26lbs_in_6_days/ | {
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"Your body is mostly water... so if you dehydrate yourself you could lose a lot of weight very rapidly. ",
"Dropping that much weight in such a short time takes an enormous physical toll. An average person would be physically spent, however, these fighters are in phenomenal physical shape to begin with. Think of the most fit person you know and multiply it by ten. Yes, it affects his strength and physical abilities, but since he is dropping weight to fight lighter, it is likely he is already significantly stronger than his opponent and can afford to lose some strength. \n\nAs others have said, he will be dropping mostly water weight by dehydrating himself. 26lbs is on the higher side of what I have heard for a weight cut in such a short amount of time. I believe the weigh-in happens the night before the fight, so he has almost a day to recover. I wouldn't be surprised if he gains 10-15 lbs back from the time of weigh-in to the start of the fight.\n\n"
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"https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2018/4/2/17190272/george-lockhart-max-holloway-weight-cut-biggest-ever-featherweight-lightweight-khabib-ufc-223-mma"
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3c3w37 | how does a musical score in a film help elicit such specific emotional response in viewers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c3w37/eli5_how_does_a_musical_score_in_a_film_help/ | {
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"It's partially something you learn, partially innate, but it's also the result of a long experience in eliciting emotions through music.\n\nWrt. learning, let's look at Western movies. We were not born with the association of a certain rhythm with riding a horse. But composers have been using it for a long time, and by now, movie goers will associate the two.\n\nBut we do get born with certain associations, or acquire these associations very young and fast. E.g. we know the sound of a wail isn't a happy sound. A dancing rhythm on the other hand is probably happy. Perhaps because of this, we associate slow, descending melody lines quicker with sadness, and dance music with happiness and fun. Low, distant sounds are easily associated with threats.\n\nFinally, underscoring movies has been going on for a long time, so each generation just builds on the experience from the previous one, but also on the expectations set up by the previous generation."
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1rwllc | how hiv is transmitted from a woman to a man | I get that semen and pre-cum enter a woman's body, transferring the virus. But how, exactly, does the virus travel from a woman to a man during sex? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rwllc/eli5_how_hiv_is_transmitted_from_a_woman_to_a_man/ | {
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"Blood. Micro cuts in her vagina and micro cuts on your penis.",
"Mucous membranes are permiable. For example, some medications can be absorbed via the muscous membrane under your toungue, some medications (or toxins) can be absorbed through your skin. The HIV virus can fit through mucous membranes in the anus and vagina. Also, if there are any cuts or lesions, the chances increase. Think of cappilaries as underground mole tunnels. Ones deep under the surface don't receive as much rain but ones on the surface do. Like these tunnels, cappilaries are close to the surface in mucous membranes and can be easily penetrated by viruses, infections, bacteria...etc. "
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43bi62 | what's the advantage of a really long lease (1000s of years) as opposed to actually buying a property? | I ask this because I was reading [this](_URL_0_) article about a library that took out a 10,000 year lease at $1 per annum. That reminded me of the lease Arthur Guinness took on his brewery: 9000 years at £45 per year.
So what would be the benefits of such an arrangement? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43bi62/eli5_whats_the_advantage_of_a_really_long_lease/ | {
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"It's not the buyer's choice. If the property you want is only available leasehold, then you'll have to have it leasehold. It's the seller that decides.",
"A lot of land owned by the government isn't legally allowed to be sold since it is for the use of the government/people of the land. However they can lease the land out to private parties. Normally the lease is for a very normal amount of time but sometimes and industry grows (like Guinness) and the cost to re-locate would be high. So they work out a deal to \"lease\" the land forever rather than go about trying to get a special law passed.",
"It's not there as a benefit to the seller but to the owner of the property. If they sell it, they lose it forever & have no control over it. If they lease it, they can impose conditions on it.\n\nLike, let's say you want somebody to make beer in your town. You give them a great piece of land. After 5 years, they decide to sell it to somebody who wants to built a WalMart. If you've sold them the land, you have no power to stop this. If you leased the land, you can terminate the lease and/or find somebody else who will run a brewery on that spot."
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6whkb3 | if i touch a puddle that has an electrical cable in it, i'll get shocked. if i throw an electrical cable into the sea, why will not everything in the entire ocean become shocked? | Does electricity 'dilute' itself in water? If I was close to the source of electricity would I get shocked then? How close would I need to be? Would the direction matter? Is there like a certain equation for how much electricity weakens by taking into account number of electricities and number of waters? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6whkb3/eli5eli5_if_i_touch_a_puddle_that_has_an/ | {
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"I believe it is either the density that gets smaller due to the large volume of the sea water, or energy loss during the travel?",
"When you are shocked it's from electrons flowing through your body. Electrons on a finite thing. There are only so many of them. The amount of electrons that can be drawn from the outlets in a typical building are way way way more than are needed to kill a human. \n\nHowever the Ocean is really really really big. Whatever powercord your throw into the ocean eventually leads back to a circuit breaker. The amount of electrons that can be drawn into the ocean depends on what that circuit breaker is rated for. Even if it's a huge break, say 600 amps, that's no where near enough to hurt everything in the ocean. \n\nModeling something like this is tricky because there are a lot of things we don't know. To start with pure water doesn't conduct electricity. However dissolved minerals in the water do. The ocean is salt water and does conduct electricity. However the saltiness of the water isn't the same in every drop so some patches of water might conduct electricity better than others. \n\nIf you compare the end of the electrical cable with the ocean, the cable will have a much higher concentration of electrons so yes, the closer you are to the cable the more likely those electrons will try to go through you and hurt you. So yes the voltage does dissipate with distance.",
"Yes, it spreads out, and some of the energy is lost to heat as it travels as current. When lightning strikes water, it will spread out in a hemisphere under the surface, the energy dissipating with the cube of the radius.\n\nYou would certainly be shocked if you were close to where it struck, because you are not much different from water yourself, and the current would travel through you too.",
"Not every electrical source can deliver the current required to injure or kill you. A Taser's voltage is 50,000V (IIRC), so why doesn't it kill every person who's hit by one? Because the voltage can't be sustained, it has to be a very short pulse just to get to that voltage and then it \"sags\" quickly. The same is true of domestic current: if you \"short\" it, the resistance in the wires means energy is lost and the voltage sags. "
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c5o6yt | how were the adaptation of 5.56 nato rounds political? | So I heard there was some political backstory before this became the standard round for NATO, can anyone explain the full story? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5o6yt/eli5_how_were_the_adaptation_of_556_nato_rounds/ | {
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"After WW2 different countries started looking into assault rifle rounds. It was a promising development for infantry arms. The Soviets had quickly developed their own 7.62x39mm in 1943 and were working hard to make it their mainstay. \n\nNATO countries looked at developing their own round. The US testing known as SALVO looked at several options, including a focus on flechettes but that option never fully worked so the program switched to conventional bullets. Later, this program and its data is what would drive the adoption of 5.56mm in the US. Until that later time however the US leaders mainly looked at continuing to use full power rounds and making them controllable in full auto. All the countries in NATO wanted to work toward a standardized round so to share with each other. \n\nThe British came up with the promising 6.25mm round but it was veto’d by the US. The US leadership that was in favor of assault rifles/small caliber development was over ruled for the time by traditional thinkers who pushed the 7.62x51mm round. The US traditional thinkers got their way and the US adopted the M14 to succeed the M1, which killed the British 6.25mm caliber. Allied countries adopted their own 7.62x51mm rifles. \n\nThen in 1961 the US was like “lol just kidding” and adopted the homegrown 5.56mm round and rifle. Being that the US was the big dick in NATO, the 5.56mm round started to become widely used alongside the 7.62x51mm used in battle rifles. This switch drove allies to follow and by the 1970s NATO has standardized on 5.56mm. \n\nThe reason for adoption of the 5.56mm and M16 was an effort spearheaded Army General name Wyman and using the data from SALVO. There was a lot of pushback by internal Army testing centers and leaders who were not convinced that such a small bullet would be effective, and there are noted cases of the rifle being sabotaged to fail tests.\n\nEventually though the rifle was accepted, although early wide issue service models used out of spec parts and the “self cleaning” function of the was grossly misinterpreted leading to it being issued without cleaning kits at first. This lead to a lot of lasting bad impressions. \n\nAs well there was politics around ArmaLite having to sell their design to Colt since Colt was a government contractor who could actually get a realistic chance to convince the government to buy the rifles."
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2rp7ln | why can't i draw mohammed? | Where is it written that Mohammed should not be drawn? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rp7ln/eli5_why_cant_i_draw_mohammed/ | {
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"Muslims have a ban on art in general. Traditionally they aren't supposed to draw anything \"real\" because only allah is the creator. That is why most Islamic art is based around geometry. \n\n",
" > Where is it written that Mohammed should not be drawn?\n\nIt's written in the [Hadith](_URL_0_), which I suppose you can think of as the [*Silmarillion*](_URL_2_) to the Quran's *Lord of the Rings*. Here's the wikipedia article for [Aniconism in Islam](_URL_1_), which is the prohibition of images of the divine.\n\n > Why can't I draw Mohammed?\n\nYou can. You can draw Mohammed and you can miss church on Sundays and you can eat bacon on Passover. Only very misguided people would hold you to religious laws which are not your own.",
"If Mohammed lived in 600 AD then surely a non-Muslim from that period render his image. \n\nAlso, if Mohammed didn't want drawing of \"real\" items then why didn't Muslims go on a giant killing spree to wipe out all renderings of all art? \n\nThis concept of \"no art of real things\" is beyond my rational comprehension.\n\nReligion has weird rules... > Where is it written that Mohammed should not be drawn?\n\n",
"I think it's just frustrating. He's got a really weird mouth."
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avvsbp | how is the wired transmission of data different than the wired transmission of electricity/power in terms of the physical properties of what is actually "sent" down the line? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/avvsbp/eli5_how_is_the_wired_transmission_of_data/ | {
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"Transmitting electricity in order to power homes/devices can be done as either Alternating Current (AC) or Direct Current (DC). DC means the electricity only flows one way. AC means it quickly switches direction, usually 50 or 60 times per second depending on the country.\n\nAC is typically used for widescale power distribution because it's more efficient over long distances and when converting to higher or lower voltages. Many home appliances use AC where possible to match this, the less converting you do to electricity, the more efficiently you can use it. Whereas DC is used for modern electronic devices, because many electronic components need a constant direct supply of electricity and are difficult, expensive or impossible to design to support alternating current. Basically, DC is used when the effort of converting AC to DC is less than the effort of using components that support AC.\n\nSo ignoring AC, let's say we want to compare a wire transmitting 5 Volts of DC power, vs a wire transmitting data at 5 Volts. **In terms of physical properties, there's no difference.** Both are sending electrons down the wire, a material that is good at conducting electricity. What's different is that where the power line is a constant stream of about 5V, the data line will switch between about 5V (high voltage) and about 0V (low voltage). The border where you cross between high and low voltage is determined by the design specifications of the circuit, for various reasons it may not be exactly 0V.\n\nSomewhere in the circuit there will be a clock that will tell the data receiving component when to measure the signal on the data line. If the signal is close to 5V, it's a \"1\". If it's close to 0V, it's a \"0\". Do this thousands of times a second and you can transmit lots of ones and zeroes, which is computer data. Now you can begin to see one reason why components use DC - if you took a measurement while your 5V AC was switching direction, you might read a low voltage instead.",
"Wired electricity is sent as an alternating current. 50 or 60 times per second the direction of the current will change but otherwise it is a steady, constant signal.\n\nWired data is sent as a unidirectional signal that can be encoded in multiple ways. The simplest way is that the existence of a signal is a 1 and the absence of a signal is 0. So, when I want to send a 1 then I apply voltage to the line and when I want to send a 0 I remove that voltage.\n\nThere are more sophisticated methods that involve a carrier signal that is modulated to encode data. This involves having a simple sine wave that is adjusted in one way or another to represent the data. For example, I could change the frequency or the amplitude (or both) of the sine wave to represent data."
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279cw7 | why is it so hard to understand when multiple people talk on things like skype or google hangouts but easy to understand when in person. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/279cw7/eli5why_is_it_so_hard_to_understand_when_multiple/ | {
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"You can determine the source of the sound when it's \"live\", but you cannot when you're listening to people talking through their microphones. They all talk at about the same volume as well."
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6672u1 | why does the red cross have so many restrictions on blood donations that involve travel to europe? i thought most european countries had a better healthcare system than the us. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6672u1/eli5_why_does_the_red_cross_have_so_many/ | {
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"Because of outbreaks of mad cow disease that occurred in the UK, from 1986-1998, which killed hundreds of people and is pretty much impossible to detect if you're a carrier.",
"Its because you may have been infected by mad cow disease while eating there. It can lie dormant in you for years.\n\n_URL_0_"
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47emok | how can lottery winners go broke having assets to sell? | Hi Reddit,
Just saw a video over at /r/videos of lottery winners that ended up completely broke.
I understand that people can go an an enourmous spending spree, but when they suddenly realize 'hey I'm running out of money', why can't they just sell the acquired million dollar mansions / cars / watches?
Sure It will still result in a significantly lower amount than the winnings and there are purchases that you can't sell (vacations, dining out etc.) but still, the net worth would probably be enough to live moderately for the rest of their life.
Any explanation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47emok/eli5_how_can_lottery_winners_go_broke_having/ | {
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"They probably DO sell their assets during their spiral back into poverty. People who regularly play the lottery are often not that fiscally responsible and are often harassed by both family and strangers due to their very public windfall (several have been killed over disputes with family who felt shafted). Some may start mortgaging their mansions to keep their extravagant lifestyle going, rather than prudently cutting back.",
"I think it's because some buy stupid crap that have no real value other than looking pretty and shiny. I remember watching one Lottery show on tv where the guy being interviewed had a suit of armor in his house. What the heck did that cost and how much would someone be willing to pay for it when it's re-sold? I can't imagine it would be very much. It's easy to buy stupid stuff and feel like you are wealthy and a big shot....but it takes someone with intelligence, savvy and financial acumen to really know what's considered an asset and what is not."
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2pl8u1 | does a fireplace give of any adverse effects? | I just saw a eli5 question asking about a bonfire giving off thermal radiation that you mainly feel as opposed to feeling the hot air (unless you were above the fire) Does this mean the fireplace in my living room is heating the room due to thermal radiation? Are there any adverse effects due to this, such as an increased risk of skin cancer? Can I get a tan from my fireplace? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pl8u1/eli5_does_a_fireplace_give_of_any_adverse_effects/ | {
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" > Does this mean the fireplace in my living room is heating the room due to thermal radiation?\n\nAssuming there's a fire in it, yes, at least in part. So are you, by being in the living room.\n\nEverything above absolute zero (in other words, everything) gives off thermal radiation. This is not an ionizing radiation, it's not going to give you cancer. You yourself are giving off thermal radiation right now. \n\nYour typical fire is not hot enough to give off ultraviolet radiation, which is what triggers a tanning response in humans. "
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4vyh78 | why does water soak upwards, appearing to ignore gravity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vyh78/eli5_why_does_water_soak_upwards_appearing_to/ | {
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"So you understand that gravity is pulling it down. The 'problem' is that it isn't obvious what exactly is pulling the water up! \n\nYour answer is the capillary effect. In a very broad sense, water molecules have a negative end and a positive end. Opposite (charges) attract, so all those water molecules want to line themselves up so their positive end is next to another water molecule's negative end. \n\nThis desire to rearrange molecules to have the neg-pos-neg-pos pattern is actually a little stronger than gravity sometimes! The molecules desire to have that arrangement pulls them up against even gravity. "
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22ae02 | what exactly does the "black box" from a airplane do or tell us? | I read that the black box has been found for the missing plane. Was wondering why it is so important. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22ae02/eli5what_exactly_does_the_black_box_from_a/ | {
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"It gives us all of the data about the aircraft (location, speed, heading, altitude, systems performance/problems, etc.) and a recording of the voices in the cockpit for all of the time leading up to and through the crash.\n\nBasically it's a huge piece of the \"what the hell happened\" puzzle.\n\nIf you want more specifics on the black box (also called the flight data recorder), then both here and Google are good places to search.",
"Did they actually find the black box?"
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4nqtbs | why do computers use red, green, and blue to create any color when the primary colors in "real life" are red, green, and yellow? | Edit: Oops, typo. Meant to say red, blue, and yellow. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nqtbs/eli5_why_do_computers_use_red_green_and_blue_to/ | {
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"Aren't the primary colors Red, Blue and yellow? ",
"Subtractive vs. additive colors. Short version, mixing pigments works different than mixing light wavelengths.\n\nLong version: [Here](_URL_0_)",
"Red Blue and Yellow are the primary colors of subtractive color; they \"subtract\" the total amount of light by absorbing all the wavelengths except for the light they reflect. A red ball absorbs all light and reflects red wavelength light; a blue ball absorbs all light and reflects blue wavelength light.\n\nRed Green and Blue are the primary colors of additive color; if you take the wavelength of red light and add green light to it, you get yellow light (as opposed to subtractive color, where mixing red & green would give you a muddy brown-ish color).",
"You may be thinking of primary color *pigments*, which are cyan, magenta, and yellow (more or less, blue, red, and yellow). Pigments are subtractive primary colors, meaning that each one you use removes a spectrum from the light that will eventually enter your eye. Recall that white light is all of the colors, and pigments work by reflecting one spectrum and absorbing the rest. So for instance, white light hits a shirt with red pigment. The pigment reflects the red, but absorbs the blue and the green, so you see the red, and the shirt appears to be red.\n\nIf you mix, say, blue and yellow pigments, they each reflect their color and absorb most of the rest, leaving you with a mix of light that appears green.\n\nBut think about what this means for *adding* light spectra. With pigments, you're starting with white and trying to get to individual colors. With light pixels, you're starting with individual colors and trying to get to white (or other colors). The cones in our eyes notice red, blue, and green light, and the exact pattern of activation - how much of each color - tells us what we're looking at. So computers are adding those primary colors because that's what our eyes are looking for.",
"The primary colors you're thinking of are for paint, where the color *absorbs* light. This means that when you mix two pigments together, they now absorb more wavelengths. This is why when you take all the paints and mix them together, you get black.\n\nRed, green, and blue, on the other hand, are for monitors, where you're actually *emitting* wavelengths. When you mix red and green together, you get more wavelengths of color coming out, not less. So when you mix them all together, you get white. \n\nThe reason that they use red, green, and blue is because you have three different types of color-sensing cells in your eyes, which respond to red, green, and blue wavelengths. In reality, colors are just a continuous changing of wavelengths - blue is not any more \"primary\" than purple or yellow. But the way you *perceive* colors is through differing activations of the red, green, and blue cells. A blue wavelength results in a very high activation of the blue cells and not so much of the other ones, so your mind perceives that as blue. A yellow wavelength results in medium activations of green and blue, with little red. So if we shine one green light and one blue light into your eye, your cells are activated in a way that makes you see yellow, *even though it's not actually yellow in any sense*.\n\nSo the really mind-blowing thing here is that if we just perceived color as a continuous value, monitors would look very strange. You wouldn't see yellow or purple - you'd just see a monitor which is a melange of red, green, and blue. We only see colors besides red, green, and blue because we're tricking our eyes, activating the cells in a way that makes them think they're looking at a different color than they are.",
"**TL; DR: computers and TVs are about emitting the colors we want. Paintings are about absorbing the colors we don't want from the white light around us in order to get the colors that we want**\n\nWhat color we see is based on what frequencies of light hit our eyes. The different frequencies are represented by the colors of the rainbow. White is what we see when we see a combination of all frequencies and black/dark is what we see when there are no photons (no light at any frequency)\n\nSo what causes light to hit your eyes? Well, some things emit light such as lightbulbs, the sun, your computer screen. But we also have light that hits our eyes after it bounced off an object. So that blue car on the street? It's not emitting a blue light, but white sunlight is hitting that car, and blue light is bouncing off of it into our eyes.\n\nWhy did the white light change to blue light when it bounced off a blue object? Because light can be absorbed, and all of the frequencies in the white light (which remember, white is a combination of everything in the rainbow) got absorbed except blue.\n\nSo there are two ways to create colors: emitting frequencies you want and absorbing the frequencies you don't want.\n\nIf you start with nothing (black/darkness), you can create any color you want by adding together red, green, blue light frequencies (additive). If you start with everything (white) you can get any color you want by subtracting/absorbing red, yellow, blue (subtractive).\n\nSo the primary colors for subtracting light are red, yellow, blue and we use those when painting. And the primary colors for adding light are red, green, blue and we use those for computer screens and TVs. I think technically the specific shades you need to get every other color out of subtractive lighting are magenta instead of red and cyan instead of blue (and yellow is still yellow). ",
"Red, yellow, and blue are simply an approximation of cyan, magenta and yellow.\n\nCMYK can produce a lot more colors than RYB--a concept known as \"gamut.\" We know that now that we have the math and science to prove it... But before that, all we had was red, yellow and blue. ",
"because red, green, and blue are primary colors of light. A computer screen isn't using pigment to show colors. It uses light. \n",
"In our eyes there are cones that can see red, green, or blue. We do not see any other color. What we see is a combination of red, green and blue interpreted by our brains. Therefore, monitors can produce every color we can see with only red, green, and blue.",
"Pretty sure the primary colors are red blue and yellow...you can make green with blue and yellow.",
"Imagine that light has three possible colors, red, green and blue, like little colored balls. Your computer produces light, so it's making up red, green and blue light balls and it sends them into your eyes. Now the way it works is that when your eye sees red light and green light at the same place at the same time, it sees \"yellow\". Red and blue makes \"magenta\", and blue and green makes \"cyan\". And red, green and blue together is \"white\". We call that additive color.\n\nNow, say you're painting a picture, \"in real life\". You're using paint. Paint doesn't produce light, otherwise it'd glow in the dark. The reason it has a color is that when light balls hit it, it *eats* some colors and bounces back the others. If you have yellow paint and you illuminate it with white light, which is a mix of red, green and blue, it eats the blue, and the red and green just bounce right back. So what do you see? You see red and green, so it looks yellow. Likewise, the magenta paint eats green, and the cyan paint eats red. If you mix, say, yellow and cyan, then it eats both blue and red, and only green is left, so it looks green. And so on. We call that subtractive color.\n",
"Seen at its most simple level, most human beings have eyes with three types of color sensors: those sensitive to red, those sensitive to blue and those sensitive to green. Every color you can perceive is made up some combination of those three colors of light.\n\nLikewise, a computer monitor can create a good portion of the colors your eyes can perceive by combining red, green and blue light in various ratios.",
"You've been lied to. For one, there is no color system where in red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. Secondly, computers use RGB because those are the additive primary colors in \"\"\"\"real\"\" life\"; they add together to make white. Thirdly, there's another color system, called subtractive space, wherein magenta, cyan, and yellow combine and subtract each other to make black. This is the system that paint and pigment uses.",
"Just wanted to add that there is no perfect trio of primary colors (additive or subtractive) that can be mixed to produce *all* perceived colors, but some are better than others. For subtractive colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow are vastly superior to blue, red, and yellow.",
"The short answer is that your 3rd grade art teacher lied to you. The primary colors of pigments are cyan, yellow, and magenta. These are the opposite colors of the primary colors of light, red, green, and blue. ",
"Red, Blue, and yellow are not primary colors. It's what we all learned in grade school, but it isn't accurate. \n\nThe primary colors for objects (subtractive color) are magenta, cyan, and yellow. \n\nRed, green, and blue are the primary colors for light (additive color). They also correspond with the light receptors in the human eye.",
"It's important to remember that \"primary colors\" are entirely chosen based on how our squishy eyeballs evolved to work. Just like how \"vowels\" are based on your human throat and ears.\n\nIn essence, \"primary colors\" are the few wavelengths that you need to mix in different ways to **trick** human eyes and brains into different decisions about what they are seeing.\n\n\n\n",
"The primary colors in the real world aren't red blue and yellow! They're Red blue and green! Or magenta, cyan, and yellow.\n\nWith additive (light), you add all the colors and get white, woth subtractive (pigment) you add them all and get black. Additive primary colors are red, blue, and green. Why those three? **Because those are the three colors our eyes can see.** We have special cells for ewch of them. So because those are the colors we can see those are the colors we yse in pixels. (Printers use magenta cyan and yellow because they put ink that absords light rather than are pixels that emit it.)\n\nI think the Red blue *yellow* thing came because artists understood there were primary colors (as in colors you couldn't make by combining others) but got it a little wrong because magenta is pretty close to red and cyan is pretty close to blue.",
