question
stringlengths 19
300
| answer
stringlengths 28
1.02k
|
|---|---|
What do the dilation drops actually do to your eyes and why does it make your eyes sensitive to light? | Dilation drops open up your pupils, much like they would naturally do in the dark, to allow more light in. Helps the doctor see better when he's examining your eyes. Going outside while your pupils are dilated hurts because your pupils are already open and they can't retract like they would normally, so the light is POURING into your eyes. Tried to explain that as best as possible. |
Seriously, what is the deal with airline food? | Airline food has to be prepared many hours in advance, then kept warm until it's needed. Hundreds of meals have to be kept in a very tiny space. It needs to be cooked on an industrial scale. It's not an easy task. Of course it could be done if they wanted to. But: > Why doesn't competition between airlines..... Airlines don't compete on the quality of food. When have you ever had a choice between two airlines, and chosen the one with the best food? Airlines compete on routes, on the times of their flights, and most importantly, on price. |
What is the royal family’s job? | The Queen is the official head of the government and the ultimate authority by which it is operated. What good does any monarch provide for their country? In a practical sense she doesn't make many decisions but she can fire the Prime Minister if she wants and install someone else. |
Why are livers prone to failure, when they can regrow themselves? | Livers aren't prone to fail over time due to alcohol, that is the wrong way to look at it. Livers valiantly extend the lives of people dead set on drinking themselves to death, holding out for as long as they can. |
If phone numbers are public record why can't they be reverse searched? | > why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you? Because they *aren't* public record, so those companies need to buy the data from somewhere. Granted, most land lines will appear in the white pages/directories, but those you obviously do not need to pay to get info (just go on the whitepages website). _URL_0_ literally has a section that says "reverse phone lookup". |
Periods.. Other than humans very few animals have them. What are the other mammals doing differently? | Basically humans aren't like most other species. In many other species the mother controls the bloodflow and nutrients to the embryo. That's why several animals can miscarry their pregnancy on demand to evade a predator. Human females do not control this nutrient exchange. Basically once an embryo attaches itself to a womb it's there to stay. The female prevents the unsuccessful embryos/unhealthy embryos from attaching themselves by discarding the womb monthly and starting over. [A fantastic TED video explaining](_URL_0_) |
What do people see when they look at me? | Have you never seen a pic of you? |
How come car companies use glass that shatters into a million peices as a windshield and not something like plastic? | Windshields behave the way they do for safety. It's a feature, not a problem. In the case of an accident, you get either a large cracked bendy piece of windshield, or you get lots of little round fragments that can't cut you and kill you as you experience the crash. Large shards (like you see in a normal window) would be super dangerous. Plastic is softer than glass, so it would scratch and wear easily, as well as fading and yellowing over time, and broken plastic edges are nearly as sharp as normal glass edges, so it would be worse for safety and longevity. |
What's the point of drinking 8 glasses of water a day if I just urinate the majority of it? | What's the point in eating if I just poop most of it? |
How do odds work? Such as 9-1 odds in horse racing? | I'll try to explain 9-1 odds like you're 5. You're playing baseball with you're friend Dinah Soares. Dinah is really good at hitting home runs, and you are very jealous. She will hit 9 home runs before you even hit 1 home run. You have a third friend Sawyer B. Hind. Sawyer is betting 3 Pokemon cards that YOU will hit a home run before Dinah. What is Saywers odds? His odds of winning the bet are 9-1, because Dinah will hit 9 home runs before you even hit 1. He is very unlikely to win this bet, therefore, I will put a LOT of pokerman cards on the line. I will call his bet with 100 pokerman cards. There is a very good chance I will win 3 pokerman cards, but there is a 10% chance I will lose 100. |
Why is the brain considered such a complex machine? | You are currently processing crystal clear images of your surroundings, focusing on this post, reading squiggles and translating them into sounds, connecting those sounds into words forming sentences with meaning while simultaneously feeling your hand on your mouse, smelling the air, hearing and interpreting sounds around you and doing about a million other things that are all controlled and fed back into your brain. And this is what you do absolutely effortlessly all the time, without even noticing. edit: grammar |
Why do some dogs/cats see and hear what is on the TV as if it is actually right there in front of them, and others don't even notice that the TV is there? | The smarter animals ignore it because they know it is just a picture. The dumb ones are fooled by the illusion. |
Why does my computer act 'groggy' when I start it up? | You might have a lot of background stuff like Steam, Skype, Spotify set to turn on when the computer goes up, you might wanna get CCleaner and check to see what starts up when you open your computer. |
You couldn't kill bacteria with 102° water, so why does your body heat up while you're sick? | The higher temperature boosts your body's immune system. It's more effective at higher temperatures. Of course, it's a fine balance, because above 105°, the heat starts causing serious brain damage. |
Why don't things burn instantly? | It needs to heat up to the point where it has enough energy to combust. Also not everything is very flammable |
How did the ancient civilizations map out coastlines? | They just estimated them, by sailing around and eyeballing distances. Take enough data and distances, and you can construct a decently accurate map of the coastline. Enough for navigation purposes, at least. |
