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5u2yeu | How are sperm cells created, and what are the components of them. How different are sperm cells between people and animals? | I never took Biology in highschool. Nor life science in middle school. (I took a test that said I had a basic enough understanding to move on to chemistry, and I regret it) My understanding on biology is barely enough to pass the US GED. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm by no means an expert, but I have some knowledge of this. Everyone correct me, please. I know I'm not getting meiosis quite right, it's been a long time since I've done cell bio/genetics. Anyway, never too late to learn, OP. Sperm cells, as the name suggests, are a type of cell in the human body. They are created through a cell division process called meiosis, which occurs in the testicles. A similar process creates eggs in women, and occurs in the ovaries. Sperm are haploid cells, which means they contain half the chromosomes (your genes/DNA, basically the instructions for making you) of a normal cell. A normal cell has 46 chromosomes but a sperm cell only has 23, 22 standard chromosomes with small differences in their code that make you unique and a sex chromosome that will be either X or Y to determine your ~~gender~~ sex. A female egg cell has the other 23 chromosomes, 22 regular and an X chromosome. If a sperm with a Y chromosome meets an egg, you get XY and the resulting child is a boy. If the sperm has an X chromosome, the child is a girl. The sex chromosomes are called X and Y because they're actually shaped liked Xs and Ys. Women's eggs only have X chromosomes. Meiosis is similar to a cell division process for most other cells, mitosis, (where a cell clones itself, divides, then splits into two new cells) except there is are additional steps. One of these steps is recombination/crossover, where after cloning themselves, the chromosomes pair up (imagine the same chromosome from a parent holding onto a twin and lining up across from the same chromosome from the other parent and its twin). Then the chromosomes crossover, where they link up and swap parts with their partners from the other parent. Then the cell divides, creating two new cells with chromosomes that are a mishmash of chromosomes from both parents. These then divide again, so that there's only 23 chromosomes in each cell. This is a highly simplified summary. In terms of your last question, sperm are basically the same between human and non-human animals. The primary difference is the number of chromosomes. However, they undergo similar processes (meiosis and all) and share the majority of their characteristics.",
"I'm actually in developmental biology right now, so this is one of the subjects. Sperm cells are created in the testes from stem cells, which are types of cells that can develop into more specialized cells. These stem cells are guided through development by signals from the nurse cells that encompass them, while some stem cells remain undeveloped to maintain a population of cells that can create more sperm. As the cells develop they go through meiosis, which means their chromosomes recombine and each of the four cells has one of each chromosome instead of two chromosomes each with two chromatids. After meiosis the sperm develops its characteristic features by going through what is called spermiogenesis: flagellum, compacted nucleus, an acrosome to help reach the ovum, etc. However, the sperm doesn't become fully developed until after it leaves the body and undergoes what is called capacitation, which allows it to sense molecules emanating from the area surrounding the ovum and move towards them, as well as increase its speed and allow it to fuse with the ovum. Capacitation can happen in the female or outside (in sea water for sea urchins) depending on the species. Components of the sperm include a whip-like flagella for movement, an acrosome, which releases proteins that digest the material around the ovum, bind to the ovum, or help signal to the ovum that it has been fertilized, centrioles for the flagellum, and glycoproteins (proteins with sugar on them) for ovum binding and fusion etc. As far as difference between species, I'm not especially familiar, but they should have different surface molecules to recognize ova of a specific species, and I image their shape is generally similar between species, but I'm not certain. Any questions?"
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5u32gg | What makes Gordon Ramsay such an incredible chef? Wouldn't the skill level of top level culinary artists not vary a lot? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"He's an incredible restauranteur, which is a bit different. He understands the entire business. Creating top quality food is not actually super difficult. He doesn't do any wacky trendy stuff; just honest high-quality ingredients, fresh food, and good execution. He's particularly good are running a restaurant business, choosing good staff, and setting standards."
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5u37xu | How do antidotes stop poisons from working? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the poison and antidote, but some work by directly disabling the poison itself. The toxin might be a chemical that binds to specific receptors within the body and the antidote binds to the toxin instead, filling up all the available binding locations rendering it inert. Or the antidote might work the other way around, binding to the body's receptors and preventing the toxin from doing so until it can be dealt with. Finally, something like methanol might be rendered less dangerous by consuming ethanol simply because it delays the metabolization of the methanol and so reduces the peak levels of toxic compounds the body is exposed to."
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5u39mf | Bullet Speed | What happens when you shoot a bullet into the sky and it doesn't hit anything? When the bullet comes down will it still have enough speed to damage anything? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> What happens when you shoot a bullet into the sky and it doesn't hit anything? When the bullet comes down will it still have enough speed to damage anything? That depends on what you mean exactly by \"shooting into the sky\". Do you mean straight up or at an angle? Straight up means that the bullet will gradually slow down until it falls back, mostly straight down unless subjected to quite a wind. The terminal velocity of a bullet is fast but not lethal, it would give you quite a whack on the head but wouldn't penetrate your skull. Certainly you could dent car hoods or chip glass. The big danger is if you shoot at an angle. In this case the bullet will travel in an arc but retain much of its horizontal movement component by the time it reaches the ground. Depending on the angle that can be a significant and lethal speed. While shooting straight up is foolish but not incredibly dangerous, it is difficult to distinguish this from shooting at an angle which could retain dangerous lateral velocity."
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5u3b1t | Why are most foods baked in the oven at around the same temperatures (say 350-425 degrees Fahrenheit)? Is there a scientific reason behind this common temperature range? | At least from what I've noticed most temperatures for food and other baking in the oven don't range below or above these temperatures despite the oven being capable of them. Anyone know why? EDIT: For those on the metric system, approximately 175-220 degrees Celsius. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you cook, you're trying to get heat from outside the food to inside the food. There's lots of different ways to do that. Baking in an oven isn't actually very efficient! You can sear a steak on a very hot skillet in 2-3 minutes, but baking the same steak to the right doneness might take an hour in an oven. Because the oven's so bad at getting heat inside food, trying to turn the heat to the same levels as the skillet will leave you with a completely burned outside and a near-raw inside in a hurry. There's also certain chemical things that happen in food when we cook it. At very high temperatures, beef \"browns\", which creates very pleasant and complex flavors. That's why fancy steaks are almost always seared. You can bake a smaller steak in an oven, but you'll never quite get the same kind of flavor that searing creates. Low temperatures also do things! Pot roasts are generally tough cuts of meat, but after being kept in a slow cooker at around 200 degrees for hours, the heat will have broken down much of the tissue that makes the meat tough and turned it into a tender, tasty meal. Brisket and many other cuts are almost inedible unless cooked this way. That's beef, though. Why do most of the things we cook fall in the 350-425 degree range? Well, I'm thinking of a lot of the things I throw in the oven. Frozen pizzas, frozen snacks... I'm not trying to *cook* those so much as *warm* them. But \"hot air\" isn't super good at getting heat inside food. So if I crank the heat up too high, I'll burn the outside and have a frozen inside. (Microwaves are the opposite: they're better at getting heat *inside* food. That's why pizza rolls take 20 minutes in the oven but only 2 minutes in the microwave. But that kind of 'heat' isn't so good at browning, so it never crisps them quite right, does it?) That's what's going on with a lot of foods, too. Go much hotter than 425 and the heat can't penetrate the food fast enough to stop you from burning too much. Go much lower than 350 and it's going to take hours to heat the food enough, and in many foods like bread it might be important to generate some steam before certain reactions finish. That's why a lot of instructions for baking turkeys suggest cooking at two different temperatures. In one phase, the goal is to slowly get heat inside the turkey without drying out or burning the outside. In the other phase, the goal is to brown the outside to create more flavor. Cooking often involves a LOT of complex chemistry, and delicate balancing acts of temperature. ### Update Wow. This is without a doubt my most popular post ever. Thanks for the gold, and thanks for so many comments. I want to address a few things, it seems there's a lot of nitpicking. In general, I wanted to cover \"high heat burns the outside before the middle gets hot enough, low heat takes too long and can't brown\". It's ELI5, not an exhaustive guide to the science of cooking. There's lots of dishes that can't take 300 degrees, lots of processes like denaturing proteins I didn't get into, etc. I already feel like the post is too long for ELI5, I couldn't talk about every potential interaction. Similarly, I appreciate corrections on how microwaves work, but again that was really a one-off example. I know about how microwaves excite water molecules, and that moisture content matters, etc. It's still true a microwave can cook, say, a chicken breast much faster than an oven but in so doing you miss out on things like browning. All of this makes the post even longer and distracts from answering, \"Why do we bake things within a specific temperature range.\" Sometimes, when explaining complicated topics to people who want a rough answer, it helps to make gross oversimplifications. I think /r/AskScience is far more appropriate for the level of detail most of you are striving to find! And yes, I do cook more things than pizza rolls. But it's a lot easier for people to relate to pizza rolls than \"that time I made spanakopita\", and if I'd started talking about baking bread I'd have been WAY too encouraged to get into the chemical details.",
"The bulk of what we eat is actually made of the same or very similar stuff: Flour, sugar, eggs for baked goods, Protein, fat for meats. The big difference is in the thickness of those components. Ovens are actually very inefficient because most of their heat is infrared radiation that hits the top layer of the thing you are cooking and very slowly that layer conducts heat in. The hot air conducts some heat too but again it only hits that outside layer. The higher the temperature the faster that outside layer heats up but the variation in conducting that heat in is very small. Therefor, with a lot of trial and error since gas ovens were invented (Wood etc before were just not precise enough that the exact temperature mattered versus how long to leave something in), we've learned that that temperature range, 375 +- 50 for wheat, 425 +- 50 for proteins, depending on thickness is the best middle point between letting the heat get to the middle of whatever you're cooking and nto burning the outside.",
"It's all about chemistry. The Maillard reaction, when sugars caramelize and react with amino acids, is what makes foods brown when cooked. It requires at least around 300°F, and higher temperatures can make it more pronounced. Anything cooked below that temperature is usually something where caramelization/browning is undesired, like Meringues, which cook at about 200°F.",
"First I'll hit on lower temps: below the range you mention it would either take too long, or more importantly, the food would simply \"warm up\" rather than have chemical reactions occur (not enough heat to promote browning, crisping, and caramelization... including an important reaction [to flavor and texture] known as the Maillard reaction, as others have mentioned). You can though, for example, cook a steak at a very low temp, like under 150F, to get it \"warmed up\" to an internal temp that people like, then hit it with some really high heat in a skillet to brown and crisp the outside, which people also like. But this is more complicated, so it's not as common. (As a side note, a newer method growing in popularity, known as sous-vide, is made to do that first part... immersing vacuum sealed food, usually meat, in temperature controlled water at lower than usual cooking temps, but again not as common). As for higher temps that the range you list - for some foods that actually does work (like commercial pizza ovens, that are usually around 800F), but those applications aren't as common so it's not worth the cost and complexity to make home ovens even go that high. Plus it would be more dangerous in a home. The other issue with high temp, and again even more important, is just that the outside of most \"food sized\" items will burn before the inside is heated up.",
"Cook here! Bacteria starts dying at 130F. That's the minimum temp for being \"cooked\". Whatever the outside temp is, the inside generally must reach at least this temperature, however long it takes. Edit: * 140 is holding temp, also the internal temp for a medium/medium well steak. Not high enough to really break down tissue, but not low enough for bacteria to grow. * 160F is the internal temperature of chicken that is safe to eat * 180 F is the temp for poaching a food, something delicate that can't handle a boil. Water transfers heat more efficiently than air. * 212 is the temp water boils at. Boiled potatoes takes 12~ minutes, same cut/size to roast is 40~ * 250 is a temp you would cook something at for hours, like smoking a pork shoulder for 6 hours. * 350 is a good temp for roasting something over a moderate amount of time * 425 won't cook anything to 160 in the middle, but it will make the outside crispy very fast. * 500+ is for pizza",
"Yes, this is the temperature at which the Malliard Reaction occurs. Named after the french anthropologist and chemist, sugars and amino acids from meat recombine to form hundreds of new molecules, accounting for the taste and smell of cooked foods.",
"Mostly because it works. You could bake a cake at 400 degrees but you'd end up with a raw center and a cooked outside. Sometimes that's what you're going for so yay. The deeper reason is material can only transfer heat so fast. If you cook at too hot of a temperature the outside will get cooked well before the inside. Too low temperature and you won't set off the chemistry required for baking or you'll cook out all the moisture and end up with dry food. The reason most baked goods fall in the same range of temps and times is because they all contain more or less the same ingredients (flour, water, fat, sugar, etc.) Since they all contain similar stuff they transfer heat similarly so the temperature can remain fairly uniform. Size of the food will play a role so a cake will bake longer and possibly at a different temp than a cupcake pan with the same amount of batter. Also the pan itself can affect it. Dark metal conducts heat better so you use a slightly lower temp than of you use shiny metal.",
"No one has mentioned this but it's an important part of why we use THAT temperature range, and not a cooler one. Bacterial danger zones. The goal with temperatures in the 350-450 range is not just to evenly cook food to a consistent temperature throughout, but to do so quickly enough that food spends acceptably short time in the BACTERIAL DANGER ZONE (40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit). Bacteria prefer this temperature range and most types of bacteria will multiply much faster inside this temperature band. The goal is to get out of the danger zone and kill the bacteria before they have a chance to spoil the food. Otherwise many meats would be cooked at much lower temperature to ensure consistent temperature throughout.",
"An awful lot of food science-y answers in there. But hold on a minute, Alton Brown. 99.999% of classic recipes were invented before Harold McGee was born. Way back when, ovens and stoves had only three settings that followed the guidelines for traditional recipes... Slow, Medium, and Hot. Medium is 350 degrees, which is why you see so many recipes calling for it.",
"Well wood burns at 451° and up, but most of that heat is going to literally go up in smoke. A smaller percentage is going to come off as radiant heat. On a campfire, you can trap some of that in with a ring of rocks. If you're sticking around in the same spot for a few weeks, you can pile those rocks higher, and cake them with wet clay which will bake dry and become brick, trapping in more heat. Keep stacking rocks and mud higher to build a chimney, you have an oven. Now you can bake up all those mushed up seeds you had in your mortar and pestle so they will keep for a few days. Wood fired pizza is still made this way. Make the thing even bigger, and thicker, you have a kiln you can use to fire pottery and make new bricks. Make it even bigger, you have a smelter you can use to extract copper, tin, lead, and nickel to make simple copper, bronze and brass tools. If you have access to coal or the resources to make charcoal, and the know how to make a large bellows, you can even start smelting down iron. Ain't civilization grand?",
"That is because most foods aren't pizza, therefore they are inferior and don't deserve the beauty of heat.",
"We use 325-350 in baking because it allows for leavening agents to rise and set properly as well as allowing the correct amount of moisture to be released from the baked good. A higher temperature would cook the outside fully before the insides reached 175-180 degrees, which is the temperture range at which the protein structures in breads and cakes stabilize. However, baking at 325 will generally yield a drier baked good than 350, even though the same temperature is attained, due to steam escape over a longer period of time.",
"Habit from the days of wood stoves/ovens. Wood burns at +450F so you heat the oven up with a fire and then maintain the heat with the burning embers. Therefore the embers are at ~450F. You have an stone oven that is not air tight and looses heat dropping the temp to ~350-425F. Recipes that are handed down from generation to generation might say bake in a \"hot oven\" for 30 min, but when the invention of gas/electric came about they had to translate the notation of \"hot oven\" to be 325-425F so the recipes would still work. Many chefs acquire a muscle memory of knowing when an items is done but its based on years of working with the same temperature range daily. Lower it by 50F and you'll totally screw up the flow of the service. So old chefs train new chefs and they all work at the same temperature thus reinforcing the historic temperature setting.",
"Late response here. Short answer: [Pyrolysis]( URL_0 ). ~~boilong water is for food safety~~ At around 300°f proteins and sugars/carbs start to undergo chemical changes. Once the outer surface dried up, it starts to burn. Controlling the burn produces flavor with out charring. The most notable examples are steaks browning (maillard) and onions become soft and sweet (caramelization). Over 400°f and you risk your cooking oils burning. This is dictated by the [smoke point]( URL_0 ) of each oil. For instance olive oil and butter can burn as low as 300-350 which is why your fire alarm goes off when you cook with them. Canola and vegetable oil start burning around 425. Edit: boiling water stuff thanks u m3nO0bz",
"Lower temps take too long. Really high temps burn the food. The range you have stated is useful for a variety of food. 350 is good for chicken thighs. 425 would be good for less dense items like potato wedges or asparagus. Adjust accordingly.",