"Human color perception depends on three types of cones in the retina, namely l, m and s cones. The letters stand for long, medium and short wavelength. L-cones detect light with long wavelengths, what is commonly called “red”, m-cones detect medium wavelength light, commonly called “green”, and s-cones deteld light with short wavelengths, commonly known as “blue”. Actually, all three cone types detect light not only of one respective wavelength, but a range of wavelengths. They are more or less broadband detectors.\n\nColor itself is not a physical property, but the result of a complicated process of mixing and “translating” the three signals into a different “language” using three channels again, but in a different way.\nWe get a red-green channel, a blue-yellow channel and a dark-light channel. This is also known as the [opponent process](_URL_0_).\n\nCRT, or more recently, LCD monitors use R, G, B filters for the same reason, although there exist more sophisticated and exotic monitors or devices to expand the gamut of reproducible colors. But in principle monitors produce spectra in a way that’s similar to how the cones in the retina catch photons. Using “red”, “green” and “blue” is the most useful and natural way because these three spectral ranges enable you to cover the largest area of the visual gamut of colors while using a low number of colors.\n\nYellow is [along the line between red and green](_URL_1_), perception-wise. If both “red” and “green” cones are stimulated at the same time, humans see the color “yellow”, which also is the color range with the highest perceived lightness.\n\nRed, blue and yellow are used to explain subtractive color mixture to kindergarten children, but if you look at your inkjet printer color cartridges you can see that actually using magenta, cyan and yellow are the better solution.\n\nBut no matter how you create colors, the **perception** of colors always works in an additive manner.",
"Lets first understand, the primary colors are due to our eyes. There's no \"fundamental\" colors in real life. As a matter of fact there are many \"colors\" that animals can't see but we can't.\n\nSo with that said. The eyes recognize colors by being able to recognize 3 different types of colors. Red, Green and Blue. Just like the computers do!\n\nBut why then were you told Red, Blue and Yelllow? Well they are what's called the primary pigments, these colors are what you mix to form any color using paint. And they are not Red, Blue and Yellow, instead they are Magenta (which looks like red), Cyan (which looks like a light blue) and Yellow.\n\nLet me explain the difference. When our eyes see the most red, green and blue they can perceive, we see the color white. If all of them are \"off\" we see the color black. If we turn on the colors slowly at more or less the same rate we'd get shades of gray. By turning on one color more or less we get other colors. This is how computers work because they create light in those color ranges.\n\nPaint isn't like a computer screen. Paint instead of \"turning on\" a color more, it absorbs certain colors and bounces everything else. This is why you paint/draw on white surfaces, but computers screens are black surfaces: you need to be as white as possible to hide colors from it to form what you want. When you mix two paints you absorb the color of both paints. So with paints you can only absorb more color (and mixing all of them results in black). So our primary pigments can be paints that turn on one of the special colors, but instead one that *turns off one color only*. Go to your computer and open a color mixer. Turn on two colors to the highest and make one be 0. You'll notice the colors above: blue-red form Magenta, blue-green form Cyan, red-green form Yellow. That way, when you mix one of those paints, you only shut down one of the basic colors. Then by mixing them to control which color you shut off (just as the computer would mix its color to see which it turned on) and how much, you can form all the other colors.",
"**TL;DR:** RGB can't produce every color, but it can produce enough colors that we consider it 'good enough'.\n\nLots of posts about emitting colors we want vs. absorbing colors we don't want. This is true from a physics perspective, and why we chose RGB as the basis for computer displays.\n\nHowever, RGB cannot produce 'every' color. There are several colors it can represent well but not the same as in real life, like [Tyrian Purple](_URL_1_). Many of these also depend on your exact display settings.\n\nUltimately, computers use RGB because of cost, which is why you've only now started seeing [4 color displays](_URL_0_) pop up. RGB covers a large color area and only requires 3 electron guns in a CRT and 3 LCD diodes in LED displays. Adding a 4th color increases your cost and research by 33% for a minimal and mostly unnoticeable payout in higher fidelity; and early on in the development of computer monitors and displays, cost was a major design decision.\n\nIn addition to color, there's also brightness (that RGB does a poor job of hiding) that can be fluctuated. When you look at your computer displaying black, it's a very bright black. There's experiments going into varying the backlighting the same way we do color to provide deeper blacks and brighter whites. This adds more colors that can be presented to viewers, and will go a long way to making more realistic displays.\n\n**EDIT:** updated sentence talking about LED displays to be more accurate; thanks /u/Amanoo",
"I've looked through these comments and nobody has actually answered the question.\n\nYes, they've given you these facts:\n\n1. The human eye best perceives red, green, and blue.\n2. You're wrong, the primary colors are magenta, cyan, and yellow -- not red, green and yellow.\n3. Material that reflects or absorbs light results in \"subtractive\" color, while computers generate light in \"additive\" color\n\nbut nobody has synthesized an explanation of why they matter to your question. RGB and Magenta, Cyan, Yellow are complementary colors... but what does that actually mean? Why *those* colors?\n\nAs others have mentioned, computer screens are simple: they shine red light, green light and blue light into your eyes at various intensities. Those are the only colors your eyes can detect, so it's smart to use them when generating light. Your brain does all the work of interpreting different combinations of them as \"in-between\" colors.\n\nPaint is not so simple. Start with **magenta**, which absorbs **green** light. When you shine a white light on a magenta surface, everything except the green bounces back into your eye. So what does your eye detect? Red and blue -- that's all it can see. \n\nSo we can \"convert\" paint colors to RGB by inverting them: magenta takes out all the green light, so the only light relevant to humans that it reflects is red light and blue light. Let's check our answer... [combining red and blue *light* on a computer screen should make your brain see magenta.](_URL_0_) Yep!\n\nWe say magenta is the *complement* (or opposite) of green. Magenta absorbs green. And that's the relationship between subtractive and additive colors:\n\n* Subtractive: Magenta paint absorbs green, so magenta is made up of \"all the colors that are not green\", i.e., red and blue. \n* Additive: Red and blue light are perceived as magenta.\n\nSo to answer your question: **You can define (almost) any color in terms of additive color with RGB, or in terms of subtractive color with cyan, magenta, yellow.** Computers happen to work by creating light (additive color); paint happens to work by reflecting light (subtractive color). We just went through magenta-green; [this diagram](_URL_1_) shows the relationships between the other complementary colors, yellow-blue and cyan-red.\n\nOf course, a computer screen *could* use cyan, magenta, and yellow pixels. It's just unnecessarily complicated, because each pixel would need to emit *two* different wavelengths -- e.g., red and blue to make a pixel appear magenta.",
"Because for some reason schools like to oversimplify things. The primary subtractive colors are actually Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow; not Red, Green, and Yellow.\n\nAdditive colors are Red, Green, and Blue, which is what monitors use.",
"Primary colors depend on the medium. \n\nPigment Primaries: Yellow-Blue-Red\n\nVideo Primaries: Red-Green-Blue\n\nPrint Primaries: Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black",
"Red, green, and yellow are not the \"primary colors\" in \"real life\"\n\nThey're the primary colors in paint.\n\n\"Real life\" color is a continuous spectrum that goes through all the colors, including other \"colors\" we can't see. As far as one might consider things like heat a color. I don't think anyone would dispute that ultraviolet is a color, as some people see a little bit of it. Actually we all see a little bit of it. And many animals see much more of it than we do.\n\nSimplifying visible light to a set of \"primary colors\" is oversimplifying and pretty much wrong across the board.",
"Actually, there are two kinds of primary colors because there are two main color systems, there are additive colors and subtractive colors. Additive colors add together and make white and subtractive colors subtract and make black. The additive color system is used when talking about light whereas subtractive is used when talking about pigments. The colors you get when mixing wavelengths of light compared to pigments are different and those require a different system. Because if something is green that means it absorbs all wavelengths of light except those that make it that color. But if you see a green light then that means you are seeing whatever wavelength of light makes green. And so when you have an item that is black that means it absorbs all light, if you see a white light then that means all wavelengths of light are combined and make white. \n\nThe color system you are thinking about is the subtractive color system the primary colors in that system are actually cyan, magenta and yellow. Those 3 colors make up the primary colors of the subtractive color system, the kind artists use and most people think about. Then you have red, green, and blue, those colors make the primary colors of the additive color system and is used when talking about light and is thus colors that computers use because its shining light directly at you.\n\nEdit: my shitty typing",
"light is not paint. it works the opposite way. \n\npaint absorbs light and reflects its color, light projects that color",
"Who said that \"primary colors in real life\" are red, blue and yellow?\n\nWhat exactly are \"primary colors in real life\"?",
"Hey I'm watching a video about this exact thing as part of some other research I'm doing. \n\nSee if this helps: _URL_0_",
"Actually any three colors can be used, but some give bigger color space (technically, gamut) than others. In fact Edwin Land (Polaroid) did some experiments where only two colors are needed. ",
"Your eyes have red, green and blue receptors. Your brain interpolates the balance between those 3 receptors to guess what color it actually is. So if a color is stimulating both the red and green receptors you see yellow. Now your brain can't actually tell if the thing you are looking at is the \"Yellow\" wavelength or if it's just Red and Green. \n\nSimilarly \"White\" light can either be light that stimulates your eye's red, green and blue receptors within the \"visible\" spectrum, or it can just be separate red, green and blue light. Our eyes are pretty bad color receptors for this reason, if you have a \"hyperspectral\" camera there will be not only red, green and blue receptors but also yellow, magenta, and cyan receptors (or more). You can then discern whether the light for a region is truly \"Cyan\" wavelength or whether it is just a mix of blue and green light stimulating blue and green receptors. \n\nTl;Dr it's hacking the color receptors in our eyes to simulate the full rainbow of colors. ",
"Your eyes have three receptors (cone cells) in the back. They see either Red, Blue or Green (its way more complicated than this but the basics can be simplified to this). The monitor is replicating what your eyes can see and by our visual processing we can interpret the information as the spectrum we know. ",
"Been a couple of technically accurate posts, but the best way I've ever seen it put is that it's the difference between projected and reflected light.\n\nPaint is reflected. A monitor is projected. Even if you take 3 projectors of red green and blue and project them onto a white wall, that's still projected light and the convergence of the lamps will show white. ",
"Anything that is a light source (electronics usually) uses RGB, painting and such uses RBY and printing uses CMYK. ",
"Electrical engineer here. I'm late to the party but I know my fair share about electromagnetic waves to chime in on the subject. \n\nI just want to address one very important point that really should have been mentionned in /u/goldgibbon's comment concerning the Red/Green/Blue system in monitor and TV screens: **THEY ARE A LIE**. They absolutely don't make \"any color\" whatsoever, because doing so would violate the [superposition principle](_URL_0_) of electromagnetic waves. In simple terms, this means that when adding, for example, blue and red waves, you don't get a new wave of frequency \"violet\", you simply have red and blue added together and you see both at the same time. There is no new \"frequency\" generated.\n\nThe reason why we see a new color when doing this is because our eyes are kind of dumb; they have cones and rods (which are just cells responding to light) that react way more when there is red, green or blue light coming in, and so they send signals that \"trick\" our brain into seeing colors that aren't there, but in reality there are always only 3 colors on your screen. It's all just a big trick on your brain, nothing else.\n\nIf you're interested, I can elaborate on the subject but I really want to keep it at an ELI5 level at first. But I love to explain stuff so feel free to ask!",
"red/green/blue are the three wavelengths of light that can be combined in equal measure to make white light.\n\nblue/red/yellow is used in the context of mixing pigments, and those absorb (destroy) some of the light that hits them. So when we handle play dough or paint we're mixing light absorbers. Printers use cyan/magenta/yellow because each one of those absorbs only 1 of the primary red/green/blue wavelengths. Cyan is what you see when red light is absorbed, magenta is what you see when green light is absorbed, and yellow is what you see when blue light is absorbed. So using cyan/magenta/yellow allows you to calculate how much of each to use to get the correct red/green/blue light reaching the eye. If you instead used blue/red/yellow ink it would be harder to calculate how much of each to use since red and blue both involve absorbing two wavelengths each (blue is what you get when you take away red and green, red is what you get when you take away green and blue, yellow is what you get when you take away blue).",
"Okay, lots of good but ***loooong-winded*** explanations. \n\nHere's the short, on-point one. \n\nReady? \n\n1. \"Real life\" primary colors are ***not*** red, blue, and yellow. They're actually ***magenta*** (sorta 'red'), ***cyan*** (sorta 'blue'), and yes: yellow (actually yellow... lol) \n\n2. \"Surreal life\" primary colors are red, blue, and green. \n\nNot only are the color sets different, one uses them differently, too: \n\n* \"Real life\" primary colors are used on a ***white background*** and get darker and darker the more of them you add together. \n\n* \"Surreal life\" primary colors are used on a ***black background*** and get lighter and lighter the more of them you add together. \n\nI.e., in technical terms: \"real life\" colors are ***subtractive*** (sh!t gets darker). \"Surreal life\" colors are ***additive*** (sh!t gets lighter). \n\nThat's about all there is to it. \n\nDeal with it. ",
"When you paint with these colors, they are in the form of pigments. You mix them together, and they form a dark brown. Red, green, and blue in compuers are colored light. When they over lap, they make white- not brown! So the answer is that colored light functions differently than what we know from art class.",
"It's the difference between additive versus subtractive colour.\n\nBasically when you're colouring in on a piece of paper using Red, Green or Yellow you start at white(the paper) and the more colour you add the darker the colour becomes. This is why it's called subtractive, as it'll always be darker than it was beforehand.\n\nWhen you're using Red, Green, Blue, they're being emitted by a light source, and when there's no colour it's basically switched off and appears black. As you add more colour it becomes brighter and when you're using high enough values for each your screen will go white. This is called additive colour, as it tends towards white as you add colours to the mix.\n\nTLDR: If you start with a light surface and add colour you make it darker, which is subtractive(RGY). If you start with a dark surface and add colour you make it lighter, which is additive(RGB)",
"Their are two types of primary colors. The red yellow blue version is for colors reflected back filtered from white light and when they are mixed the light reflected is subtracted However, computer screens don't reflect light back they produce light. The colors in the red green blue primary color version when mixed add color's values together not subtract. A good way to remember which is which, is that you can't make yellow with other colors in the subtractive colors but you can with the additives ones.",
"I am pretty sure the basic colors in life are Red, Blue and Yellow. You can get green by mixing yellow and blue...",
"BTW the \"real life\" primary colors are red, blue and yellow, green is a secondary color created from blue and yellow"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattron",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple"
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"http://www.colorpicker.com/ff00ff",
"http://i.imgur.com/AsZWV76.png"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU"
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1xdv3m | how did eli5 go from a place to ask legitimate questions about complex topics to a place to air out one's own sociopolitical opinions like a dae question? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xdv3m/eli5_how_did_eli5_go_from_a_place_to_ask/ | {
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"It didn't, and such questions are explicitly banned: \n\n > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view. ",
"If you find a post that doesn't belong then downvote, report, and move on."
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crgg1f | how exactly can the u.s. "buy" greenland? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crgg1f/eli5_how_exactly_can_the_us_buy_greenland/ | {
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"It can't really. Both Denmark and the people of Greenland would have to agree it and both parties thoroughly don't have any reason to. It's just a situation where our idiot president is trying to figure out a way to make some positive press about himself. Plus he is a pompous toddler who thinks he can just do what he wants and get what he asks for."
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7fijbd | what are the arguments for the insanity defense? | Why shouldn't we abolish the insanity defense? What makes it so important for our society? What ties does it have to criminal justice reform? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fijbd/eli5_what_are_the_arguments_for_the_insanity/ | {
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"The purpose of the criminal justice system is to get justice for the victims and hopefully rehabilitate the criminal into a productive member of society. You cant rehabilitate a crazy person by shoving them into a cell. They arent gonna magically stop being crazy once their sentence ends. Its not like the insanity defense is some magic \"i get to walk free argument\". They will be committed into a mental facility and will hopefully get help so everyone can move on with their life. ",
"Its not really fair to put someone on trial for something they actively cant control. If someones massively hallucinating and they accidentally hurt someone, how can you say that they should be punished for that? The person needs assistance, not punishment. Punishment is for reforming, and you cant reform someone who cant comprehend whats going on or what they did. \n\n \"abolishing\" it comes from this eye for an eye fetish that people, especially americans, seem to have. ",
"Imagine someone drugs you, outside of your consent or control. While drugged, you carry out some heinous act. The police arrest you and present the evidence: you clearly committed the act. What do you say in your defense? You say *I was not in my right mind when it occurred.* That is the insanity defense. \n\nThe intent of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime. This includes removing dangerous individuals from society, presenting punishments that deter criminals from acting, and attempting to rehabilitate convicted criminals so that they may return to being productive members of society. To do this, the system has to define what makes a criminal.\n\nThe general philosophy on what makes a criminal is that there are two parts: an act, and an intent. Remove one or the other and the crime evaporates, either to nothing or to a minor offense. Compare someone who gets into a car crash, causing a fatality, vs someone who shoots someone else in cold blood. Both had the same fundamental act--killing someone--but the shooter will face far, *far* more severe of a punishment.\n\nAt the heart of the insanity defense is the idea that the accused had no ability to possess the required intent to commit a crime. When intent is a required element of a crime this is sufficient to defend against the charge.\n\nInsanity seldom works as a defense, despite what media may have you believe. It's something that you have to actively prove, so if neither you nor the prosecution can make a good argument then the defense defaults to failing (as opposed to something like a lack of evidence, where you're innocent until proven guilty). It's not sufficient to simply declare that you were a little bit out of your mind; you have to convince the jury that you were so far out of your mind that you had no ability to tell right from wrong. That's a very high bar to meet. You also can't be out of your mind due to your own choice. If you take lots of drugs intentionally and are out of your mind because of that then you're still legally responsible for your acts. "
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375f8f | why did ireland hold a popular referendum on same-sex marriage, as opposed to only passing it through parliament like countries such as the uk? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/375f8f/eli5_why_did_ireland_hold_a_popular_referendum_on/ | {
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"Because in Ireland it needed a change in the constitution which specially protects marriage. A constitutional change can only be made via a referendum. The UK doesn't have a written constitution, nor are there any other laws requiring a referendum in such cases. "
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4ivntj | why does uploading slow down my whole internet? | I have a relatively slow connection for today's standards, 4/0.25 MBit. However, whenever I upload something, my whole internet slows down, including download, which I thought was the totally different process.
Why is that so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ivntj/eli5_why_does_uploading_slow_down_my_whole/ | {
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"Downloading stuff is essentially a fast sequence of \n\n > \"Here's stuff you need to memorize, there's thing A, then thing B, then thing C, then... ...And finally, we have thing Z. Did you get all that?\"\n\n > \"Yeah\"\n\n > \"Okay, so, here's how it continues, there's thing 1, then there's thing 2, and then thing 3, then... ...And finally, we have thing 10. You got all that?\"\n\n > \"Yeah\"\n\n > \"Okay, download complete, you got that?\"\n\n > \"Yeah\".\n\nYour response time for these \"yeahs\" will suffer if you use your upload bandwidth to extremes, and the server doesn't want to send you stuff before it has confirmed you have received stuff. Internet inherently has potential to lose messages while they travel, so the only way to guarantee the other end has received a word of the data you wanted them to see, is for the other party to send a confirmation back once they have received the data. If you use your upload bandwidth to the max, you're probably not as quick to respond back, and that extra time you take to send \"yeah\" is all away from using your precious download bandwidth to download more data.",
"Look at it this way:\n\nYour bandwidth is like a road. Both uploading and downloading take place on the same road, and this road isn't separated by a divider so cars (data packets) will take up as much space as they need to get the smoothest traffic flow in their own direction.\n\nYou have a slow connection, which means your road is narrow. If you try to force a large amount of traffic through your narrow road, naturally there will be a jam because the cars going in one direction are hogging all the lanes and forcing the cars going the other way into a single lane. "
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34r0oy | why do you sleep in till noon even though you went to bed early? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34r0oy/eli5_why_do_you_sleep_in_till_noon_even_though/ | {
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"There are a few reasons:\n\n1. You need rest. Perhaps you have not slept enough recently. Or perhaps you are you and growing. Maybe you are sick.\n\n2. You are depressed.\n\n3. You aren't actually sleeping well. Your total actual sleep is not enough. This could be everything from a form of insomnia to sleep apnea."
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2v8qsm | what is isis's endgame goal here, to terrorize people into believing muslim faith? | I don't get it, lets piss off the whole world, destroy historical sites, hold philanthropists hostage, and do it all in the name of religion. is that whats going on? because I'm seriously thinking in my head wtf... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v8qsm/eli5what_is_isiss_endgame_goal_here_to_terrorize/ | {
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"Islam arose from a small tribe of desert warriors who achieved military victories against two ancient and powerful empires - the Romans and the Persians. It consolidated those victories and added those cultures to its Arabic roots, eventually fielding armies as far as Portiers in western Europe, the gates of Vienna in eastern Europe, and halfway down the Indian subcontinent.\n\nThe idea that a band of warriors in the desert who win miraculous victories against overwhelming odds due to their pious natures and willingness to follow the words of the Prophet, give their defeated foes the choice to convert or die, and who go on to conquer the world isn't just some kind of bizarre fairytale. It's real history. It actually happened. And it could happen again. The idea is very attractive to people who would like to see Islam become a worldwide religion and for every human soul to be won for Allah.",
"Islam from its very beginning has been spread by the sword. Their goal is to establish a worldwide Caliphate (nation operating under Islam), impose Sharia law on the entire world, and either convert or kill all persons.\n\nThe interesting thing is that these ideas are pretty much in line with exactly what the Koran and particularly the Hadiths teach, and how Mohammed lived, lead, and fought. This is one of the reasons why despite their acts of total barbarism, you do not see *many* mainstream Muslims going out of their way to actively oppose them. Yes, some may oppose the tactics or see some of their more heinous acts as outdated and archaic, but the fundamental beliefs of spreading Islam to the entire world, by force if necessary, and forcing all humans to live under Sharia law is congruent with basic Islamic teaching in general. While their actions *may* be very different, the foundation of faith for the ISIS member in Syria and the Muslim American in a place like Dearborn MI is actually very similar. Hence not much active opposition. It's like the line from that Chris Rock special \"I'm not saying her should have killed her...but I understand\". Well mainstream Muslims aren't saying they *should* cut heads off and burn people.....but they understand."
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f5w45c | what is a copycat suicide? | when i hear and see news coverage of suicides, as an attempt survivor and mental illness haver i often feel many and mixed feelings in response to this. often like that should/could have been me or i want/can emulate the same. is this the phenomenon of copycat suicide? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f5w45c/eli5_what_is_a_copycat_suicide/ | {
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"Copycat suicide usually refers to someone killing themselves in the same manner as someone else, similar to copycat murder. So like, if someone who wants notoriety or admires the attention the suicide victim got, hears about how they went about it, goes out and uses the same technique to end their own life, that’s a copycat suicide.\n\nIf you are having suicidal thoughts, please seek legitimate help. Even an anonymous hotline can get dark thoughts and feelings off your chest and help a lot."
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2i423p | if most cables are just copper wire, what makes one cable different from any other? | I have an extremely limited understanding of cables, so what makes one different from another? If its just the adapter/plug why hasn't somebody made a chord that has replaceable/changeable adapter head? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i423p/eli5_if_most_cables_are_just_copper_wire_what/ | {
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"Different numbers of wires in the cable, different wire thicknesses, and different amounts of shielding.",
"There's a couple of variables. \n\nCAT5 cable for example is twisted pair cabling. Inside the CAT5 cable there are 4 pairs of wire that have been twisted, only one wire in each pair carries signal because the other is used to control for EM interference. \n\nUSB cables I believe are just straight wire. (At least USB 2.0 was, not sure about 3.0+) and there's only 4 wires in the cable. \n\nThat said, I do believe it's possible to wire a USB end onto a CAT5 cable, but the wires in USB tend to be thicker than the wires in CAT5 and you might have signal loss. It's also possible to get CAT5 cables in absurdly long lengths, which USB just flat out doesn't work with because of the interference.",
"I'm sure you must have some useless cables lying around the house? Take a pair of scissors, and cut a few of them up (having made sure they're not plugged into anything first!)\n\nYou'll see various differences. \n\nA [network cable](_URL_1_) has eight quite thin wires, wrapped around each other in pairs - twisting the pairs is how it deals with interference from external sources.\n\n[Shielded cables](_URL_0_) are another way of reducing interference. They tend to get used for audio, and also for radio frequency signals, such as the signal from a satellite dish or TV aerial. The foil or braid screen around the whole thing works to keep interference out. Inside that, there will be one or more wires - in an audio cable, having multiple wires might mean that you can carry more than one audio signal, such as for stereo.\n\nIf you look at the wire for your electrical appliances that connects them to the wall, you might see that they're all different thicknesses. A table lamp has a thin wire, because your table lamp doesn't use much power. If you have a washing machine or dryer, its cable will be a lot thicker, because it uses more power. What these cables won't have, unlike the ones above, is a way of reducing interference, because you normally don't care if you're getting interference on the mains, but it can cause real issues with audio or network cables."
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2412fv | why do humans get floating spots in their eyes when they look at the sun for too long? | I was just looked up at the sun and I wanted to figure out why. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2412fv/eli5why_do_humans_get_floating_spots_in_their/ | {
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"The cells in your eyes trigger synapses by releasing chemicals. Enough chemical gets released and it saturated the receptors leaving a lingering visual artifact that will clear once the chemical clears out."