Why I can hear my dreams before I'm completely asleep? | Don't worry about your sanity, you're experiencing hypnagogia, a very common part of the transitional state between waking and sleep. People experience a wide range of sensory phenomena, such as: random noises ranging from buzzing to random speech to explosions; visual effects like bright flashes, colorful speckles, geometric shapes, or even fleeting vivid images; and some others like feelings of floating, bobbing, being misshapen, or a falling feeling followed by a sudden jerk. There are even more experiences that have been documented, but these are just a few of the more common ones. |
Why does more electronic storage cost more? | In some cases, the manufacturing process is a lot more complex to make the item that has more storage, even if it isn't physically any bigger. In other cases, they make many storage devices, all with the higher amount of storage. Some of them are faulty, and can't store as much as they're supposed to, so they get re-configured as lower storage devices and sold off cheaper. In the case of the iPhone (since you specifically mention it), the amount you pay for a bit of extra storage is far more than the cost of that extra storage. They charge this much purely because they know that some people will pay for it. At the end of the day, remember if you're asking "why does something cost X", the reason is usually because that's what people will pay for it, far more than because that's what it costs to make. But this is especially true in high-end devices like iPhones. |
If a ninth planet exists and easily fits our readings and models, why haven't we found it yet? | How do we notice most of the planets in our solar system? We observe them because light hits them and bounces back for us to see. The further away they are the harder they are to see, you get to Saturn and you can't see anything with the naked eye. Further out you need binoculars or a telescope to see them. In fact Neptune was only discovered because we noticed Uranus wobbled a bit when it shouldn't. This wobble in fact lead us to think that there was a planet between Mercury and the Sun as Mercury also wobbled a bit funny. As it turned out there is no planet and this movement was explained by general relativity. Pluto isn't visible from Earth at all. Interesting fact, Pluto is so far away from the Sun that it hasn't completed a full orbit since its discovery in 1930. Now look at this proposed planet, it's orbit is MASSIVE compared to Neptune's. It's going to spend most of its time in darkness and without many objects for us to observe nearby we can't easily infer its presence. |
How are sex scenes in Hollywood movies produced? | Guys usually wear a cock-sock to avoid any contact with the penis. There's a lot of factors going into it but as for awkward boners, it rarely happens because they're so focused on the actual script. If you want to read up more on it there's plenty of info out there but the simple answer is that they cover their genitals and NO sex is actually ever involved. Some people go as far as having body doubles in nude scenes so you may see tits but they aren't really the actress's. _URL_2_ |
Why do our noses run when we are cold | You have small hairs inside your nose that are constantly doing the wave and pushing the snot back up your nose where it drains down your throat. These are cilia. When it's cold they say fuck this and quit working allowing gravity to do it's thing and make snot come out of your nose. Bonus fact: your body produces a cup of snot per day. _URL_0_ |
Why is the standard format for a rock band a 4 piece drums/bass/guitar/vocal? How and why did that happen? | > This format is popular with new bands, as there are only two instruments that need tuning, the line-and-counterpoint formula prevalent with their material is easy to learn, four members are commonplace to work with, the roles are clearly defined and generally are: melody line, rhythm section with counterpoint melody, and vocals on top This sums it up perfectly, that configuration works incredibly well, along with being low maintenance. Those particular musical instruments are among the most commonly played making it much simpler to set up a band with this configuration. |
Why do women's menstrual cycles sync up after a while when living together? | They don't, it's a popular misinform. Am a woman, get periods and have had many female roommates over the years |
Why do so many countries view ex-president George W Bush as a war criminal? | Because he invaded a country the UN had not given permission to invade, based upon "intelligence" which wound up being entirely bogus. He then had hundreds of innocents "detained on suspicion" without trial, and many of them wound up being tortured, which is a war crime. |
What is a private or "profit" prison, and how do they work? | It's a prison that is run by an independent company. And they charge the government for performing that service |
How is it possible to hang from something like an electric fence but only get electrocuted once you make contact with the ground? | When they touch the ground, it completes a circuit that allows the electrical current to go through their body. |
How do people who learned coding and programming think differently from people who have never done it? | The main difference is in problem solving; I believe coding is more deconstructionist than any other profession. Coding forces two things on you; organising an action into its basic individual movements, and writing them down with excruciating precision. That gives you the view that a lot of dynamics can be explained in chains of understandable parts. But the main part of time spent coding is actually not writing the code. That is maybe a third of it. The main part is debugging; trying to understand how what you wrote works with its environment and where that goes wrong. It is extremely detail-oriented. When the car of a programmer breaks, he will never stop at 'the engine doesn't run well', figuratively speaking. He will persist until he had found out which spark plug has a bent lead. |
What's up with the CERN drama, What are they trying to do? | What CERN drama? I can find nothing significant about CERN in the news. Are you sure you didn't find a five year old fear-mongering website about how "oh the LHC will destroy the wooooorrrrlldddd!!!!1!" |
Pensacola, FL has white sand and clear water. Corpus Christi, TX has brown sand and murky brown water. How is there such a huge difference on the same body of water? | Other posters are right in that the continental shelf of the western portion of the GOM is mostly mud/clay, meaning that most of the rivers dump muddy silt into the gulf, including the Mississippi River. The Gulf of Mexico churns counter clockwise bringing the muddy water down along the Texas coast. If you think Corpus Christi is brown, go to Galveston. Fun fact: depending on the wind, if you go a couple of miles offshore even in Galveston, you'll hit crystal blue water. |