"As a note, ovens are not common in Asian countries. Most homes there do not have ovens despite having a long culinary history. Instead, they heat their food relatively fast compared to Western foods. While this doesn't exactly answer the question, it leaves a question why the West, in particular, commonly cook foods in ovens.",
"A lot of organic material can withstand that temperature but might catch fire at a higher temperature. So you can leave the oven on such a temperature without burning down your house. The food will just get dry and char but not start to spew flames all over the oven. Professionals will use higher temperatures but are much more careful about using timers and change the heat during the cooking process.",
"Most recipes have been around for a long time, and they probably indicate \"moderate oven\" as far as a temperature, so it's likely just a default that arose from what we are making, and how much we are making. Scientifically, you can get the same chemical reactions with lower temperatures, but you are then waiting quite a while. Without having a solid answer, it's likely due to getting the best results in the shortest amount of time.",
"I'm way late but the other answers aren't really correct. The tempature range you gave is the traditional heat range that you could get to in a wood fired oven. The tempature range for best results ranges from 250 to 600+ its just that the typical cook isn't knowledgeable enough about what they are cooking to choose the correct tempature. On a more particular note all of our food is made up of similar stuff and undergoes similar reactions under similar conditions.",
"Can you imagine what the first human who ate a pound and a half of cooked meat 🍖 felt like?He probably woke up from the itis and started barbequing for everyone.",
"It's because for most foods this is the minimum temperature needed for the *maillard reaction*, what we call \"browning\", which is sugar and starches and fat having a very complicated chemical reaction. Below these temperatures your goods will turn out \"blonde\", not \"browned\" and for most things, be it bread or chickens, we want some of that \"browned\" maillard flavor. URL_0",
"I would say the biggest reason is forgiveness. I work at a pizza place and we keep the oven around 700 degrees. At 700 degrees, the difference between not quite finished, perfect, and burnt is literally seconds. Your oven at home can't get that hot, but if you are supposed to bake something at 350 for 30 minutes, and to forget to set a timer, pulling it out at 40 minutes might not ruin it. You have a larger window for getting your baked foods perfect without constant attention.",
"Why don't you try cooking at lower and higher temperatures and let us know how it goes?",
"This is a very confusing topic to follow as a European. Way to many temperatures to convert into the \"real measurement\"!",
"Keep in mind that's not a very small range (though IME it's usually 325 - 450. Even so, think about when it's 0F, versus 75F.",
"A lot of people are going to give you the \"correct\" and/or \"scientific\" answer, but it really boils down to one thing. It's a conspiracy perpetrated by Big Oven.",
"This may not be helpful for your question but a lot of custard based desserts like cheesecake or tortes should be baked at 300 or less. I bake my cheesecake with a water bath at 225 for 65 minutes for the best result. My flourless chocolate torte is baked at 300 for 35 minutes.",
"Cooking is more complicated than people think. Enough heat has to penetrate the middle of what you are cooking and for long enough for the food to cook properly and bacteria (important for meat) are killed. If you have a temperature sensor, this can be done more precisely, but it is easier to set a general temp/duration combination than to give the parameters for a complex calculation. When you want to get browing, as in the so-called Maillard reaction, the surface has to be above a certain temperature for a short time. This sets the minimum for things where we want caramelisation such as roasted beef.",
"Lower temps cook move evenly. Higher temps cook the outside faster than the inside. The 300s its a even middle range for the most part. Looking to slow roast a Pork butt/Boston Roast/Ribs/Brisket, 220-250 for multiple hours. You are attempting to get the connective tissues to dissolve which happens in the 180 F range so its low and slow to do this without drying out the meat. Making a pizza? Everything is on the surface, so the hotter the better since you are not looking for penetration. Put your oven at 500+ if you can. The crust will brown and maybe burn but the bread inside the crust will rise and be perfect."
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5u3p5x | This casino strategy and the math behind it | URL_0 So basically, this seems... sketchy, to say the least. How does this work? Why is it only doable in online casinos? Thanks | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I believe this is called the Martingale system. It doesn't only work in online casinos, you can do it anywhere. Some casinos don't like it, and most will have a min and max bet that're close enough together that you can't get too many iterations, but here's the problem with it. Say you bet $1, lose, bet $2, lose, bet $4, lose, then bet $8 and win. You just gained $1 (you spent $7, won $8) - you always \"win\" whatever your initial bet was when you win. Let's say for the sake of discussion that the max bet is $100, as the video says. This gives you: 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64 7 total bets before you can't double your bet anymore. Since we're talking betting on roulette, the chance of getting a win on red or black is 47.4%, but let's use 50% for easier math. So you have a 50% chance of winning each time. The chance of winning at least 1 of those 7 bets is: 1-.5^7, or 99.2%. In total, if you place all 7 bets, you're putting down $126. If you lose that last bet, you lost $126. If you win that last bet, you won $1. The strategy gives you very high odds of winning a very low amount, but you still have the ever-present chance of losing a very high amount. In reality, the probability is slightly less in your favor, since it's not quite a 50% chance of winning, but the general idea still holds true."
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5u3vu4 | Why does stroking animals relax/calm us down? | I heard or read somewhere once that stroking a soft animal can reduce blood pressure and lower heart rate. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"i covered this topic in a class in university way back in the caveman days they would sit around the fire with their half wild dogs stroking their fur elicited the guard guard guard instinct in the animal thats the theory anyways so basically the theory is we were able to relax knowing we were protected"
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5u3wmq | How do people accidentally die from auto-erotic asphyxiation? | If the human brain can survive for upwards of 3 minutes (no training) without oxygen, how do so many people accidentally kill themselves while asphyxiating themselves/having their partner asphyxiate them during sex/masturbation? Can't they just stop choking themselves when it gets sketchy? And once they pass out, doesn't the body automatically breathe for them/if applicable their partner would stop choking them? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The goal is to get _almost_ unconscious but not get _completely_ unconscious. But usually your hands are going to be busy, uh, stimulating the erotic parts. So people use \"props\". Ropes. Belts. Whatever. But their hands are _still_ busy. So they tie those ropes or whatever to things so that they can have free hands. But if they pass out, the ropes don't untie themselves by magic and the die. So sometimes they'll get clever and use one hand for the rope and one hand for the, um, stimulating. And that can work. But if they pass out and fall on the rope so that their body weight keeps the rope from being let out then they die. And the end of the rope that's around their neck... well it's a noose and if its not made right it can \"bind up\" so that even if they do let go of the rope and do fall over in a way that lets the rope come loose from the overhead, that doesn't necessarily mean that the noose part is going to slack off. And if it doesn't slack off, they die. It's the kind of thing you can do successfully again and again. And as long as you are successful it's nobodies business. But the more you do it, the more daring you might get about it. Or you might be used to doing it at home over a nice smooth hook and then you try it in a hotel where the coat hook just isn't quite as smooth or something. So auto-erotic asphyxiation is something you can do right again-and-again, but you only get to critically fail at it the one time... at which point you show up on the news. 8-)",
"> Can't they just stop choking themselves when it gets sketchy? Not if they're choking themselves by effectively hanging themselves, using their own weight to choke themselves. If they pass out, they'll end up tightening whatever is asphyxiating them, rather than loosening it.",
"Autoerotic asphyxiation is done alone. There's no partner to release them. When a partner is involved its just asphyxiation play. In autoerotic asphyxiation, what generally happens is that the person wants their hands free, because the erotic part of this auto-erotic asphyxiation involves pleasuring themselves. Autoerotic asphyxiation, is typically performed in the following way: A man—the vast majority of particpants are male—loops a belt or rope around his neck, attaches the other end to a door knob or pipe, and lowers himself into a controlled suspension. Then they pleasure themselves (usually). The pressure from the belt cuts off the flow of blood through the veins in his neck, causing blood to congest in the brain. Oxygen levels drop and carbon dioxide levels increase, producing lightheadedness, a \"high\" of sorts, and, for some, intensifying erotic pleasure. When death occurs, it's usually because of pressure on a part of the neck called the carotid body, a small cluster of chemoreceptors located near the fork of the carotid artery. Pressure on the carotid body causes a discharge from the vagus nerve. This slows down the heart and can make a person pass out instantaneously. (That's why karate chops and the Vulcan nerve pinch target the vagus nerve.) Losing consciousness causes the person to go limp, which tightens the choke and decreases circulation through the neck arteries, causing asphyxiation. Rarely is there enough pressure to block the windpipe—rather, it's the lack of blood flow that causes death. There is no safe way to engage in autoerotic asphyxiation. Someone who has their heart set on it should consider having someone they trust present in case of emergency. Breathplay, which is done with a partner, is a little different. First, it's usually to a lesser extent than AEA. Second, someone else is controlling your access to air, which means when you get too close to unconsciousness, they can bring you back by releasing the hold they have on your throat or releasing whatever is being used to choke you. It's not ideal either...anything that deprives your brain of oxygen isn't ideal...but it's a hell of a lot safer."
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5u3xcg | If it's safer for infants and toddlers to ride rear facing in a car, why aren't all passenger seats also rear facing? Wouldn't it also be safer for adults to face backwards? | Some train seats face backwards so it can't be too uncomfortable for passengers. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes it would be...it would also be safer on airplanes if everyone sat facings backwards relative to the direction of travel. The human body can absorb much greater G forces in that posture. Why doesn't it happen? People don't like it....people like to see where they are going.",
"Yes, it would be much safer to ride backwards. Airbags would be unnecessary (at least the front ones) and the seats could be made to absorb all the impact of a head-on collision. But people just don't like it. We constantly trade convenience for safety. It would also be safer to wear a helmet while driving, but it just won't happen.",
"I think it has a lot to do with travel sickness. Looking out of the window helps with car sickness because it gives you a visual input for what the balance stuff in your ears is sensing. Sitting backwards might be disorientating and lead to more travel sickness. Also, adults can wear seatbelts properly whereas infants are reliant on the car seat.",
"Babies and toddlers don't have very strong neck muscles. What might be a mild case of whiplash in an adult but be a broken neck in a small child. That is why they need to be in a rear-facing car seat. Once they reach a certain age, their neck muscles are strong enough to handle the impact from a typical car accident. Seat facing backwards would be safer for head-on collisions. However, the logistics wouldn't work very well - the driver needs to see forward obviously. Facing the rear of the car can also make car sickness worse."
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5u3yso | Why fake news is not illegal? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"(US perspective) Because the 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and press. It is not appropriate for the government to take on the role of deciding what speech is okay and what speech isn't. However, we do have libel and slander laws that protect people who can prove they were harmed by false statements.",
"> why aren't there any governing bodies that ensure that media is legitimate Like in China or North Korea? The question is who decides what is fake news? You and I might have differing opinions of what constitutes fake news. Giving one group the power to decide what is fake and what isn't leads to terrible problems. Also, the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of the press. That means the press can write whatever they want even if it isn't true.",
"Because the first amendment gives everyone very, very broad latitude to say whatever they want. There are plenty of privately run organizations that assess news sources for truthfulness and quality.",
"Why would it be illegal for me to start a website called SterlingNews and write whatever I want in it? Is it my responsibility to make sure nobody believes me? If you want the technical reason, that'd be the 1st amendment: \"Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;\""
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5u44dz | Why are we so certain of the distance of other stars, could we be wrong? | Now I understand that the speed of light is both finite and constant in all frames of reference. Light can only be slowed if passing through a medium. But is it possible that the so called empty space in pur solar system could actually be of a more dense or just different medium than the rest of extra solar space(excluding other solar systems of course). As far as I know the only ways we have measured the speed of light is by bouncing photons off the moon or accounting for the time an object, eg jupiters moon takes to reach the postion it should occupy and then accounting for the time difference relative to distance from earth. Is it not possible the speed of light travels at different speeds or behaves differentpy altogether outside our solar system or say the empty space beetween galaxies? Also cpuld the suns gravity affect the properties of light inside the bounds of our solar system? Until we actually venture outside everything we know about the extrasolar universe is essentially rational guesswork and mathematical reasoning is it not? Could science not take a giant leap in understanding further into the future. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Let's say I gave you a ruler, and told you to measure the length of Manhattan. How would you go about doing that? Obviously, measuring it one foot at a time would be impractical. But you could use the ruler to measure the length of one of your steps. You count how many steps were in a city block, then just count the number of blocks between the Staten Island Ferry and the Harlem River. It wouldn't be perfectly accurate or precise...not all your steps would be the same, and not all city blocks are the same. But it would be good enough to tell you it was 10-15 miles long, and definitely not 5 or 50. We measure stellar distances the same way, with what is called the Cosmic Distance Ladder. This starts with the size of earth's orbit. This was first measured in the 18th Century by observing Venus pass in front of the sun and later confirmed with radar and spacecraft. This provides us with a precise figure for the Astronomical Unit (AU), which is the basis for the measuring the distance to the closest stars. Hold your thumb out at arm's length, and look at it, first with one eye closed, than they other. You'll notice how it seems to jump back and forth compared to the background. This is called parallax, and we could estimate the length of your arm from how much your thumb is jumping. We can do the same with a star, by observing it on January 1st, then looking at it again on July 1st. If it is close to the earth, it will jump a little, because the earth's position will have changed by 2 AU. We can use this draw a great big triangle, do some math, and come up with a good estimate of the star's distance. 61 Cygni was the first star to be measured in this way, in the early 19th Century, and found to be about 12 light years away. With modern equipment, we can use this technique to accurately measure stars within about 1000 light-years. The next rungs on the ladder are what are known as standard candles. All 100-watt light bulbs are equally bright, so if you knew you were looking at one off in the distance, you could figure out how far away it was by measuring its apparent brightness. The tricky bit is doing it with stars, as some stars are much brighter than others. There is a special kind of star know as a Cepheid variable. They change in brightness at very regular intervals, and the faster the change, the brighter they are. You can measure how fast they change (their period), and know whether you are looking at the equivalent of a 10-watt star, or 200-watts. There are Cepheid variables close enough to measure using stellar parallax. Much like you used the size of your step to measure a city block, once you know the distance of one Cepheid, you know the distance of all of them. In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble (namesake of the Hubble telescope) shocked the world when he found a Cepheid in the Andromeda Nebula (now Galaxy), determining it was 2 million light years away, and showing the universe to be far larger than we previously thought. Cepheid variables and other standard candles are good out to a few million light years. Supernovae can be used as standard candles as well, at a few billion light years, but you have to be lucky enough to find a galaxy with one in progress. To go beyond this, you need to measure red-shift. Hubble also noticed the further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us. This stretches the light waves out, shifting them towards the red end of the spectrum. Elements in stars, like hydrogen, have a distinctive spectral pattern. By observing how far the pattern is shifted, we can tell how fast an object is receding from us, and that value corresponds with its distance. This allows us to measure the distance up to the limits of the known universe, about 13 billion light years away. How do we know it is accurate? Just like we went from a ruler to a step to a block to an island, we climb the cosmic distance ladder. We measure the distance from the earth to the sun directly. We use that value to get the nearest stars through parallax. Some of those stars will be standard candles, and we can use their distance to measure any galaxies we find them in. And some of those galaxies will be red-shifted, so we can use their distance to measure all other red-shifted galaxies. This is a pretty awesome illustration of how science works, one discovery building on another, one technique extending another, often spanning centuries. When a satellite in space gathers data to measure a newly discovered quasar, it is all as based on a chance encounter with Venus 250 years ago.",
"For the stars within a few hundred light years we can use parallax. We use the Earths orbit to create a distance between two points and then measure the angle difference when we look at the same star. A bit of trig and you can determine the distance to that star. As for the accuracy of red shift measurements, essentially we're taking what we've already established through experiment and using it. Light has a lot of properties that are very well researched. While there exists a potential of some weird phenomenon that we've not encountered, we also don't have any indication that something weird is going on. There's always that potential we'll take a big leap forward and science is a method of refining methods to obtain ever more accuracy. So it's better to think that what we have is as accurate as our understanding currently and there is room to improve that accuracy. But until such refinements present themselves, there's not much reason to question our results. Especially since we're not exactly going to visit other galaxies any time soon."