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761xqi | why does it take babies such a long time to learn basic motor skills compared to animals that are able to do it close within a month or even as soon as they're born? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/761xqi/eli5_why_does_it_take_babies_such_a_long_time_to/ | {
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"The human brain is amazingly complicated, more so than that of pretty much any other land critter. In order for that to work, we need big heads. The problem with this is that the human pelvis is too narrow to squeeze out a baby if the baby's head were much bigger than it is, so the brain is less developed at birth for humans than for other primates. Less development in the brain means human babies need longer to learn everything they need to grow up and be successful humans. Language is literally a huge part of our brains, and it takes a long time to sort out, never mind walking on two legs besides that.",
"Humans suck at giving birth. We have really large heads to house our brains, and really small hips. Because of this, humans babies have to come out relatively early in development. If we waited until they where developed enough to have strong motor skills they wouldn't fit through the birth canal and would likely kill the mother during birth. ",
"Because we walk upright we have a different hip-structure than most other creatures. Our hips are much narrower.\n\nAnd because we have larger brains We require larger skulls which in turn would require wider hips to come out fully formed.\n\nInstead, we come out partially mature with soft skulls and lacking motor controls. These instead develop over time.\n\nIt is a compromise of upright stature and intelligence.",
"Babies cannot walk because their nervous system is not mature enough. Axons(imagine them like long tails of neurons) connect the brain with the spine and then with the muscles. In order for axons to work and carry the information of movement they need to be covered with myelin, which works as a protection and makes the info travel faster. The myelination process takes time.",
"Compared to other placental mammals, our babies are born very premature. While one theory is head size vs pelvis, another theory about the timing of birth is that the mother's body just can't metabolically continue to sustain *two* oversized brains (twins are often born earlier). \n\nSo, while newborns do have the reflexes necessary to walk, resources were so intensely focused on brain growth that they don't have the muscle to act upon those reflexes. ",
"The other explanations cover the biggest and most important answer but I'll add one more critical factor: humans are a social animal that have the ability through herd protection, tool use, and intelligence to actually ALLOW us to look after a baby for its first few years. So a part of the answer is \"because we can survive it.\"\n\nThere's different strategies for giving birth to helpless babies with survival rates that are enough to keep the species going. Many mammals, particularly rodents find a hiding spot for their large litters of small babies. Marsupials have an equivalent to a \"second womb\" that allows the baby to stay safe and nurtured even after birth. Many birds split nest-sitting duties with gathering food until the fledglings are old enough.\n\nBut with humans, we establish a social support network that allows a parent or surrogate parent to look after newly born helpless kids instead of devoting 100% of their time doing other stuff that's necessary for survival. And this approach to role specialization was good enough for our ancestors to have enough surviving kids so we could thrive.",
"Because our babies don't die if they can't walk within a week. We carry them around and look after them.\n\nIf a wild animal baby can't walk within a week, it gets eaten and therefore doesn't reproduce. So the only lineage that survives is the one with babies that are born running basically.",
"So an equivalent would be birds? They are hatched defenceless and have to be looked after. (I can't think of any mammalian equivalent). ",
"This is what you would call precocious young (ability beyond years) vs. articial young (slow developing)\n\nI have a test on this tomorrow. ",
"Found this:\n\n > **Why are babies so immature?**\n\n > Adult-like locomotor patterns come much earlier for many species. For example, a newborn horse walks within hours of birth. There are two factors to consider. One is that humans are an “altritial” species, meaning that we are relatively poorly developed at the time of birth. As described in detail above, a newborn’s spinal cord and brain are not ready for walking. Second, the human two-legged pattern of locomotion is particularly complex — balancing would be much easier if we had four feet on the ground. Walking feels simple, natural, and thought-free. It’s not. Programming this remarkable capacity into our nervous system takes a particular level of development followed by years of trial-and-error learning.\n\n[source](_URL_0_)",
"There are a lot of comments explaining the basic motor aspect of development and framing it as a pelvis size to baby head issue. This is one older theory that does not stand up as well as another newer one (I’ve posted about it elsewhere on the thread but I’ll post it again). \n\nHuman babies are born developmentally premature for one main physiologic reason. There may be other non-physiological benefits (ie the socialization and language development during infancy that other primates do not devote energy towards). \n\nIt has less to do with pelvis size and more to do with the baby needing more energy (to grow its brain). While it’s true that babies heads would struggle to fit through the birth canal, there are other primates who have the same issue despite having relatively much smaller brains. This evidence may suggest that another factor besides size is at play. If you look at energy expenditures of the fetus, it happens to be that birth occurs at the moment they require more energy than they are getting via the placenta. They are essentially hungry for breast milk. This mechanism may be how birth is regulated in all mammals, but I only learned it in the context of human evolution. \n\nNow, there are two types of genes which are battling against each other: one to ensure the baby is small enough to be safely birthed, and one to ensure the baby is big and strong. Either the mother or father pass on one of these types, and there are common genetic diseases related to the malfunction of their expression. These would be Prader Willi (father gene turned off) or Angelman (mother gene turned off) syndromes. \n\nEdit: I’ve got a few minutes of free time, so I just wanted to expand on the last part: Prader Willi is characterized by children who have insatiable hunger. They lack their father’s gene (either being turned off or by having two copies of mom’s). This makes sense in the context of “genetic birth wars”; the mother gene wants the baby to be birthed sooner, so the fetus needs to feel hungry sooner. Angelman is not characterized by any hunger/satiety issues, but I’m not sure what this says about the genetic battle between Mom and Dad. ",
"No one else seems to have brought this up yet, so I thought I'd point out that there's a massive difference in what's considered 'basic' between humans and other animals. Walking on two legs is *hard* compared to walking on four. The kind of fine motor control you see babies learn in the two years of their life - grasping, rotating etc - is about as good as some species of primates get. Even aside from humans being born essentially premature, there's just so much more to learn about fundamental movement, and those fundamentals let us move on to incredible things. ",
"Human babies develop 'half baked' and with a much less widely established brain. Think of it as the difference between a tiny computer like an Arduino or raspberry pi compared to a graphing calculator. Because there aren't a whole lot of built in functions on the Arduino, it can be much more versatile. The calculator on the other hand has very specific but rigid capabilities.\n\nThe key difference, though, is that the Arduino needs to be programmed. The graphing calculator may be programmed in simple ways, but doesn't hold a candle to the Arduino. But programming the Arduino takes time, and effort.\n\nBy developing without automatic (instinctive) capabilities, humans have to learn to control their own bodies explicitly, and have to learn on their own how to walk, and talk, and move their hands... But because the controls aren't 'set in stone', it opens the controller up to a much more diverse set of capabilities.",
"compared to many mammals, we are underdeveloped at birth. one of the major things that happens through the first year of life is that the branches of our nervous system become myelinated and thus under our control. myelination occurs in different directions -- cephalo-caudal and proximal-distal (i.e. from head to toe and from the centre outward). as myelination progresses, we develop control over our limbs, and then we start to refine our co-ordination. ",
"In order for humans to walk upright we have developed much narrower hips than our prehuman ancestors. As a result, death in childbirth has been a huge factor in premature death in humans ever since. As a result, natural selection has led to humans being born much earlier in to pregnancy than they otherwise would be since smaller babies at birth are more likely to survive, as is the mother. Hence human babies are extremely underdeveloped at birth compared to other animals. It's a really interesting result of natural selection that such a seemingly major disadvantage was selected for due to something as seemingly minor as hip width. ",
"Harari in Sapiens also says that Human kids are born premature when compared to other species, and they develop out of womb more than them. That could be a reason?",
"I learned that in Animal Science from my agronomy studies.\nThe animals you are talking about are mostly preys. They have to kow how to walk/run pretty early in case they need to flee if there is a predator. \nPredators (like wolves, humans, ...) usually don't need to learn this as soon.\nThere is also what we call parental care. Litters exist because survival of the fittest and those babies don't receive that much parental care so they have to know how to be autonome very fast. However, for other species they will have one baby per pregnancy because the parental care is superior. Parents will be around much longer to protect and teach their younglings. So, this offspring might develop slowly.\n\nHumans are a mix of both from what I can remember.\n",
"my theory is, because we are the Alpha Predator,we are not being hunted therefore our babies do not need to learn how to walk right away and run. so instead those resources are put into a better brain/body development, and because they are helpless you endup learning how to take care of them even better and start getting smarter to help them develop further and add generations of this and you eventually endup with entire buildings and or centers with hundreds of people dedicated to their development and protection from all kinds of danger. \n\nour dumb babies forced us to be smarter.\nwe carry them so they can carry our society. ",
"Humans are omnivores, but also strong predators. Our main hunting ability, unlike claws or talons, come from our massive brains, which takes a lot of fat to both create, sustain, and then grow. These brains are heavy though, resulting in some wacky evolutionary adaptions (our women can barely run compared to the male sex, simply because their hips are so widely spaced to allow enough room for these large heads to pass through the birth canal) . \n\nNow predators commonly prey on the old, the sick, and the defenseless. Prey animals are born and can immediately run, because guess what, if they just sat there like a lump for two+ years and relied on their parents to bring them vegetation, they just weren't going to make it matey. Something was going to find them, and then eat them alive. Cue screaming.\n\nMeanwhile many predators have the luxury of developing slowly. They have a social structure that supports hunting for the young. Either pack hunting, or the female hunts typically (I can't think or a single example where the male typically does all the hunting besides humans, but I could be wrong). This gives the predator youngling time to grow these evolutionary expensive adaptive mechanisms or traits that allow it to hunt down and kill fully grown, incredibly fast prey animals. \n\nTl;dr\nBrains take a lot of juice, since they are the humanities main survival and hunting weapon. They are big, heavy, and take a lot of fat. You will never see a baby kill a creature, simply because these gigantic globes that are a 1/3 the size of their bodies pin them to the bed most the time. If prey animals don't run, they die. ",
"Babies are dumb. Esp human babies. They cant catch, they cant throw, they cant file taxes, not even a 1040 EZ. I mean, its like 5 lines to fill out, one of which is your name! UGH \nNo but seriously, There are 2 things , and both are realated to the brain. \n1. humans have the one of the biggest brains per size of all mammals. Thats hard to get out of the pelvis. to do this, the most of the other bones in the baby are done forming when they are born EXCEPT the skull. The skull stays flexible because the babies brain will grow immensely during the first few years of living outside the womb. After its done most of its growing, the skull gets hard. If you have ever heard of protecting a babies \"soft spot on their head\" that is exactly what is happeing. \n2. Since the humans need such a big brain, but it cant get through the birth canal with one, it has to grow OUTSIDE the womb. It spends most of its energy growing that brain and developing during the first few years to have a bigger brain later. This puts a cost however, as some innate qualities like you said (running, jumping, eyes, etc) are not quite able to be in there before the baby is born. ",
"Human beings have lots of afferent and few internuncial neural structures: we have the [highest association cortex (thinking) ratio to sensory cortext (motor)](_URL_0_). \n\nSo we have a brain-power trade-off. Human babies are born with the biology to begin thinking intelligently and learn, acquire language, and thus have the kind of unique sociality that human's display. That comes at the expense of motor function biology.",
"The simple answer is that humans are born with underdeveloped brains relative to other animals. What you might also be wondering is, why are humans born with underdeveloped brains? \n\nThe answer to this is a little more complicated and, to be clear, there is not one single fully-accepted explanation. Two major competing theories are (1) the obstetric dilemma and (2) the energetics, gestation, growth hypothesis. Here's a snippet from a slide that I present to my class (Intro Psyc) on these two theories:\n\n(1) Obstetric dilemma: Human birth canal very narrow because of bipedalism (i.e., as proto-humans transitioned to walking on two legs, this severely narrowed the birth canal); birth canal is too narrow to accommodate brain (and head) development of infant past approximately 40 weeks gestation (i.e., 9-months into pregnancy). In short, brain underdevelopment mostly about female anatomy (size of birth canal).\n\n(2) Energetics, gestation, growth hypothesis: Fetal development requires increasingly large amounts of energy (from mom) to support; mom’s safe limit (i.e., the amount of energy she can provide baby without putting her [and baby's] health in serious jeopardy) reached at approximately 40 weeks; going into labor at 40 weeks basically saves the life of mom and baby, but at the cost of an underdeveloped brain. Post-birth development supported by energy-rich and efficiently produced breastmilk. In short, brain underdevelopment mostly about fetal energy requirements.\n\nBoth theories have evidence for and against them. My hunch is that they're probably both playing a role in babies' underdeveloped brains.\n\n",
"Your question had been answered (wish I got here sooner to give my two cents), but I want to recommend the book \"Sapiens\" to you. Talks about this topic and many more like it and it's nothing short of awesome.",
"The evolution of our brain happened too quickly. And the female body didn't get enough time to adapt to a larger head. So babies started coming out with heads that could fit through the birth canal. And now the female body has adapted to birthing babies with underdeveloped brains, which now develop outside the body.",
"Humans are huge. To be born able to walk, talk, and be fully ready to be a normal human being would like the mother. Imagine giving birth to a 2 year old. So, babies are born prematurely. As mammals, the mother takes care of the babies until they are ready. Eventually the father began to help to defend the family, as humans weren’t the strongest or fastest. We are the smartest. So, with a lot of smart people, we rose to the top. With a strong family, it doesn’t matter if the child is born prematurely because everyone protects each other. Over time we became more advanced on this concept by making gender roles, females would stay home with the child as she can feed him and she is valuable and the man hunts for food. Then, we began planting food and so on. Humans are so fucking smart I feel so patriotic now.",
"A lot of the other answers here are missing some of the most important stuff, so here goes. Based on some anthropology and biology courses I took in University, it boils down to this:\nThe more important learning is to an organism, the longer their childhood tends to be, the fewer instincts they have, and the more dependency they have when young. Humans are born with very few instincts beyond the most primitive ones needed for survival (e.g. suckling for milk). Other animals rely on learning and culture and social structures, but none come close to the extent that humans rely on these.\n\nA baby deer is able to walk right after being born because it is really, really important that it be mobile from the start. Deer depend on hiding and running away, and aren't particularly smart or fierce. Humans, however, rely on their brains to get by, and the development of that brain is more important than anything else, but it takes *time* since the knowledge needs to be learned. Also, a lot of the motor skills we develop are also quite complex compared to what other animals rely on as well (most animals use limbs quite well, but humans do a lot of stuff with fingers, and consider the number of joints in your hand compared to the rest of the arm to consider the implications of how much muscle coordination is required - something that also requires time to learn).\n\nIn utero humans aren't really developing their motor skills, but they are capable of listening to conversations (not following them, but the beginning of learning language starts with listening and identifying speakers and tone and that sort of thing), and all of this is in the name to fast-track the capacity to learn from other humans. The motor skills newborns do develop involve learning - putting stuff in the hand, putting that stuff in the mouth (i.e. study it), and most early mobility is also in the service of curiosity (crawl over to object, put object in hand, put object in mouth).\n\nLearning is the most important skill for human survival, the purpose of childhood is for learning, the reason childhood goes on for as long as it does is because there is a lot of important learning to be done, and we are engineered to maximize learning more than anything else, even things that are basic survival needs for other organisms.",
"Humans have been under evolutionary pressure to have bigger brains for a long time now. This has resulted in babies being born with as large a brain, and head, as is possible. Any larger, and the risk of death to mothers giving birth would become too high. But evolution has found another way for humans to have larger brains: be born somewhat immaturely. As a result, the babies are born with immature brains that continue to grow after they're born. These brains are less ready to take on the tasks of independent (post-womb) life immediately after birth than those of other animals.",
"When we evolved to walk upright, our pelvic bones tilted, further narrowing the birth canal and those that survived had babies earlier. 9 months is premature but we compensate for having helpless infants by putting them in our clothing/houses.",
"IIRC humans are born undeveloped because the baby's head can only grow to a certain size for it to fit through the mother's birth canal.\nI think the head and shoulder are the widest parts.\n",
"The comedy of man starts like this\nOur brains are way too big for our mothers' hips\nAnd so nature, she divines this alternative\nWe emerge half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end\nIs kind enough to fill us in\nAnd, babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since",
"Human baby's are born earlier in their development compared to other animals. I forgot why though sorry."
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84hfbp | how does expelling diplomats from your country punish the other country more than yours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/84hfbp/eli5_how_does_expelling_diplomats_from_your/ | {
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"It's really more about the diplomats being, or enabling, spies. If they're not inside your country, it's a lot harder for them to do that. Also, the purpose of the embassy isn't as much about relations between the government of the UK and Russia, it's more about the businesses of the UK and Russia. That means shutting it down or reducing it hurts Russia's economy a bit."
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4lnwce | why are antibiotic resistant bacteria such a big deal? shouldn't the immune system be able to fight bacteria without the aid of antibiotics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lnwce/eli5_why_are_antibiotic_resistant_bacteria_such_a/ | {
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"No... we should be dying a lot faster than we are.\n\nOne of the big points of civilization was that we stopped dying to disease as much as nature intended. We *killed* one of the four horseman of the Apocalypse!...\n\nExcept that we didn't... or at least the horseman is swinging back with a vengeance.",
"Bacteria change, so do we. But the price for adaptation would be to let people die of infections so only the immune reproduce. \n\n\nThat is no longer considered an acceptable sacrifice. ",
" > Shouldn't the immune system be able to fight bacteria without the aid of antibiotics?\n\nIf that were true we wouldn't need antibiotics at all, now would we? There would be no such thing as disease because our immune systems would handle anything the world threw at us.\n\nOur immune systems are pretty good at their job but they're not perfect, and pathogens have evolved to be quite good at subverting our defenses.",
"It seems like you could make that argument about all medicine. Shouldn't we just be able to heal or fight stuff off? Our immune system and healing processes are good, but medicine has always worked by aiding those processes or doing stuff they can't do.\n\nTake a look at this graph of historical death rates, along with major medical advancements like antibiotics and vaccines: _URL_0_\n\nAlso, you know how average life expectancy keeps going up? A huge hunk of that is because babies and little kids don't die nearly as much as they used to due to this stuff. Remember, when they calculate life expectancy with averages, those zeros and ones really pull the average down.",
"The immune system does a good chance of fighting bacteria. The fact that we're not all sick 24/7 is testament to that. But it can't win every war.\n\nJust read up on disease in the past. Massive epidemics that wiped out populations. More soldiers dying to infection than gunshots. Smallpox and Polio being rites of passage that many children went through. Just the fact there are so many people alive today is in no small part thanks to antibiotics and modern medicine keeping more children alive to adulthood. Having like a dozen kids used to be common because that's what it took, so many of them died before growing up.\n\nShit was bad, and if an antibiotic-resistant disease went epidemic it could kill lots and *lots* of people. There's even a non-zero chance a strain could mutate to be more deadly and basically end civilization. Even if it doesn't bring us to the edge of extinction, it wouldn't take much to basically shut down society as we know it, bringing in anarchy and annihilating the economy.\n\nIt's not *quite* the end of the world yet. There are alternative non-antibiotic treatments out there, and generally the most effective methods are preventative rather than treating after the fact. It's a lot harder for bacteria to mutate resistances to soap, alcohol, boiling water, or bleach than it is for them to manage antibiotics.\n\nAnd it's not like we can't make a new antibiotic. But the problem there is how big pharma works. Any new antibiotic made now would be held as a last resort against new resistant strains. That means not many people are using it, and that means not many people are buying it, and that means the pharmaceutical company isn't making much money. So there's very little economic incentive to make new ones, and if we wait to try and make more until after a resistant disease has sprung up, it might be too late."
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94hrem | how do the currency exchange store gain profit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/94hrem/eli5_how_do_the_currency_exchange_store_gain/ | {
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"Take a cut of the traded amount. \nTrade in a dollar for 2 pounds and they might take a 20 p cut leaving you with 1.80",
"You have 5 cookies. \n\n\nYou want 2 muffins. \n\n\nEvery one knows that 1 muffin = 2 cookies. \n\n\nI tell you that I'll trade you two muffins for 5 cookies. You tell me the muffins are worth 2 cookies.\n\n\nI explain the 5th cookie is the fee for trading.\n\n\nEssentially this means that currency exchange places are not doing the real conversion, they ask for a little more than what your desired currency is worth."
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2x8zi3 | if the moon has no atmosphere, why couldn't you make a satellite that orbits one inch off the ground? | (one inch from the highest point) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x8zi3/eli5_if_the_moon_has_no_atmosphere_why_couldnt/ | {
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"The satellite has to be essentially falling perpendicular to the surface of the moon to maintain orbit and escape velocity. No atmosphere just eliminates air resistance for the satellite which in turn would lower the velocity requirements of the object to maintain an orbit because there is less to overcome.\n\n\nOn top of that, the moon isn't a perfect sphere. The only way I could see maintaining a low orbit would be with the assistance of a multitude of thrusters which over time would run out of fuel. The \"natural\", or unassisted, low orbit would be significantly higher than 1 inch.",
"Theoretically you could but \"one inch from the highest point\" is a very very small error margin. Small differences in the strength of the moon's gravity (for example, places with denser rock have stronger gravity) would be more than enough to deviate the trajectory enough to cause a crash.",
"As /u/SuperMo83 wrote, it has nothing to do with the atmosphere. The closer a satellite orbits around the planet, the faster it has to orbit. For example a satellite orbiting Earth at an altitude of 160km needs to orbit Earth once every 88 minutes, while a satellite at an altitude of 35,786 kilometers needs to orbit Earth every 24 hours.",
"Very low lunar orbit it possible, though there are some issues that affect the orbits stability. One if these is the gravitational pull of the earth and the sun. Their effects would be tiny, but it doesn't take much to disrupt a VLL orbit.",
"You actually could, but you'd have to be traveling very fast.\n\n[Data sheet on moon](_URL_0_). List of moon related stats.\n[Orbital speed](_URL_1_).\n\nCouple of things. Escape velocity of the moon is 2.38 km/s. And the simplified version of the orbiting velocity Vo = Ve/(2)^1/2 gives you an orbiting velocity of 1.683 km/s. That said, although very thin, the moon does have an atmosphere, specifically:\nAbundance at surface: 2 x 10^5 particles/cm3\n\nSo you'd have to travel at about Mach 5 (on earth as I don't know what the speed of sound on the moon is). At that point, even though the atmosphere of the moon is thin, you'd be hitting a ton of things simply because you'd be going so fast. Likely this would slow you down enough that you'd kerplunk and crash into the moon.",
"A) The moon has few stable orbits since its mass distribution and thus gravitational field is not ideal so an orbitting satellite will tend to deviate from it's original trajectory.\n\nB) there is a very low margin of error and say your fast moving satellite clips a loose pebble. not good. \n\nC) lets say a kilometer from the lowest point for safety. given that point A happens, a satellite could (and most likely, eventually will) deviate into the ground. satellites in higher orbits tend to deviate as well but the effect is less noticable since the difference in gravitational field strength is less noticable at higher altitudes. \n\nD) the lower you are in an orbit the faster you will travel with respect to the ground. at the higher speeds of a low orbit a satellite probably won't be able to do any useful science. it could send back some cool pictures though!",
"If the moon (and the satellite in question):\n\n* had no atmosphere\n* was perfectly spherical\n* had a perfectly homogeneous composition\n* was not near an other gravity sources or other forms of interference\n\nyou could in theory have a satellite an inch off the ground.\n\nIn practice, interference from the earth's gravity and gravitational anomalies within the moon make all lunar orbits unstable over time."
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azec28 | why are my (f) nipples censored but not male nipples? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azec28/eli5_why_are_my_f_nipples_censored_but_not_male/ | {
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"I think its mainly down to the sexualisation of the female chest compared with the male chest. A topless man isn’t seen to be sexual, compared to a topless female. Its been that way for a long time, so it will probably take a long time before it equals its self out. Just my two cents though. ",
"It depends on where you are. In many places in Europe the female nipples aren't censored.\n\nBasically, it depends on how your society developed. Sexism, probably some (a lot of) religious influence."
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34aepx | how do people keep large predators as pets? | I've seen pictures of people treating tigers and lions like house cats especially in Dubai how is that possible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34aepx/eli5_how_do_people_keep_large_predators_as_pets/ | {
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"Are you referring to legally, or practically?\n\nLegally, if you have enough money, there are ways of owning basically any animal you want. In some countries, it's far easier.\n\nPractically, like any other animal. Train them, tame them, keep them well fed, and in a strong cage. \n\nWith that said, they're still non-domesticated and powerful predators. When they decide they want to eat you, the neighborhood kids, or other animals, there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. Just like a gentle dog may bite one day, a gentle tiger or lion may bite one day-but they do far more damage."