why does it take so long (years even) to get a citizenship in a foreign country? | Because those countries want to limit the number of people who get the benefits of full citizenship. Making it take longer means taht fewer people will go through the process and the ones who do will really want it, or possibly be better in some way (more educated, have citizen family members, have a job) |
When a dog or a cat's owner changes clothes or wears something out of the ordinary, do they think the attire is part of your body or can they tell that clothes are just something that we put on top of our bodies? | She probably realised you were the same person, but your hat scared or confused her. It's hard to know what animals actually think, but whatever they do think, they get used to it. Animals go by more than just visual appearance, of course: smell, gait, voice -- all these are important. Your puppy can probably already tell you apart from other people just by hearing your footsteps. One of my two cats doesn't like bare skin much, and will, for example, refuse to sit on my lap if I am wearing shorts. The first time she ever say my wife get undressed, she looked on in horror, and then carefully reached out with her paw to touch my wife's skin. |
when a presidential candidate is "leading in the polls", how is this determined?? | Polls work by a company or group calling around to a number of people and getting their opinion and how they plan on voting. If the poll talks to 1000 and 470 of them say they are going to vote for candidate A, and 530 people say that are going to vote for Candidate B, than the polls will say that Candidate B is leading the election. Not everyone has to be asked to form an accurate picture of what people are going to do. But always remember that polls are not 100% accurate and have a margin or error (and that margin of error has a margin of error). |
The American healthcare system | It depends on your insurance coverage. I recently had surgery and the final bill was around 70k. With my insurance I only owed 5k out of pocket. The rest was covered. Also hospitals will allow you to make installments. Also, if you have a low income you can apply to have your bill lowered or even free. |
how this guy ran a marathon at age 95 | Your body rises to the level of care and use you put into it. Eat correctly, exercise regularly your entire life, and avoid any injuries, infections, or genetic issues that could mess you up. After that, its up to luck, and this guy has gotten pretty lucky. |
How are free withdrawal ATM machines profitable? | ATMs are actually less costly for banks than withdrawals from human tellers. Remember when all ATMs were free Pepperidge Farm Remembers. Edit Prior to 1988, there was no surcharging of cardholders by ATM owners in the U.S. In 1988 Valley Bank of Nevada began surcharging "foreign cardholders" (meaning holders of ATM cards not issued by Valley Bank) for withdrawals at Valley Bank ATMs located in/near Las Vegas casinos.[29] Eventually, various regional ATM Networks, and ultimately the national networks, Plus and Cirrus, permitted ATM surcharging. Before 1996, foreign ATM fees averaged $1.01 USD nationally, according to a 2001 report from the US-based State Public Interest Research Group.[30] As banks and third parties realized the profit potential, they raised the fees. |
Why do we always see sketches of popular courts trials on news sites? | Courtrooms don't always allow photography. Newspapers wanting an image will send an illustrator, instead. |
Why is Africa so screwed up? | One reason could be the fact that they don't have a steady/reliable economy. When Europeans came and to this resource rich continent they established colonies with single or dual product economies. Meaning the colonies existed to serve bring one mineral back to the mother country. Once these countries started to win their independence from said European countries, they continued to run their economy in this single product fashion. A single product economy (idk what the official term is) is extremely unstable and fluctuates at the whims of this products value in the markets. So once the price of diamonds starts to drop, Sierra Leone's economy will start to tumble. tl;dr Single product economies left over by European imperialists and continued by corrupt leaders has led to an unstable economy that doesn't foster a happy population |
How can Sasha Baron Cohen (Bruno, Ali-G, Borat, etc.) meet and film with important groups like the FBI when he is only going to make a joke of it? | I heard that on the Ali G show, he would have someone else in a suit pretending they are going to do the interview and he just played one of the camera crew. When filming started he took over the questions and caught the people off guard. |
Why can't I just hit the "Off" button on my computer rather than "Shut Down" | + Pressing shut down Will terminate all system and user processes normally. Exiting processes have time to write logs and results in the primary memory. Some of it can be important, but 95% of the time you won't notice a difference, if you are a casual home user and not involved in servers or programing projects etc. It will also do what I describe in the next section + Pressing down the power button Gives enough time for the mechanical parts of your computer (HDD mostly) to power down safely. + Just pulling the plug Will cause the mechanical parts of your PC to lose power while still working, possibly damaging them or wearing them down (if they power down at an active position. |
How did Anonymous CONTINUE to control @KuKluxKlanUSA for days? | "Twitter comes to the rescue of the KKK" not good publicity. |
If our heart is behind our ribcage, why can we feel it when we put our hand on our chest? | You're not literally feeling your heart against your hand. But the heart is a very powerful muscle and its pumping action sends vibrations through the rib cage to the skin. |
Why can't you put modern parts into the body of an antique car? I know it's very different, but why isn't it somehow possible to create a vehicle with custom parts in the same way you would create a PC? | You can. Look at the hot rod world. Hot rods have a long history, especially in the USA but essentially its about taking an old car and equipping it with a modern drivetrain, suspension, brakes and so on. Rolled in to this is customising to make it look unique, or at least different. |