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5u46wa | How easily can a modern vehicle be hacked? | With modern vehicles essentially being driving computers, how difficult is it for someone to get access to the vehicle's computer? Does the hacker need direct access or can it be done remotely? If it can be done, how much control over the vehicle does the hacker gain? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Someone else can write a better answer, but I'll try a quick one. Yes, it's possible. Cars with wifi are on a network, and many of them don't have the necessary safety precautions to prevent hackers from controling the engine. Check out [this link]( URL_0 ). Hackers shut down the engine of a running car to show off that they could. It may be possible to actually drive and steer these kinds of cars. However, while it's possible, it's very difficult and unlikely. I wouldn't personally buy a hackable car, but I don't think you're at any risk. The best hackers are often the ones trying to fix these exploits"
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5u4805 | Why are animal foods so often cheaper than plant foods? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You're comparing the cost of *prepared* foods. A restaurant has to keep enough product in stock to supply the demand but if they have too much on hand & it goes bad, they're losing money on that product and need to charge more for to get their profit margins back up. Hamburger can be frozen without much loss in quality. Lettuce must always be fresh & tends to go bad quickly. There also tends to be more labor in chopping up everything & making a salad than plopping a frozen burger puck onto a grill - everything on a burger can effectively be mass produced in a factory & simply assembled on site. These are what drive the cost of these items up, not the raw value of the ingredients ([the beef in a Big Mac is only like 40 cents]( URL_0 )). Like many things that come around ELI5, your fundamental mistake is thinking that a business exists just to supply *you* with a product and then then do the exact same thing a million times a day when they actually try to find very efficient ways to do the same thing a million times a day **first**. It's the same as watching package tracking information and thinking that it should come directly to you rather than through a central hub.",
"Because the vegetation that animals can eat is much easier to grow in bulk than the vegetation that humans will eat. Also, if you're buying groceries, produce is often going to be a *ton* less expensive than meats. It's just the restaurant business that vastly overcharges for salads, and that's so they can make up the cost of the meats that they're not making as much profit on since if their meat meals were too expensive people would just eat at home.",
"Subsidies. [The cost of meat if it weren't subsidized would be much more expensive.]( URL_0 )"
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5u4e23 | What happens to your job if you are suspected of commiting a crime? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most of the US operates under \"At-will Employment\". This means you can be fired at any time for any reason or even no reason at all as long as it has nothing to do with you being a protected class (race, religion, sex, etc). Being accused of a crime is not a protected class. Having a poor reputation is not a protected class. Missing work for jail/trials is not a protected class. Even if you're innocent, getting involved in the legal system can ruin your life.",
"If you work in government you get a paid vacation until it is all sorted out. If you are a regular chump you get fired."
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5u4hpj | Why do microwave heated meals taste better when heated together with a glass of water? | I have recently started to employ this technique, in which a glass of water is placed next to the meal that I'm heating. The end result is surprisingly tastier and juicier than the alternative. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The steam produced as the water in the glass heats up keeps the food from getting too dry as the microwave heats up the water in the food to cook it. I find that a damp paper towel over the plate or tray works just as well, plus it's easy cleanup as well as less to wash after.",
"Microwaves work by vaporizing the water molecules already present in the food. The movement of these molecules is part of what heats it up. Because the water in the food is gone, placing the extra bit of water stops it from getting dried out.",
"Microwaves are designed to radiate at a frequency that excites water molecules. So the water in your cup gets excited (heats up) and evaporates into the air of the microwave. But since the water vapor cant leave it will still retain its heat energy. Therefore the entire microwave gets warmer and cooks your meal more fully."
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5u4kk6 | How could scientists predict elements when creating the periodic table? | I remember learning that when creating the table, scientists were able to determine properties of elements before they were discovered, and even going so far as to re measure new elements if they didn't match the table. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A lot of the behaviors of the atoms are determined by the electron shell configuration. For instance, atoms like to have \"full\" electron shells, which for most shells is 8 electrons, or an empty shell if it can't be filled. But atoms can't just have as many electrons as there are spots to fill in the shell, because the negative charge of the other electrons will repel more negative electrons, balanced by the positive charge of the proton nucleus pulling more electrons in - one electron for each proton, for a net neutral charge. So for instance, oxygen has eight protons, which means it has eight electrons to match. Two of those electrons are in the lowest shell (which can only hold two) and six in the next shell. But oxygen *really* wants to fill that outer shell. That makes oxygen very reactive. It will readily bond to other atoms and \"borrow\" their electrons to fill that outer shell. Hydrogen has one proton and one electron, so two hydrogen atoms complete oxygen's outer shell of eight, giving you H2O. On the other hand, sodium only has a single electron in that outer shell. It would be more stable with just the next shell down full at eight and nothing in the outer shell. But then sodium wouldn't have a neutral charge, it would be slightly positive. On the other hand, chlorine has seven in the outer shell, and would love to have eight. When sodium and chlorine get together, chlorine steals the electron from sodium, so sodium is happy and stable, and chlorine is happy and stable, and because now sodium is slightly positive and chlorine is slightly negative, they stick to each other and form table salt. Noble gases, like helium and neon, have full outer shells, so they really don't need to bond to *anything* and very rarely do - almost nothing will bond to helium, at all, ever. So, by understanding the electron shells and their role in bonds between atoms, scientists can understand how an element will react to other elements, even if they have never seen that element. They know how many protons it has (because that's what defines an element) so they know how many electrons it has. Scientists also have a pretty good idea on how the nuclear forces of atoms work to hold the nucleus together. Because protons are all positively charged, they will repel each other and try to fly apart. The strong nuclear force prevents this, but if there are too many protons the strong force isn't strong enough. That's where neutrons come in. Neutrons have no charge, so they aren't repelled by the protons. The protons can stick to the neutrons instead of each other. The more protons you have, the more neutrons you need to keep the nucleus stable - otherwise it will decay, which is what happens to Uranium to make it radioactive. There are several kinds of decay, which is its own ELI5, though. Too few neutrons and the electromagnetic force between the protons is too much and it falls apart. Too many neutrons and the nucleus is too heavy and falls apart. Scientists have a pretty decent idea of how many neutrons are needed for each proton to keep the element stable enough to exist at all (even if they're not stable enough to exist for very long). They can estimate the total nuclear *weight* based on that (which is, roughly, the number of protons plus the number of neutrons). The atomic *number* is, of course, the number of protons. They can also look at what other isotopes (same atomic number, different atomic weights) could form based on the minimum number of neutrons needed and the maximum that could happen, and do some pretty good estimates of how many of each of those isotopes will exist. So again, even without ever seeing the element, they can know how stable it *should* be, what the atomic weight should be, what isotopes probably exist for it, and based on the stability, how abundant each isotope will be. All the other characteristics of an element are derived from those numbers and behaviors, so you can make very accurate predictions about any one element. You can verify those predictions, still before looking at the element, by examining the behavior of the elements around them (sodium is very reactive, magnesium - with an additional electron in the shell - is a little less reactive, so it follows that aluminum will be even a little less reactive...Potassium - the next highest atomic number with a single electron in the outer shell - is *more* reactive than sodium, so it follow that rubidium will be even more reactive). You can look at the atomic weights of the elements around them, too, and look at the pattern of how the atomic weight increases with the atomic number. For the most part, the elements make exactly as much sense and follow exactly the pattern you would expect them to."
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5u4kxw | The relationship between the U.S., Russia and China. | Since I'm not a citizen of any of these countries it's hard to know how these three feel about each other and etc. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It'll be helpful to have some context so you can understand these relationships. Many books could be written on all this, but I'm going to simplify greatly. Let's start with the aftermath of WWII. The US emerged from the war a nuclear superpower and Russia(which was part of the Soviet Union) would become one soon after. They engaged in the Cold War where they fought a series of proxy wars against each other(Afghanistan, Vietnam,etc.), but never fully engaged in large scale warfare because to do so might mean the end of the world. In the 1990s the Soviet Union fell apart, but decades of tension still influence Russia and America's relationship. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought chaos and a major loss of prestige for Russia. China was engaged in a civil war before and after WWII(they united to fight the Japanese during the war). The Communists backed by Russia won and the losing side backed by the Americans fled to Taiwan. Both sides to this day claim to be the true government of China. China has often threatened to attack Taiwan and wants to claim the island as its territory. America supports and sells weapons to Taiwan, which is a constant source of tension between the countries. China and America fought each other during the Korean War, which is unfortunately largely forgotten in America, but it is taught to Chinese as an example of the Chinese standing up to the West. It's important to understand that there was a period in time before the rise of the Communists where Western nations + Japan bullied China and basically did what they want(Ex. Opium Wars). The memories of these humiliations still influences Chinese policy. Russia and communist China were allies till the Sino-Soviet split where they struggled with who would control the communist world. The Chinese and Russians wouldn't really get back on speaking terms till the late 80s. The Americans had tried to isolate China as much as possible and even made sure Taiwan got China's seat on the Security Council at the UN. They saw the split as an opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. Nixon visited China and in a decade the relationship between the US and China would normalize, so the two countries soon began to trade. With China's cheap but plentiful supply of labor, the economy expanded greatly. Many Americans have come to view this is a detriment to the economy and the US has a pretty big trade deficit with China. With China's rise, people have come to view it as the next big threat to the country. Some Americans say that the Chinese economy grows each year at US's expense, the military becomes better and more advanced, and China is becoming aggressive and claiming large amounts of territory. They view war as an inevitability. Others view China as a paper tiger that has a bunch of hidden debt, and once the economy stops growing at a fast pace, the people will no longer tolerate the lack of certain freedoms and the whole thing will come crashing down. Many Americans still view the Russians as a threat. Their aggression in the Ukraine and possible involvement in the 2016 election are a sign of things to come. Other Americans think this is an exaggeration and some think that Putin is an ally in the fight against chaos developing in the world(ex. ISIS). Russians and Chinese both tend to think of Americans as hypocrites and self-righteous. \"You're complaining about us taking Crimea when you invaded Iraq!\" They view the American political system is flawed. Despite this, there is an element of respect from citizens of both countries for America's accomplishments, and they admire the respect for the rule of law and relative stability of the country, which is why many immigrate here. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin, China and Russia have worked together sometimes to kind of act as a counterweight to America. China views Russia as a lesser power than it used to be and Russia respects China as a rising one. They see the relationship as one that can be mutually beneficial. Russia has resources and China has cash. If they can become less dependent with trade to the West, then good. None of this is necessarily my views. I just tried to sum up people's views based on things I've read, and talking with people from America, Russia, and China.",
"This is such a large question that it's really, really difficult to answer quickly. You'd do better off at /r/askhistorians. I just wrote two paragraphs and it barely touched on the US and Russia's relationship, and that's the simplest one of the three."
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5u4s7t | Why do people feel cold when their temperature is running high? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The [hypothalamus]( URL_0 ) controls many functions in the body, only one of which is temperature regulation. In response to pyrogens (literally meaning \"heat producers\") being released into the blood stream by bacteria, tumors, even tissue trauma, for example, the hypothalamus raises the set point temperature. When this occurs, it induces vasocontriction and shivering. Vasoconstriction makes our skin feel subjectively cool, while to someone who doesn't have a fever, we feel hotter than normal. Shivering causes our muscles to produce heat. We seek a warm place, or cover ourselves with blankets until the sensation of being cold passes. Once the core body temperature is raised to the hypothalamus's set point (say, 101.3 degrees F), the feeling goes away. We've reached the hypothalamus's goal. There is still speculation as to whether riding out a fever is helpful for our immune system. Giving antipypretics like ibuprofen or acetaminophen to lower fever is more a comfort measure, as body aches often accompany fever."
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5u5055 | How does a universal remote work? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Each kind of remote has its own special language. Universal remotes know all of the languages but you have to tell them which one to use Or it pretends to be what ever remote is needed to do what you want",
"The way a remote works in general is that the remote is programmed to send particular infrared signals to the tv, which it then reads and interprets. Universal remotes have 2 types; preprogrammed, which are loaded with the \"codes\" or signals that a device requires to control it. The second type is a learning remote. It reads the signal from an existing remote or tv and mimics it."
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5u50xw | Why do some people feel carsickness? How does it occur? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Motion Sickness: Inner Ear: Guys, we're moving! Eyes: No, we're not. Skin: I'm not feeling any air motion. Inner Ear: Yes, we are. Eyes: You're a moron; we're not moving. Inner Ear: What are you, blind? We're totally moving. Eyes: WTF dude, we're clearly not moving. Inner Ear: YES, WE ARE. Eyes: FUCK YOU. NO WE'RE NOT! Inner Ear: Fite me. Eyes: Come at me, bro. Stomach: Guys... please stop...",
"afaik car sickness is caused by the brain receiving mismatched information about your movement. Pretty much everything tells it you're moving, but your eyes tell it you're not. That's why usually people get car sick more often while reading, this means you're not watching the road or at least the outside movement which creates that mismatch of information."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
5u5573 | Why do our bodies heal up better while we sleep? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrknne"
],
"text": [
"Best guess is that our body has more resource to expend on solely trying to heal something rather than trying to function while awake and perform the task of healing at the same time."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
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|
5u5cn5 | Does cracking your knuckles/fingers actually cause any negative side effects? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrhkrc",
"ddrhiv5"
],
"text": [
"According to a physician that did a longitudinal study on himself by cracking knuckles on only one hand exclusively for 30 years and no cracking on the other hand it does not.",
"Nope, all it does is pop bubbles in the fluid between your joints. One guy has been doing it all his life and still no negative side effects."
],
"score": [
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
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"url"
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|
5u5dlb | Being selected for a tax audit. What are some of the things that would flag someone for an audit? | Seasonally relevant question. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrhv98"
],
"text": [
"Yes, a significant pattern is for business entities that post unique combinations of profits and losses or spikes in various kinds of write offs, when considered with your previous tax returns. Like, let's say you opened a pretzel store last year and made $15,000 with one pretzel machine as a business expense, and out of all your cash flow your net profit was $5k. Then, the next year you file your taxes and made $789,000, and you itemized 26 pretzel machines and profited $500,000. It just doesn't make sense, or you're a really good business person. Either way, the IRS probably wants to talk with you. \"Audit\" is not a *bad* thing necessarily. It's just verification, and normally the auditors are very reasonable people. It's just balancing the books underneath it all. Source: I used to work at the IRS."