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ph52t | what is the fair trade movement and where is it headed? | What is fair trade? What would happen if it got more popular? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ph52t/eli5_what_is_the_fair_trade_movement_and_where_is/ | {
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"Fair trade is paying labor more than the market has determined they're worth.\n\nIf it got more popular, things would get a LOT more expensive very fast, and anyone with a low skill service job would suffer immensely while low skilled labor in manufacturing and farming would probably benefit somewhat. "
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6o0w32 | why are mating rituals, such as octopuses ripping off a tentacle or a praying mantis eating the males head, passed down? do they just learn it by instinct? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6o0w32/eli5_why_are_mating_rituals_such_as_octopuses/ | {
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"First, your examples are not mating *rituals*. They are mating behaviours.\n\nOctopus rips off ~~tentacle~~ arm, because that arm (called *hectocotylus*) is actually an autonomous female-seeking semen carrier (yes, octopuses are *that* freaking weird/awesome). Praying mantis female simply would eat anyone, and male have chance to mate by presenting something to stuff her mouth (or is that what spiders do?). Sometimes they get away before female finishes her meal, sometimes not. And its all good for babies, anyway - male's genes are already accounted for, so it doesn't matter what happens to him afterwards.\n\nNow, by mating rituals they mean specific instinctive behaviour used for choosing mating partner but not leading directly to mating. Usually it is some form of dancing, fighting other males (either actually fighting or by ~~rap battles~~ contests of songs, bright feathers and such. Male mantis presenting food for female is a ritual, too.\n\nAs for why they do this from evolution viewpoint - AFAIK this still considered unsolved. There are several theories on [sexual selection](_URL_0_). One, handicap theory, says that male that can spend resources on otherwise useless things like ~~jewelry~~ bright feathers (more visible to predators) is more able at survival. Still, I heard there are some problems with this theory.",
"Insects eating each other as a result of mating behaviours is fairly rare. It does occasionally happen in Mantids, as you mentioned, as with spiders. Even then, natural occurrences (not in captivity) are rare. \n\nWhen they do occur however, it has been shown to be linked (in spiders at least) to the initial personality of the female - if she's a angry fucker and has a size advantage, the male is at serious risk. If they're more evenly matched it often occurs without incident. This personality factor matters for tarantulas too - from what I know of breeding them, the more aggressive and jumpy spiders are harder to breed, specifically because of risk to the male (amongst other things). \n\nAs for the evolutionary why, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that post mating, your genes really dont matter much. If you're only going to breed one to two times, it's very very hard for any evolutionary pressure to occur on post mating problems. Problems might appear, like a tendency toward getting cancer, but even if it kills every animal in the group it doesn't matter because they've already wed. If you get better odds for your offspring by offering yourself up as an hors d'oeuvre, thats more evolutionary meaningful than any remaining aspect of life. \n\nSpiders rarely eat the male, but tarantulas (male) do die very soon after reaching their maximum age, whilst the females continue to live for many years/decades to come. This has the effect of massively skewing the male/female balance of mature spiders in a local population, which benefits the species. More odds of the male encountering a female spider, more odds of males getting have two chances at making baby spiders. It could have something to do with this as well - artificial one child policy for optimal gender control",
"I'm not sure about the whole octopus tentacle tearing, and I think it's better to consider the praying mantis eating the head of it's male mate an act of survival rather than a mating ritual.\n\nHowever, there are mating rituals such as dances that can certainly seem odd...\n\nTo understand what is happening, one must consider things from the perspective of genes.\n\nGenes don't think or feel, but it's a handy tool to think of the gene as a greedy thing that wants to survive and spread. In reality, it doesn't care about anything. It's just that all the genes that don't survive and spread tend to die off and cease to be around, and when the gene is gone, it can't induce traits in a species.\n\nThe genes of the female praying mantis \"want\" to do anything that ensures they propagate and survive better. To the female's genes, the male is a ticket to reproduction. There is some value in keeping the male alive so that it can enable the female's genes to pass to another generation....\nHowever, as soon as the male has served its use to the female genes, it is no longer helpful to keep it alive. The male is a food source for the female, and so once the male serves its reproductive purpose, it is fair game for eating in order to ensure that the female has enough energy to continue to serve its genes in the task of reproduction.\n\nWhy would the male ever put it's self in a situation of such certain death? Because to the male's genes, it doesn't care about what happens to the male after firtilization. There is no use in a male mantis that doesn't mate to save it's skin. The genes prefer that the mantis dies to make babies than to live, not make babies and die eventually anyway.\n\nBasically, everything about life on earth is defined by this basic principle of things evolving to perform whatever tasks best enable life to propagate, by random creation of new genes through mutation, and selection of the most effective genes by elimination of less effecive ones.\n\n# Mating rituals\n\nMating rituals are normally the result of what is called \"sexual selection\". In sexual selection, an individual, normally a female, will be careful to select it's mates because the female has to invest a lot of time and energy into producing offspring, so care must be taken to ensure that the the male she mates with; as donor of 50 percent of her children's genes; provides the healthiest genes available so as to increase the chances of survival of her own genes within those offspring.\n\nSo females in many species often tend to observe males to make sure they are fit and capable before mating with them, as weak, unhealthy or injured males are more likely to create children that are weak, unhealthy, or likely to injure themselves.\n\nAnd males therefore evolve behaviors to exhibit their healthiness and even evolve decietful activity to increase their chances, and this arms-race between females trying to figure out how good a mate a male is and males contantly trying to appear to be good mates even if they aren't leads to some quite complex behavior.\n\nA lot of the time we don't even know exactly why they do what they do, but sexual selection for the sake of getting a survival advantage is our best guess.\n\nMaybe birds do some dances to show off their ability to move: a skill injured birds are lacking in...\nMaybe parrots mimic the sounds of other things as mating calls because it shows off some form of intelligence helpful to survival?\n\nBut we can probably bet that if performing these complex rituals takes a lot of energy, but doesn't lead to any survival advantage for the genes, the animals wouldn't evolve them.\n\n# How the heck do animals know how to do it?\n\nGenes. While mating rituals can certainly incorporate elements learned by experience; such as parrots learning different calls, they tend to be dominated by instinctual behavior.\n\nThis is behavior that an animal will perform even if it is never shown how to.\n\nThe only way to explain how the animal knows to do this behavior is that it is the result of some sort of fixed pattern put into the brain during development by genes. Certain stimuli lead the brain to perform certain actions leading to certain behaviors.\n\nFor instance, you eat a food, it produces a unique taste, and you somehow know that the taste is good and you for some reason want to eat more. You never had to have it explained to you that this food has this taste and you should eat things that taste like this because you need food to live. Your brain just automatically creates the positive reinforcement mechanism without being taught because your genes know roughly what good food tastes like. You don't have to teach kids to like candy. They like candy because candy tastes sweet and sweet is the taste of sugar and sugar is full of energy.\nYou don't need to be taught that keeping your energy levels high is good so you should eat sugar because your genes already encoded the want to consume sugar in your brain.\n\nDo humans have mating rituals? There's a question! Do we only like to dance to a catchy tune because it allowed our hunter-gatherer ancestors to assess each other's ability to move?\n\n\n\n\n"
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1wsiah | is there a physical example that negative numbers represent? | I can't think of any real use for negative numbers. I searched the history of it. Apparently it started to gain traction when used for expessing financial debt. But that isn't real bc you owe money. You borrow more and the debt increases even though the number decreases. I don't give away or borrow five apples and now the apples are negative, they just changed location. With graphs in real life, you could just use directions and say you went south from the origen rather than -y. So is there a physical substantive example in life where a negative number is expressed?
Edit: Thanks for the responses. I guess the point is that math is purely symbolic and negative numbers are symbols of symbols. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wsiah/eli5_is_there_a_physical_example_that_negative/ | {
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"Debt is the most real example I can think if.",
"I asked my bank manager about this once and he said that that '-' symbol means to keep giving him money or he will take my house.",
"Temperature scale. Physical example.",
"Temperature in Celsius, not in Kelvin thou... \nIf you have two vectors(forces) affecting the same object in opposite directions you write one of them as negative.\nNegative charges in magnetism and electricity.\nYou can experience negative G-forces when accelerating really fast.",
"Practically speaking, negative numbers really are just a concept that allows us to expand beyond purely practical examples.",
"Direction; in physics, negative numbers just mean a change in direction. For example, something is falling or rising, going forward or backwards, water is flowing in or out. If something is moving/changing in a negative way, it is going -5 m/s or flowing out at -5 cubic meters per second.\n\nNegative and positive numbers are all relative... In this case, backwards is negative, still is zero, forward is positive.",
"Elevator with underground floors.",
"[Do numbers EXIST?] (_URL_0_)",
"\"-\" in mathematical terms means **the opposite of**. So in terms of debt, you could say \"you owe the opposite of $100 to the bank\". \n\n > and now the apples are negative\n\nThe apples aren't negative, they were the cost of the negative value. It still has its own value and could be used again.",
"In the context of engineering, negative and positive are mathematical ways of expressing directionality. Its how we describe in numbers the physical difference between a car moving at 50miles per hour eastbound vs a car moving 50mph westbound.",
" > I can't think of any real use for negative numbers.\n\nDefine \"real\" for me.\n\nSure, you can use circumlocutions and workarounds to avoid using negative numbers, but what's the use in that?\n\nFor example, what's the real use of the word \"school?\" You can't say schools are real, because you can just say \"a place where you learn things,\" can't you?\n\nNegative numbers? Are numbers real at all? I can say I have five apples, but that \"five\" is not actually expressed anywhere. There are apples, not numbers. I can't just walk up to a number and touch it. It's not a physical substantive example in life, is it?\n\nNegative numbers are a way to express our knowledge of mathematics more conveniently. Same with numbers, same with operators, whatever. No need to get all philosophical about it.\n\nNow wait till you get to imaginary numbers. Boy, you'll have fun with those.",
"Negative psi is an absence of pressure so what about vacuum pressure? You might not be able to see it but you can still feel it. ",
"In mathematics, when we reach an impasse, we say 'well, what's the most reasonable thing to do next?' and create a definition. We usually then find that the definition we have just come up with makes sense, and is useful. I always explain these as a timeline along one's maths education, as that's how I remember it.\n\nThe first numbers we usually deal with as 'numbers', as 'real things' are called the 'natural' numbers. This is what we're taught in preschool, one, two, three, four apples. You can see how they 'naturally' come about, we want to talk about a finite number of discrete bodies. I can have three apples and two apples, then count them all together and have five apples. It's cumbersome to say 'take two and three then count them all together', so instead, in the language of mathematics, we can just say, 'add two and three together'. Mathematicians hate using words, so we come up with the symbol '+' to mean 'add the numbers around me together'. So, we have 2+3. '=' means 'is', so we can say 2+3=5. \n\nThe next numbers we come across are the 'rational' numbers. Not 'rational' in the sense of 'that's a reasoned thing', but in the sense of a 'ratio'. If I want to *divide* my apple for me and my friend, I cut it into two pieces. I divide 1 by 2, and get the ratio 1:2, or the rational number 1/2. These could be argued to be 'natural' numbers, as they come about in nature, in everyday life, but they're not. This is an example of how the label we give the number doesn't affect what we can do with it. There are some numbers that aren't able to be written as a/b, where a and b are both natural numbers, these are 'irrational'. Again, the irrational numbers aren't crazy or afraid of spiders, they're just the numbers that aren't rational.\n\nBack to the apples, sometimes if we come up with something we can do to numbers, we want to find what we can do to get back to where we were. Naturally, we come up with some operation to take numbers away from each other. Take two apples from five to leave three. 5-2=3. We could take say, four apples from five and have one left, or, if we're greedy, take 5 apples and have none left.\n\nNow, we reach an impasse. In the real world, we have to stop. You can't take, say, seven apples from five, that's outrageous. But in the symbol world, it still works. 5-2 looks perfectly reasonable, so what about 5-7? Well, that's where we have to introduce more numbers. \n\nIf we think of the numbers we know now, the rationals, the reals and the naturals, we have a nice line extending longer and longer. We can go one way up the line where the numbers get bigger, so why not go the other way? If I'm at five, I can go to the right one to get to six, or go to the left one and get to four. Why not jump seven spaces left? Let's do that. I go five spaces and end up at zero, so it looks like we have to stop. But I've two left over! Let's call this left over '-2'. If we instead of stopping at zero, build a longer number line going in the opposite direction, we can jump to 2 on that one from 5 on the other one by going left seven spaces. We'll use the - in front of the number to show we're now on the other side of zero.\n\nIt turns out the - we used to show we're on the other side of the number line works really well. If we write +2 +4, we mean 'we have 6 positive numbers'. We can write '+5 -3' and have two positive numbers left over, so *naturally*, '+5 -7' means we have two negative numbers left over. We usually leave out the + before positive numbers, as we normally come across those more frequently.\n\nAll of the numbers we have now are called the 'real' numbers. It's an odd name, isn't it? These numbers aren't real at all! They're just ideas we've come up with, ways of continuing patterns when we can't continue any more.\n\nOne problem similar to trying to take a bigger number from a smaller number is trying to find out what two numbers the same we can multiply together to get a negative number (when you multiply a number by itself, it's called 'squaring', because you get the area covered by a square with a side that long). If I want to multiply -5 by 2, it's obvious that I'll have two lots of -5, and so just have -10. Similarly, if I multiply -2 by -2, I'll have - ( 2 lots of -2) so +4.\nHow do we get a negative number by squaring something? Well, with our numbers, we can't. There's no number on the number line we can multiply by itself to get a negative number. The opposite to squaring something is finding the square root of something (it's not strictly an opposite [inverse] in the truest sense of the word, but for this explanation it works). So to find what we square to get four, we write √4, and get 2. Just like the subtraction example, there's nothing in √-1 that looks inherently wrong or bad, is there? But we can't find any number to go on the other side of the =. We'll just have to invent one then! We'll call it 'i'. So we have √-1 = i, and i*i = -1.\n\nThis is called the 'imaginary unit' because we've just thought it up, but it's no more imaginary than 3, 1/6 or even -2! Just to differentiate between these new numbers and the ones we already have, like we did with the rationals and irrationals, we'll call the numbers that aren't imaginary, the 'real' numbers, just to know the difference. \n\nJust like how negative numbers can do just as much as positive numbers, it turns out that 'imaginary' numbers can do just as much as the reals. We call the numbers we get when we add imaginary numbers to real numbers 'complex numbers', just because they're a little more tricksy to deal with.\n\nThere are several things you should take away from this.\n\n* Maths is really interesting\n* There is no obligation on something mathematically valid to be represented in the real world. Only a tiny bit of what we call 'natural' numbers are actually 'natural' anyway! We've made all the rest up!\n* The names we give various numbers are just to tell them apart, not to judge them on their character\n* You shouldn't let applications of numbers be a means to define the numbers themselves.\n* Just because there is no apparent 'application' for something doesn't mean it's not worth studying.\n* Maths is not defined by how 'useful' it is in the 'real world' (*it's all made up! har har!*), it may happen to be useful, but you're setting your son up with a very dangerous prejudice that everything he's going to learn over the course of his maths career. should be useful in the 'real world' by trying to find as many applications as possible. When was the last 'real world' application of his history lesson, or his english poetry lesson. The point is that we study these things not for what we can do with them, but for themselves in their own right.\n* A mathematically literate person is a reasoned, logical person. If you foster a great interest in maths for its own sake in your child, he will grow up to be a very decent individual.",
"Sea level.\n\nYou're often above, but occasionally below sea level.",
"I think I'm a nominalist in that I see numbers as descriptors, not a thing in and of themselves.\n\nMy 6 year old son just came in my room and we were talking about math a little. I like to give him simple algebraic equations to solve just to get him comfortable with it. Well he asks me, unprovoked, how to make a story problem for, \"what are those things less than zero?\" How's that for synchronicity? \n\nHere's what I came up with:\nJohn always eats as many apples as he is hungry for. John is hungry for five apples. He picks and eats four apples. How many apples does john have?\n\n-5 + 4 = -1 right?",
"The amount of Upvotes I usually get on my comments :/\n",
"In negative accelerations and velocities, such as in slowing down in a car, you are using a negative acceleration, its like black and white, there's always an opposite. Matter and anti-matter. Scientifically there is usually, if not always an opposite."
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27bt4m | why do people who plead guilty to a crime they committed serve reduced sentences/punishments? | This might just be a Hollywood thing, but they still did the same thing so why be 'let off' for admitting it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27bt4m/eli5_why_do_people_who_plead_guilty_to_a_crime/ | {
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"Because they save the state the time and expense of a trial, and the prosecutors are guaranteed that they will serve *some* time. There's always the possibility that someone can go to court and be acquitted.",
"Generally, the prosecutor of the case would rather have the notch on their belt, guaranteeing a guilty plea by offering a deal with a slight reduction in time. Compared to going to trial and being found guilty, where the judge or prosecutor could insist on maximum penalty.\n\nFor example:\nYou robbed a bank, you wore a mask, but they can see your car outside. There is no 100% proof you did it. The odds are, you will be found guilty at a trial and given the max sentence. We'll say it's 20 years. Now there is a small chance you could win, but the prosecutor doesn't want to risk losing this case, and you don't want to spend 20 years in jail, so they offer you 10 to say you did it. You get half the time, the prosecutor gets a win, and the case is closed. Now there is no lengthy trial, plus appeals processes, etc.\n\nedit: I have to mention that not every single case has a plea deal. A lot of times the prosecutor would rather bring you to trial, if they had you on tape, a phone call of you admitting to it, and they found the bank money in your house. There is virtually no possible way you would win at a trial. Compare that to a case where the only evidence they have is seeing your car at the crime scene....well, somebody could have stolen your car. It might not have been you. At the end of the day it depends on the case."
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a1u98l | what’s the difference between “sex work” and prostitution? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1u98l/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_sex_work_and/ | {
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"Prostitution is a form of sex work, sex work is all work that incorporates sex (escorts, prostitution, stripping, cams, etc).\n\nIt's like how a not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles. All prostitution is sex work, but not all sex work is prostitution. ",
"Not really complex. Sex work means everything, from erotic cosplay, to camming, to making porn. Prostitution is just having sex with clients. It is a kind of sex work, but not the only thing. Although this would be a very weird thing to explain to a five year old lol",
"Sex work often is a wider range of services than just selling sex. It could involve web cam work for example, so the worker and client are never in the same room and don't actually have sex or stripping/pole dancing where there is no physical contact but is sexual. It's also generally considered a less derogatory term than prostitution.\n\nFor example, a cam girl would consider herself a sex worker, not a prostitute. A woman who sells sex would probably prefer to be called a sex worker rather than a prostitute because of the stigma attached to the word. ",
"The main difference is a question of semantics. \"Prostitute\" is something which happens *to* someone; a person can be prostituted, but you wouldn't say someone was \"retail workered\" or \"auto mechaniced\". Instead the concept of calling someone a \"sex worker\" is an acknowledgement of them participating in a legitimate trade as opposed to labeling them with what is generally considered a pejorative."
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35mpsc | why is the media trying to prove that osama bin ladens death is a fraud? | Now that Obamas presidential run is almost over, CNN is accusing him of lying about the raid and saying that the US tipped off Pakistani Generals and threatened to cut out arms supply so that they would fake it. Media is saying that Bin Laden was held in the same prison by Pakistan for 5 years. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35mpsc/eli5_why_is_the_media_trying_to_prove_that_osama/ | {
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"bin Laden death conspiracies have been around since even before the raid in Pakistan. Part of the reasons is that, as far as conspiracy theories go, it is pretty plausible. No body, no footage, just a quickie burial at sea, you don't have to swallow too much to believe he is in a CIA prison somewhere.\n\nThe story is less about the possibility that he is alive, and more about a semi-credible journalist, Seymour Hersh, is making the claims.",
"If you're referring to the Seymour Hersh story that broke Sunday, that is not \"the media,\" it's one guy with some dubious claims. Media outlets are reporting on the story according to their own biases.\n\nHersh has had kind of a spotty record, he has done some excellent investigative work in the past, but these days, he seems to be tripping more and more into fantasyland. His entire story rests on the uncorroborated claims of two dubious guys.\n\nHis story does not dispute that bin Laden was killed, but rather the circumstances around it. Basically, the claim is that the ISI (the Pakistani version of the CIA) had got their hands on bin Laden back in 2006, and had been holding him at the Abbatobad compound since then (with Saudi support) to use as leverage in dealing with the Taliban and al Qaeda. The US got tipped off to that, and cut a deal with the ISI to let us come in and kill him.\n\nAlthough there are large parts of Hersh's account that don't hold water, that is not the same thing as confirming the official story is correct. In particular, there is *no way* bin Laden could have been living a mile down the road from the Pakistani military academy for years without some protection from SOMEBODY high up in the government. And any story that rests on the CIA being extremely clever and resourceful is automatically suspect: they are the Keystone Kops of the intelligence world.\n\n\n\n\n\n"
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1qxhif | why don't humans eat one giant meal instead of periodically eating throughout the day? | In theory, this makes sense.
In actuality... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qxhif/eli5_why_dont_humans_eat_one_giant_meal_instead/ | {
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"Because it's easiest to run the digestive system consistently and slowly, and hardest to ramp it into a big workout then idle for most of the day. Imagine being asked to lift 500kg once rather than 25kg 20 times.",
"this is what i do most of the time, actually. i generally only eat dinner with minimal or no caloric intake otherwise (i drink diet sodas, so that's a couple of calories a day i guess).\n\nstudies have shown that there doesn't appear to be any difference between the number of meals you eat a day and weight loss/gain or metabolism. there is some correlation with people who eat fewer meals a day having a higher chance of being overweight.\n\nyou are more likely to be hungry more often if you only eat once a day and you might get moody or be tired or lose focus because you're used to getting consistent calories throughout the day~~, but as far as i know and have read, there's nothing bad about eating once a day versus 3 or 6 times or whatever.~~\n\nEdit: saying there's nothing bad associated with this eating habit is not wholly accurate."
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wi371 | maps. specifically, why is there a debate over which map is the most accurate? | Is it not possible to create a perfectly accurate map? Or, in other words, what problems arise when showing the globe as a flat image? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wi371/eli5_maps_specifically_why_is_there_a_debate_over/ | {
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"Peel an orange. Now, lay it flat on a table without tearing, smushing, or otherwise mangling the skin. It's not possible. There are many different \"projections\" of the earth that are used to make maps, but they will always either make nice shapes (rectangles) with very distorted images of the land forms or have weird confusing shapes and be somewhat more accurate.\n\nThe Mercator projection is one you are probably familiar with. It's a rectangle, Greenland and Russia are HUGE. This is confusing to kids, who then think that Greenland or Antarctica are the biggest continents.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEDIT: I love when simple explanations take off like this. Thanks, all. Love this subreddit.",
"JangusKahn pretty much established the reason why.\nThe world cannot be properly defined on a flat surface, because of this, inconsistencies arise. For instance:\n\nYou can either have a map that is conical; where all the angles are correct. This map however will not have equal area, some locations on the map will have exaggerated landscape sizes, i.e. greenland may be the size of Africa, which would be really quite incorrect.\n\nOr you can have an equal area map, with which the landscape sizes are relatively correct, but the angles are false.\n\nThe Mercator projection is more or less the standard projection representing a cylindrical projection (Called so because it's as if you placed a cylinder around the globe and made a map). The scale factor increases as you get closer to the north and south poles (This means the error in projection grows)\nAlso; if you draw a straight line from one point to another over the ocean, it will not be the shortest distance between 2 points, in fact a \"great circle\" curve will be the shortest distance, but it will appear longer than the straight line on the Mercator projection. \nTherefore, Mercator projections are terrible for navigation.",
"There isn't a debate, the Dymaxion is the most accurate projection with the least amount of distortion. :)\n\nBut seriously, JangusKhan has a good answer for you.",
"Every map distorts something. \n \nSome maps distort distance, some distort shape, and some distort direction. \n \nIt's impossible to perfectly represent a 'sphere' (technically an oblate spheroid) onto a flat surface without some distortion. You choose the map that best suits your needs. ",
"Because when you try to make a map of a globe you're attempting to convert a 3D object into a flat image, you're literally trying to remove an entire dimension."
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en0v6s | how does makeup become expired? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/en0v6s/eli5_how_does_makeup_become_expired/ | {
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"As my wife explains it to me, cosmetics can become subject to bacteria, a sort of spoilage. I would further speculate there are volatile compounds that will age out, go rancid, or otherwise underperform in its function - the cosmetic won't apply right, or hold, might smell, might fade, etc. Cosmetics are far more complex than just pigments and \"chemicals\".\n\nFinally, you have to consider an expiration may exist as a form of liability protection. After all, what are you doing putting on something expired? That rash ain't our fault!"
]
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||
72fsy1 | what sort of deals do companies such as spotify and netflix cut in order to get music/tv shows/movies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/72fsy1/eli5_what_sort_of_deals_do_companies_such_as/ | {
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"I was featured as a vocalist in the song for a semi local band and they were saying that they really wouldn't be able to pay me because they only get like 9% royalties. \n\nBefore anyone talks shit, being featured in a band like that is payment enough to me. They helped me get my name out there. "
]
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||
eq8dgm | how is it that some illnesses like influenza or the common cold are considered “seasonal”? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eq8dgm/eli5_how_is_it_that_some_illnesses_like_influenza/ | {
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"1) During the winter, people spend more time indoors with the windows sealed, so they are more likely to breathe the same air as someone who has the flu and thus contract the virus (3).\n2) Days are shorter during the winter, and lack of sunlight leads to low levels of vitamin D and melatonin, both of which require sunlight for their generation. This compromises our immune systems, which in turn decreases ability to fight the virus (3).\n3) The influenza virus may survive better in colder, drier climates, and therefore be able to infect more people (3).\n\n_URL_0_",
"In addition to the viral attributes like resistance to cold, there's some very real human effects at work to boot. In the US anyway, the school year starts in late summer/fall, bringing tons of children in close confined quarters with on another. Those kids bring whatever they're exposed to home. The people at home bring it whenever they go(work, other schools, etc). Combine that with the very travel heavy US holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas), and you have a ton of ways to spread infections. \n\nAnecdotally, I get sick every year after I go up to visit family. Damn kids.",
"The illnesses have a sort of coating that protects them, but are more effective in certain weather, thus more people get that illness in the season/weather where these illnesses can survive the trip between hosts safely."