What causes the Reddit phenomenon of [deleted] and subsequent chain of deleted comments? | Typically when you see a ton of comments deleted it's because of a combination of user-removal and mod-removal. If two people get in an argument that either has nothing to do with the thread topic or becomes particularly nasty/abusive the mods will often delete the whole thing. Sometimes they'll just delete one party's comments if only that person was abusive or otherwise broke the rules of the sub. In other cases one user just decides they no longer want those comments as part of their "permanent record" and the other person decides that they don't need to leave their comments when the ones they were replying to are gone. As for karma, all of the karma received while the comments were active remains on the person's profile. Obviously, once the comments are removed/deleted voting is no longer possible on them. |
(More) Questions from a grade 3/4 class! | > 25) How come when your feet are cold your tears are still warm? Did anyone see this as the most depressing question? "Why does this child have cold feet that they are apparently weeping on?" |
How did Hitler and the Nazi leaders justify the alliance with Japan when the Nazi party was so against non-Arian people? | The Japanese were declared "honorary Aryans" or "Master Race of the Orient" (although it was pretty obvious that if Germany won, Hitler would have no qualms invading Japanese held territory). In fact, Hitler held the Japanese and Chinese in high regard because of their long history and achievements. |
Do All the Planets in our Solar System Spin and/or Orbit in the Same Direction? Why? | All planets in our solar system orbit in the same direction (counter clockwise if you look at it from the earth's northpole). This is becuase the planets (and sun) formed from one big disk of dust and debris that was spinning counter clockwise. Once the matter in the cloud clumped up to form planets and moons, the planets all kept going in the same direction. It is also the direction that the sun spins in. Not all planets spin in the same direction. Venus and Uranus spin in a clockwise fashion, whereas the other 6 planets spin counter clockwise. Venus and Uranus probably do this because they were hit at very specific angles by big asteroids that spun them around. Another special thing about Uranus is that the tilt of the planet is 98 degrees (earth's tilt is about 23 degrees. This means that Uranus is actually laying on it's side compared to all the other planets. |
If keeping your heart rate up is good for you during exercise, is the same true of watching scary movies, playing video games, or other passive heart rate boosters? | Heart rate increases due to exercise are healthier than heart rate increases due to terror (eg. watching a scary movie). Terror-based heart rate increases are accompanied by a spike in adrenaline, which can be damaging to your heart over time. |
What causes loose skin on some people after losing weight? | when you get fat, your skin stretches, there's almost no limit on how much the skin can stretch and you will get stretch marks if it stretches too fast. when you lose fat, it's hard for your skin to unstretch. so they are left with loose skin. of course the more weight they lose the more significant an issue this will be. |
If people are constantly going to film school and learning how to properly make films, why are so many bad directors, editors, cinematographers, writers, etc. still getting work? Why are they not fired and replaced by someone who can do the job better? | Thats kind of like thinking a pro athlete is shitty so they should be replaced. Sure they aren't doing that well, and they are struggling, but the playing field is at such an absurdly high level you can't say the are 'bad'. Especially if you want to talk about the people who come out of film school. go watch "The Room", thats a movie that was self funded and produced with little to no oversight/screening, and then rewatch the other movies you think are bad. They aren't bad movies, for the most part, they just aren't perfect. |
how a hardware store worker is affecting a whole country's economy | He posts the true dollar to bolivar exchange rate. The Venezuelan government insists n setting the rate rather than permitting it to fluctuate based on demand. Since the people are now armed with better information, they are spending their bolivars with that information in mind. The article explains this in more depth. Perhaps the real ELI5 answer would be "Read the entire article instead of just the headline. Come back with specific questions." |
when baking, why can you not simply 2x, 3x, etc the recipe to increase the batch? | Baking is a very specific form of cooking that requires two things; humidity and temperature. When you're making your dough, you need it to raise and set. The size of your rolled/patted dough alters how it raises and sets. If you multiply a baking recipe, it could possibly affect the size of your rolled/patted dough, which affects the time, temperature, and humidity that it needs to raise and set. |
Why do my veins look blue when my blood is red? | Oxygenated blood is the bright red you are familiar with, blood without oxygen is a darker red. Due to the way that light is absorbed by the skin and muscle between your veins and the surface, the dark red blood appears blue. Edit: any of the other answers stating that human blood is blue without oxygen are just incorrect. This is also one of those times that the search function should have been used, here is one result of search 'blood blue': _URL_0_ Googling 'why is my blood blue' yields these top results in case you want to read them: _URL_1_ _URL_3_ _URL_2_ |
What does U2 get out of releasing it's new album for free on iTunes? | A new generation of people listening to their music. Said people may consider buying their other albums which are not free. |
The news is confusing me, how does a bill create jobs? | I know of three ways, but there are possibly others too. For one, government can introduce tax deductions and other relieving measures so an employer has more money left with which he can employ more people. Other form of job creation through government is public infrastructure spending where they announce/push lets say road building and lots of companies and people through them get to work. Third measure is through banking which can be any of various measures (varies from country to country - if there is central banking or not etc...), but most common are through making lending to companies cheaper, so they can borrow money for less and create new opportunities, jobs, expand their business... |