],
"score": [
7
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"text_urls": [
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} | [
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"url"
] |
5u5g6t | What causes our body/mind to get "second-wind" when you are physically/mentally tired and you get a sudden feeling that you are tired no longer and can go on? | As the title says, I often find myself get very tired late at night when studying for an exam or doing homework. Without any supplements or caffeine or anything like that after awhile I will get a sudden boost in energy and the fatigue and tiredness goes away and I once again can go on for a little bit longer before this feeling resurfaces. What causes this sudden jolt in apparent energy? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrkz9q"
],
"text": [
"The body uses two systems to govern sleep. The first is sleep-wake homeostasis. Basically, the longer you have been awake the more tired you get. The longer you are sleep the less sleepy you get. If the body only used this system you would start the day energized and then slowly lose energy as the day went on. The second is the circadian rhythm which uses melatonin and cortisol to regulate periods of sleepiness and wakefulness throughout the day. So for the most part adults will feel most sleepy at 2am-4am the second most sleepy time is 1pm-3pm. That is part of the reason why you will get sleepy after lunch. This can vary depending on if you are a morning person or night person, but you don't have to be either! Also, youths clocks are different. For teens their dips are 3am-7am and 2pm-5pm. Anyway second winds are caused because sleep-wake homeostasis system says you have been awake a long time you should be sleepy, but the circadian clock just cycled into a period of wakefulness. That's why second winds usually happen in the morning after you have stayed up late. If you are already sleep deprived then, the periods of wakefulness might be more confused. Also, because circadian rhythm uses cortisol during the waking periods, you may recieve a spike in cortisol because of something else, but that would still wake you up. Since cortisol is a stress hormone and you are studying for an exam you are probably producing cortisol. URL_1 URL_2 URL_0"
],
"score": [
5
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"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_wind_(sleep)",
"https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep-drive-and-your-body-clock",
"http://www.howsleepworks.com/how_circadian.html"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
5u5gcw | Why can't you grab hold of things or exert power after a fit of laughter? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddri583"
],
"text": [
"Please! No one believes me when I say I can't grip things after a laughing fit. I'm really interested to hear this explained."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
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|
5u5htw | What's the difference between unleaded and diesel petrols? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrijms"
],
"text": [
"Diesel is a different type of combustion to gasoline. Gasoline requires a spark plug while diesel uses the pressure to start combustion. Gassoline is a result of the first stage of purifying crude while diesel mainly get extracted in the later steps. Diesel tends to be more efficient than gasoline however it has more NOx emissions and costs a lot more since there is more demand for it. Everything from heaters and power generation plants to ships and cars run off it. Gasoline mainly is used for cars. No expert someone should fact check me."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
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} | [
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|
5u5hub | Why does Russia want Crimea? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddriddy",
"ddrs0rh",
"ddrilk3"
],
"text": [
"It hosts the naval base that hosts their black sea/Mediterranean fleet which is pretty strategically important. That would be the biggest reason by far.",
"The thing with Crimea is a weird fuckup by Khruschev in 1954. Crimea belonged to Russia/USSR since 1783 and was majorly populated by Russians, and aligns itself quite clearly with Russia. Then in 1954 Kruschev had the (now in hindsight) moronic idea to transfer it to Ukraine for the sake of \"unity\". Back then this was just a weird political gesture with little importance as it was under the domain of the USSR all the same. But then the USSR fell apart, and suddenly that Crimea now belonged to Ukraine mattered, and Crimea left with Ukraine. Now Russia is suddenly in a situation where a good chunk of population that considers themselves to be Russians, and a place that contains an important military base is outside of Russia. Picture it like this: in some weird political gesture, the US President declares that some chunk of land formerly having its own existence inside the US, containing very strategically important US military assets as well as a population that overwhelmingly thinks of themselves as American, now belongs to Puerto Rico. People raise their eyebrows but it goes through, until 50 years later the US breaks apart, and suddenly some uber-important military asset and an American-identifying, English speaking population now belongs to a separate country, that's not on the same wavelength as what remains of the US anymore. So why does Russia want Crimea? Because Crimea only belongs to Ukraine by a weird gesture made 50 years ago, but which had effectively no meaning until the USSR broke apart, and because it's a strategically important place. Crimea seems to want to belong to Russia anyway, which is unsurprising given the population and that the military base is bound to Russia.",
"Crimea actually has a majority Russian population. It was part of Ukraine during the Soviet Union era because it didn't matter since Russia basically owned Ukraine. Russia more or less left it to Ukraine since they never expected Ukrainian independence. After their independence Ukraine was still heavily in line with Russia, until the government began changing. Russia then demanded Crimea back but Ukraine claimed that it was part of their territory officially due to treaties. Crimea itself is heavily pro-Russia, that's why the takeover didn't become an all out war since the civilians were on the side of Russia"
],
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|
5u5hyq | what is bipolar and how does it affect a person? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddriof8",
"ddrinr6"
],
"text": [
"Bipolar is a mental disorder that gives someone major long term mood swings, usually lasting 1-2 weeks in the most common type of bipolar disorder. Mood swings can be depressive (sad) or manic (obsessive and hyperactive).",
"It depends on the variant but essentially it's this; A normal person has a typically standard emotional range, they fall somewhere in a range of multiple factors. Some people have clinical depression which can be caused by many things, but is often related to brain chemistry. Bipolar involves depression, hence why it used to be called manic-depressive. But it isn't quick mood changes as Hollywood would have one think, it's generally a gradual swing between being depressed and being manic (or hypomanic). So for months at a time a person may be relatively fine, then slowly swing back to depression where they may need assistance to get back o normal. Sometimes that assistance causes them to swing to hard to the other side and they go into mania. Hypomania is honestly incredible. To me it's the opposite of a disability. When I'm hypomanic I sleep 4 hours a night and get everything done ahead of time while also having massive amounts of inspiration. I've never experienced full blown mania, but it is not a good experience. Sleepless, unable to relax, mind racing, etc. the opposite of depressions lethargy and lack of ambition. It's an interesting affliction"
],
"score": [
4,
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|
5u5hzv | Why does climate change matter, and why are people so concerned about it? | I understand that weather would be more "extreme" and oceans would rise, but wouldn't people adapt/move and in general, everything would become more beneficial? Longer growing seasons, less need for heat and insulation and more areas would be hospitable for human life. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddritn2",
"ddripge"
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"text": [
"First of all, adapting would be incredibly expensive. Our infrastructure, where we built out cities, where we plant our crops, etc is done with the current climate in mind. We can't easily just pick up a city, and move it 100 miles inland. Abandoning millions of acres of productive farmland and moving north would be very hard and costly. Also while the growing seasons might be longer in the polar regions, the soil there is typically very bad, and of little use to us in the short run. Secondly, it's very dangerous. We don't fully know the extent of the changes. Like you said, there will be more extreme weather, things like Cat 5 hurricanes, massive droughts, fires etc which will be very damaging. Humanity, as a species, has not existed when the planet was this warm. It's possible that climate change will be a feedback loop - warmer planet leads to smaller ice caps leads to less of the solar energy being reflected back into space which leads to an even warmer planet. Once this process starts, it will just keep going. This will be catastrophic.",
"That's not how it works...like at all. OK so first you're thinking we will magically have better growing seasons, maybe for a few places but drought and extreme weather will make it all that much harder. Second \"people will just adapt\" is also immensely ignorant. Hundreds of coastal cities and low lying areas will be flooding. If areas like Europe and America are freaking out about a few million refugees a year coming in imagine hundreds of millions on top of the fact half of those nations will be seeing massive loss of land. Odds are, yes we as a species would survive, but at the cost of billions most likely."
],
"score": [
7,
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5u5ip7 | How is a completely severed arm re-attached? | The stitches for the for the skin is fine, but is every vein, ligament, tendon and whatever else is in there done one by one? If so, how are veins rejoined? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddriwkw"
],
"text": [
"It's very tedious micro surgery. But yes...veins, tendons, ligaments, and nerves all have to be reattached."
],
"score": [
5
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"text_urls": [
[]
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} | [
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5u5js9 | Why do we say the universe is flat? Shouldn't it be spherical? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrjmob",
"ddrlnlx"
],
"text": [
"Why do you think it should be spherical? We say the universe is flat because when we measure VERY large triangles we notice that there internal angles still add up to 180 degrees. This wouldn't be possible on a sphere, where the internal angles of a triangle are greater than 180 degrees.",
"When someone says the universe is flat, they don't mean flat in 2 dimensions, they mean it's flat in 3 dimensions. A sheet of paper is flat in 2D, but the surface of a ball, or a saddle aren't flat because they curve into a 3rd dimension. Similarly the universe is flat in 3D, and it doesn't appear to curve into a 4th spatial dimension."
],
"score": [
10,
9
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|
5u5nff | why are there so many political figures tied to Russia? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrlcs9"
],
"text": [
"Russia has an interest in reducing the US hegemony. They will undoubtedly argue that they are merely deploying methods similar to what we applied in destabilizing Ukraine. Add to that the fact that Putin is an old KGB guy, entailing he has know-how and may also have a desire to give the US some payback for the fall of the USSR. As is commonly the case, it is a mix of level-headed politics, desire for power and human psychology. Trump and the GOP leadership are the perfect dancing partners due to their lack of commitment to democracy, the deep dark desire for power and tendency to sacrifice the people to secure personal gain."
],
"score": [
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|
5u5pfl | Why do humans seems to be the only animal that can be a "heavy sleeper"? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrksxj"
],
"text": [
"Recent studies actually came out a few weeks ago that show humans may not actually be \"heavy sleepers\" biologically. Researchers looked at secluded tribes of hunter gatherers and found that they actually woke up significantly more often throughout the night and slept around 6 hours total compared to the sleep patterns of us modern humans. So really, \"heavy sleeping\" is a result of the comforts of modern society that allow us to feel secure and sleep through the night even if there are noises around us. Animals that live with humans can also exhibit such behavior. I'll link to the study if I can find it"
],
"score": [
7
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|
5u5svw | Why was helium discovered on the Sun before it was discovered on Earth? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrl52j"
],
"text": [
"Hydrogen and helium are light enough to escape Earth's gravity into space. That means there is essentially no elemental hydrogen or helium in our atmosphere. So, what's the difference between hydrogen and helium? Hydrogen can react with other elements and form molecules. The most obvious source of hydrogen is water, which is basically everywhere. Basically, hydrogen got stuck to elements that were heavy enough to be held down by gravity. Helium's chemical properties make it so it basically doesn't react with anything. That means that any helium that gets released will stay a gas, mix with the atmosphere, and eventually bleed off into space. There simply wasn't any helium around for scientists to discover. Once scientists started to understand the [emission spectra]( URL_0 ) of the elements, they realized they could look at sunlight and figure out what the sun is made of. Scientists started matching up the frequencies of light emitted by known elements with the frequencies the sun was emitting. They matched up all the frequencies and there were some frequencies coming from the sun that didn't match anything we knew. That eventually led people to look for helium and the other noble gases."
],
"score": [
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"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum"
]
]
} | [
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|
5u5w89 | Why is it that when someone suffers a traumatic event they often forget the events leading up to the event? | Both physically and mentally traumatizing events. I have read about so many people forgetting how they ended up injured or damaged | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrmcm9"
],
"text": [
"Your brain has two kinds of memory, short term and long term. Short term helps you deal with immediate stuff, and if it is particularly interesting, it gets filed away into long term memory. If you experience trauma, it can prevent short term memories from becoming long term, and even interfere with more recent long term memories."
],
"score": [
3
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5u5xxe | Why does it always feel like there's somebody behind you in the dark? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrlztm",
"ddrlxpi"
],
"text": [
"It doesn't feel like that to me. I love the bliss of the night. Generally, evolution gave us a better safe than sorry mentality. Checking if someone isn't sneaking up on you is easily done at little cost to you. Facing the consequences if someone does happen to be sneaking up on you is very costly. Any impetus to make you check—especially at a more dangerous time when it's hard to see and help is less likely to be nearby—will generally be advantageous, even if the vast majority of the time nothing is there.",
"Most human instincts are based on a time and place when it was super dangerous to be out and about in the dark. There were no street lights or flashlights to guide the way. There was little to no protection from dangerous animals. So our subconscious evolved to pay extra attention to sensory input when it's dark out. In our modern lives it's easy to see how this can lead to lots of false positives."
],
"score": [
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5
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|
5u60mw | How do websites detect whether you are you using an ad-blocker or not? | I know about the bait JS but could you explain that part more too? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrmrxy"
],
"text": [
"Basically, they create a \"fake\" ad, code that uses common words adblocker uses to flag ads, and then checks to see if that code loaded, or not. If it didn't, adblock snatched it up, and it says \"hey. stop that\" I.e. ad fake = newAd(); load = check fake.isLoaded(true); if not load==true run gotcha_adblocker!():"
],
"score": [
5
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5u61oj | What is the brain doing when someone is sleepwalking ? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrmnnx",
"ddro45w",
"ddrmr33"
],
"text": [
"Essentially, when we go to sleep, our body (with the exception of our brain) almost shuts down. Your heart rate slows, because it your heart doesn't need to work as hard, and you brain controls this. But sometimes, the message to the rest of the body doesn't come out right, but your brain thinks it does. So while the brain is sitting there doing god knows what in your dreams, it is actually controlling your body! It may seem like an odd thing, but when you fall into deep sleep your body is basically paralyzed from the neck down, that way you wont flop around or sleepwalk everyday. But even the human brain makes some mistakes doing the things you don't have physical control over! Edit: Grammar",
"Sleep is a controlled partial shutdown of certain areas of the brain that is extremely complex. As with any extrenely complex process, sometimes it goes wrong. Sleepwalking usually means your consciousness is shut down more or less, and for whatever reason, your motor functions and spatial functions were not. You're basically dreaming, except your brain was accidentally granted access to your senses and motor functions and just went with it. The opposite and many things inbetween can happen too. Your motor functions can be shut down, while you remain conscious. This is called sleep paralysis and is generally pretty scary, because you're pretty much awake but completely incapable of moving or speaking. Fortunately it usually doesn't last very long, only a few seconds until your brain fixes the error. I had a period where I would vividly hallucinate when I woke up. So basically I was conscious and awake, but I guess you could say my brain kept on dreaming simultaneously. Mostly I would hear things that weren't there, and a couple of times I had visual hallucinations. It only lasted for a few minutes though and then I was fine.",
"Scientists are still trying to figure out why people sleepwalk, and there are a few competing theories. Sleep science in general is still in its infancy. That being said, we know enough to ELY5: In terms of mechanics, your brain has a [\"motor cortex\"]( URL_1 ) which outputs signals through your nerves which regulate your muscles and cause you to move. During sleepwalking, the part of your brain responsible for conscious thought is \"powered down\" while your motor cortex is outputting signals causing you to sit up in bed, walk around, etc. Sleepwalking happens in the NREM (non-rapid eye movement) phase of sleep, which is the deepest part of the sleep cycle. Some scientists think that disruptions during the transition to REM sleep cause sleepwalking, and things like sleep deprivation and high stress levels can lead to increased sleepwalking. Sleepwalking is also more common in children than adults, leading some researchers to believe it is more common in individuals whose central nervous system is not yet fully developed. Hope this helps answer your question! Edit: Here's a diagram of the [sleep cycle]( URL_0 ) to help you visualize brain activity as you sleep."