]
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3isa60 | how does computer encryption stop snooping? | I know that protocols such as HTTPS are a big thing now, but if you were able to intercept encrypted traffic going to and from a destination, wouldn't you also be intercepting the decryption keys? I don't understand how passing a certificate 'magically' encrypts/decrypts data in such a way that is only distinguishable to the intended sender and recipient, but not to a third party who may have intercepted it in its entirety. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3isa60/eli5how_does_computer_encryption_stop_snooping/ | {
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"This is a great question - it seems intuitive that if A and B have never heard of each other before that there's no way they could set up encrypted communication in such a way that other people couldn't listen in.\n\nBut amazingly, it is possible, thanks to a system called private/public key cryptography.\n\nSuppose you and I want to send secret messages.\n\nI generate a private/public key pair. This is a process that usually involves trying a bunch of random numbers and doing some math until I find one that works.\n\nI keep the private key secret, and send you the public key. Now *anyone* can see eavesdrop on the public key, but nobody has my private key.\n\nWhat this key pair allows is two things:\n\n* You can encrypt messages with my public key that I can decrypt, but nobody else can decrypt\n* I can sign messages with my private key that anyone can verify with my public key, but nobody else can sign\n\nSo I do this, and you do the same thing.\n\nNow I have your public key and my private key, and you have my public key and your private key.\n\nWhen I send you a message, I can now encrypt it with your public key, and sign it with my private key. When you receive it, you can (1) decrypt it, since you're the only one with your private key, and (2) verify that it was sent by me, since you have my public key and nobody else has my private key.\n\nIt was quite an amazing mathematical breakthrough when this was first invented in 1977. Prior to that, the only way two people could communicate is if they exchanged encryption keys previously.\n"
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721lq0 | how do scientists "discover" planets ? do they have some powerful telescope that can zoom in a million times and "see" a planet in view as if you saw the earth looking from the moon? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/721lq0/eli5_how_do_scientists_discover_planets_do_they/ | {
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"That is rarely possible. Usually they notice a star getting darker periodically as a planet passes in front, or a star wobbling periodically as an orbiting planet's gravity tugs it around. (The wobble is especially easy to detect because it subtly changes the star's color, thanks to the *Doppler shift.*)",
" > zoom\n\nno\n\nthere's a variety of techniques, but generally it starts by observing the stars not looking for planets directly. Change in light emitted from a star may be a planet passing in front of it. otherwise unexpected motion may be caused by gravitation pull of planets. \n\nstuff like that.",
"They watch the star.\n\nFor some planets they detect them by seeing them pass in front of the star and watching the star dim, but this only works for planets that pass directly in front of their star and are large enough to block out a measurable amount of light\n\nFor many others they watch the star wobble, as the planet orbits it pulls the star towards it, if you were to watch our own star you'd see it wobbling about as jupiter and saturn orbit and pull it significantly, but you'd also see smaller wobbles from the inner planets\n\nWe don't have a telescope remotely big enough to actually see a distant planet. You would need a mirror on the order of hundreds or thousands of meters to resolve a jupiter sized planet around Alpha Centauri"
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68sb9k | if you can represent yourself in court, why can't you have anyone you want represent you? | I got this idea watching the episode of Married...with children where Kelly represents Al. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68sb9k/eli5_if_you_can_represent_yourself_in_court_why/ | {
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"Well you can, but they'd have to agree to represent you, and be qualified to represent you. You don't have to be qualified to represent you, but you're a unique case... mind you a judge can still decide that you *need* representation and assign you a public defender anyway. \n\nI mean, you *could* ask for Bon Jovi to represent you, but why would he, even if it would be allowed? ",
"The court(note, not the state) has a duty to make sure justice is carried out correctly. One important point to this is to make sure that both sides of the argument are lead by someone who is competent and ethical. That's why there are requirement for who can stand in a court case, it's to protect both parties from being taken advantage of or not being given a fair trial because either there own council is inept or the other side lied/cheated. ",
"It depends on what level of court.\n\nLower courts may allow someone to act as your \"agent\" and represent you in, for example, a small claims matter or traffic court.\n\nSuperior courts will only hear from \"officers of the court\" (being qualified lawyers who have demonstrated their familiarity with the rules of the court and have sworn an oath) or the parties themselves (as it would be unfair to make it impossible for someone to be heard if they didn't have a lawyer).",
"I'm assuming you're talking US. The reason is because you need a license to represent any party in court, with the exception of when an individual refuses counsel and wants to represent them self. The constitutional right to counsel exists for criminal cases, but it is waivable by the defendant just like other constitutional rights. "
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16snip | what is the said hoax between manti te'o and his girlfriend? | I've heard that there is a hoax, but I have no idea what the background story is, or the actual details. Can someone explain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16snip/eli5_what_is_the_said_hoax_between_manti_teo_and/ | {
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"Manti Te'o is a one of the best college football players in the country. Some of his fame has come from the inspirational story of him overcoming tragedy, such as when he dealt with the pain of his grandmother and girlfriend both both dying within a day of one another. Following those events, Te'o played very well, thereby overcoming an amazing challenge considering the emotions he must have been facing.\n\nThe only problem is that recent investigation has suggested that the dying girlfriend in the story does not appear to exist. This may seem unimportant (and granted, it's not the most important issue in the world), but Te'o is one of the best athletes ready to join professional football. If he was lying, that suggests major character issues. If he was telling the truth, that reinforces his reputation as an amazing football player capable of overcoming any obstacles in his way. \n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a news report from the week when Te'o's girlfriend allegedly passed away.\n\n[Here](_URL_1_) is a timeline of the entire incident. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/manti-te-o-notre-dame-play-grief-deaths-144408886--ncaaf.html",
"http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1488415-full-timeline-of-manti-teo-and-lennay-keuka-story"
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1osshl | how hackers 'jailbroke' apples ios software? | I really just have no idea of where you would start with finding these things. Eli5 :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1osshl/eli5_how_hackers_jailbroke_apples_ios_software/ | {
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"From a technical perspective, there's really no difference between illegal hacking and jailbreaking your IOS device. In either case, you need to use a creative trick (called an \"exploit\") to get the target system to run some code you want it to run (typically, to disable any other security it has in place). \n\nThe most common type of exploit is a [buffer overrun](_URL_1_). A buffer is a place where a computer stores data. If a hacker injects more data into this buffer than it can hold, the additional data he injected could overwrite program data and get executed as if it were the program itself. \n\nSo typically, the hacker will inject a [NOP slide](_URL_0_), essentially a lot of data that says:\n\n* Do nothing, go to the next instruction\n* Do nothing, go to the next instruction\n* Do nothing, go to the next instruction\n* Do nothing, go to the next instruction\n* (Many, many instructions later)\n* Hacking instruction\n",
"Basically, jailbreaking is allowing your phone to do things it usually doesn't allow, like changing parts of the operating system or installing apps from places other than the app store. \niOS only allows apps that are in the app store to be downloaded and installed, and if any app would try to change parts of the operating system or do anything else they didn't like, they would not allow it on the app store.\n\nIn order to jailbreak the phone, programmers find vulnerabilities in software that is already on the phone and exploit them to run their own code. One method that has been used for this is visiting a website in safari that opens a pdf. The pdf is specially made by 'hackers' to break the pdf viewer. Basically, the pdf viewer has some bug in it that the hackers know about, and they design the pdf so when it is opened, the pdf viewer app will glitch and run the code in the pdf, which jailbreaks the phone by changing the operating system. The pdf viewer is obviously not supposed to allow this, so apple would probably fix it and send out an update, after which jailbreakers would need to find another way to send the jailbreaking code to your phone.\n\nActually finding the bugs in programs that allow these types of attacks is often difficult and time consuming, but in this example, you could try opening many different types of broken or badly formatted pdf files, and try to get the viewing app to crash. Once it crashes, then you can begin trying to find a way to make it run your jailbreaking code instead of crashing. It is not always possible, but you might just get lucky.\n\nYou can check out [Buffer Overflow Attacks](_URL_0_) to see one way that the program being exploited is tricked into running the jailbreaking code."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOP_slide",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow"
]
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jllhx | what do scientists actually mean when they talk about the "holohgraphic universe" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jllhx/eli5_what_do_scientists_actually_mean_when_they/ | {
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"A hologram is a two dimensional projection of a three dimensional object. Stephen Hawking was the one who came to the realization that the event horizon of a black hole could act as a hologram, preserving information about all of the material that’s gotten sucked inside. More specifically, the surface area of the event horizon is directly proportional to the entropy of the black hole, and thereby its contents. The same sort of math, it turns out, can actually describe any point in the Universe, meaning that the entire content of the Universe can be viewed as a giant hologram, one that resides on the surface of whatever two-dimensional shape will enclose it. \n\nFor those significantly beyond 5+, see references to holography [here](_URL_0_) and the holographic principle [here](_URL_1_).",
"A hologram is a two dimensional projection of a three dimensional object. Stephen Hawking was the one who came to the realization that the event horizon of a black hole could act as a hologram, preserving information about all of the material that’s gotten sucked inside. More specifically, the surface area of the event horizon is directly proportional to the entropy of the black hole, and thereby its contents. The same sort of math, it turns out, can actually describe any point in the Universe, meaning that the entire content of the Universe can be viewed as a giant hologram, one that resides on the surface of whatever two-dimensional shape will enclose it. \n\nFor those significantly beyond 5+, see references to holography [here](_URL_0_) and the holographic principle [here](_URL_1_)."
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1ph0bb | how do people get roles for tv shows, movies, etc? | I was curious, is there a global website where people apply? I'm also in the UK | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ph0bb/eli5_how_do_people_get_roles_for_tv_shows_movies/ | {
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"You start at a casting agency as a background actor or something. I used to be signed up to one where you pay a membership fee. The more you paid, the more exclusive deals they could get you. Then it all depends on your talent. So pretty much: be good at acting -- > have $$ -- > Pay casting agent/ agency -- > Be good. \nThen at one point you get bigger roles, and make more money."
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bdsygd | why can we eat some leaves (salad, basil, mint...) and not all like herbivores ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bdsygd/eli5_why_can_we_eat_some_leaves_salad_basil_mint/ | {
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"Eating leaves is not the same across all leaf eaters. For example, Koala Bears and Cows are both herbivores, but Koala Bears can eat eucalyptus leaves which cows cannot digest. Getting the same amount of nutrition from grass is done differently from species to species. Rabbits for example, will eat grass and then eat their own droppings to complete the process of getting all the nutrition from the grass, cows have 4 stomachs to process the grass they eat. So to answer your question, we don't have the stomach to extract the nutrition from \"all leaves\" just some of them, we can get around this by cooking a lot of the leaves we cannot consume raw.",
"Foods need enzymes to get broken down so our body can absorb energy and depending on the food type, different enzymes act on them to break down the food particles. Grass has cellulose which can be broken down by an enzyme cellobiase, unfortunately we don't have this enzyme.",
"Plants grow a couple of substances which we can't digest, most importantly lignin and cellulose. That's what is called \"fiber\" on nutrition labels. They're basically the equivalent of a skeleton in animals, they reinforce the plants and also protect them from damage. And of course from being eaten: When plants first evolved to grow lignin, there were no organisms that could digest them - so all the plants that died in that time slowly turned into coal. Nowadays, some fungi and bacteria can break those fibers down. \n\nProducing a lot of fiber has a big drawback though: It costs a lot of energy to produce. So a tree with a wooden stem might be stronger than a green plant with a soft stem, but the green plant can grow far quicker. Same goes for leaves: Leaves with a lot of fiber are chewy and can only be eaten by animals with specially adapted teeth and digestion system, but they grow slower than soft leaves. \n\nSo what we can eat are generally plants that grow very quickly, such as lettuce, spinach and cabbage, but also a lot of things we consider weeds, such as stinging nettles and dandelion. We can also eat young plants, which have not yet grown a lot of fiber, like sprouts and bamboo shoots.\n\nEdit: There are a lot of things that we can eat, but don't because they either don't taste good or we don't know that they taste good. But our distant ancestors often relied on those plants, they were the first thing that came out of the ground in spring and provided crucial vitamins."
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b4la1j | how is it that when you are muscle sore, even moving is a big deal but when lifting again it is fine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4la1j/eli5_how_is_it_that_when_you_are_muscle_sore_even/ | {
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"Your sore muscles are like a lazy roommate. They whine and complain over the smallest actions. But as soon as they think shit hits the fan, they feel fine and act like they can do anything. Your body does the same, but with some natural painkillers"
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4sfvvh | why was japan's railway system not nationalized? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sfvvh/eli5_why_was_japans_railway_system_not/ | {
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"If i recall, I asked this when i went for a visit. The japan railway was initially started by private companies covering certain portions of the map. Eventually, they integrated and interconnected but the whole system is one big mess of several railways.\n\nAmazingly they still run it like clockwork but with the rails under private companies, it will likely not be nationalized into one big railway.\n",
"Generally speaking, in a capitalist society industries are only nationalized if they fail to meet public need as private companies. \n\nIn something like rail system, competition can be toxic to overall efficiency. Infrastructure is expensive to lay down and maintain, there's only so much room to put passenger rail line and stations, etc. Japan's railway system meets the public need. If several railway companies were to start fighting, the Japanese government may step in.",
"What time period are you talking about? Because for most of the 20th century, Japan's railways **were** [nationalized](_URL_0_). Railways were nationalized in 1906 into the Japanese Government Railway, which was reorganized into Japanese National Railways (日本国有鉄道) after World War II.\n\nIn the 1980s JNR was becoming unprofitable, so it was privatized and split into several companies. It's now the JR Group, with 6 regional companies and 1 freight carrier - for example, the subways in Tokyo are run by JR East (Tokyo being a megacity, there are also several other private rail lines). "
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4lid4o | how can people just tell which direction they're going? | For instance, sometimes my GPS will tell me to go east on a certain street and I have no idea where that's it. Or someone will say, "Go north, and then head east." | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lid4o/eli5_how_can_people_just_tell_which_direction/ | {
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"Well, there are a few ways. But most importantly, road signs should tell you which direction highways go. Also, it's all about learning how to orient yourself. Use the sun as a guide. It rises in the East and sets in the West. Looking into the sun in the morning? You're headed East. Sun to your left in the evening? You're going North. ",
"A lot of people can look at the sun - or even shadows - and figure out which cardinal direction their pointing.\n\nSailors in olden times actually used stars and star maps to navigate the oceans; primarily as they were the only \"landmark\" when you were out to sea with nothing else to go by.\n\nYet other people know their towns & cities well enough that they can glance at what is around them right now, walk around for a few minutes, and just by virtue of knowing that X shop is (direction) from Y shop, they can get their bearings on that.\n\nWe, however, do not have any kind of natural compass - like some birds might - to naturally detect which direction we're headed. Most of it comes down to experience, knowledge, with a sprinkling of intuition. Which also means, if you practice training yourself how to recognize directions, you too can figure out which ways north/east/south/west are.",
"You generally know a few things that are \"all the way south\" or \"all the way east\" or so on.\n\nFor example, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Streets often have \"East\" or \"West\" affixed to their names. In my city, the lake (and the giant-ass tower beside it) are always to the south. \n\nYou use the landmarks you know and extrapolate from there.",
"For myself, I know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west - looking at where the sun is/thinking of where it rose, I can figure out general directions. I never use them to give others directions, but I think it's fun to figure out which way I'm headed.",
"I use the sun a lot to determine direction and time. \n\nIt rises in the east and sets in the west. All you need to figure is north and south. Then the time can be understood by its distance from the horizon. Great trick to learn, it can help you out in a pinch. "
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6i37f1 | why is it so universally accepted that dinosaurs roared? is there any way paleontologist know what kind of sounds that actually would have made? | I'm literally asking for my dinosaur obsessed 5 year old, so I'm actually looking for someone to explain it to me like I'm five. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i37f1/eli5_why_is_it_so_universally_accepted_that/ | {
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"In many cases paleontologists can make an educated guess based on the structure of the bones in the larynx. But most likely, many dinosaurs didn't roar. Many of the bird-like ones probably made noises more reminiscent of chirps or whoops. One way that scientists make these educated guesses is by comparing the fossilized structures of dinosaurs to those of living reptiles (and birds). It is logical to think that if dinosaurs and living reptiles have similarly-shaped larynges (voice boxes) they might make similar noises. You make an adjustment for the increased size in dinosaurs, and boom, sometimes you have a roar. Other times you don't. Again, these are just educated guesses (hypotheses). \n\nThis type of deductive reasoning has been used to generate other hypotheses about dinosaurs that have later been proven true. For example, paleontologists hypothesized long ago that bird-like dinosaurs had bird-like behaviors like building nests and incubating their eggs. Then, in the 90's (?) several fossils of bird-like dinosaurs were discovered in China and a few of them actually showed the adult females sitting on top of their unhatched eggs in the nest. \n\nScience for the win.",
"Paleontologists can use the features, shapes, and dimensions of the nasal cavities and other parts of the skull to determine what kinds of sounds dinosaurs might be able to make. In recent decades, we have found mummified dinosaurs with enough fossilized soft tissue to help with this kind of investigation.\n\nIn the case of cartoons and fairly non-scientific videos, the sounds we hear might be exaggerated in some ways, or even just made up. But more scientifically-grounded shows often do a good job of making sounds match what the scientists think they should be.\n\nLike all science, paleontology is constantly refining its knowledge, so new fossils will no doubt come to light in the future which will continue to improve our understanding of dinosaur sounds. \n\nI'm not a paleontologist, but I love dinosaurs, and have been following the research for most of my 60-odd years. \n\nEdit: A good way to demonstrate this to a 5 year old might be to get a tin whistle, recorder, or kazoo, and show them how covering different holes and blowing into the instrument will make different sounds.",
"Many traits of dinosaurs (skin/feather color, behaviors, noises, etc.) obviously cannot be directly observed from fossils. As an alternative, paleontologists infer these traits by looking at those same things in the closest descendants of these dinosaurs: birds. By observing behaviors of a relatively large bird (say, an ostrich), paleontologists can get as solid of a guess about how a dinosaur sounds as they possibly can. If you've ever heard a large bird, they can actually make very deep and monster-like vocalizations.\n\nAs for if/when a dinosaur roars, that is less clear. Obviously these noises would serve to communicate to others, but I doubt a T-Rex would ever roar just before charging (why would it blow any element of surprise it had with a lengthy scream)",
"The simplest answer is that dinosaurs are large reptiles. And large reptiles can actually roar.\n\nHere is a video of a crocodile growling.\n_URL_0_\n\nAnd another one\n_URL_1_\n\nFun fact, alligator/crocodile roars/growls were actually used for the dinosaur roars in Jurassic Park.",
"Just like the shwing sound that swords make when drawn in films, it has no basis in reality but film makers and the likes always put it in because the idea of the sound is so ingrained into our minds it wouldn't sound right without it. That and it just sounds cool. ",
"Large animal, it makes for good drama in movies if it roars.\n\nAs for how they sounded, various simulations has been made based on skull shapes and so on, but the results are kund of inconclusive (without the lips and tongue, it's hard to get a real simulation), but, while roars probably was part of their sound range, various toots, whoops and whistles probably also where.\n\nOne must also remember that \"dinosaurs\" is a very wide description, spanning over extremely diverse species and an extremely long time. So, for all we know, some may have roared, some may have whistled and some may have communicated through farting and tapdancing.",
"It's not, at least not in the sense we normally hear. Dinosaur roars are usually 100% based on what sounds good in the movies. The famous Jurrassic park roar was a combination of baby elephant trumpet, alligator gurgle, and tiger snarl. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with what dinosaurs might have sounded like.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nMost dinosaur noises in the movies are similarly totally made up to sound good.\n\nHowever, we do expect that many dinosaurs would have made some sort of noise. Alligators and crocodiles make noise. Birds make noise. Dinosaurs are kind of \"in between\" the two on the family tree of life. And certain specific dinosaurs, most notably hadrosaurs, had bone structures that were clearly intended to produce loud calls. \n\n_URL_2_\n\nSo your dinosaurs may well have made noise, but it might not be what you are expecting.\n\nPersonally I like to picture the T rex posing on a hill-top, waving it's tiny arms frantically as a display, and making a call quite like the [majestic cry of the bald eagle](_URL_0_)",
"I laugh when I go out to my chickens with a treat and they come running and \"screaming\" at me. I think of the dinosaurs."
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969t38 | how can something like beer, a liquid, make you more thirsty? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/969t38/eli5_how_can_something_like_beer_a_liquid_make/ | {
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"Just because it's a liquid doesn't mean it'll provide you with water.\n\nDrink a bottle of mercury or antifreeze...... actually don't.\n\nBeer is a solution of alcohol and water. While it initially provides you with water, the alcohol triggers your system to use it's water store to flush out the processed alcohol toxin, leaving you with less water than you drank in the beer.",
"Alcohol screws with a hormone called ADH (anti diuretic hormone) which, oddly enough is responsible for stopping your kidneys from removing all of the water from your body and pissing it out. Normally you need like 100ish mL/hr to stay hydrated but with poor ADH it can go up. At the same time, you now have, say 100mL of actual alcohol in you 2-5L of total blood volume screwing with the soluability of all the stuff disolved in the blood. \n\nOn top of that alcohol sticks to the sensory protiens responsible for detecting if you are dehydrated in the aortic arch and kidneys, causing them to send incorrect signals to the brain. \n\nTldr: Alcohol messis with ADH signalling the kidneys to rapidly expell water. Your body senses low water and signals you to drink more. This has little benefit due to the aforementioned kidney floodgates being open. Other stuff also doesnt work as well but ADH is the big one"
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53tejz | why does a hard boiled egg leave me feeling full much sooner than eating a srambled or fried egg? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53tejz/eli5why_does_a_hard_boiled_egg_leave_me_feeling/ | {
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"It has a lot to do with the fact that more of the egg protein gets denatured when frying as opposed to boiling. Remember, your body has a lower tolerance for protein than fat, so will more quickly fill up on it. This is why people on high-protein diets can eat less and still feel full. The higher temps also break down some of the nutrients, that you don't lose while boiling."