Why do we call bigotry towards homosexuals homophobia? | Homophobia is not a recognized clinical disorder the same way acrophobia is. It's first recorded use was in a NY Times article in the 80's. The wiki page on homophobia has a section mentioning the same semantic criticism that you do, with LGBT scholars suggesting terms such as homonegativity or sexual prejudice to replace the pseudo-scientific "phobia" suffix. Personally, I believe homophobia is a dated term that ties back to a time when it was believed that homosexuality and other non-heteronormative behavior was a mental disorder. |
How can the police or the fire departement tell what the cause of a fire was? For example by arson, by accident or just by nature itself? | Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How do technicians determine the cause of a fire? Eg. to a cigarette stub when everything is burned out. ](_URL_1_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do people determine how fires start? Wouldn't all the evidence of the cause of the fire be destroyed in the fire? ](_URL_0_) ^(_18 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do fire detectives discover the cause of a fire when everything is burnt and destroyed ](_URL_2_) ^(_38 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How can investigators tell if a fire was caused by arson? ](_URL_4_) ^(_2 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How can fire inspectors determine the cause of a fire from the rubble? ](_URL_6_) ^(_18 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How the heck do authorities determine who started a massive fire in the middle of the woods somewhere? ](_URL_3_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do fire investigators find someone who started a forest fire? ](_URL_5_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) |
Why do scam websites that claim to sell "a revolutionary product" all look the same? | Because they work. Scam artists and lazy people see an idea that brings money for little work, and they emulate that idea. Why fix something that isnt broken, right? Similar idea to why there are a million different versions of Minecraft and Bejewelled. The people peddling these things aren't innovators. They don't desire to expand on previous formulas and improve the world. They just want quick cash, and the easiest way to do that is to do the exact same thing other people have done. |
If women have a right to their own bodies, why is abortion legal, but prostitution illegal? | It's worth keeping in mind something about Feminists who argue in favor of abortion on the grounds of women controlling their own bodies are generally also in favor of legalizing prostitution. And keep in mind, this assumes that the individual is in doing sex work voluntarily, and was not forced or tricked into it. Edit: Poor wording, adding stuff. |
how do people (Tom Petty Gaye family) win copyright battles over songs with loosely similar melodies? Haven't all the basic pop melodies been used a thousand times already? | because they know when songs are similar and pay license/royalties before hand, it's only becoming a bigger problem now because those fees have gotten really really high and lawyers get involved (because profits!) also, if you're ripping off of a band who's on the same label, the label won't sue itself... |
In movies, they need to keep having a phone connection for like 30secs in order to track someones location. Why? | The reason why there is a time limit on tracing the location of a phone call in movies is because before digital technology phone networks operated on mechanical switches. The only way to find out the originating number of a phone call would be to go to the actually exchange and examine the switches by sight. This would take some time. This "it takes 30 seconds to trace a call" trope evolved from that. Phone companies have been using digital technology before mobile phones became a thing and they can actually trace the origin of an incoming call instantaneously. edit: someone bothered to down vote me maybe because they think I'm wrong, so here's a link as proof: _URL_0_ |
Why are warm showers very sedative and cold showers very stimulating? | The heat from a hot shower helps tightened or inflamed muscles (from stress or injury) relax and also promotes better blood flow and circulation. This, naturally, has a relaxing affect on the body. Cold water can stimulate oxygen intake via the physical shock from the temperature and can also increase heart rate, circulating blood flow. Cold water might also help relieve some muscle soreness. |
why some game updates introduce more bugs | Think of computer code like a spider web - if you tug on one end of the web, the entire web moves slightly because it's all connected. Now, ideally, code should be modular, such that if you change this one piece over here, that other piece over there is completely unaffected. However, in the real world, it's quite common for code (especially complex code) to get more interconnected than it really should be, to the point where if you make a change to this module over here, that other module over there, which should have *nothing* to do with your change, suddenly breaks or changes its behaviour in a subtle way. It's like trying to take scissors to a spider web and cut out just one part of it without causing the rest of the web to move - it's very, very delicate work. |
how can identical twins have distinctly different voices? | Identical twins are only genetically identical. Voice is affected by a multitude of things; for example, your environment, have you smoked? Your diet, do you weight exactly the same amount and are you the same height? How and when you learnt to speak, were you presented with exactly the same learning materials? Your ability, does one of you have Dyslexia, or something that would affect how you process language? Is one bi-lingual? You see? Many things can affect the voice, not just genetics :) |
When we get issued plates for our IOTV vests in the army, we get told not to drop the plates or they might shatter. How can these plates that are rated for a 7.62x54mm bullet stop said bullet if they can't even hold up when they get dropped? | It's not about being so hard as to stop the bullet. It's about reducing the amount of energy the bullet is carrying. Transferring that energy into the ceramic and distributing it throughout lessens the energy. As stated above cars are made to crumple at the hood forward. That way the energy of the impact is spread into the front of the vehicle instead of in your body. It's like a stuntman coming off a high jump. If he lands directly on his feet he will snap his legs. If he rolls he distributes the energy and doesn't get injured. |