],
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"https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-84217866441b514f6602165fbdbb1aa3-c",
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|
5u67eh | How does carrying heavy loads hurt the back? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrnx98"
],
"text": [
"It doesn't necessarily. Using improper form while carrying heavy loads might however hurt your back. This is extensively discussed in weightlifting, especially deadlifts. Many people falsely believe that you shouldn't do deadlifts because it's bad for your back. The reality is that it's quite the opposite. Training your back is definitely healthy for it. It's just very important that you're not sloppy qith your form when doing it. There are basically two things you're likely to damage in your back in a heavy lift. It's either the discs between the vertebrae or one of the muscles in your back. Damaging a disc is more serious than pulling a muscle, but they happen for similar reasons: unsymmetrical or uneven load. If you damage a disc, you might get a hearniated disc or a ruptured one. The discs are basically really stiff and flat fluid filled balloons. They're usually quite resilient and will handle immense pressure without complaining. Howevet, if you were to lift something heavy with a rounded lower back you might run into trouble. Imagine the disc being a round slice of hard cookie dough. Put it on a table and place something flat on it, like a saucer. You can probably put quite a lot of weight on that slice of cookie dough without deforming it much. Now imagine you tilt the saucer, and put a lot of weight into just one side. That side of the cookie dough will immediately be deformed. This is sort of what happens to your discs if you don't keep your back in a neutral lifting position. Pulling a muscle works just like pulling any other muscle in yoir body. A sudden intense load that's not properly controlled might place a disproportionate amount of force into one small muscle in your back that has nowhere near the strength to handle that sort of load, so it gets torn more or less."
],
"score": [
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|
5u6b31 | What actually happens to your body when you don't sleep? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrsgfb"
],
"text": [
"Your brain \"defrags\" when sleeping. It physically cleanses out any toxic byproducts from the day with a cerebrospinal fluid wash. This is when memories are formed and knowledge gained. It trims excess and useless information. Neural pathways are reinforced. Your muscles recuperate as well from the inactivity thanks to certain growth hormones that are only released when we are asleep. Breathing and heart rate slow to conserve energy."
],
"score": [
10
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} | [
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|
5u6frv | How did Squaresoft get the permission to use both Final Fantasy and Disney characters for the Kingdom Hearts series? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrpt3x",
"ddrp846"
],
"text": [
"Square-Enix and Disney shared an office building at one point. Shinji Hashimoto, one of the co-creators of the game concept, was able to pitch the idea to a Disney exec [he randomly met in the elevator.]( URL_0 )",
"SquareSoft is Square Enix who created the Final Fantasy series. It's just gone through some rebranding. After that it's a quick brand deal with Disney who like money. Kingdom Hearts is pretty popular."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/09/23/tgs-2004-tetsuya-nomura-qa"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5u6m4r | Why are some beautiful people not photogenic? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrq9yu",
"ddrr1vj",
"dds0b1i",
"dds0tap",
"dds9fly",
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"text": [
"Not an expert, but I think it has something to do with depth perception. Many people carrying a bit of extra weight look unappealing in still photos because when reduced to two dimensions they just look wide like a tent. In motion or in real life we can make out their three dimensional form, which is more appealing I.e.. a bulky man's musculature or a bulky woman's curves are more noticeable with movement or in 3D.",
"Actually, not funny joke from photographers' life. Two of them chatting: -Hi, I heard you've got a new girlfriend? Pretty? -Well, you know, depends on a lighting scheme. So as a photographer I should say this joke is kinda realistic. Lighting is the key in portrait shooting.",
"Candid photos are almost always unflattering. Actors on film and tv undergo a lot of preparation to be ready for the camera (makeup, hair, wardrobe, etc.). You can be considered 'photogenic' if you can take a good candid photo, but I can guarantee even photogenic people don't have good photos taken of them, every time.",
"Many attractive people are perceived as attractive because of a combination of voice, posture, body language, etc. A photograph will miss some of those characteristics (anything to do with sound or motion).",
"Some people just simply do not know HOW to be photographed. Eyes get too wide for no reason, don't elongate the neck so they emphasize the double chin, don't feel comfortable and every shot looks awkward and forced. Doesn't matter HOW pretty/handsome you are, if the photographer doesn't help... or have a clue how to take a photo (in the case of the dreaded selfie) it's actually quite difficult to get a photo that looks any good. As a photographer, technical skill required to actually USE a camera is actually less important than creating a connection with the model and making them feel at ease having their photo taken. Also if they are using a wide angle lens up close for portraits (i.e. 35mm or wider), the distortion alone will make the face look all bloated and wide. Very unflattering. And of course lighting. Good light, be it natural or created is just as important and helps to sculpt the face to create a beautiful image. Just my 2 cents.",
"I think that there are a few things at play. A photograph is a still moment-some people look great (to you) because of how they move, or posture, or facial expressions, that are super difficult to accurately capture with a photo. Also, a good photographer is hard to find. I am an absolute mess, but I only point and click. I've found that people with good pics consistently know how to pose for that. I am a fan of pinups, and the combination of a good pose and a good angle works wonders.",
"The Focal Length of a lens has a lot to do with how a person looks on a camera. As a result, certain lens types will make a person appear differently than they do in person. Because our brains do a lot of processing of images, it is hard to point out exactly why, but in my personal experience, Each person will look the most photogenic (for this explanation I will use \"better\" to describe this) with a specific focal length lens. Take a look at the link at the bottom of this post for a visual example of this. To explain focal distance in this context, a fish eye lens has a very short focal length. This will make people appear more rounded. A longer focal length will by contrast make people appear flatter, but actually let you see more of their face. The distance the photo is taken at also factors in, but this is the general sense of it. In the link below you will notice that with a small focal length, you cannot see her ears, yet at a further focal point, you can. Finally, since cell phones are the #1 source of photos for most people, it is important to note that the zoom on most cell phones is done digitally (the photo is just cropped to size) rather than changing the focal length. Therefore, people will appear either photogenic, or not. There is no changing focal lengths unless you get some sort of add on lens kit for your phone. I hope this explanation helps, but for the TL:DR crowd, Focal length is a huge factor in how people look on a camera. [Visual Link]( URL_0 )"
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5u6ou0 | Is cannibalism only psychological issue, or can it have actual effects on your body? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Eating human meat is not really much different than eating pig meat, with some important caveats. Eating human brain and spinal cord tissue can lead to transmissible prion diseases, which are equivalent to *Mad cow Disease* that afflicts cattle. This was an issue in some tribal cultures in Papua New Guinea that ritualistically consumed the brain matter of deceased relatives leading to the disease known as *Kuru* URL_0"
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23
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)"
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|
5u6qtm | What occurs in America if the President is found to have won the election due to outside (of the US) interference? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrr6t8",
"ddrqth0",
"ddrr00n"
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"text": [
"Nothing. The President can only be impeached if he himself has committed \"treason, bribery, [or] other high crimes and misdemeanors\". Being the beneficiary of the crimes of some other foreign government is not grounds for impeachment so long as they were acting without his knowledge or consent. If, however, it can be proven that he knowingly conspired with a foreign government to affect the election then he could be impeached and possibly found guilty of treason. Note: I am not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, simply acknowledging the reality of the situation.",
"You could impeach both the President and V.P. That just means the Speaker of the House takes over as President. You'd have to have some damn good proof though. The line of succession has never gone down that far before... Which is weird when you think of it...",
"If both the President and the Vice President were to be impeached that would mean the Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan would take over as acting president. This have not happened before but almost did. The laws technically does allow congress to take presidential powers but if they do they risk being shut down by the Supreme Court or may face a revolution. Taking the seat in the oval office and immediately arrange a new presidential election while doing as little as possible as acting president might be the best thing to do."
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5u6rog | how a phone can actually trigger a bomb from a call | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrqzv2",
"dds7sep"
],
"text": [
"The vibration function in the phone can be used to trigger the bomb. A terrorist using it as a trigger simply removes the motor causing the vibration and connects the circuit to the bomb /waves hi nsa",
"Remove speaker from phone, wire speaker wires to detonation device. Very simple. Hard to fuck up. Lest you leave the phone on vibrate"
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5u6spe | One-electron Universe theory | Based on this post: URL_0 I kind of understood but not entirely. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrs2tr"
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"text": [
"The theory concerns two particles: an electron and a positron. A positron is the antimatter equivalent of an electron: it has all the same properties, except that it is a *positive* electrical charge instead of a *negative* one. Because electrons and positrons have electrical charges, when they move through magnetic fields, they are deflected, but in opposite directions. If you were to make a video of an electron moving through a magnetic field but then run that video backwards, it would look exactly like a positron moving through the same magnetic field. To put another way: a positron looks exactly like an electron moving backwards in time. So... suppose a positron *is* an electron moving backwards in time? We're used to the idea that when an electron and a positron meet, they annihilate each other in a burst of energy. But instead, imagine an electron moving along, and then something happens to it which causes it to reverse direction in time. It continues travelling in the same direction through *space*, but now it's reverse direction in *time*. It would look to us exactly like an electron and a positron meeting. So how about if there is only one electron in the universe? It's simply constantly zipping backwards and forwards in time, and this looks to us like a load of electrons and a load of positrons. I think the flaw in this theory is that there are, as far as we know, far more electrons than there are positrons -- if this theory were correct, there should be exactly equal amounts."
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5u6tas | Why is it that the stool is always the same brown color (almost) regardless of what we have eaten, and same thing with urine. But if we eat beetroot both feces and urine becomes red? | All day one eats food of different colour but the "outcome" is always the same, except in this case. Why is that? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrrj85"
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"text": [
"The red coloring in beets (betanin) isn't digestible. Mostly, though, the color of waste products is mostly not based on what you eat - it's a product of the breakdown of red blood cells. Specifically, urine is colored yellow by urobilin and feces are colored brown by stercobilin, urobilin, and bile (a liquid produced by the liver which helps digest fats). Stercobilin and urobilin are byproducts of the breakdown of hemoglobin. Since your red blood cells are recycled at a set rate, there's relatively little variation in the color of excretion."
],
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5u6z00 | If we can't control where fat is lost/gained from, how are we so symmetrical? Why isn't one hand or one arm fatter than the other? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrt1gv",
"ddrt3uj"
],
"text": [
"For the same reason. When your body stores fat it tries to spread it around as much as possible.",
"You can't change it intentionally but your body knows where to store fat. It doesn't ask you where to do it because it already knows which place has more fat and directs the fat to another place."
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5u738m | Can someone please explain the mechanisms behind "overcharging" and damaging your phone battery? | I heard that if you leave your phone on charge when it's on 100% it can damage the battery. I was skeptical, but I have no knowledge of batteries or technology. Could someone please explain this to me? I'm sure most people do this, so hopefully will be of some interest. Thanks in advance. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It used to be possible with older batteries, and you also had to avoid charging it too often as well, but modern batteries cut themselves out from the power when they're fully charged. They will also leave the battery with a very small amount of charge when the phone dies to prolong the battery life and keep the internal clock going too. Basically, lithium batteries would overheat when left plugged in, which would cause damage to the battery over time. * Source: [Older batteries shouldn't be allowed to overcharge because they would overheat -- \"modern devices are way smarter with managing power\"]( URL_0 ) * Source: [Old batteries would have a limited number of recharge cycles -- \"with modern Li-ion batteries, you don't need to worry about performing shallow charges.\"]( URL_1 )",
"You charge a battery by forcing electricity through it backwards. So if you have a 12-volt car battery the alternater and charger and such can put up to 18 volts across the terminals. That extra 6 volts forces the electrons to go in the \"electrons come out here\" side of the battery. Batteries work through chemistry. You take some stuff (usually metal) and make a sandwich of the stuff around some other stuff (usually some acid or alkali). The middle stuff dissolves the metals releasing electrons and pushing them one way or another. So your car battery is a lead-acid battery, and your flashlight takes D-cells that used to be carbon/acid, but are now (something I don't remember)/alkaline. So that's what an \"alkaline battery\" is. So some batteries, like lead-acid, are easy to charge because the chemestry is really easy to reverse. Other batteries are just about impossible to charge because it's like trying to un-burn a log. This second type is the normal batteries and alkaline batteries you buy from the store. They just aren't _safely_ rechargeable. Why? They tend to catch fire and explode, or when you run the electricity through them backwards they don't produce the same chemicals they were built with. So we've always had the big rechargable lead/acid batteries. But making little ones has required a lot of development. There are different bad things things that can happen when you recharge a battery... For example the metal in the metal sandwich can fall apart from being repeatedly changed and changed back. This is why car batteries go bad. The lead flakes off and eventually the flakes form a conductor from the two sides of the sandwich and that fraction of the battery becomes useless. The typical 12 volt car battery has six sandwiches so when you lose a cell it's now a 10 volt battery. Lose another and it's an 8 volt battery and that's not enough to do the job. The battery can get hot and literally \"cook\". So the modern lithium-ion batteries have little thermostats in them and as you charge them they get warm, and the warmer they get the less electricity they can stand to take, so the thermostat slows down the charging by slowing down the current. That's part of why your \"quick charger\" for your phone will, on an empty battery, charge to 80% real fast and then take longer and longer to get to 100%. It got warm as fast as it got charged and so it can't charge to full without slowing down. Finally there's that whole thing where batteries \"get memory\". This is not what's happening. As you charge and discharge some kinds of batteries they get pits and cook into new chemicals \"fractionally\" So every time you recharged the old batteries you \"used up\" a little of teh metal or the acid/alkali. With some of the material used up, the total amount of available stuff to make electriciy was reduced and the batteries lost their \"capacity to hold a charge.\" People called this \"memory\" because it was easier. But in truth you were more likely to ruin a battery by \"topping it off\" than you were likely to ruin it by charging a nearly dead battery. So it _seemed_ like frequent short charges were \"remembered\". But, no.. So finally, what is over charging. Each sandwich inside any battery has a limit to how much electricity it can store. If you reach that limit and _persist_ in forcing electricity through it backwards then it _can't_ save any of that electricity as chemicals. So it _cooks_. Heat is generated and the good chemicals may bake or burn. For instance, as your car battery dies the headlights visibly dim. This is because the 12 volts becomes 11, then 10, then 9 (and so on) as you use up the stored energy. And as you charge the 9 become 10 then 11 and 12. (the actual peak number is something like 13 volts for a car battery, but let's stick with 12.) The charge/voltage regulator in your car stops charging the battery when the target 12 volts is reached because after that it's just doing damage. But if you've ever had a junker car that \"Eats Batteries\" you know it was really that your voltage regulator went bad. It wen't bad by being unable to stop the \"overcharging\". Now over time, because of different battery materials _and_ by the proliferation of _better_ electronics, the whole \"overcharging\" thing has largely gone away. We simply got better at the whole task from every angle. But we still hear of whole phones (by part number) that are \"prone to explode\". This happens when the phone in question, or the battery pack itself, has a design fault or was built with inferior parts. The bad design, or bad parts, lets the battery take in, or give out, too much electricity too fast. It gets hot. It get's unstable. And then it goes \"boom\". That's overcharging in a nutshell.",
"Modern device batteries have their own internal logic to control the input and the output of power. They come programmed with a safe range of charge and would not let you charge beyond an upper limit or discharge below a lower limit. Therefore you cannot overcharge your battery unless you're using a device from the 90's with those ancient nickel-cadmium chemistry. The worst enemy of your battery is heat. This is what slowly chips away its efficiency. Unfortunately heat is a byproduct of both charging and discharging process, therefore there isn't much you can do to improve your battery life (apart from not using it, that is)."