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696bf7 | why is it preferable to have illegally obtained evidence thrown out of court as opposed to keeping it and prosecuting the one who obtained it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/696bf7/eli5_why_is_it_preferable_to_have_illegally/ | {
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"The Supreme Court discusses this rationale in every exclusionary case. \n\nThe first thing to keep in mind is that the Constitution does not require an exclusionary rule. But for the 4th Amendment to have any value it must have some remedy or mechanism of enforcement. \n\nSuing the officials for an illegal search is always an option. But the cards are stacked against the defendant, who is probably already busy defending himself in a criminal trial. Further, agents of the state are a big target to take on for a private individual. If private citizens are left with the sole burden of enforcing an important Constitutional right, that right may effectively disappear. \n\nThe alternative, and the one the Court considered most likely to deter illegal searches, is to cut off the reward. An illegal search practice = inadmissible. \n\nBUT, since the Constitution does not require the exclusionary rule, and since it more often than not lets a guilty person go when applied, the rule is only to be applied when the deterrent effect outweighs the cost to society. \n\nTherefore, in a case where, for example, an officer made a legitimate mistake of law, or a clerical error prompted him to act in a way that turned out illegal, the exclusionary rule has little deterrent effect and the evidence should be admitted. \n\n",
"Because it can create the issue of law enforcement basically going \"eh, it's worth it\", deciding that a conviction is worth the fines or whatever penalties come from ignoring proper procedure to obtain evidence if it's going to be valid. Especially since law enforcement has a hard time getting prosecuted to begin with. It's there to ensure that due process is adhered to.\n\n It's the same rationale as shady companies doing something that would still be profitable even after they get hit by a fine.",
"If the evidence was obtained illegally, there's good cause to suspect that it's been tampered with otherwise, or processed incorrectly, or perhaps not even valid evidence to the crime in the first place.\n\nAnother way to look at it is that if the officer was willing to break the law to get the evidence, who's to say they weren't willing to break the law and fake the evidence? This all follows from the idea that it's better to let a guilty person walk free than to put an innocent person in jail - and if you disagree with that, imagine if you're the innocent person. No, really, think it through, for a few hours.",
"/u/law180 provides a good answer. Another factor to consider, assuming you are not talking about a civil remedy is that the very law enforcement officials who just violated the Constitution would then be responsible for prosecuting themselves. So under your question Officer Adam decides to do an illegal search because he's really really sure that criminal Bob has heroin in his house. Officer Adam finds heroin and takes the evidence to prosecuter Charlene. Charlene is now expected to file charges against both Officer Adam and criminal Bob, because both of them broke the law? As a practical matter prosecutor Charlene is unlikely to vigorously pursue charges against officer Adam, and even if she did neither judge Denise nor the jury members Ed, Elmer, Elizabeth, Ellen, and so on would probably convict him.\n\n Meaning that in the absence of the exclusionary rule there is nothing to prevent the government from willfully violating constitutional rights. And Rights are meaningless if they don't apply to everyone, but there's just no way a jury is going to convict a police officer for violating a child rapists' rights if corners are cut to obtain a conviction. Because of that we must suffer the bad of letting criminals go in order to preserve the greater good of rights that have meaning, because the next time a corner is cut it might not be for someone as \"obviously bad\" as a child rapist but is instead someone who for example says bad things about the president online. Do we want the world to be one heading down that slippery slope? it is a hard rule, but it keeps our police at least marginally honest.",
"Arguably, prosecuting law enforcement for illegal searches doesn't actually protect the defendant's constitutional rights. It may deter illegal searches, but for that individual who was still subject to illegal search, their rights have been violated and they will suffer the consequences at trial. The exclusionary rule also has exceptions, including inevitable discovery--by a preponderance of the evidence, the state can show the evidence would have inevitably been discovered in the course of normal, legal police work, so admitting the evidence is putting the defendant in the same position he would have been with a legal search.\n\nFunctionally, at least based on my observations in court, the exclusionary rule is a bigger deal on Law & Order than it is in real life cases. It just doesn't get applied all that often, and it's rarely excluding make-or-break key evidence.",
"All the explanations here have to do with very practical implications of why illegally obtained evidence shouldn't be used against the state. \n\nSome comentators argue that the court shouldn't allow illegally obtained evidence because that offends the dignity of the court. In essence, the argument goes: if a court is itself willingly allowing the law to be broken in furtherance of its aims, then what gives the court the moral authority to judge others? \n\nThis might sound a little theoretical and abstract in relation to e.g. illegal searches, but another type of illegally obtained evidence is torture. It might be more relatable if you think of it this way: if we are ourselves engaging in torture, then what gives us the right to judge other people for their wrongdoing? ",
"Yes. It does lead to guilty people going free. That's the point! The burden is on the state, not the accused. The idea in principal that the state isn't getting any easy material to work with means that if they do their job, you pretty well did it.\n\nThere's also inadmissible facts and evidence. Like that you got dinged for stealing car stereos 5 years ago and you're a tow truck driver with a slim Jim to get into cars when you're on trial again for stealing stereos. Same idea - you think a jury would ever acquit a guy with who used to do something illegal and has a legitimate reason to have tools that you'd need to commit that crime again?\n\n",
"Others have touched on the rationale, but something to add- when you're thinking of illegally obtained evidence, you're probably thinking of police completely (and intentionally) disregarding the Constitution, but that is certainly not always the case when evidence is excluded. For example, an officer may legitimately believe there is probable cause to search a vehicle, but a judge later determines that under the circumstances, probable cause was lacking. Should we have officers live in constant fear of prosecution if a judge later disagrees with them regarding probable cause? A lot of legitimate searches would go unexecuted if that were the case. It's better to just have the evidence excluded at trial so police don't have an incentive to commit illegal searches, but also aren't gun shy about performing legal ones. ",
"[Fruit of the poisonous tree](_URL_0_)\n\nFruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor in the United States used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the \"tree\") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the \"fruit\") from it is tainted as well.",
"Also I vould also add that the exclusionary rule is applied overwhelmingly in drug cases. Because drug prosecutions are frequently triggered by pretext searches with no previous investigation or suspicion. You'll rarely find it applied when there has been a previous investigation because police can just get a warrant, so not common in murder trials and such.",
"The Bill of Rights is not so much a list of rights the citizens have, but a **list of rights that the state (people in government) cannot violate.** I.E. The Bill of Right's primary purpose isn't to ensure that criminals are prosecuted; it's to protect people from the state's power.\n\nThe entire criminal justice process is set up to make the state go through hoops if it wants to infringe upon a person's rights. \n\nWhen the state infringes on those rights without going through those hoops, it violates the accused person's rights. I.E. It does exactly what the Constitution prohibits. \n\nSo, when people in government violate the constitutional protections afforded to a person under, say, the Fourth Amendment, by gathering evidence illegally, they cannot then later use that evidence, or the evidence that resulted from their violation, to convict the individual. This protects everyone from the overwhelming power of the state, even if it allows someone who acted illegally to go free, because keeping the government from becoming too powerful is the law's primary purpose.\n\n**Edit.** As another example, the First Amendment protects free speech. But this isn't a right to be free from all consequences of speech. It's a prohibition that says the government cannot limit what you say. Again, the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights aren't a list of things you can do without any consequence, **it's a list of things the government cannot do.**",
"That is, however, the French rule (keeping the evidence, penalizing the police officer who obtained it). Different systems deal with this issue differently.",
"In short: this is a case where two wrongs do not make a right.\n\nIf we lived in a perfect system, then sure, criminals should be punished, regardless of how evidence was obtained.\n\nBut the fact that cops would need to literally be breaking the laws themselves in order to do so, as they are usually the ones providing evidence, makes this untenable.\n\nBeing allowed to use coercion, or theft, or torture, or other illegal means to obtain evidence is not something I wish to ever see become precedent.\n\nSure, doing so might get more guilty people put in jail, but I don't believe for a second that the innocent would be safe from allowing this sort of thing.\n\nWe live in the USA at least with a concept of \"innocent until proven guilty\" because it is better to let a guilty man occasionally walk free than to jail the innocent. This applies here especially well.",
"I don't really know, but to avoid framing?",
"Just a note that *inadmissible* evidence is not synonymous with *illegally obtained* evidence. Things like police reports are generally inadmissible on hearsay grounds--not because they were illegally obtained. Also, the collection of certain evidence may have been \"legal\" at the time (i.e., the police had a valid warrant) but the grounds for the warrant are subsequently challenged successfully. \n\nI know OP is asking about \"illegally obtained\" evidence but just wanted to provide some legal context. ",
"You're assuming that the defendent is guilty when you say that the exclusionary rule is an illegal act keeping out illegal act. Yes we want guilty people to be prosecuted accordingly but we also want the state to have to prove it and we want the state to prove it within the confines of the constitution. If that can't be done then we don't want the guilty person to be prosecuted. It absolutely has to work that way because it's the only way that the 4th amendment has any value.\n\nIt's also why we allow that same previously excluded evidence to be included if it is later legally obtained. If there is a way to prove the person is guilty while respecting the constitution then we want the person to be prosecuted.",
"Coming from a different jurisdiction from the US, the way we see it, it's better for a guilty person to walk free rather than an innocent person to be convicted. \nTowards this, strict rules are set to ensure from Investigation to arrest to prosecution to sentencing, the rights of the individual as enshrined in the Constitution are guarded vehemently \n \nTL:DR it should be hard for the government to convict someone because the entire process involves violating the person's constitutional and other rights enshrined in international treaties. \nSo if they're gonna do it, they should be damn sure about it ",
"A lot of good thoughts but I've yet to see the real answer. It all comes down to two concepts: tyranny, and the importance of precedent. In western culture, and specifically law in the US, the accepted philosophy is that it's better 100 guilty men should walk rather than 1 innocent man pay. We place a premium on liberty and think it should be defended at every point. What the public at large tends to have a hard time with is \"situational\" justice and that events within the justice system do NOT exist within a vacuum. Essentially, making an exception to the standard of evidence even just once for the sake of apparent immediate justice actually threatens justice as a whole, because it permanently erodes the standard put in place to begin with. At the core of our justice system is a series of fail safes that prevent power (via Wealth, status, political affiliation) from tipping scales. In a court of law, all are to be equal. To bypass a standard just once is detrimental. \n\nTL;DR The cost of a guilty person getting away with a crime for the sake of maintaining standards in law is far less than he cost of compromising standards for the sake of \"situational\" justice that actually threaten justice as a whole. ",
"This isn't true for all countries. In Sweden, we have \"Fri bevisprövning\" (ruffly \"free consideration of evidence\"). Any proof can be put forth in court, even if obtained illegally. There is no such thing as \"throwing out evidence\" just for the sake of not taking them into consideration.\n\nIf there is a crime committed when obtaining the evidence, that's a separate case that can be tried. Say you're a burglar who finds child porn in the computer you stole. The owner of the computer will be prosecuted for possession of child porn and the burglar will be prosecuted for burglary.",
"It's interesting to note that this is more true in the USA than most other countries. Generally in England, all evidence is admissible as long as it's relevant and reliable. \"Traditionally, English judges have been prepared\nto eat the fruit, however poisonous the tree\"\n\nIllegally obtaining it would be treated with as a separate (and serious) matter, but throwing it out is generally considered to be detrimental to the case at hand.",
"If the illegally obtained evidence was admissable, a lot of renegade cops would break the law to get evidence and take the slap on the wrist that came with it. They'd end up violating a lot of innocent people's rights on their way to justice. \n\nAlso, it'd likely be a slippery slope. If you relax standards and let cops obtain evidence legally, it probably wouldn't be long before they started tampering with evidence or completely fabricating evidence against people they think are guilty.",
"Most of the answers here seem to be focused on the United States, but for those interested, illegally obtained evidence can be submitted in several jurisdictions.\n\nIn the UK for example, illegally obtained evidence only need be excluded where it would preclude the notion of a fair trial (s78(1) Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984). This allows the judge to assess the evidence before the trial begins, and provides him with the ability to exclude illegally obtained evidence on consideration of a fair trial.\n\nMore recently, UK courts have held that illegal actions by state agents such as the police may invalidate the prosecution of an individual. Specifically, in cases of entrapment, courts have held that undercover police officers entrapping individuals can constitute an abuse of process, allowing the judge to declare a stay of proceedings, see R v Loosely [2001]. I believe the UK approach is similar to the approach taken in Canada.\n\nOn your second point, UK courts haven't shown particular interest in prosecuting individual officers for illegal searches or obtaining evidence illegally as English courts generally pay due deference to the police in their efforts in fighting crime. UK courts seem to recognise that undercover operations and slightly off-the-books practices are becoming increasingly important in combatting terrorism and organised crime, and as long as there is process which prevents the prosecution of defendants where there has been an abuse of process, courts are happy to let the police take the initiative on counter-crime tactics (mostly).\n",
"Real ELI5: If you knew your teacher still had to give you full credit for your homework even if they knew you cheated, there would be no real reason not to cheat. When there is no reason not to cheat, a lot of people will and we would have no way of knowing who actually gets the grade they deserve. Also, the students with more resources would be able to cheat more easily and the kids with less resources would not be able to keep up.",
"To add to the Zeitgeist here, Radiolab did a fascinating episode on what's colloquially known as \"The Buried Bodies Case\", a kind of landmark litigation on the subject. Here's a link: _URL_0_",
"allowing illegally obtained evidence encourages illegally obtaining evidence\n\nits literally that simple",
"Evidence is not proof. Illegally obtained material can be used selectively to reinforce a narrative that isn't necessarily true. To protect the rights of citizens, there are rules in place intended to make the prosecution of a crime as fair as possible to the accused, the victim, and the system. The primary principle is innocence until guilt is proven.\n\nIf police cherry pick evidence from someone's life with no restriction, they could craft whatever story they wanted to tell, without regard for the truth. \n\nPolice in the US are incentivized to produce convictions. Without the rules of evidence, the right to remain silent, and the right to an attorney, many more innocent people would be imprisoned.\n\nA similar quandary is the issue of asset forfeiture, wherein the assets of citizens are seized and declared \"guilty,\" under suspicion of being involved in a crime. Assets so seized are often never returned to citizens, despite charges being dropped, never even filed, or innocence bring proven in court.\n\nThe technicality that only people are protected, and not property, fully shows the need to protect citizens from the police. \n\nNumerous cases are working their way through the US court system, whittling away at asset forfeiture. State, local, and federal law enforcement have seized more than 15 billion USD over the last ten years. A significant portion of those assets belonged to citizens who were never convicted.\n\nThere are rules because people are shitty, badge or no badge.",
"This used to bug me when I worked in Digital Forensics. In UK court, if an analyst put forward evidence - Bearing in mind, the primary role of the analyst is to extract the data and give it to the officer in charge of the case - they are classed as a professional witness (Not expert). So the defense usually start trying to attack the analyst directly, questioning qualifications, attitude, spelling errors - You name it. 1 thing wrong, they pounce on it, and try to make out that the evidence you provided cannot be relied upon because you are shit at your job, and therefore needs to be not considered. \nIt's like... But the guy has a selfie on his phone, geotagged inside the property he was arrested in, holding the actual bag that was seized from him and is also in evidence.... \n\n'Sorry, the analyst must have extracted it wrong, needs to be done again' \n\nUsually its to buy more time, but it always made me think of your question. \nIf I broke into a property and stole the CCTV box which had incriminating footage on it, and handed it to the police - Technically, they could have it thrown out of court - even though it actually shows the truth of what actually happened. \nI doubt it would ever be that extreme, and the judge would just allow it, but still - Fucking technicalities!",
"A TRUE ELI5 from a law clerk in the US with no speculation or pseudo-jurisprudence or legal philosophy debate (may need to get an attorney to tweak the points):\n\nSo first part, yes. It's designed to discourage illegal searches. Your second part, \"obvious guilty people go free\"...\n\nNot your job or any LEO's job to determine. That's the jury's job. \n\nThere's a reason it's called \"fruit from a poisonous tree\". So if you plant the seed of said poisonous tree in a jury's mind (illegally obtained evidence), they're going to eat the fruit (consider the evidence). \n\nIf the evidence was obtained illegally, that cannot come in (def will file motions, prosecution files rebuttal motions, judge considers and weighs whether it comes in or not, etc). It's the judges job to determine if evidence was illegally obtained. Not yours or the jury's.\n\nTl;dr: judge does his job to determine if evidence was obtained illegally. If yes, jury's job to convict (or acquit) without illegal evidence (remember, everyone's presumed innocent until proven guilty). Reason being; discourage illegal searches.",
"Imagine you are a kid and you did something bad, let's say you took a selfie on your phone of you doing it.\n\nNow let's say you are being accused of it, and they illegally take your phone and show the proof of what you did.\n\nNow ask yourself, would you rather get in trouble along with the person who took the phone or would you rather let them slide and cause said evidence to no longer be used in the case?",
"Because an illegal search is a violation of someone's civil rights. It is an especially egregious abuse of government power, to search your home or person without probable cause (and there are tons of exceptions to the 4th amendment, most of which are BS in my opinion), so the response should be proportional to the infringement.\n\nIn an ideal world we'd keep illegal evidence in and punish police officers who execute illegal searches, but the internal culture of police departments would mean simple slaps on the wrist, and illegal searches would become the new norm. I think of it as a necessary evil to deter police from overstepping their authority. To get the guy convicted, they necessarily have to do it by the book, or the criminal will get off scot-free.\n",
"Because our founders believed it is better for 4 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man be falsely convicted ",
"Sometime criminal defense attorney here. Two immediate justifications come to mind.\n\nFirst, the thing about illegally-obtained evidence is that many of the things that might make evidence illegal *also* call into question the *truthfulness* of the evidence. The most obvious example would be coerced confessions. Yes, we don't like coerced confessions because there's something fundamentally unfair about them, to say nothing about the distinct unpleasantness of the \"coercion\" involved. But more than that, it's pretty well-established that pretty much anybody will confess to pretty much anything if you tie them to a chair and lay into them with a hammer. Or whatever. Well, very much the same is true for a lot of other issues too, to a greater or lesser extent. The protections we have about the collection of evidence not only protect privacy interests, but also protect the integrity of the evidence-collection process. If nothing else, the cops broke *those* rules, how do we know they didn't break *other* rules in the process?\n\nSecond, and the most common justification offered for the \"exclusionary rule,\" as it's called, is that if it weren't out there as a remedy, prosecutors and law enforcement would have no incentive whatsoever to respect the law when investigating crimes. If *everything they get* can be used in court, then they'll do *anything they* can to get incriminating evidence. So even if this particular defendant really is guilty, if we let him be convicted on the basis of illegally-obtained evidence, what possible incentive is there for the cops to not just railroad some innocent schmuck the next time? Or to run roughshod over every constitutional protection about searches and seizures? Pretty much nothing, that's what. And even if there can ultimately be civil remedies on the back end, they're hardly adequate for the victim. ",
"The evidence is considered \"tainted\" at that point and cannot properly be used as proof of guilt. Keep in mind that not all evidence is \"proof\" -- in fact, most cases are built on several pieces of evidence.\n\nAs an example: say a bank is robbed in your area, one that you frequent. The robber just closely enough resembles you in height and build (wearing a mask, so no face, but the hair matches yours), and the cops already have reasons to want you jailed. So they gather legal evidence -- fingerprints at the scene, images from video, etc -- that at least puts you at the bank, even though it's largely circumstantial as you are a frequent visitor any way. However, they still lack enough information to really get a conviction.\n\nSo, they break into your house without a warrant and seize your computer. From that, they determine A) your alibi is not as airtight as you claim -- it looks like you could have been at the scene of the crime -- and B) they find you owe more money than you admitted to, giving them ability to claim you had motive. You actually have a good response to each of those -- the first one, you were somewhere you'd rather not admit to in court because family will be present, and the second one, you're actually expecting to pay off in the next several months, so to you it's not a big deal but to a jury, the number looks large.\n\nUnder the present system, you would most likely not be convicted, as those last two pieces would be dropped due to being illegally obtained and the rest of the evidence would not convince a jury. If you're guilty, that's unfortunate as it means you get away with the crime (no double jeopardy). But if you're innocent, the cops won't be able to get you thrown in jail just because they \"think\" you belong there.\n\nIf we sought alternative responses to illegally obtained information -- where the penalties were different, but the evidence were admissible -- there are plenty of cops who would gladly risk those penalties in order to get someone convicted that they *think* should be. In your case, if you're guilty, sure, they got their target. But if you're innocent, you've been effectively framed just because the cops *wanted* you to be convicted.\n\nKeep also in mind that police are not there to convict criminals -- they're to gather evidence and arrest those suspected of a crime. And most illegally obtained evidence has as its root cause police officer(s) that is \"convicting\" the suspect before the trial in their mind.",
"Short answer, prosecuting someone for illegally obtaining evidence is totally separate from the rights of the person accused of the original crime. Has nothing to do with each other. \n\nIf I am accused of a crime, the law says I have to be convicted, in a fair trial, according to the rules. \n\nIf someone uses evidence that they obtained in a way in which they are not allowed to obtain that evidence, then it cannot be used against me. Regardless of what happens to the person who got the evidence, the simple fact is, if I get convicted with that evidence, I didn't get a fair trial. \n\nUnderstand, \"illegally obtained\" doesn't mean the person getting the evidence committed a crime. It means they violated MY rights as a defendant. \n\nEX: Tom kills a guy. Tom is on trial. Bob robs a house, finds a video of Tom killing people and gives it to the police. Bob did something illegal, but that's not what \"illegally obtained\" evidence means. That video CAN be used in court. \n\nAs opposed to:\n\nTom kills a guy. The police go search Tom's house and find the murder weapon. The police did not get a search warrant. The police did not get legal authorization to violate Tom's 4th amendment rights. That IS illegally obtained evidence. If they used it, they wouldn't be giving Tom a fair trial. \n\n > but doesn't this lead to obviously guilty people going free?\n\nYes. Yes it does. We're ok with that. The legal system is designed with the idea that, our legal system would rather make convictions so strict the maybe some guilty people go free, than make the rules so lax that maybe some innocent people get wrongly convicted or otherwise abused. "
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1jn7y9 | if someone goes to jail for something that later becomes legal, are they then released? | For example if someone in Nevada went to jail for weed, were they released when weed became legal there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jn7y9/eli5_if_someone_goes_to_jail_for_something_that/ | {
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"Nothing, they still broke the law. If the law goes into affect retroactively, which is incredibly rare, they may be freed. ",
"If it was a crime when you did the act you will serve the remainder of your sentence regardless of future developments. ",
"Depends on the country but I believe that you would be able to apply to the courts to be released however realistically anything that is insignificant enough to have the law changed you wouldn't be sent to jail and anything large enough to send somebody to jail they punish you for multiple charges so you can't get out on some technically or good behaviour. ",
"As others have said generally they aren't released. It depends on the crime. After prohibition there were certain amnesties but the changing of the law does not overturn the conviction. In Europe retroactive legislation is actually illegal but I think the UK may ignore that, as they do.",
"When the state of Victoria, Australia legalised weed for medical use a retroactive clause was put in place.",
"Not automatically.\n\nWhen you commit a crime, you aren't just doing something society considers harmful, you are violating civil order. You are place your wants over the rules of your society has collectively agreed to follow, and that in itself is inherently harmful.\n\nPractically speaking, law enforcement may decide it isn't worthwhile to pursue your case anymore...both Washington and Colorado decided to drop a lot of pending marijuana possession charges when legalization measures passed last fall. There were not required to do so, but figured it wasn't a good way to spend limited resources.\n"
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xap71 | the community aspect of reddit | If you hadn't guessed, I'm new here, and, while I've certainly figured out how to find and rate content on Reddit, its social aspects continue to confuse me.
For instance, what the hell is a cake day? Could someone explain karma/karma whoring? Am I supposed to upvote/downvote every post I read, or just the ones that stand out? What does Reddit gold do? What actions can I take to lend credibility and positive rep to my account?
And, yes, I know all of this information is fairly easy to find around the site/ rest of the interwebs. I'm asking here because I'd rather hear it from an experienced member of the community. Cheers! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xap71/eli5_the_community_aspect_of_reddit/ | {
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"* Cake day = Reddit birthday. Every 12 months since you signed up, you get a cake next to your name for 24hr.\n* Karma = number of upvotes you've received minus number of downvotes. Link karma + comment karma are separate. Self-posts (text, not links) don't receive karma.\n* Up to you. I just upvote the ones that stand out.\n* Not much. One day it might.\n* Post interesting links, make insightful, helpful / funny comments.\n\nPS: Welcome. :)",
"Cake day is the anniversary of the day you created your account. The developers added a feature that puts a little cake symbol next to your name on your cake day. People have started to use that as a way to encourage others to upvote an otherwise mediocre post (pet pics, often) as a way of \"cashing in\" their cake day.\n\nYou don't have to vote for anything, but up/down votes are the only thing that makes the flow of content interesting. It seems like most people only vote on things that stand out either positively or negatively. It's important to keep in mind the reddicuette. Votes aren't slays a matter of opinion. Upvotes are for items that add something or are on topic. Downvotes are for things that are not adding anything new, are off topic for a sub, or are spammy/trolling/incorrect. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it's a downvote. Actually, I upvote well written opinions counter to my own all the time.\n\nReddit gold is a \"bonus mode\" you get for essentially donating money to reddit. You get some extra features that haven't rolled out to everyone else yet, and access to a silly subreddit. I've been redditing for years, never had it, probably never will.\n\nYour credibility is not your karma score. Write thoughtful (or hilarious) comments, submit fresh links, and people will take notice (or not). If you do something good/bad, keep in mind that everything you've posted or commented on is visible to everyone, so people can and will check your track record."
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7i22ef | how are the stars always in the same spot in the sky? | So if the earth is always spinning and rotating how come the stars have always been in the same spot. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7i22ef/eli5_how_are_the_stars_always_in_the_same_spot_in/ | {
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"If you stand in one place and turn around 360 degrees, the position of the world changes from your perspective, but all buildings, cities, countries, continents, etc. remain in exactly the same position.\n\nSame concept applies to the stars. They're always in the same spot relative to everything else.\n\nThe stars are so distant that even though the Earth (and our solar system as a whole) is moving through space, the effect on our \"view\" of the stars is negligible. ",
"First, stars are really, really far away. So from our perspective it looks like they're in the same place every night...\n\nBut that's not true. Over thousands of years, stars *do* change position even from our perspective. They have in the past and will in the future. It's just that these time scales are *vastly* longer than our lifespans. ",
"The stars spin in the sky. But only because we move. If you have a time lapse picture of the night sky, you can see the stars \"move\" (because the earth is turning). \n\nYou can also see the stars change positions in the sky...over the course of hundreds of thousands and millions of years. You don't see any changes from day to day because the distance they move is minuscule compared to the distance the stars are from you. Think of it like this: if you see a person 10 feet in front of you move 30 feet to the left, it's a huge move. You have to significantly rotate your body (or move your eyes) to see their new position. If you see someone that is a mile away from you move 30 feet to the left, it looks like they hardly moved at all. \n\nAlpha Centauri, the closest star system to earth, is 25.67 trillion miles away. "
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12jlje | i would love to learn about the most common (say 5-10) logical argument fallacies, but most explanations are too difficult | I keep having people use terms like "straw man" or "red herring" to counter in arguments, and then they just ignore my point. It's really difficult to not know the language and have my reasoning dismissed. I tried looking up on a couple of websites, but I found the language so thick and formal I wasn't able to wrap my head around it. Would some awesome cool philosopher out there maybe list the most common ones with their common names and maybe a quick explanation of how it is used with an example? Or if there is a web resource out there that is more dummy friendly, I'd love to hear about that too! Thanks in advance!