Why do we forget dreams so fast? | They're not stored in long term memory. The reason for this is probably because there's no advantage to remembering them and remembering them would clog your memory up with crap. |
Why don't blood vessels sort of kink when we fold our knees/elbows? | 1. The outside of each blood vessel is made of a material that has the right blend of firmness and flexibility. 2. Most blood vessels are surrounded by soft tissue that will yield first, or hard things (like bones) that will protect them from some of the pressure. 3. The interior of blood vessels is pressurized by the action of the heart. |
What is a Banana Republic? How is it related to Bananas? | Banana republic can either be: A fake republic, like the Nicaraguan republic in the late twentieth century. In this sense, banana is a connection to a centralized republic, like, int he hands of the few, in the case of Nicaragua, the hands of the banana business family. See the paradox? Or you can be referring to the nation and not to the system. In this case, we can use the southern central American countries, or the northern south American countries to explain. Historically, the government of these countries was controlled by the owners of the banana farms, these families were friends with the United States. So it was like "we give you bananas, and you give us other stuff so we can control the masses". And there you have it, a fake republic, dominated by the banana families. And, of course, there were several other banana companies that wanted to be the most powerful ones, but let's not complicate it. Here is an awesome video to explain it better and more organized: _URL_0_ |
How do tattoos stay in our skin even though we shed and peel away skin after sunburns? | Because we only shed and peel the upper layer of skin. The tattoo is a few layers deeper in and fairly well protected from peeling and shedding and loss of skin. |
Why is Alcohol aged in Barrels? | As far as Bourbon... The whiskey expands and contracts into the wood as it ages and with seasonal changes. This mellows the whiskey and imparts the oak flavor. The longer it ages the more mellow the flavor. This process creates longer molecular chains which aid in a better flavor. I drank some 23 year old bourbon yesterday... that was so incredibly smooth as opposed to a 5 year whiskey that is very rough. |
How is it that we've managed to make so many diverse variations of dogs, and would we be able to do this with any other animal on the same scale? | Dogs (and closely related animals like wolves) have a really weird and seemingly unique thing called a ["Slippery genome."](_URL_0_) We haven't discovered any other animals that have this yet, but it really helps in dog breeding. Dogs basically have backup genes that allow them to survive mutation much better than most animals. For example, if we bred lots of dogs with stubby legs together, we can produce some relatively healthy, stubby legged dogs. However, if we breed lots of stubby legged cats together, they get real unhealthy real fast. We need to breed in normal cats or else there are just too many birth defects and the breed becomes a dead end. But then the cats lose the stubby legs we want. We can come up with plenty of guesses as to why dogs have this "slippery genome" and other animals don't, but we haven't found any solid answers yet. |
How cats survive falls | When I was 5 our cat jumped off of our apartment terrace. It was explained to me that cats have 9 lives and when they fall from great distances they land on their feet, but lose a life. We lived on 16th floor. My parents said that each floor it past cost it a life, so by the time it reached the 7th floor it had used up all its 9 lives which is why it was splattered on the pavement below. |
What does the parental advisory label do and does it prevent a child from buying CDs with that logo? | The advisory label is voluntary. There is no law or regulation that requires a retailer to not sell to a minor. It was created as a response to gangster rap from the 90s entering the mainstream. In contemporary times, I'm sure high school kids know more bad words than I do. And they probably know how to download whatever they want from sites I've never heard of. _URL_0_ |
Why do moths and other bugs like to crowd around light sources so much? | We think that moths use the moon/Sun for navigation. If you stand outside so that the moon is to your left, and walk keeping the moon to your left, you can keep a general heading. Moths developed this ability long, long before ANYTHING at night shined brightly other than the moon. So it gets confused when it sees a light. If you stand outside and keep a street light to your left, and then walk keeping it to your left, what happens is that you walk in circles around the light! That trick only works with the moon because it doesn't move as you walk around. PLUS, bright light makes a moth think it's daytime, and daytime for a moth is a time to sit still and hide. So the end result is that the moth thinks he's flying straight, but instead spirals around the light source. Once he gets close to it, he thinks it's daytime and tends to settle down until it's dark again. Hence moths circling lights and sticking around them for no good reason. |
Why don't copyright laws affect China? | US copyright laws only really apply in the US. International copyright laws apply worldwide, but only to the extent to which countries wish to enforce them within their borders. China isn't making it a priority, and there isn't much the rest of the world can do to force them. |
why does my Apple IPhone require that I have at least 4.5 GB of storage available in order to update? | The files you download in the update must be decompressed before being permanently installed. A 500 MB download could easily decompress into a couple of gigabytes or more. |
Why is there such a small amount of steam games for mac? | It takes effort to build the game for the mac. Not as much effort as building it from scratch, but it does take a significant investment. It can also be different enough that you may want a specific team just for the mac work. For many companies that extra effort isn't worth the cost given the relatively small amount of mac gamers. Mac gamers are also often willing to either buy a gaming pc on top of their mac, or run windows on their mac via bootcamp. As such there is even less people who won't buy your game unless it has a mac version. |