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"http://www.androidauthority.com/battery-myths-688089/",
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5u75ut | Are the Leaks Coming out of the White House Illegal? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Some may be, some are not. But due to the nature of their content the current leaks are protected by Whistleblower laws so even if they are technically illegal they are not actually illegal."
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5u76rp | If a person claims responsibility for a crime, but provides no evidence and none can be found against them, can they still be convicted? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrty1j"
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"text": [
"A confession is very telling. Police know that some people will confess to crimes they do not commit. But police love convictions. There must be some element of truth. The confessor must have been able to do it unless this is a totalitarian country conducting a show trial. Innocent people have been convicted of crimes even without confessions."
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5u78wb | Why does microwaved food seem to go cold faster than oven- or stove-heated food? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddruxah"
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"text": [
"It takes longer to heat something in the oven then in the microwave. So if you heat something in the oven it is going to get a very even temperature. However in the microwave the food does not have time to even out the temperature. So you can have some parts of the food at boiling temperatures and other parts at close to freezing. When you leave the microwaved food on the table it is going to even out its temperature and therefore the hot parts will get cold quite fast. However from that point on the microwaved food will have a more even temperature since the microwave heats the food on the inside as well as the outside while the oven only heats the outside so the inside might be colder then the outside. So if you reheat the microwaved food after letting it rest for a few minutes it will likely go cold slower then the oven heated food."
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5u7gvq | I grew up thinking that turning off your engine for a short stop only uses more fuel. How are the current start-stop functions a good idea if this is true? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrvgdo"
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"text": [
"This is still true. Cars with automatic start-stop function won't stop again if the last start was not long enough ago."
],
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3
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5u7ibt | How can a disease cost amount $X to the US government a year if healthcare is provided by private companies? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Well the government does pay for healthcare for some individuals. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid provide health care for individuals who are over 65+ as well as individuals who make below a certain amount (133% of the poverty line), respectively."
],
"score": [
5
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5u7kge | Do penguins have knees? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrwb4o"
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"text": [
"Yep. You can see the knees clearly when you look at their skeletons. See URL_0"
],
"score": [
59
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"https://fossilpenguins.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/mega.jpg"
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5u7kjo | How does water support its own weight, like at the bottom of the ocean without falling in on it's self? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddrweja"
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"text": [
"Water is compressible, but it takes extreme conditions to do so. The density of water at the bottom of the ocean is actually higher than at sea level. For the most part is considered non-compressible. When you try to compress water, you are trying to push protons/nuetrons/electrons closer, and it makes them very uncomfortable and they 'push back' to resist getting too close. This 'pushing back' force is what keeps water from caving in on itself."
],
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5u7ljy | what the Right to Repair fight is about with Apple? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Imagine you buy a car. Let's say a Chevy Cruze cuz why not. Now, Chevy has all sorts of reasons to want you to only use Chevy certified mechanics and official Chevy spare parts because they can make money from that service and maintain quality control. On the other hand, you as a consumer wants to find the best deal for repairs that you can and since you own the car, should be able to do so. Chevy says that they only provide parts to their guys and if you want a repair you're just stuck with a Chevy mechanic, sucks to be you. The right to repair is basically saying that you as the consumer should have a choice in who fixes your property.",
"Several States are trying to introduce a \"right to repair\" bill. Of all of these States, only one - Nebraska - has actually scheduled a hearing to discuss the possible new law. The law, if it goes through, will require manufacturers (including Apple) to provide spare parts and service manuals to third parties. Apple have said that they will send representatives to argue against this new law. They believe that members of the public and third parties are not qualified to repair Apple products, and if they attempt to do so, it could result in damage such as batteries exploding.",
"Apple wants to charge for their AppleCare and make it illegal for third-party entities to sell and/or service their products. They've argued things like if a third-party replaces a broken screen they can cut their finger accidentally so only Apple should be legally allowed to replace the screens on their products. Basically, Apple is trying to make it so that they can be the only entity to service and/or repair their products to keep out competition. Thus far, they have been fairly successful at suing and shutting down their competition in this space and are continuing the fight.",
"the reason this is controversial is because it essentially gives apple a complete monopoly regarding their products, which they want, but is ultimately bad for consumers. Apple has a long history of doing this monopolistic behavior. It was the same way with apple peripherals, such as i homes and such. but eventually third parties started making cheaper \"ihome\" alternatives and then the overly expensive apple products were being priced out of the market. enter the lightning cable. now all of the third party products are no longer compatible with any of your new apple products, and the only way to get products that are is to buy them from apple as they are the only ones with rights to that cable design. then with the market being non competitive you get charged $7mil for your i home and there's nothing you can do about it other than go without. you'll notice that a similar thing is happening with the new iphone's lack of headphone port. essentially having apple be the only one who is able to preform repair services on their products makes it so the market is non competitive and they can essentially charge whatever they want for the services unrestricted. cracked screen? $799. with competition such as those little kiosks in the mall however the price is competitive. if the mall kiosk guy will do it for $50 then apple can't feasibly charge much more than him or nobody will go for the service. TL;DR: apple wants a monopoly and the argument is that there should be a competitive market for apple device services",
"My girlfriend plugged an aux cord into her iPhone 6s and it short circuited. We took it to apple because the phone was bought less than a year ago and they told us it would be $300 to replace. They had never opened it to see what it was. We had bought the phone for $300.",
"Basically Apple wants to make more money. If any old company is allowed to repair your iPhone then Apple will have to compete with them, they will probably have to charge less and make less money. Apple has a great idea: they can block lawmakers from allowing this, by claiming that batteries are dangerous and that they will explode on planes etc., unless only Apple is allowed to repair them. Is this true? Well, yes and no, but as long as Apple can convince lawmakers that it is true then they will make more money replacing your battery for you."
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5u7mqz | What is it about mass which causes gravity? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"ddrwqac"
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"text": [
"You should cross-post to r/askscience for a better answer, but the short version is we're not 100% sure. It's one of the key discoveries that would help us vastly improve our understanding of the world, and one of the reasons we build massive research facilities like CERN"
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5u7mwu | Why international means outside of your country. Shouldnt it mean within your country? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"ddrwvz0",
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"text": [
"Intra- is a prefix used to form words that mean on the inside, within. Contrast this with inter- and you immediately see the difference. While inter- deals with open systems among groups, intra- deals with closed systems between a single group.",
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But in fact, the Latin prefix \"inter\" has two meanings: it can mean \"between\" or \"within\". In a word like \"interior\" or \"internal\", it's used to mean \"within\"; but in \"international\" or \"interdepartmental\", it's used to mean \"between\" or \"among\" -- so \"international\" suggests connections between nations. It is very confusing, but that's unfortunately how languages develop: it's chaotic and sometimes downright weird.",
"No. \"Inter\" means between two or more different things, \"intra\" means within one thing. For example, intramural sports are leagues for teams within the same school."
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5u7ojk | Why do clementines taste much better around christmas? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"ddsn4zk"
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"text": [
"That's when they come into season. Most clementines you buy around Christmas are probably from Spain or Morroco. November/December is when citrus comes into season in those countries. Other times of the year you're getting them from areas where they may have been picked early and ripend artificially, had life extending chemicals on them or stored in a wearhouse with no oxygen to prevent ripening. Try a Clementine from Florida or California around August or September and they taste very close to the Christmas ones since they've come into season in the USA around those times Source: I work produce in a grocery store"
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5u7uh6 | How does it work when someone wins a new home from a television show? | I can't think of any specific names of shows at the moment, but I have seen several in which families are awarded brand new homes to live in. How does this work? Is it insured? Does the family still have to pay the bills for the home (electricity, heat, gas, water, etc.)? Can they still keep (or sell) their old home in addition if they choose? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They will probably end up having to sell the home. Since they didn't pay for the home, and instead received it as a gift, the home is considered income. If the home is worth 250k dollars(average price of a home in the US), then they owe taxes on all of that which is about 57k dollars for a married couple, before deductions and other income is taken into account. If they pay the taxes, they will be on the hook for all bills associated with home going forward(property tax, insurance, maintenance, utilities etc)",
"There is no one way this works. The program that is giving away a house can set whatever terms they like. Note that just giving away a house to a needy family won't provide them with a place to live. They would have to pay taxes on the house, and if you can't afford housing, you can't affor the $100K taxes on the $250K house you just won. You'd have to sell it, and use the equity to get a smaller house or to pay rent. And that is before you start worrying about all the other expenses. Some shows might not care, they just want the shots of the tearful family seeing \"their\" house for the first time. A more responsible show would pay the bills for the first few months, and find a way to either pay the taxes, or structure the transfer to make it easier on the family. Regardless of how it was done, there will be a point where the family takes over all the expenses."
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5u7v2e | How are subscription boxes feasible? | All the subscription boxes I know always advertise that the stuff in the box is worth way more than the cost of the box (I've seen up to double). How is this feasible from a business standpoint? How do subscription boxes work? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"I would say because they buy in volume, and therefore getting discounts. If something normally costs $5, but you buy 1000 for $4 and you sell em for $4.5, you still make a profit",
"It's volume along with knowing they can sell 100% of what they order. So, an item purchased by a retailer might cost that retailer $25, but be sold for $50. That retailer knows that they might sell between 500 and 750 of these things, but the retailer is unsure. So, they order the full 750, but actually only sell 600. So 150, at $25 a peace, are wasted. In addition, a retailer needs to pay for rent, utilities, sales people and storage space for these things while they are selling them. Lets say that \"overhead\" is 10% of the retail price, or about $5 per item. Lastly, retailers might need to keep an item \"in stock\" over a long period of time. So it might be 3 or 4 reorders over the year that the retailer keeps the item in stock. All of those costs need to be covered in the retail price of a product. Plus a profit margin for the retailer otherwise why bother doing it at all. There's a good deal of uncertainty in the whole transaction and the retailer is paying for inventory in advance. So the retailer deserves to be compensated for that risk. The box company pays none of these costs. In addition they take no risk. They order only the exact amount they need and they know with a 100% certainty that they will sell all that they order. Lastly they can work with suppliers to get deals on items that might be discontinued or otherwise needed to be gotten rid of. While the retailer must have the item on hand when the consumer wants to buy it, the box company sells what they want when they want to a consumer that does not really get to chose what they buy and when. People order, and pay, in advance through a subscription model. The seller, knows LOTS of information in advance that the average retailer won't and in addition they have the ability to decide for the customer exactly what's going to get sold that month. All of this pre-planing ability takes away risk. This allows the seller to operate with a smaller profit margin because there's less risk of a loss that they'll need to cover. While shipping is a cost they have that retailers don't the box company also does not need a retail space. So retail price will, by necessary, be higher. So the box company totals up all these high retail prices and says \"we are selling it cheaper!\" and it's true, they are. But they are also forcing you to buy an item you might not otherwise buy, they are forcing you to buy on their schedule and not your own and they are getting rid of all the risk from operating a retail business.",
"the company buys the products that go into the box for much less than the products would \"normally\" sell for. manufacturers of products sometimes dictate that the product should be sold for at least some amount and this is called MSRP (manufacturer suggested retail price) and this is usually what you pay at the store for said product. essentially if you were to go buy all the items in the box it would cost you $40 due to MSRP or similar retail price setting mechanisms, but since the box company buys all the things in the box in bulk (and at a discount) it only costs them $10 for all of it. they sell it to you for $20 and they still make a profit. (numbers are examples only)",
"First off, they quote MSRP that things rarely sell for. Secondly, they are buying wholesale, and they only buy what's been ordered/paid for so they don't have any product they have to put on sale or otherwise liquidate. Overhead for a website & space to store limited product and assemble boxes is a lot less than stores, warehouses, etc. for more traditional retail. And manufacturers look at subscription boxes as marketing opportunities to introduce their brand, so they may sell product at discount or give for free (like free samples they'd give out through other channels)."
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5u7ve4 | Why is the Sun's core so much hotter than its surface temperature? | Is the Earth's core hotter than its surface for the same reason? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fusion is occurring at the core of the sun due to the extreme pressure and associated high temperature. That energy is constantly radiating outwards. The farther out the energy from fusion gets, the more surface area it's covering, so the less energy density there is, which makes it cooler. In the Earth, the crust acts as an insulating layer from the origins of the earth's molten surface. Originally the whole earth was one giant liquid ball. As it cooled, the surface hardened. Imagine a roasted marshmallow, crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. That's like the earth. The gooey center stays melted long after the crust cools and hardens. Earth's core stays warm because it's always being exposed to the sun's energy somewhere, and the sun puts out a lot of energy. Everything that happens on earth happens from the energy of the sun: winds, temperature fronts, photosynthesis and by extension more complex life, etc."
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5u7vut | How does an artificial heart react when you get startled, or nervous or have sex? | I read an older article about a guy who had his heart removed and was walking around with a backpack machine acting as his heart. The question that occured to me last night while i was trying to see, was how does an artificial heart, which I presume regulates your blood flow at a set kind of pace, react compared to a person with a normal heart, which can suddenly start pumping faster or harder due to a reaction...being next to someone you like, getting scared, breathing heavy. Does it just keep pumping the blood at a normal set speed? I have to imagine that the organic and subconcious changes that occur when we encounter something based in fear or instinctual reactions cannot be duplicated in a machine, so if your breathing heavy due to a fright, how does the machine know to pump harder? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> how does the machine know to pump harder? It doesn't. There are a lot of things you can't do when you're depending on mechanical assistance to keep your blood flowing. One of them is use too much oxygen. Because your new \"heart\" has one speed, and if you overdo it you're going to pass out."
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5u7zqq | what evidence was used to support the claim that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There isn't much to be honest. See this stared in 1917. There was an article in on of the oldest health magazine that talk about breakfast and how it's the most important meal because we should start on the right foot. That would have probably stay an obscure quote in history, but cereals company jump on it and started massive advertisement campaign based on that quote. And that's why we are still saying that. Advertisement campaign can have HUGE impact on how people view the world. There is plenty of example of that. Like how sunkist in 1907 change the orange industry from a small fruit industry to a massive orange juice one. Or how the ads like I want you and We can do it affect how the US view their military even today. Or how diamond used to be like any gemstone and almost nobody use them on engagement rings and now you would be view as a bad husband if your engagement ring don't have a diamond on it."
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5u7zsh | why does ground beef / chicken breast cost less than red peppers? | Currently a pound of grapes costs more than a pound of boneless chicken breast at my local supermarket. Why do things my food eats eats cost more than my food? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"**TL;DR: Lots of reasons.** *Certain fruits and veggies are highly seasonal and light for their weight and require careful handling and importing from outside the country. Meat's easier to keep growing through the winter using local government-assisted jobs so grocery stores can access massive quantities and sell it at a reduced price.* Fruits and vegetables don't grow outside in colder weather, and many have very limited growing seasons coupled with limited shelf life. So you either have to grow them in a warm climate that's far away and then invest in rapidly shipping them in a temperature-controlled container until they arrive, or grow them in a regional warmed greenhouse or hydroponics farm. Both options are expensive and add to the cost. A lot of fruit and vegetables bruise very easily and are filled with air (peppers are a good example). So you have to ship them in protective containers that don't really contain much weight compared to their volume. This adds to their cost compared the small volume for each pound of, say, pork that comes in. There are no seasonal limitations on growing many meats. Pig sties and chicken farms run throughout the year, feeding their animals through locally grown crops that keep really well like dried corn. Do it right and you can get several harvests of chicken each year. However, strawberries and asparagus really only grow once per year in a certain season. Getting those products out of season usually means they've been shipped from far overseas. Stores put on sales according to supply and demand. In your chicken versus grapes example, they were able to buy a massive quantity of local chicken at a cheap price, and they were willing to let it go at less of a profit per package because everyone's buying it and then buying other things in their store too. There's no massive quantity of grapes being routinely harvested in winter, so there's no sale on those and the store's getting full profit on each bunch they sell. And finally, as someone else mentioned, sometimes regional governments interfere in the price-setting elements of \"supply and demand\", charging tariffs and taxes on imported good while subsidizing locally produced ones.",
"Because growing grain and giving it to chickens isn't as expensive as you'd think, and because the government gives subsidies to chicken and beef producers.",
"Government subsidies have a lot to do with it. URL_0",
"Cows and chickens aren't eating red peppers and grapes, first off... they are eating corn, soy, other cheap grains that are also less perishable. Red peppers and grapes are expensive because they can only grow in certain conditions, and thus at certain times of the year have to be shipped from halfway around the world. Because they are delicate, there is loss to damage and spoilage along the way and in the store that has to be accounted for in the price items that do sell go for -- that $3/lb. red pepper is covering the cost of the other pepper that rotted before being sold."