EDIT: What a display of kindness! Thanks to everyone for more information than I could have ever hoped for. I I will be going over all this info for some time. See you in the debate circuit! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12jlje/i_would_love_to_learn_about_the_most_common_say/ | {
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"Nice, simple and descriptive explanations for fallacies [here](_URL_0_).",
"Here is a list of fallacies: _URL_0_\n\nI will try to describe the common ones in easier terms.\n\nStraw Man: When you take your opponents argument and use only the parts of it that help you.\n\nExtreme Example: We should put people with knives in jail if they attack somebody.\nStraw man counter: Putting people in jail for having knives is unlawful.\n\nRed Herring: Diverting the attention off the main issue using irrelevant arguments. \n\nExtreme Example: Literally anything about taxes\nRed herring counter: America needs to protect interests in other countries.\n\nFalse Dichotomy: Saying there's two options when there's really more.\nExample: You can either eat the gummy bear on the ground or be a pussy forever.\n\nPost hoc ergo propter hoc: Taking things that aren't relevant to each other and trying to make them relevant to each other.\nExample: I wore a blue sweater today. There was a car crash four streets down. Therefore, me wearing a blue sweater caused the car crash.\n\nSlippery Slope: Trying to connect two points on a long list of assumptions.\n\nExample: If I get more homework at night I won't get as much sleep and therefore I won't do as well on tests and I will become less motivated in school and if I'm less motivated I will start to flunk classes and if I flunk classes than I will drop out of school and if I drop out of school I'll join a gang and if I join a gang I'll probably do something illegal and if I do something illegal than I'll probably get caught and if I get caught I'll have to go to jail. Therefore more homework=going to jail.\n\nGambler's Fallacy: the incorrect belief that separate, independent events can affect the likelihood of another random event.\n\nExample: If a coin flip lands on heads 10 times in a row, the belief that it is \"due to land on tails\" is incorrect.\n\nAd hominem: attacking the person not the argument.\n\nExample: Romney's tax plans will not work because he's a bad person.\n\nOR\n\nHitler likes dogs. Hitler is a bad person. Therefore dogs can't be liked.\n\nOR\n\nWe can't take the words of a mentally insane person seriously because they're mentally insane. (AKA, it doesn't matter who said it, you have to take it at face value)\n\nLoaded Question: Asking a question that assumes something that may not be true.\n\nExample: Do your parents know you had sex with a transvestite midget?\n\nNo true Scotsman: Exculding people in a group that don't help your argument.\n\nExample: Christians are all good people.\n\n\"What about Christians that rape people?\"\n\nThey aren't REAL Christians - No true Scotsman\n\n\nOne of my favorites (but you'll never see it)\n\nPathetic Fallacy: Portraying inanimate things as animate.\n\nExample: We shouldn't cut down trees because it makes the trees sad.\n\n\nTu quoque: The proponent (person who argues for) of an argument doesn't act accordingly to their argument.\n\nExample: That rich guy says that getting rid of tax deductions will help the economy, yet he sits there and enjoys tax deductions. Therefore he is wrong.\n\nOR\n\nA person who smokes tells you that you shouldn't smoke and smoking is bad for you. But he smokes, so therefore smoking is good for you and he is wrong.\n\n\nThats all I got for now.",
"This is as close to an ELI5 as I can find: (powerpoint file) _URL_0_",
"**Straw man** - Claiming the other person has said (or means) something they didn't, and then arguing against that thing and claiming the other person is wrong because you've just shown how stupid the thing they never said is \"I think wood is the best building material\" \"You claim to be thinking, but maybe you're just reacting. There's a bunch of science that says people don't really think, they just react to stuff. You're just reacting. So you're wrong.\" (Thinking has nothing to do with if wood is good for building with).\n\n**Ad hominem** - \"I think it's better to build with cement than wood, because cement doesn't get dry rot.\" \"Oh yeah? Well you're wrong about that because you're a big poopy head!\" (Claiming that the other person is wrong because they are a terrible person, and ignoring their argument.)\n\n**Appeal to authority** - \"You're wrong about cement being better than wood, my dad the astrophysicist said so. He's a smart guy, he'd know\" (The reason it's a fallacy is that even though astrophysicists are indeed smart, there is no reason why one would know anything about building. If your dad was a contractor, it might be different).\n\n**Red Herring** - \"You have not provided proof of your daddy's IQ. You're wrong!\" (problem here is that it doesn't matter how smart your dad is. It only matters if he might actually have expertise in construction).\n\n**Argument from ignorance** - \"No one can prove that it's better to build with cement instead of wood. So wood is better.\" (problem - not being able to prove it does not mean the other option is automatically right).\n\n**Moving the goalposts** - \"Just because wood gets dry rot is no reason to not build with bricks.\" (There was a good reason not to build with wood, but instead of admitting the other person has a point, you claim to have been arguing about something else entirely).\n\n**Cherry picking** - It's true that wood gets dry rot, but you didn't mention that cement can get water damaged. You've ignored the thing that doesn't support building with cement.\n\n**Appeal to emotion** - \"Trees are wonderful. The Lorax loves trees. If you love trees, you would never cut them down to build with. Cement is better!\" (how you feel about trees has nothing to do with how strong a building made out of them will be).\n\n**Slippery slope** - \"If you build with cement, you have to dig up rocks to make it. If you keep digging up rocks, you'll eventually reach China (or America, if you're in China). Then people on the other side of the world will fall through. They'd be illegal immigrants. That would be horrible!\" (Just because the first thing is true (digging up rocks) there is no reason why all the other things would happen).\n\n\n\n",
"As a side note, [knowing about biases can HURT you](_URL_0_)! If you're gonna learn about these, don't just know them: understand them.",
"If you are losing an argument, and you KNOW you are right, they are using a logical fallacy.",
"As an aside, once you learn these logical fallacies, don't be the person who counters every argument with the simple naming of a fallacy, without explaining how you see it to be an example of one. \n\n\nTo me, a post saying simply - \"This is a straw man\" - is no more convincing than the logical fallacy itself, and makes you look like some 15 year old who just learned about logical fallacies for the first time.",
" > I keep having people use terms like \"straw man\" or \"red herring\" to counter in arguments, and then they just ignore my point.\n\nThey're using a logical fallacy against you. No explanations? But slapping on a derogatory label? Do they seem to be hoping that it sways the audience against you, but without having to support their assertion? That's Ad Hominem.\n\nBefore learning the fallacies, we all need to realize what fallacies really are. They're dishonesty. They're twisted ploys used by skilled liars whose goal is to sway an audience. (The goal in debate is not persuasion. Leave that for politicians. The goal is to find out which side is actually right.)\n\n[Feynman on the need for extreme bend-over-backwards honesty](_URL_0_)\n",
"Here's a great example of using the \"appeal to emotions\" rather then enganging on the other persons premise. [The vice presidential debate in 88](_URL_0_)\n",
"Here's a couple:\n\nA \"straw man\" argument is where you misrepresent the opposing argument to make it look ridiculous or to prove a point without actually refuting what was actually said. Example (from Wikipedia): Person A says \"Sunny days are good\" and person B responds \"If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death.\". In this case, person B is using a straw man argument to make person A look worse. Person A never said that every day should be sunny, and didn't even mention rainy days, but person B is misrepresenting person A's argument. Now person A has to defend himself instead of being able to actually make an argument. \n\nThe Genetic Fallacy is one where someone instantly disregards an argument solely because of the source. An easy example is if someone posted a news article on Reddit from Fox news. Many people would look at the source, see that it's Fox, and instantly think that the the story is a lie without even considering the actual content of the story. \n\nThe \"Slippery Slope\" argument is one that gets used a lot. It suggests that if an action is taken, it will lead to more drastic consequences that will get out of control. An example might be someone arguing against gay marriage, saying that if we redefine marriage to also include two people of the same gender, soon people will be allowed to marry their pets. That argument is ridiculous, since allowing gay marriage doesn't mean that the next step will be pet marriages.\n\n\"False dichotomy\" is when you set up a choice with only two options, when there could be more. It's a \"if you're not with me, you're against me\" kind of thing. Since that's not a great definition, I'll give you an example: \"\"If you want better public schools, you have to raise taxes. If you don't want to raise taxes, you can't have better schools.\" This is ignoring the option of spending your tax money more wisely. It's saying that the only choices are having good schools and higher taxes or lower taxes and bad schools, when in reality, you could have good schools and lower taxes if you're more efficient at allocating the funds correcting.\n\nAnd my favorite, the \"Gambler's Fallacy\". This is the wrongful assumption that past events influence future events. A gambler might have lost 20 games of blackjack in a row, and figure that because he's lost so many, he's \"due\" for a win soon. Probability doesn't work like that, the outcomes are independent of past outcomes. \n\nThere are a whole ton more, these are just a couple of them. \n\n"
]
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"http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies"
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"http://advancedeld.wikispaces.com/file/view/Logical+Fallacies+Know+Book.ppt"
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"http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/"
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[],
[],
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"http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3043/1/CargoCult.pdf"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWXRNySMW4s"
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316ofx | why do advertisers & marketing people believe it's a good strategy to make ads that are deliberately annoying, and to run them several times in a row during a commercial break? | Do they really believe that annoying someone is a useful goal, in that they will therefore remember the brand better? Do they have any actual psychological research that proves this? Regardless of the fact that many will outright refuse to consider their company at all once they've been annoyed? Doesn't the rise and widespread adoption of ad-blocking software disprove that hypothesis? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/316ofx/eli5_why_do_advertisers_marketing_people_believe/ | {
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"We are all familiar with those ads on television that just scream at us to switch them off. They are just so excruciating that you can’t bear to watch them. Afterwards you ask, why did a company make such a downright irritating ad? What possible benefit can accrue to them from actively irritating their potential customers? Then the answer comes to you. You can remember the product precisely because the ad was so horrible. The old dictum that \"No publicity is bad publicity\" has just operated in front of your eyes. The ad that you hated so much has given, the company that sponsored it, that most valuable of all benefits to be derived from advertising; brand recognition. You might cringe when you think of the advertisement. But you will remember the name of the product. Job done for the advertiser.",
"Not defending annoying ads, but there's plenty of basic research on how people learn that supports the practices you asked about. An ad is trying to \"teach\" you something (and by teach I mean make you remember something). To teach somebody you must first get their *attention* (lots of research to support this). Annoyance is one way to get someone's attention (\"squeaky wheel gets the grease\"). Similarly, basic research has shown that repetition is a way to commit something to long-term memory. Therefore, there are basic psych findings that support doing that. Bottom line: If you can easily ignore an ad, the ad doesn't have your attention and therefore you won't get its message. Annoying ads can get your attention and therefore might get a message to you. (The fact that you posted this ELI5 shows that some ads have successfully annoyed you and influenced your behavior somewhat.)",
"I would say it works just by putting the product in your head. Ever heard of head on? Apply directly to the forehead. ",
"It's all about making people aware of something and trying to get them to remember it, even if you have bad feelings about it (because of the annoying commercial).\n\nThe bad feelings will likely fade long before the memory of the product.\n\nFor example, lets say the commercial is for the [Deion Sanders Hotdog Express](_URL_0_). \n\nYou see it over and over again, to the point where you turn it off and complain about how much you hate it. \n\nThree years later, you move into your own apartment for the first time, and are looking for a new way to cook hotdogs. There may be 100 different appliances for cooking hotdogs, but the one you remember, the only one you even know exists, is the Hotdog Express. "
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4m6wsx | the difference between a dual-core 1400 mhz and a quad-core 1400 mhz mobile phone processor. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m6wsx/eli5_the_difference_between_a_dualcore_1400_mhz/ | {
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"I think what your asking what's the purpose of multicore processors. The 1400 MHz is clock speed which is the max frequency at which transitors can switch. The higher the frequency, the faster the processing for a single core. \nThe purpose of cores is to split up tasks. With most applications on a phone or tablet, they do single threading, which is using just one core. Multithreading tasks use multiple cores meaning the task is split up so that certain processes can be done simultaneously. All cores will have a max of the clock speed, 1400 MHz.\n\nThat's the basic difference. However there are a bunch of subtle difference like how certain processors do single threading and multithreading, gate size, psuedocore vs real cores, caching, integrated graphics, etc which can be more critical information about the processors performance that number of cores and clock speed.",
"To my understanding, a dual core 1400 MHz processor will have 2 units of processors each clocking 1400 MHz, whereas a quad-core processor will have 4 such units",
"Each core is an engine, a dual-core has two engines that can run processes simultaneously. A quad-core has 4 engines that can run processes simultaneously.",
"Think of a processor as a little office that you hand problems on paper, and there is a little man inside that solves the problem and hands you the answer.\n\nThe man can handle multiple problems at once, but he can only work on one problem at any given moment.\n\nNow imagine the same office, but you have four little men inside it. each man can work on a different problem, so you can have four times as many problems solved in the same amount of time, but each man can still only solve the individual problem he has at his own pace.\n\nBasically, having more cores lets you have more things running at once without slowing down, because some things can be worked on simultaneously.",
"Alright, I see a couple decent explanations, but I'll put in mine, which I find helps people understand pretty well.\n\nThe 1400 MHz is just the speed of the processor, basically how fast the transistors switch every second, in this case 1400 million times a second.\n\nThe cores is what I'm here to explain.\n\nYears ago, computers just had a single core. They had to do every instruction in sequence. So, say you're running a browser, office suite, and winamp because it's so long ago you're on WinXP. Your single core CPU has to handle all that in turn, it can't do any parallel actions.\n\nABCABCABC = 9 cycles, each letter being a cycle. Everything gets 3 cycles.\n\nThat's how it would handle what is getting done. A being your browser, B your office suite, and C being your 2000s songs. Sad thing about doing it this way, while it's fine for single tasks, it gets very slow depending on how many tasks you have. Each program takes away time from the other programs to get its stuff done. We eventually went to dual core CPUs, which pretty much doubled how many things we could run before slow down, insane performance gains.\n\nSo with the better CPU, you also start running Minesweeper and Solitaire.\n\nD = Minesweeper, E = Solitaire.\n\nACEBDACE\n\nBDACEBDA\n\n9 cycles, B, C, E, D get 3 cycles, A gets 4.\n\nSame amount of time taken, 9 cycles for everything getting three cycles minimum, but you have much more running. Nowadays, ever since WinXP, dualcore has been pretty much the minimum. And we keep running more crap, we will need more. Very soon quadcore will be the minimum, even on phones.\n\nSo, your new high end Windows XP machine just got an upgrade to FOUR CORES! Amazing, who knew technology could go so far in the early 2000s. Now with this new stuff, you also add in a couple more things.\n\nF = Photoshop, G = Team Fortress (the original mod)\n\nAEBFCG\n\nBFCGDA\n\nCGDAEB\n\nDAEBFC\n\n6 cycles (less time! :D), everything but A, B, C gets 3 cycles, A B and C get 4 cycles.\n\nAs you can see, quad core runs even faster thanks to paralleling the actions each program does. But, the difference isn't as drastic as from single core to dual core, the difference dissipates as you keep adding cores. Nowadays, the most a consumer product will have is 8, and that's generally pretty expensive. For most people, 4 cores is enough. Depending on the use case, dual core is still acceptable, like for phones, raspberry pis, and single core is even still acceptable for single purpose machines like coffee makers and refrigerators.\n\nSo, if you're looking at buying a phone between them, judge cost difference, judge how much stuff you leave running on it and decide on that. If you leave a lot running at any given time, like 5 or 10+ programs constantly, or very stressful programs like games, the extra cores might be nice for performance, however if you don't or the quad core model is like $400 more, maybe look at a different model."
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1czmtp | the physical characteristics of the planets in our solar system | I actually have a 5 year old I nanny for who asked me this. I promised him the next time I see him to have an explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1czmtp/eli5the_physical_characteristics_of_the_planets/ | {
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"In order from the sun:\n\n* **Mercury** - The smallest planet, no atmosphere, made of rock, very hot days, very cold nights. \n\n* [**Venus**](_URL_1_) - Slightly smaller than Earth, made of rock, has an acidic and thick atmosphere, hot because the greenhouse gases trap the heat.\n\n* [**Earth**](_URL_4_) - Largest rock planet, only one to have liquid water & amp;amp; life (as far as we know!).\n\n* [**Mars**](_URL_2_) - Red rock planet, is red because of the iron oxide (rust) in the ground, about half the size of Earth.\n\n* **Jupiter** - The largest planet, 320 time heavier than Earth, made of gas (Hydrogen and Helium), is famous for its perpetual storm called the [Great Red Spot](_URL_0_) which is itself more than double the size of Earth! Has many rocky moons, the most interesting of which (in my opinion) is Europa, which probably has a liquid ocean underneath its Ice surface.\n\n* **Saturn** - the second largest \"gas giant\", famous for its [huge rings](_URL_3_) which are made of chunks of Ice that range from microscopic to meters across. We've actually landed on one of saturns many moons, [Titan](_URL_5_).\n\n* **Uranus** - Another gas giant, odd because it is 'on its side.' Its poles face the sun unlike every other planet where the equator does.\n\n* **Neptune** - the smallest gas giant, and the most distant (30 times further from the sun than Earth) and coldest planet (-200 C).\n\nThese are the 8 'major' planets. There are in fact another 5 'Dwarf Planets' which ~~aren't round~~ are smaller and exist in asteroid belts. These are (from the sun):\n**Ceres** (Between Mars and Jupiter) and **Pluto**, **Haumea**, **Makemake** and **Eris** (all beyond Neptune). Of these Pluto is the most famous but Eris is actually the biggest, which is why Pluto used to be a major planet but was downgraded. All the dwarf planets have no atmosphere, are very cold, ~~aren't round~~ and are made of rock."
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"http://web.phys.tue.nl/fileadmin/tn/de_faculteit/capaciteitsgroepen/Fluids/WDY/Vortex/intro/REDSPOT.GIF",
"http://brian.hoover.net.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/venus1.jpg",
"http://dilemmaxdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nasa-mars-curiosity-panoramic-view-from-rocknest-position.jpg",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Saturn_eclipse_exaggerated.jpg",
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2duq2o | how come child prodigies usually have adhd? | Notably [Michael Kearney](_URL_0_), who graduated college at the age of 10 and taught college at the age of 17 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2duq2o/eli5_how_come_child_prodigies_usually_have_adhd/ | {
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"ADHD isn't the same in everyone, it's also misdiagnosed. ",
"I'm willing to bet that most of these child prodigies don't actually have legit adhd, its just that they get bored with simplistic shit more quickly than most kids. But God help everyone nearby when they find something that they actually find interesting, like quantum physics or something. ",
"ADD/ADHD is one of the most rampantly misdiagnosed things ever. It's common for kids to have fleeting interests/not have the same level of intense concentration as adults. "
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3bcqhs | if the sentinelese people have been isolated for the past 60k years is it possible that they have become their own sub species or have their own unique evolutionary adaptations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bcqhs/eli5_if_the_sentinelese_people_have_been_isolated/ | {
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"They could very well be slightly adapted, but 60,000 years is not enough for major physical changes. definitely very distinct culture and religion, but probably very similar in a physical sense."
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82n2cb | how much does fitness potential decrease with age? | For example, if someone was a great runner as a kid, would they be able to reach that point again when they are, say, 18? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/82n2cb/eli5_how_much_does_fitness_potential_decrease/ | {
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"Medically I read somewhere it declines by 10% each decade. Most people are never actually fit, or if they ever were they stop putting in the same work the older they get. Also, they don't eat a proper diet to sustain. Proper diet is a huge part of the body being healthy."
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33ww1q | why are scams so common as ads on webpages? | Most of us are smart enough to know that "clicking here" wont get you that new flashy cell phone or free product, instead just take all your card information, put you on some useless subscription or something, and suck your checking account for as much as they can until you wise up and go through the ugly process of getting out of it all (or something unfortunate like that). It would seem that this way of doing business is horribly bad for the consumer (victim); How can this stuff be as common as it is? Almost every website I go on has an ad trying to trick me into something. You would think this kind of stuff would be unacceptable, illegal even. But i'm sure there's a good explanation for its acceptance in today's internet, help me out here. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33ww1q/eli5_why_are_scams_so_common_as_ads_on_webpages/ | {
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"Well my common sense says money, i.e Ads provide money if you can advertise anything then why not and small websites will have more scams. These scammer's make enough money to pay the little amounts of fee to advertise and the people who rent servers out to smaller websites don't care where money is coming from as long as they make money so they get a lot more scammers then legit ads. That's why big sites don't have scamming ad's now you may ask about facebook that's based from your cookies sometimes you get ads on facebook that are scams but if you look closely it says underneath ads not by facebook that generally means you have a malware of some sort.\n\nI am not sure if this is the main reason though there may be other reasons to this problem."
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f7yd71 | why do successful transplants fail | If someone has a successful lung/ kidney transplant, they are expected to fail after 5-10 years even if they take care of their bodies.
Why? Is there anything that can be done to increase this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7yd71/eli5_why_do_successful_transplants_fail/ | {
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"I'm going to go a bit beyond 5 years old here, but I think you may appreciate it. \n\nOur organs are made of cells, but it's important for our cells to communicate with each other but also self identify as being part of a larger whole, because otherwise our bodies immune system will destroy any \"foreign\" cell. To communicate between cells (and therefore organs) we have tiny little signaling \"antennae\" called glycoproteins and glycolipids and these have their own unique fingerprint for everyone. \n\nSo the surgery could go right, but the organ could still be rejected by the recipients immune system targeting a \"foreign\" group of cells.",
"There are SO many variables. For those that have experienced the process, it’s amazing that they happen at all. \nBut, since your asking, the transplant centres can have almost 100% control over the receiver, insuring that they are as healthy as possible. \nAt the other end, there is zero control over the donor. If a person dies and donates, there is no way of knowing a comprehensive medical background. The organs have a “shelf life” and are harvested quickly. The organ is then assigned to a receiver based on rudimentary marching of sine variables. The receiver begins prep to get the organ and while the organ is in transit, it is tested further. If a problem such as disease is detected but is deemed still treatable once in the host, the host is made aware and has final say if they want want the risk. So, they fail because there will always be holes in the system. \nThat’s a nutshell for you.",
"Your body knows (most of the time) what is you and what is not. It tries to defend you from things in you that are not you. Transplants are a constant fight between you and the part you want to be a new part of you. But it is a fight you cannot win in the long run.",
" > Why?\n\nBecause the body is very effective at identifying and attacking foreign objects, organisms, viral agents and other intruders. The only reason transplants are successful in the first place is the discovery of powerful immunosuppressive pharmaceuticals, drugs that cause the immune system to stop working.\n\nHowever, over time the body will still reject the organ even from a relative. Perhaps monozygotic/single egg twins wouldn't have this problem since their DNA is or is almost identical, but I don't know enough about that to make any statement.\n\n > Is there anything that can be done to increase this?\n\nThere is significant research going on into extracting stem cells from the patients themselves and growing organs in a laboratory. This could potentially make the organs as functional as the 'original'.\n\nIn case you don't know, stem cells are a sort of *cell factory* that can divide almost indefinitely - and will adapt to their surroundings to produce the appropriate type of structures. Thus, they can be 'convinced' to make organs that are in near all respects identical to the individual they're extracted from.",
"You are on life long immunosuppresion so that your body doesnt take out your new organ because it doesnt look like the other cells in your body.\n\nMoreoever, because they suppress your immune system you are more prone to dying of infections that normal people can handle.",
"The biggest problem with an organ transplant in the immune system reaction to the organ. Your immune system will identify the new organ as a foreign object and will attack it causing rejection which will destroy the organ.\n\nNow, rejection can be avoided by immunosuppressions medications : They lower the activity of the immune system and thus it will attack less the transplanted organ.\n\nProblem tho is that you can't completely prevent the immune system from attacking the transplant, even with good medication. And immunosupressors can induce long term complications on other organs and increase the overall risk of getting cancer. So usually after a few years, the transplant will start to get rejected.\n\nHowever, everyone is different and some people are luckier than others. While a heart transplant give you an average life expectancy of 9 years, some people have managed to live with a transplanted heart for more than 25 years.",
"In addition to what everyone else has said, sometimes the disease which necessitated the transplant in the first place reoccurs and affects new the organ also."
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baw4qg | if we pointed a radio telescope at earth from space, what would we see? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/baw4qg/eli5_if_we_pointed_a_radio_telescope_at_earth/ | {
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"It depends on what frequency you choose. Unless you stay in the [Water Hole](_URL_0_ ) you only see an opaque ball. There is also a narrow optical band where you can sometimes see some of the surface, but that's not a radio telescope.\n\nIn the Water Hole (between 1.42 and 1.67 GHz), you don't see much unless something happens to be pointed at you having just passed some satellite. Then you'd see highly structured data, in a short burst before the planetary rotation sweeps the signal off you. It would be an indicator of technology, but it wouldn't tell you much in that short burst, without any context. Just enough that you'd mark the place \"inhabited\" on your species' star charts and go someplace else with your interstellar spaceship."