Why does everyone hate flash so much? Why is everyone trying to get it blocked everywhere? | For a start, Flash slows page loads, requires a plugin to work (that requires constant updates), doesn't play well with search engines, and can be used via advertisements to install bad things on your computer. HTML5 does everything Flash does, but it does it faster, doesn't require a plugin, plays very well with search engines, and is not a glaring, gaping hole in security. |
How do I use a semicolon? | Basically you use them to replace transitional phrases like: "such as," "and so," "hence," or "that is to say." |
Where did the stereotypical image of the Halloween witch come from? | The idea of witches riding brooms is hundreds of years old. Otherwise, witches in history were depicted as regular looking women (or realistically ugly women, not mnosters). The green skin, long pointy nose, and regular witches hat come from ~~Dorothy~~ Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Prior to that film, the Wicked Witch of the West was short, squat, one-eyed and had a big bulbous nose and a either an extremely tall pointy cap covered in decorations (the book's illustrations) or a floppy Papa Smurf stocking cap (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)). |
Why aren't can't people remember distinct memories from their childhood? | Human memory is actually a very flawed system. We have forget lots of things - most of our sensory input is almost immediately dumped and we retain a very small fraction of what we perceive. Also, memory is highly fluid. The current understanding of memory is that memories are re-experienced and recreated every time we recall them. Memories, even those in which we are very confident, change over time and drift farther and farther away from what actually happened. So yes, we have the issue of general flaws in human memory combined with the fact that much of our very early life ends up being irrelevant to our adult lives. On top of that, brains aren't fully developed until later in life. So not only are the memory systems you have in place now deeply flawed, but they weren't even fully operational back when you were a toddler. Source: BS Neuroscience. |
The "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" conspiracy, it's plausibility, and scientific evidence related to the conspiracy. | Jet fuel burns from 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel at 2750°. However, for the towers to give way, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength, which was entirely possible. Hope that clears that up a bit for you. |
Why don't we use anesthetic before getting piercings and tattoos? | Because administration of anesthesia is a potentially deadly activity requiring generally a much higher level of training and credentials (and is therefore really expensive) then administering a tramp stamp. |
Where do the rocks around the perimeter of lakes come from? | I suspect the reason is that: Rocks around the lake are those we see laying on the soil's surface or partially in-bedded, being as water from rain, melting snow, the natural level of the lake water rising and receding, washes the surrounding soil into the lake leaving the heavier rocks visible. Take a flat area of land not far from the lake, the rocks are there, too. But still under the soil from not being subjected to the water erosion that leaves them nearer the surface when closer to the lake. |
Why does cleaning our tongue (I.E When brushing our teeth) make our breath smell better? | Because your tongue is home to tons of bacteria that cause bad breath. Brushing your tongue removes them. |
Why do new games sold digitally on steam cost as much as physical disks for consoles? | Not sure but... steam library usually doesnt scratch, can be re-downloaded to a new hdd on a new pc, game is usually full of more goodies/customizable than a console disk blah blah. Also disks are obsolete. I dont even have an optical drive and the only time I would have ever really needed one was installing drivers, which a wired connection got me all groovy for. I guess if you got dat crysis 1 or oblivion on disk...but really they want money too. I havent actually seen a newerish, even, game on disk for years. It is a very valid question but in my opinion I would rather pay the same price for a superior product in comparison to the console version even though I dont retain a physical copy. Unless I accidentally format my hdd afyer moving to the Yukon territory |
Why can I always see the moon? During the day, why can I still see it, though slightly faded? | Because it's there. The moon is a big ball of rock and dust about a quarter of a million miles above us. At night, the part that the sun shines on is easily visible to us, but the rest of the moon is still there. During the day it gets just as much light as Earth, and is quite reflective, so it's bright enough to be seen during the day. |
Where did the bacteria in our mouths come from? | Your fingers, straws, cups, forks, spoons, the air, the food you put in your mouth has bacteria on it (think eating a piece of bread,) your toothbrush has bacteria all over it. Bacteria are extremely numerous and extremely common. Brushing your teeth doesn't eliminate all of them, cooking your food doesn't eliminate all of them. They're a fact of nature, good or bad, and you do need them to survive. Your body is covered in them, inside and out. |
does every living creature feel pain? | No, many animals lack the nervous system requirements to feel pain as we would understand it. Plants are totally out of the running and bacteria are just single cells. |
Why do neo-Nazis exist outside of Germany if they're not part of the Aryan race? | Neo-nazis are often not well-educated, and their beliefs aren't built on a consistent, logical, and fact-based foundation. There have literally been [Israeli neo-nazis](_URL_1_) (descended from Russian Jews, in this case). Violent extremism like this is often a matter of feeling displaced and marginalized, which causes anger, and people like to find outside sources to pin their problems on and direct their anger at. As far as race, most neo-nazis settle for "white" (although some people who are definitely not white do sympathize with neo-nazis, like [Tila Tequila](_URL_0_) -- again, don't expect their views to be consistent and rational). |