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5u836c | How does the brain 'click' and come to a conclusion when it receives multiple pieces of information? Why does the brain 'click' for some people, but for others, not so much? | I apologize if my question is confusing, but I'm curious how some people will get two or more related pieces of information about something and come to a conclusion, but others who get the same pieces of related information simply can't come to a conclusion? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'd say it depends on what information one has previously learned and trusts in. If I tell you that \"the moon causes the tides\" it may click for someone how the moon's gravity can effect a large fluid body on the earth. But for someone who doesn't know how gravity works or who's never heard of the concept it may not click for them how a big ball in the sky can move the ocean."
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5u83x1 | Why is the word "consumer" used instead of "customer"? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dds01hw",
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"text": [
"They mean different things. A customer is someone who buys a product. A consumer is someone who uses a product. These might frequently be the same person but they're performing different functions. They're not quite synonymous.",
"Both are used. A customer purchases goods, a consumer uses them. A shopkeeper who buys goods from a wholesaler is a customer of the wholesaler but not a consumer of those goods; he will be selling them on. When you go into the shop and buy something you are a customer of the shop and a consumer of the goods."
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5u869s | why is it that flies seem to appear out of thin air so quickly (even indoors) when rotten things or feces are nearby? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fun fact, up until recently in modern history people simply believed that things like garbage and feces spontaneously generated life because like you said, it seems like there are no flies, then trash and boom, hella flies. The truth is a little more boring and gross, it's simply that flies and maggots are all around you all the time, and they just congregate quickly. Since they have a fairly short life cycle and make tons of babies, it only takes a few days for a handful of flies to become a swarm."
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5u8903 | If using q-tips is dangerous, how are you supposed to clean your ears? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You generally don't need to 'clean' deep in your ear canal, just wash the outside like you would the rest of your body. But if that's not enough try using a syringe (no needle) to squirt warm water into your ear. There are also softeners to help the removal.",
"For the most part, ears are self-cleaning. The practice of manually cleaning ears, which is more prevalent in cultures with dry wax (Japanese, for example), is cultural, not biologically necessary.",
"Your earwax is actually a good lubricant for your ears and keeps them from drying out. That being said, ear picking feels so damn good and tingly that it's hard for me to stop, even though I know it's bad for me.",
"When I stop cleaning them, I get the sensation of water in my ear after a few days and then dried wax and skin starts to randomly fall out. Drives me insane.",
"I have a friend who says the best way to clean out your ears is with your elbows. Seriously, for the most part, its best to leave your ear canals alone. The wax builds to protect them and if you shove something in there, you're more likely to push back an impact the wax against your eardrum.",
"Clean inside your ears using only your elbows. They're blunt enough not to cause any real damage."
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5u89f1 | Is it possible to put out a fire by lowering the temperature alone? | We learned that a fire needs three things, fuel, oxygen, and heat. Remove one of the three and the "triangle" collapses and the fire goes out. Most conventional methods of putting out a fire involves smothering it, thereby removing the fuel and/or oxygen. But is it possible to kill a fire by just lowering the temperature? As in put it in a freezer and just get it cold? And if so how low does the temperature need to be? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, it's possible. A very common way to lower the temperature at the source of a fire is by adding water to the fire. The water absorbs the heat as it makes its phase change from liquid to steam.",
"Yes, it is possible. In fact, that's exactly what happens when you blow out a candle - you aren't removing the fuel or the oxygen, just lowering the temperature enough to stop the burning.",
"it is, but it would need to be a drastic decline in temperature. the \"fire triangle\" consists of heat, oxygen, and fuel. in cases where the fuel is for instance, magnesium, that would be very hard to put out with cold temps alone.",
"Not practically. Fires provide their own heat once they start. So if you light a candle then put it in the freezer it would not go out because of temperature. Theoretically, you could lower the temperature enough that the amount of energy was too low. Basically the burning of one part of fuel wouldn't release enough energy to ignite the next part. As for what temperature, it would depend on the materials. These would also be extremely low temperatures, maybe low enough that oxygen would condense to liquid meaning there wouldn't be any air for the fire to burn in. Also the \"fire triangle\" is a simplification of how things burn. For example air is not needed to burn all things. In a thermite reaction the oxygen is passing from solid metal oxide to another metal to form a new oxide. Meaning it could burn in a vacuum."
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5u89ka | Why does splitting or fusing atoms release so much energy? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The energy being released is the energy which binds those atoms together (in the case of fission)... it's a *lot* of energy. The energy released by fission is the \"leftover\" energy when you take \"smaller\" elements and mash them together to create a larger one. By contrast, explosives usually work by breaking chemical bonds; the bonds which hold molecules together. There is plenty of energy there, but nowhere close to how much is involved in binding individual atoms."
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5u8anb | what happens to our body when we are awake for more than 25 hours ? | Recently joined some institute and i am not getting proper sleep, just wanted to know what will happen ... | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The consequences of sleep deprivation at 24 hours is comparable to the cognitive impairment of someone with a blood - alcohol content of 0.10 percent , according to a 2010 study in the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental health."
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5u8dv5 | Why are death row inmates housed separately? | Why are they not placed with general pop.? The separate housing adds to the cost of the death penalty, but it seems unnecessary. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"People care less about obeying rules when they are about to die. At this point what do they have to lose? Did Jerry over in cell D12 make a rude comment about your mother? Maybe Jerry should get stabbed 12 times with a sharpened tooth brush. What are the guards going to do about it? Kill you? lol!",
"It is custom. There also might be the fear that an inmate with literally nothing to lose would kill another over the slightest thing. I was told that an inmate on death row believes if he kills an officer he will be tried for it which would start the whole process over for him and buy him more time. This is not true. But all that matters is that the inmate believes it. One small part of the reason is that working on death row is voluntary. An officer may believe that confinement is the only way to deal with the behavior of individuals. But they may not believe that once an person is confined and cannot harm others then he should also be killed."
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5u8fjd | How is depression linked to neuroscience and brain function? | I've been researching it a bit lately, but some articles are so information-dense that it's hard to get through them and understand everything you've read. How do the receptors and neurotransmitters change? Does this occur mainly in the synapses? Does this effect your bodily hormones and the glands that secrete them? Any information is appreciated! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dds2wxx"
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"text": [
"The brain quickly becomes too complicated for ELI5. You may do better in /r/askscience. Some of your questions may not have been answered completely yet. Yes most changes occur at the synapses. The search for effective drugs is based on this theory. The link between the brain and secreted hormones exists but how much depression affects this I do not know."
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5u8iwu | How do seeds work in games? | I mean, how can a few numbers decide billions of things in a generated world? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"> I mean, how can a few numbers decide billions of things in a generated world? I'm going to give you not \"a few\" numbers, and not \"billions\" of things, but one number that can generate infinite things: 1. Start at 0. Add 1. Get 1. Add 1. Get 2. Add 1. Get 3. Add 1. Get 4. Keep going. Let's take a more complicated example, and limit it to a certain range of numbers (0 through 9), like the random numbers on a computer would be (0 through 2^64 - 1 or some such): Add 3 and then take the modulus 10. Start at 0. Plus 3 mod 10, get 3. Plus 3 mod 10, get 6. Plus 3 mod 10, get 9. Plus 3 mod 10, get 2. Then 5, then 8, then 1, then 4, then 7, then 0 again. Obviously those examples (even the \"more complicated\" one) are *much* less complicated than the algorithm that a random number generator is using. But I hope they suffice to show that there's no reason a small set of rules can't provide a large number of results."
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5u8lnr | Why do we get satisfaction from cracking our fingers, toes, neck, back, etc? And once we think about cracking something, why do we feel uncomfortableness until we do? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dds3wc5"
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"text": [
"there is just a bit of pressure inbetween your joints. you crack them and the pressure equalizes. its like when your ears pop on a plane. your body adapts to the pressure change."
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5u8qgn | Why does the Fermi Paradox assume interstellar travel is fundamentally possible? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dds55kx"
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"text": [
"Even if they can't travel very fast, their radio waves would travel at the speed of light. Given the age of the universe it's a mystery why there aren't civilizations at least a few hundred million or even a billion years old. If there were we'd be able to see their signals. It could be that using radio waves is relatively primitively technology and we can't detect the more advanced signals they've been sending; or it could be that intelligent life is extremely uncommon; or it could be that we are among the first intelligent beings since something was preventing their development for a long time. Surely intelligent life at least could have developed here during the time of the dinosaurs, so we'd have to assume alien civilizations could be at least a few hundred million years old, which is an enormous distance that their signals could have travelled even if they were stuck on their home planet. Basically the ability to colonize the universe isn't required to make the paradox \"work\". Clearly something is making intelligent civilizations extremely uncommon. If even just one in every billion stars were capable of supporting intelligent life we should expect to still see a lot of it."
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5u8rdr | When a music composer writes a piece in a certain key, are they only using the 7 notes in the given key? | I'm a self taught musician that has studied a bit of music theory (key signatures, circle of fifths, relative keys, etc), but I want to get more proficient. I guess I'm confused on how composers use tonal keys. Take Beethoven's No 5 in C Minor as an example. I find it hard to believe that only the seven notes in the Cmin scale are used throughout the entire composition. So I ask, for my own betterment as a seeker of understanding, how do you write into and out of keys during a piece of music? Thanks!! | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No. The seven notes are the \"central home base,\" but the composer isn't confined to just those notes. You can use chords from other keys, in modern music, using the 'flat 7' chord is common. (Song is in C Major, but a Bb Major chord is also used.) What Beethoven did and other composers do is modulate keys. Aka, spend some time in a different key, before coming back to home base. (Start in c minor, spend some time playing in g minor, then come back to c minor.) Great composers do this so seamlessly that the common non-musician may not notice. Hope this helps. Source: Took music theory courses in college/ professional a cappella arranger.",
"You should look into the difference between relative and parallel keys! Also try to learn how key changes are used to give a song more energy or to give it less or to change it into something else entirely. [Here's]( URL_0 ) a cheat sheet I made showing the c major key, relative minor key, and parallel minor key, along with secondary dominants and the chords all separated by tonics, subdominants, and dominants. Let me know if you have any other questions! Also you should delve into modes, aka how to get different sounds out of the same scales by starting on the other notes besides the tonic, but you can use them with keys and such to get really interesting sounds"
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5u8veq | Why 0 degrees Kelvin is physically impossible to reach but negative temperatures are not. | EDIT: Thanks for the replies, everybody! | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Negative temperatures aren't literally colder than positive temperatures, when referred to in this regard. In fact a negative kelvin temperature is hotter than a positive kelvin temperature. The issue here is there are two references to 'negative' when we talk about temperature. Negative in something like Celsius, refers simply to a temperature below what we have arbitrarily chosen as 0 somewhere on the scale. There's not a fundamental difference between -1 and +1 Celsius. There's less heat at -1, but there's still 'some amount of energy being measured.' On Kelvin, however, zero is taken as an absolute. There's no energy at 0. you can't go to 'less than nothing.' In this case, a negative temperature refers to a system where entropy decreases as we add energy, as opposed to a system where entropy increases. Not a value 'colder' than 0.",
"Here's the thing about negative Kelvin temperatures: yes, they are \"below\" absolute zero. But that's because physicists use a different definition of temperature than we do. In the everyday world and in basic-level scientific stuff, \"temperature\" is a measure of molecular motion. The hotter something is, the more its molecules vibrate. Absolute zero is the point at which all molecular motion stops. You can't go below that, because there's no such thing as \"less than zero\" motion. But in advanced physics, temperature is defined differently. There's a more important property called [thermodynamic beta]( URL_0 ), and temperature is the inverse of this. Thermodynamic beta (colloquially called \"coldness\") is the rate at which a system's entropy changes when you add a bit of energy to it. It's also sometimes called *perk*, because it's a measure of how much a system \"perks up\" when you add energy to it. \"Negative temperature\" really means negative beta, negative coldness. This is when a system gets *so* hot, so chaotic, that adding energy into it actually decreases its entropy, making it more ordered."
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5u8vpk | Why is it that some people can learn equations and concepts when examples are involved ie: physics/chemistry but struggle with similar ideas when examples aren't involved ie: trig/calc/algebra? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dds77zr"
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"text": [
"There have been many theories of learning which categorise people into different groups depending how they learn. Pretty much all of these theories have been disproven. However, one thing that *is* known is that, however hard it is to categorise people, we *do* all learn differently! Some people like to see things written down, others like pictures or prefer to listen to the material they're supposed to learn. Some people can learn abstract things more easily, others can learn better by seeing and understanding examples. **BUT** - a good teacher knows this, and uses a variety of different techniques during a lesson, to ensure that learners of all types are able to learn the material. Trigonometry, calculus and algebra are all subjects that can, and should, be taught using examples (although, like all subjects, they shouldn't be taught *only* with examples). If you've been taught these subjects without seeing a single example of a real-life problem where they would be used then unfortunately you have probably suffered from less-than-perfect teaching."
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5u8was | If putting metal in the microwave is wrong then why is the inside of a microwave metal? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When metal gets hit by microwaves, the microwaves bounce back. This makes metal a necessary component in keeping the microwaves inside the cooking appliance. However, the oscillating magnetic field of the magnetron (the device that's actually making the microwaves) can cause a charge to build up in the edges or tips of any weird-shaped metal objects, like forks or aluminum foil. These charge buildups naturally look for ways to dissipate, and do so with a dramatic (and hot!) arc. So the thing that really matters here is the shape. The big flat walls are fine."