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30fbsa | doesn't my "right to refuse service for any reason" make bills like indiana's "religious protection act" redundant or unnecessary? | I have worked in the grocery business for over a decade now, an we have always had "We have the right to refuse service for any reason" plaques plastered on every check stand. I have exercised this right many times.
Now while I disagree with refusing service in mass against a whole group of people, I fail to see how that is illegal considering its "my" business or "my" property. It just seems like a bad business practice.
I mean, I remember Denny's getting horrible news attention in the late 90's over using their right to refuse service on Africans Americans; it was dumb, and they got shamed into undoing it, but I don't recall any legal complications. I could be Wong though.
Tl;Dr: doesn't the right to refuse service make bills like Indiana's unnecessary? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30fbsa/eli5_doesnt_my_right_to_refuse_service_for_any/ | {
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"Much like a plaque that says \"we have the right to shoot you in the face for any reason\" those don't really carry any legal weight. Also, race, gender, and in some states sexuality, are considered protected classes which means \"for any reason\" doesn't apply so even though as a business owner you have the right to for example fire someone for any reason, \"any reason\" does not include those things.",
"No, because a sign in a shop carries zero force of law, besides it's not even true a shop can't refuse to serve protected classes (federally that means race, religion, sex,etc). If posting a sign meant they could, the civil rights act wouldn't mean very much (Southern diners could post that sign and remain whites only in practice)."
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5y6c2f | why does sound changes pitch when moving away? | Just noticed in car's engine that drove really fast that it's pitch lowers even though it's constant. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y6c2f/eli5_why_does_sound_changes_pitch_when_moving_away/ | {
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"The Doppler effect (red or blue-shifting with light) is when when a moving object is emmiting a wave, the waves do not change their speed depending on what side they were emmitted from, and so are squished together on one side, and spread appart on the other. Here's an animation. _URL_0_:",
"Doppler effect.\n\nThink of sound as being invisible waves emitting from the source. Imagine an engine sitting still 100 yards away. It emits 1 wave per second. This is the \"normal\" sound.\n\nWhen the engine is traveling towards you, it is still emitting 1 wave per second, but between each emitted wave it is getting closer to you, so you end up getting hit by 1 wave every 0.8 seconds. This makes the pitch of the sounds higher in our ears.\n\nBut as soon as the engine passes you, the engine is still emitting 1 wave per second, but between each wave it's getting further from you, so each wave hits you every 1.2 seconds. This makes the pitch of the sound lower in our ears.",
"Pitch is just another word for the frequency of the sound. Frequency is simply how frequently something occurs. In the case of sound, it's how many sound waves reach your ear in a given period of time. At around 261 waves per second is the musical note Middle C. So if you had an instrument playing middle C you would be detecting those 261 waves every second. Now what happens if you start to move that instrument away from you at high speeds? Well the instrument is still releasing 261 waves per second, but because the distance between the instrument and your ear is increasing the instrument is just a bit further away between each of the waves than it was from the one before. Because it's further away it takes slightly longer for that wave to hit your ear, and as such you aren't getting all 261 waves every second anymore. So things moving away from you will have an apparent lower pitch than things stationary, or things moving towards you."
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36qhnw | what's the point of having nerve endings in our teeth, when all it can do is hurt for the rest of your life, as they won't heal themselves or grow back if they get a cavity | Cool, gold! I'll use it for evil.
**I'm using this space to voice the most popular argument's I've read:**
The main arguments seems to be:
1) **If teeth didn't have nerve endings, we could hurt ourselves by trying to eat rocks or bone and not realizing how hard they are, and end up with broken teeth.**
If this ever was such a big problem, I wonder, why didn't our teeth evolve to repair themselves the way everything else from our skin to our bones do? Instead of having us live out the rest of our days in a constant state of agony.
I'm sure this horrible pain would make it harder to function and doing things like hunting or having sex would be out of the question.
2) **We need to know when our teeth are infected so we can have them pulled**, but I assume pulling teeth is an act unique to humans due to our consciousness. Tooth nerve endings exist in most(all?) mammals, who can't do a darned thing about it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36qhnw/eli5_whats_the_point_of_having_nerve_endings_in/ | {
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"To let you know if a living thing is living inside of your tooth eating away at your flesh under the tooth.",
"Same reason everything in your body has pain receptors. When there's a cavity, the sterile component inside your teeth is desterilised with mouth and outside bacteria. A cavity is the perfect environment for bacterial growth and further destruction of the teeth and underlying bony structures. This leads to abcesses that can break through the bone into either your brain (and cause meningitis) or farynx (causing infection of larynx and lungs) or eye socket (causing blindness). This doesnt happen to every undertreated tooth cavity of course, but apparently enough to cause evolutionary drift. You can compare this with a diabetic foot. Their nociception(pain receptors) are damaged so they dont feel when there's a small wound somewhere on the foot. They keep putting pressure on it, the wound is lacerated further. It becomes infected, the bone underneath is eaten away and some people use their foot this way. Hope this makes any sense.",
"It might not have a purpose at all, as long as it doesn't get you killed before you have a chance to breed. Evolution is like that, it doesn't have a defined \"goal\". ",
"I don't know. I will say however, my 3 broken teeth are screaming right now. My ear is ringing. Dr appt tomorrow. Time for meds. It'll be nice to have them removed.",
"Well, they do provide the sense of cold or hot. Also, there is some sort of sense of touch/pressure there, if you have a tooth with root canal done, it definitely feels different to the touch than a tooth with pulp. ",
"Evolution does not have an \"ideal design\" - it simply evolves 'random things'.\n\nIf a the creature with the \"random thing\" gains advantage over creatures without the 'random thing' (or at least isn't disadvantaged by it) that creature may pass-it-on when it reproduces and more creatures get it. \n\nAlso, if the \"random thing\" stops being useful due to other changes (such as creatures leaving the oceans/trees/suburbs/stable jobs) it won't disappear unless it's a pretty series disadvantage (gills, flippers, middle-class angst and a sense of personal wellbeing respectively)",
"They are useful to prevent damage done by yourself. Your jaw muscles are insanely strong and if you never had any feeling in your teeth you could probably do some real damage grinding or smacking your teeth together. ",
"I'm guessing that the pain sensing system is closely linked to the other senses.\n\nThis may help differentiate whether you're chewing on something you shouldn't be like bones, stones and other hard objects.",
"Just because we have evolved something doesn't mean there is a \"point\". We have fingernails because something in ancestral lineage had claws but we don't need claw.\n\nThere are some good ideas in this thread, but no one really knows the \"point\". ",
"Cavities are so commonplace today because of easily accessible sugar. For most of our evolutionary history, cavities were not as common or as severe as they are today.\n\nSo they serve the same role as pain receptors anywhere else.",
"In terms of evolution I'd ask in some cases it's better to ask 'why not?' than 'why?'. Is there sufficient selective pressure for avoiding tooth pain? Probably not. So there's probably not much reason why a mutation to lose nerve endings in the teeth would spread. Or on the other hand, there'd be nothing to stop nerve endings in the teeth being carried through by genetic drift. Just a layman's guess though. Similar reason to why some people have functionally useless earlobes, or other vestigial organs. ",
"Nerves found in the teeth serve multiple important purposes. First, and perhaps most importantly for us day-to-day, they allow us to sense things such as heat, cold, and pressure on the teeth. This prevents us from damaging our mouths and teeth by eating the wrong things or exerting too much pressure on the teeth during chewing. In addition, nerves allow us to sense when there is infection of the tooth such as the case of cavities. \n\nEDIT (to clarify the point about why we can sense unrepairable damage): Even though we can't fix significant damage to the tooth, pain prevents us from doing further damage. As I outlined above, sensitivity of the teeth also has some significant advantages. If you lose sensitivity cavities won't hurt but you also lose a lot of the advantages. Therefore, sensitivity will be selected for because individuals who have it are more likely to maintain their oral health which will result in increased survival and reproduction. \n\nEDIT: A lot of people have made good points about the fact that evolution doesn't have a direction (I wasn't even thinking of evolution in my original response!). I'd still argue that it's likely that tooth sensitivity may be under selective pressure but /u/ChideDaJungler probably has the best evolutionary answer as to *why* it arose in the first place.\n\nPerhaps less obviously, these nerves also help regulate the blood flow into the tooth. The majority of the inside of your teeth is *not* nerves but rather something called dental pulp. This is composed of multiple cell types and is important in supporting the cells that help keep your teeth strong (by maintaining a hard layer below the enamel called dentin). \n\n[Source](_URL_0_) for a lot more detailed information about the internal structure of teeth.\n\n**TL;DR:** Teeth are functional for eating etc. without any nerves or living tissue inside. However, they are unable to repair themselves and do not have the same sensitivity as teeth that *do* have a living interior.",
"I can only speak from experience. I lost half a tooth in a pub-related accident. After an expensive process of extirpating the remaining nerve and sticking on a crown, it looks like a normal tooth, but it has no sensation. I can feel my other teeth react when something is hot, cold, has an odd texture. But this tooth is numb and dumb.\n\nIt makes a huge difference not being able to feel what you're biting into. Without the nerves in my other teeth I'd wager that I wouldn't know if I was biting into something hard or soft, hot or cold until it hit my gums, tongue or lip, or a tooth broke.\n\nLike any other receptor in the body the nerves in your teeth serve to provide feedback to your brain. Most of the time it's not that important, but if something is slightly odd you'll know straight away and be able to react. Without those receptors in your teeth, you're slightly less equipped.",
"Well if your teeth can't grow back then surely it would be all the more important to have nerve endings to provide feedback on when the teeth are being damaged?\n\nNerve endings in the pulp of your nerve provide feedback both when under pressure and when exposed to extreme temperatures. Your teeth don't grow back like hamsters or horses, so your brain needs to be signalled if it's grinding your teeth by chewing too hard.\n\nWhilst your teeth cannot be repaired when damaged, they can be remineralised after being exposed to acid (demineralised enamel and dentine is easier to damage). The underlying pulp brings the nutrients that remineralise the enamel and dentine. Without the pulp your teeth would be much more susceptible to damage. The temperature sensing nerve endings provide feedback so you don't damage the pulp by exposing it to extremes of temperature and thus damaging its ability to remineralise your enamel and dentine.\n\nTooth decay is when the whole system has become thoroughly borked and pushed beyond its limits. Your nerve endings are just sending pain signals left, right and centre. It's not useful, but then the system was never \"designed\" to cope high acid / high sugar environments.",
"Well, believe it or not, innervation does help keep the tooth healthy. There's been recent studies that show that teeth actually *can* heal themselves to a very small degree. Furthermore, vascularization of the pulp is required to keep the tooth healthy, and removal of nerves tends to limit the amount that the body maintains vascularization. \n\nHere's the big one though: teeth are piezoelectric. This means that when you bend them even a little bit, they create an electric current. The reason that this is important is that it then triggers the nerve, and lets you know how much pressure you're putting on your teeth. Obviously, if you put too much pressure on your teeth, you're going to break them. Were it not for those nerves, the only gauge you'd have of whether or not you're going to break your tooth is the periodontal membrane, and that doesn't work quite as well.",
"Without the nerve, your teeth wouldnt grow. Whether or not this could be done without a nerve ending is irrelevant because at some point those with these nerve endings succeeded at reproducing. There can always be better ways of things, but that's not how evolution works.",
"Have you ever tried to eat or drink anything after a novocaine shot??? Very awkward.",
"The nerve gives you important pain information to keep you from damaging yourself. Not all types of tooth pain lasts forever, not all pain is associated with cavities. Also, there's 32 teeth in there and knowing that something you did hurt your teeth gives you a better chance of protecting the other 31.",
"I always assumed it was kind of a check valve on our bite pressure, to make sure we knew how hard we were biting on something, or how hard the thing we're biting is, to help us avoid shattering our teeth.",
"Without the nerve, the dentin (an evolutionary advantage) could be frozen or heated to the point of destruction, and you'd not know not to bite down on something hot or cold for too long. We've been cooking food long enough for this to be an advantage.\n\nSource: my ass",
"Masters in Anthropology here.\n\nDental caries (tooth decay) in the archaeological record is extremely common, even in the pre-farming periods. Once farming appears (along with its sticky, cavity promoting carbs and sugar, it really blossoms). It's shockingly common as the cause of death. In a way you were lucky if you lived long enough to be killed by tooth decay, but there is that. There's good evidence to suggest that the reason rotting teeth hurts so much is that failure to do what amounts to drastic work to remove the tooth will almost certainly lead to death. Before you're willing to let Gronk take a rough stone tool to your mouth, you have to be in constant, days-long agony. \n\nThis isn't far-fetched. The archaeological record supports stone age dentistry as being far from artless and uncommon. there have even been mandibles recovered with beeswax plugs placed over the site of an extracted tooth. ",
"Just had a filling corrected from having a \"high point\". The nerve endings on the periodontal ligament has highly sensitive nerve endings to give us the ability to detect how much force we apply with our jaw muscles - without them we would Destroy our teeth and not have any finesse using our mandible. \nTLDR: Blow jobs would be fatal",
"Teeth do actually regenerate. Problem is that it seems grain may have chemical that inhabits tooth regeneration. I remember reading a study on it. They said vitamin b counters this inhibitor though not completely.",
"Well, evolution doesn't really consider the point of stuff. In the long term they only thing it considers is cost VS benefit.\n\nSo what does it cost to have nerves in your teeth? \n\nI don't really know, but I imagine that it's pretty cheap to build and maintain those nerves compared to some of our other systems. \n\nWhat's the disadvantages of having nerves in your teeth?\n\nThe pain from cavities is rather bad but that's about the only disadvantage that I can think of.\n\nWhat's the benefit?\n\nWell, it's easier to bite with the right strength if you've got feeling in your teeth, rather than just the flesh in your mouth. I don't know if sensing the temperature is useful, as 9/10 you're going to put your lips or tongue to whatever you're biting at about the same time.\n\nBut knowing if you have a cavity or not might be useful. Cavities tend to harbor infections and infections will spread if they can. If you know that you have one you might be able to ask a mate to knock the damn tooth out with a stone or something? (please don't do that)\n\n",
"I was actually under the impression we could fix cavities now and repair the tooth by coaxing the tooth to repair itself. \n\n\n_URL_0_",
"I'll assume that, like my 5 year old, you know about & accept evolution.\n\nHaving nerves in the teeth discouraged your ancient homid ancestors from doing things that wrecks their teeth. Having good teeth was pretty important for growth & survival back before we were tool users, so the apes with sensitive teeth reproduced more often.",
"Detecting parasites eating your teeths and mouths, knowing when something is way too hard to be eaten, detecting cold and warm, amplifying vibrations from environment and I'm sure hundred of other \"features\" haha",
"Our diet has changed significantly in the past 15000 years and our lifespans are now much longer. Our teeth evolved with humans eating a low starch diet and not living beyond 40 on average.\n\nStarches (and carbonated beverages/concentrated fruit juices) are actually the major cause of of tooth decay - starches are sticky so dont get washed away from the tooth easily. Once humans figured out how to farm and eat starchy vegetable food they also were able to live longer. So now we have longer lives and a diet that is bad for teeth. ",
"If you like the crunch of chips, or the texture of any food really, you're going to need the nerves in your teeth. People who get dentures can't feel the texture of any of the foods they eat. ",
"when you try to damage your teeth it hurts, this makes you stop.\n\nsounds rather effective and usefull to me.",
"Okay I went over this in bio and these answers are extremely convoluted while there is a very basic explanation. We romanticize evolution when we assume everything is a survival trait. So no, it isn't a result of animals grinding their teeth away and starving. Nerves themselves developed through an evolutionary need to feel pain but they are present all throughout your body.\n\nYou didn't need to evolve a left arm nerve and then a right arm nerve. The entire nerve system evolved simultaneously and ubiquitously to provide a pain response nearly everywhere on your body.\n\nThe discomfort of a decayed tooth isn't enough to kill an animal so we never evolved to remove sections of nerve where they were unnecessary or unpleasant.\n\nThis is the correct answer but I'm late to the party, please upvote for visibility",
"Rotting teeth eventually fall out. It prevents you from chewing food on the vulnerable area until this occurs, protecting you from infection.",
"I think the pulp of the tooth is the way it is for two major reasons. One, it's the source of most major growth of the tooth in the first place. The cells that grow the enamel and dentin originate from the pulp tissue (or the things that closely approximate it during development). Two, the pulp responds to stimulus like wearing and slower decay by placing more dentin from the inside of the tooth to minimize damage/sensitivity to the pulp. That's how people can slowly wear away 1/2 of their tooth by grinding but still feel relatively nothing while still having vital pulp tissue. As you get older your pulp just naturally recedes also. If the pulp was dead or had no nerve endings, it would be very unlikely that could or would happen.",
"something very cool, that i'm surprised nobody here has touched on, is that you can tell how HARD something is by tapping it on your tooth. plastic feels totally different tapping on your teeth than steel.",
"A small amount of damage stay that way if pain tells you to avoid chewing in that area. Also, pain lets you know if you're reaching a breaking point and need to dial back your nomming on a brontosaurus bone (yes, i know).\n\nAlso, teeth do self repair but very, very slowly. In the modern world it looks like teeth only get worse but that's at least in part due to our diet. We eat so many refined foods that even the smallest crack in a tooth quickly becomes a haven for processed sugars that become food for bacteria and quickly become a hole.\n\nA more prehistoric diet would not have promoted tooth decay so quickly and a cracked tooth may have actually healed, at least partially, given enough time.\n\nLastly, pain, as always, is the ultimate way to know \"so don't do dat\" and as such was invaluable to our prehistoric ancestors.",
"You try to eat a rock: It hurts right?\n\nNow, you try eating a rock without nerve endings in your teeth. You break your teeth in the process. \n\nNow you can't chew anything. Those organisms who couldn't feel their teeth passed on without reproducing a *very* long time ago.\n",
"Teeth are formed from the nerves, which is why they are inside the teeth. \n\nSource: my dentist. I asked him the same question ",
"Also, so you can feel chewing, if that makes sense/is worded correctly. I have 2 dental implants side by side and when I first got them it felt really weird to chew on that side. Sort of feels like you're numb but only in those teeth. I could still feel the pressure on the implant from chewing but it didn't feel the same. You get used to it eventually but I'd imagine it's so much worse for people who have partial or full dentures. It's also super annoying to get food stuck in between those nerveless teeth. It's incredible how a teeny piece of food can get lodged in your normal teeth and then instantly it takes over your life and all you can do and think about is picking your teeth to get that seed out. Except with implants/dentures/bridges the food is ALWAYS stuck in your teeth and since you don't have nerve endings you can't really tell which tooth so you're constantly picking your teeth after every meal. Or am I the only one?",
"Essentially so you don't do stupid things like break your teeth off and get infections or burn yourself or freeze yourself. Your body is smarter than you, so it gives you pain as punishment for being stupid.",
"Algesia (aka perception of pain an negative stimuli) is by no means perfect, nor has it evolved to suit our wants. Others have answered your question.\n\nIn addition, there is a subset of pain that is pathologic (disease, aka not useful for us). People can have \"neuropathic\" pain, which is a chronic pain that serves no beneficial purpose. \n\nThere is also \"hyperesthesia\" or pain hypersensitivity, where your pain sensation is heightened after a painful event, such as surgery. This is why pain medications are given pre-op, intra-op, and post-op, as that prevents this hyperesthesia. The pain pathways are incredibly interesting!",
"\"If this ever was such a big problem, I wonder, why didn't our teeth evolve to repair themselves the way everything else from our skin to our bones do?\"\n\nPlease refer to any evolutionary science anywhere to understand why that could never happen.",
"I think one answer to the question 'why didn't our teeth evolve to repair themselves?' is that the kind of tooth damage that could disable or kill you would be more likely to happen in late adulthood, after you'd already produced offspring. \n\nIn evolutionary terms, once you've successfully reproduced, you're surplus to requirements, and any remaining lifespan is a bonus. Certain things which you'd think would be an advantage (like self-healing teeth, or skin that doesn't become fragile with age, or blood vessels that don't get stiff and narrow) is not selected for, because the costs of maintaining an individual's health beyond their peak reproductive years outweigh the benefits (to the species) of having them around for longer. ",
" > Something something evolution\n\nThere you go, kid. I've certainly summed up most of the top comments in this thread.",
"The same answers apply for most types of pain that we can do nothing about:\n\nAll of your body parts were jerry-rigged from the parts of older animals. Your teeth were not designed to function in the most optimal way forever; they were not designed at all. Your back, neck, knees, hips, and nearly everything else will hurt at some point... whether you can do anything about it or not.\n\nAND / OR \n\nYour genes don't give a damn if you are miserable from pain. The selfish little bastards just want you to make copies of them and protect the copies that are out there already. If pain will motivate you to protect their vehicle (yourself) long enough to do that, then that's what they'll use. They never expected you to live much past your 20's anyway.",
"I often wonder why our bodies are so fragile. The genius who decided that we must suffer and wither away is a jerk and a dumbass. But that's just me wondering. ",
" > I'm sure this horrible pain would make it harder to function and doing things like hunting or having sex would be out of the question.\n\nSex is never out of the question. Now, finding a partner to share the sex with....that's another story.",
"It's not completely impossible to reverse cavity damage: _URL_0_\n\nWhile the article directly states that teeth can be rebuilt, it doesn't say anything as to how. \n\nIn any case, I'm sure this only applies to \"miniscule\" to \"small\" amounts of damage. I'm pretty sure that once things start getting to the nerve that it's a lost cause.",
"You have nerve endings so you can tell when you have a poppy seed stuck in your teeth. You don't want a poppy tree growing out of your teeth now, do you?!",
"In response to your question about #1:\n\nThis trait wouldn't evolve because it takes an enormous amount of energy compared to just having nerve endings. Preventing broken teeth saves a lot of energy compared to fixing them, and this energy can be used for other useful things like gathering food and having sex.",
"Because evolution is a bitch. If an adaption does not negatively affect your reproductive fitness, it will probably stick around, even if it's not perfect. Pain in your teeth shouldn't affect your ability to get your swerve on, so it will be passed along to your offspring. I've seen silverback gorillas with teeth rotting out of their skulls still acting as tough as ever and still getting plenty of action from lady gorillas. Remember that evolution can't design anything, natural selection can only select for the traits that are available, and sometimes that means your teef are gonna hurt.",
" > If this ever was such a big problem, I wonder, why didn't our teeth evolve to repair themselves the way everything else from our skin to our bones do? Instead of having us live out the rest of our days in a constant state of agony.\n\nEvolution isn't smart, and is really, really bad at selecting against things that only affect you later in life, past your peak reproductive window.",
"Nerves in teeth resulted in fewer broken teeth. Fewer broken teeth = eat better, live longer = more offspring with nerves in teeth. ",
"Dentist here. There is a nerve in your tooth because that's what God wants. \n\nLonger answer : the nerve helps you to know where your teeth are based on the feedback of your chewing. It also acts as a sensor for hot and cold etc. The body decided that it would be a benefit to have nerves in teeth so it made nerves in teeth. It just didn't plan on you not brushing or eating sour psych kids in chocolate syrup for breakfast. \n\nAs you get older, the nerve chamber gets smaller. This leads to your teeth getting more brittle as they dry out and less sensitive unless you have him disease from not getting regular cleanings. ",
"I'm really late to the scene so this might get lost, but I haven't seen any other responses mention this so I'll go for it. Nerves in the teeth are not only important for helping you apply the right amount of force when biting into something, but they also help with perfect tooth occlusion (making sure your teeth fit together correctly). One of the most distinguishing features of mammals is the presence of cusps on teeth. The cusps of upper and lower teeth fit together in a specific way to allow for more efficient chewing. This is also the reason why mammals don't continuously replace teeth like other mammals.",
"I have a thought. What if they are so since when we put something in our mouth, teeth are more likely to make the first contact instead of gums or the other surface of the mouth.\n\nIn that case, if something is Too HOT, it could simply burn a hole into our skin. But Teeth, could perhaps not be that quickly affected and also, send a signal that this is not something we should be putting in contact with the skin!?\n\nThoughts? Anyone?"
]
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"http://pacificdds2009.com/courses/Q2/human_anatomy2/concise%20oral%20histo/8%20Dental%20Pulp.pdf"
],
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[
"http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/05May/Pages/Lasers-used-to-regenerate-damaged-teeth.aspx"
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remineralisation_of_teeth"
],
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[]
] |
|
831xjp | how do carats for diamonds work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/831xjp/eli5_how_do_carats_for_diamonds_work/ | {
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"text": [
"Carats are a unit of mass equal to 200mg. Carat comes from carob, a seed used to determine diamond mass.",
"It's just a specialized unit of mass Each carat is .2g. So a 5 carat diamond would be 1 gram. \n\nThere's also a subunit called a point which is 1/100th of a carat or 2mg."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
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