Why do Atomic Bombs make a "Mushroom" shaped cloud when they detonate? | Hot air rises. When there is a large enough source of heat, it creates a column of hot air that is much hotter in the center than on the edges. The center of the column rises faster, causing the air around the edges to curl and create the mushroom shape. Then, with a big enough explosion the air eventually reaches the point in the atmosphere where the hot air isn't any less dense than the surrounding air, and it stops rising and instead spreads out, forming the cap of the mushroom. |
Why do hackers feel the need to release private information to the public like officals' names and addresses? What do they gain from this? | The same thing that kid in middle school got out of making fun of your shoes and squirting ketchup on them. Publicity and embarrassment. Bullies thrive off of the reaction they get out of it, my assumption is thats what pointless hackers get out of pointless hacking. |
How Can Viewers Be Influenced by Unrealistic Standards of Beauty in the Media, but Not By Violence in the Media? | Psychologist here - (only on my phone, I will provide a more thorough answer later on) To simplify things we only look at the main difference between beauty advertisement and action movies. When you are watching a movie you are doing something called 'passive-engagement' . You root for a character, or a hero, to shoot down as many bad guys as possible to complete his mission. The main point here is, that you cheer for HIS goals, and HIS actions. Advertisement on the other hand, has no 'passive-engagement' aspects whatsoever. The person you are observing does not display any sort of goal-achievement. What you do is, you observe, and project the things YOU want to project into YOUR world. This is a lot more 'active' than just watching. |
Why fog lights are able to cut through fog while brights only light up the fog more. | Fog lights are closer to the ground and are aimed slightly downward, so that only the fog very close to the road's surface reflects light back. High beams are high and have a wide beam that sends light upward, so that instead of just a thin layer of fog between you and the road being lit up just about everything in front of your car is. |
What is turbulence? And how do airplane pilots sometimes know when they are about to hit turbulence? | Pilot here...Pilot reports are really the best way to know when it will be bumpy. One plane 100 miles ahead will report turbulence at a certain altitude to ATC and then they will relay the message to other planes. Those other planes can then decide if they want to deviate course or altitude...Also just don't fly into those big puffy white clouds, they are bumpy. |
What is the difference between Shia and Sunni branches of Islam | It started after Muhammed died and there was a power struggle over who would be caliph. Basically that's where everything went to hell. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad's wife Aisha, was Muhammad's rightful successor. Shias believe that Muhammad divinely ordained his cousin and son-in-law Ali Ibn Abi Talib (the father of his grandsons Hasan ibn Ali and Hussein ibn Ali) in accordance with the command of Allah to be the next caliph, making Ali and his direct descendants Muhammad's successors. Shia theology discounts the legitimacy of the first three caliphs and believes that Ali is the second-most divinely inspired man (after Muhammad) and that he and his descendants by Fatimah, the Imams, are the sole legitimate Islamic leaders. The Imamate of the Shia encompasses far more of a prophetic function than the Caliphate of the Sunnis. Unlike Sunni, Shias believe special spiritual qualities have been granted not only to Muhammad but also to Ali and the other Imams. |
How can any drug cost $360,000 a year for a patient. | When a pharmaceutical company creates and patents a new drug, they can charge as much as they want for it, since no one else is able to sell or produce it without their consent. The reason this doesn't completely prevent people from accessing the drug is because their health insurance providers often pay for it. On top of making a profit, the pharmaceutical companies use the money to research and develop new drugs and to cover the costs of other drugs that didn't make it to the market. |
Why are some foods high in sodium but they don't taste particularly salty? | Not all sodium is in the form of salt (sodium chloride). Baking soda, for example, doesn't taste nearly as salty as the same amount as salt. MSG has sodium and isn't salty (though it's generally used in small quantities). Also, other tastes, especially sweetness, can hide the taste of salt. |
How is the curiosity rover different than the mars rover? | NASA has successfully landed three rovers on Mars. You can [see the differences here](_URL_0_). The Curiosity rover has 10 times the mass of scientific instruments than the Spirit or Opportunity rovers. It will be much better at studying the climate and geology of Mars, and better at determining whether there is/was life there. Basically, it is much bigger and can do a ton of stuff that the previous rovers couldn't do. |
Are there any differences between Prison Labor and Slave Labor and should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons? I know Slavery is not entirely illegal according to the 13th Amendment. So it's kinda scary to imagine what could happen, am I worrying for no reason? | > ... should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons? I don't think you need to worry about the future, privately owned prisons are a concern **today**. Instead of working solely to rehabilitate inmates, the prison industrial complex is very involved in lobbying government to influence laws to the benefit of their profits, not the general population. |
What do people get out of being cuckolded/humiliated? | I've been into cuckold fantasies for a couple years. I finally told my gf about it, and a few nights ago she slept with another guy. I was really worried that it was just a fantasy, and that afterwards I would feel jealous, disgusted, or angry. But I didn't. She sent me pictures of them together, and looking at them, I just felt extremely aroused and excited. It wasn't something she was doing for me- once she found out I was okay with her sleeping with other guys, she ran with it. She wanted it. The biggest turn on for me was that it was such a huge turn on for her. I love thinking of her as this insatiable sexual being. In a traditional relationship, I'd put boundaries on that, try and limit her expression of that. In this type of relationship, I get to encourage her and share that experience with her. It's incredibly intimate and vulnerable. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.