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5u970k | Is it illegal/unconstitutional to communicate with foreign officials during a presidential campaign? | I am trying to be objective here. This seems like close to treason to me (depending on what was said) but I am not educated in federal law. I truly don't know the answer to this question. Is it unethical to do this or outright illegal? Do most candidates communicate with foreign officials/enemies during the campaign process? Edit: Thanks for the great answers! (Not sure why anyone would downvote an actual question, but I got what I needed so it's okay). | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No, not in and of itself. And that's not really the reason Flynn was pushed out. As the other posters mentioned, the Logan Act prohibits anyone from negotiating with a foreign government on behalf of the United States without explicit authority to do so. There has also long been an informal \"one president\" rule, under which the incoming president stands aside on matters of foreign policy until their inauguration. (This was ignored by the Trump transition.) Flynn, however, wasn't pushed out for the calls themselves, but for lying about the calls to the Administration and the public. (Of course, it's possible if not likely that others in the Administration are lying about having been misled by Flynn.) No Administration would continue to employ a National Security Adviser who lied about having conversations with an agent of a foreign adversary, no matter how benign those conversations were. (Although note that he was only let go when the lies were uncovered by the press, *not* when the Administration learned about them.) Also, Flynn is now the third Trump adviser who has been pushed out because of suspicious contacts with the Russian government -- Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and now Flynn. This is, to say the least, suspicious, and has driven for calls to investigate further.",
"It's illegal to negotiate with a foreign government unless you are specifically authorized by the government to do so. This is from the [Logan Act]( URL_0 ). There can be a fine line between communication and negotiation, but because of this law, campaigns generally avoid communications with other governments, and report contacts that they do have.",
"The heart of the issue has been well covered by the responses thus far, but I think it's important to note that not a single person has been prosecuted under the Logan Act because it's nearly impossible to prove the difference between \"negotiating\" and a simple conversation. The purpose of the act is more to establish a basis of conduct, and to provide a position from which a person could be disciplined or fired for not complying. In this case that appears to be what happened. Regardless, the point is that it's inaccurate to call what Flynn did illegal or treasonous without direct proof that he handed over classified information. Given that the NSA and FBI had recordings of those conversations and have chosen not to press charges, we know that this isn't the case.",
"It's not \"communicating\" with foreign officials that is illegal. The illegal part was where it crossed the line into being essentially foreign diplomacy. That's the exclusive right of the federal government. It's the content of his communications that are potentially illegal and which made him step down. Yes it's close to treason. It's not necessarily treason depending on what kind of quid pro quo was negotiated but it would be treason (at least of the colloquial sort) if he made offers to the Russians in return for Russia's help manipulating the election."
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5u9hb9 | Why are beer bottles usually dark green or dark brown? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Brewers started to use glass because it kept beer fresher, longer. However, there was one serious issue, if the beer was left in the sun too long, brewers found the beer would smell and taste skunky. Literally, it smelled just how a skunk smells. Scientists discovered that Ultra Violet rays from the sun break down the alpha acids in hops which then react with the sulfur present in beer to form a chemical that is almost identical to the chemical that skunks use to spray predators. Those damn UV rays. The solution was to tint the beer bottle to protect it from UV rays. Similar to how sunglasses help protect your eyesight; the dark brown beer bottle helps protect the beer from going bad. Why the green beer bottle then? Green beer bottles offer very little protection from the sunlight. Though, slightly more than a clear bottle, it does not help protect from UV as much as one might want. Around World War II, brown glass rose in demand and many companies had to forfeit their brown glass for their country. Unfortunately that meant companies with higher quality beers had to use clear glass, which made their beers look like cheaper, clear glass beers. Higher quality brewers’ solution was to sell their beer in green bottles so a consumer could tell the difference between a regular beer and a higher quality. The green beer bottle became a status symbol for many European breweries. These days, there’s not much of a reason to sell a beer in a green bottle other than for marketing and aesthetic. Lucky for us, glass suppliers are able to apply clear, UV protected coats to glass that help keep beer fresh no matter what kind of bottle it is in."
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5u9i86 | How do illegal streamers keep content going constantly, and what incentive do they have to do what they do? | For example, an app like Mobdro that has a 24/7 Dragonball Z channel. Does the person sit there putting on episode after episode? How does it all work? Also as it has no adverts, no plugs and no donations, what does the streamer get from this? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Well I want nba streams and the scanned and translated versions of some manga, they normally have a donation button. So growing user base of they keep the content up and of quality, this leads to more traffic possible donations and ad revenue. I.e. I donate like a dollar a chapter from manga streams and about the same for nba streams when I do watch them.",
"The streamer will already have every episode saved somewhere. They just make a playlist of every single episode and then put it on repeat. I have no idea what they gain from doing this though."
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5u9t3t | People say the Quran is about peace and love, and that Terrorists take certain texts out of context. What texts are those and what context are they mistaking it for? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The true answer is nobody is right. All major holy books including the Bible, the Torah and the Quran have some seriously immoral passage in them. Different people have different interpretation of their holy book and for most of them their interpretation is the right one and others are wrong. People will found what they want in their holy book. If they want love and peace they gonna look at passages they like and reinforce their view. And when there is a passage going the other way around they gonna try to rationalise it, say it's a metaphor or there is a context/interpretation that change the meaning, etc. Islam is a religion of peace if the individual and the culture want it to be and scrap the hateful passage. Just like Islam is a religion of peace if the individual and the culture want it to be and scrap all the good passage. And Just like Christianity is a religion of peace if the individual and the culture want it to be and scrap the hateful passage.",
"The Quran is a long book that says lots of different, contradictory things. *Some* passages say, very explicitly, that you should kill non-believers. It's not ambiguous language. But *some other* passages talk about treating [at least] all Jews, Christians, and Muslims as your brothers and sisters.",
"Honestly, same deal with many other religions, it has a lot of talk about being good people, but there are spots where it says you should kill people for various reasons. You can say pretty much the same thing about Christians, the bible says people who commit adultery should be stoned to death, some might take that to mean that means you should go around town and kill people if they are cheating on someone. It says you should be put to death for cursing, or working on the Sabbath or believing someone else is god. Imagine if some group started taking those things very literally and got some guns and shot up everyone who did that stuff? That's basically what a lot of these Islamic terrorists are doing, the religious text does for the most part say something that can be interpreted to agree with them, but most people don't actually act on that, and they don't think it's right to go out and kill people for minor stuff like that. And most people agree that it is not the intent of their religion to go around killing people for various sins. Most people tend to choose the interpretation that the verses saying \"be nice to everyone\" trumps the clauses that say \"kill everyone who sins\"."
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5u9xkp | Why do schools, specifically public, not make math classes mandatory that involve finance, how to file taxes, economics, but will teach you basic calculus and trigonometry, which you will most likely never need to know? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are a couple of reasons. * To use a physical analogy, the math we teach in school is more like weightlifting for your brain, vs the applied math in finance, econ, etc are more like learning a sport (so by learning geometry, algebra, trig, and calculus you'll be better equipped to succeed in fields using applied math later--for example the income statement is very close to the first derivative of owners' equity in finance). * The math required for most of those fields is just arithmetic (with a healthy application of logic and following directions). Balancing a checkbook and filing your taxes are tedious and high stakes not hard math. * You'll have many opportunities to use algebra (many areas in life involves lots of story problems common to almost everyone are those in cooking), possibly geometry (many crafts, but more importantly the logical applications of rules is very similar to proofs, etc), and calculus (calculus is the math of change and change is almost constant) in daily life.",
"finance and taxes arent math, theyre just arithmitic and following instructions. I do think there should be classes for this stuff but it wouldnt be a math class.",
"Taxes are simply \"read and follow directions\". You should be able to do that long before high school. Geometry and trig teach critical thinking skills. It's not 'learn that opposite angles are congruent', it's \"learn how to apply logic to known facts to derive proof\". If you don't think you need to know critical thinking skills, you are a fake news website's wet dream. Also, accounting and economics classes are available. Don't blame the school if you don't choose to take them.",
"Calculus and trigonometry are important stepping stones in advancing to important careers like engineers and scientists. The idea is that every student should have the option to choose such a career if they want to.",
"Those are life skills, not math. Some schools do have life skills classes, our public middle school tried to do it in 8th grade and nobody had any idea what we were supposed to do with a ledger even after they explained. Some stuff can't be taught very effectively to students with no concept of a salary.",
"those are easily self-taught and not too hard to comprehend. Calculus? cant really be learned on your own and is needed for engineering an many other technical jobs these days.",
"You don't attend public school to learn practical skills and trades, per se, because then why bother teaching dodgeball or poetry? You'll likely never need to know either of those things, either. This alludes to a greater purpose to the education material and process. You go to school to *learn how to learn*. It's not a mystery why they call class work \"exercises\". But I'm not disagreeing with you, either. My high school taught some basic economics, at the very least, and I think we were better for it. Basic finances wouldn't be bad, either. At the very least, people should know how to calculate effective APR and compound interest, because high school students and young adults are stupid as shit when it comes to credit. I've literally heard people call it \"like free money.\" But to pay taxes? That's a moving target - it's complex, different for everyone, and changes every year. In fact, too much of finance is a moving target that most things that make sense today might be garbage a few years from now. Before my wife transferred colleges, she had a finance teacher tell the class T-Bonds are a good investment; it's just dated, dodgy advice. After the last financial crisis, there was a bit more interest in pushing financial literacy, but people have largely already forgotten. You also have a problem where politics get involved in deciding the state curriculum, then you end up with state endorsed lessons cranking out children who believe in deregulation and self regulating markets."
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5ua0v7 | How is it that some music that you don't like can actually give you a headache? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One of the reasons I can think of is that annoying music (or anything annoying for that matter) due to mental frustration causes higher blood or head pressure - both of which cause head ache."
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5ua5xp | what are the origins of the names of the us coins. | I understand why we call a quarter a quarter, because it is 1/4 or a quarter of a dollar, but why do we call the other coins penny, nickel and dime? Does it also have to do with the amount of money they represent 1, 5 and 10 cents respectively or were they just randomly named or do the names derive from other languages (I.e. Latin or Old English)? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Coinage Act of 1792 specified that \"The money of account of the United States dollars, etc. shall be expressed in dollars, or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and the milles or thousandths, a disme being the tenth part of a dollar, a cent the hundredth part of a dollar, a mille the thousandth part of a dollar,\" The act also called for the following coins: * Eagles, Half Eagles, and Quarter Eagles, which would be worth $10, $5, and $2.50 respectively * Dollars, Half Dollars, Quarter Dollars * Dismes, Half Dismes * Cents, Half-Cents Eagles aren't used any more. Dollars and half dollars are still called that. It's easy to see how quarters and dimes go their names. Dismes, from which dime is derived, is an old word from French that means \"tenth\" and comes from the Latin *decima*. Nickels didn't come about until 1866 during the Civil War. Half dimes were worth 5 cents, but used silver. Nickels replaced half dimes, used a more readily available alloy (copper-nickel), and were larger. They got their name from the fact that they contained nickel instead of silver. Pennies were originally called cents (meaning 1/100 as in century). I don't know precisely where the name penny came from, but people in Britain had called certain coins pennies before that so maybe it came from that. The coins were also supposed to be minted with 11 pennyweights of copper, which is about 17.1g, so maybe that's where the name came from. [Here's]( URL_0 ) a link to the act."
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5ua7qa | why do we get bags under our eyes when we are underslept | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TLDR: Oxygen Debt/ischemia In a weird sense of the term, those bags are actually 'bruises'. The muscles that keep your eyelids open have to constantly spend energy to in order to function and this consumes oxygen, metabolites, and generates waste products. When muscles run low on oxygen, they start generating (stuff like) lactate which promotes the nearby blood vessels to relax, and allow more blood to flow to that muscle. That blood takes time to leave, and will starts to pool in the tissue. When the blood flow lessens once the muscle is happy again, the blood leaves and the tissue shrinks back to normal size. Muscles get more efficient with use, and are capable of storing an effective amount of 'easy' energy that they can use without oxygen. When they run out of/low on this pool of energy, they start relying solely on blood supply. Muscles regenerate this pool of spare energy at different rates, and the size of the pool is dependent on the activity that muscle normally experiences. People that routinely get little sleep will generally have less bags under their eyes because their muscles are used to that stress, and deal with it better, so it takes a much longer period of time for their muscles to release enough lactate to make them look tired. A medical student or grad student who sleeps 5hours a night will have better trained eye muscles vs someone who sleeps 9-10 hours a night like a normal person. At least that's what I recall from one of my classes; should be conceptually accurate. -BioChemistryStudent"
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5uaeur | what's the purpose of nuclear retaliation? (more details inside) | Say that nation A decides to nuke nation B. Now the concept of nuclear retaliation is that A can't disable all nukes of B with a single attack or before B can fire their nukes too, so that if A attacks B, B will attack A and therefore both A and B will be destroyed. Now, my question is: if A attacks B, B is destroyed anyway. Then why should B retaliate, if such retaliation would probably doom billions of people? (not only A population, due to fallout and things like that) EDIT: okay i understand the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction and that the threat is the important thing, not the actual occurence. However, if for whatever reason A actually launched a full attack on B, would B actually retaliate or just refuse to do so to spare billions of people? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Then why should B retaliate They don't have to, simply because they *could*. The fact that they *could* retaliate means that no one is going to start firing nukes at them in the first place, and so the actual retaliation will never be needed. The entire point about nuclear weapons is basically that once you have them, you never need to use them. The threat that you *could* use them is enough.",
"The concept you're referring to is Mutually Assured Destruction. The point of country b retaliating, even though they'll be wiped out anyway, is to deter country a from firing in the first place. If a knows that b had systems in place that will fire, even if everyone in b is dead, then a doesn't stand to gain anything with a first strike attack."
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5uahvs | how the Nazi identify the Jews in the holocaust | I mean, just by accusation? Did they had a census or anything? In the common cold war dictatorships delation or previous political activities were the cannon for getting people into trouble, but in the Nazi regime the idea was to delete an entire ethnical and cultural belief, so I can't figure it out. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Nazi party in Germany identified Jews through military records, census records, tax returns, synagogue membership lists, parish records (for converted Jews), routine but mandatory police registration forms; the questioning of friends, relatives, neighbors, businesses was also used, as well as Jewish community membership lists, individual identity papers, captured census documents, police records, and local intelligence networks. When we think about the holocaust, or read about it, or hear about it, the focus is usually on the apex, the peak of the horror...but you have to understand that this happened gradually over a period of years. There were a number of methods employed to identify and exclude European Jews (amongst others), and it began with giving the power to Hitler and those who would follow him. In 1933, Germany passed the Enabling Act, which essentially ended democracy in Germany, giving the government the power to enact legislation by decree. This gave them the legal ability to make the discriminatory policies that were to come. It also meant Hitler was allowed to make legislation that violated the Weimar Constitution without the approval of the parliament. They began by suspending the licenses of Jewish doctors and others in service industries. They forbade Jews from taking the bar exam, thus preventing them from becoming lawyers. They used a claim of overcrowding in schools and Universities to prevent Jewish students from attending public schools. They then taught students to love Hitler, obey authorities, and hate Jews. All of this happened in 1933, and it was just the first steps. By 1934, Jews were prohibited from slaughtering animals, which prevented them from obeying Jewish dietary laws. Nearly every aspect of Jewish life was subject to arbitrary-seeming legislation. In 1935, the Nazi leaders announces the Nuremberg Laws. These laws (among other things) excluded Jews from having citizenship, from marrying or even having sex with German women, denied Jews basic political rights including voting, denied Jews the right to hold political office. They also made it nearly impossible for Jews to make a living, reducing Jewish-owned businesses in Germany by two-thirds. And so it went, until things finally got so horrific the rest of the world was forced to stand up and take notice and, more importantly, to act. It took far too long for that to happen, with a near global Depression making for hostile times all around.",
"That's part of it, but they also checked public records of lineage and church records. Most Jews didn't think anything about the government knowing they were Jews before Hitler. Many Jews had names that made them easy to identify, like names ending in Stein or Burg, which were disproportionate compared to similarly named Aryans. And they used comparisons of facial features to show if you were Jewish. They didn't care if there was a false positive, so they could be as stereotyping as they wanted to be.",
"Social records: Military records, medical records, census records, tax records, synagogue membership lists, etc. Word of Mouth: Your neighbors knew you were Jewish, or just said you were Jewish. Looks: The Jewish people do have some minor phenotypic differences that can be used to identify them from other ethnicities. So if you had very curly hair, dark eye, the right shape of nose, slightly darker complexions than the Germanic population you would often be assumed to be Jewish.",
"Several posters have provided much more specific and superior answers. However, your question reminded me of a scene in Jerry Spinelli's historical fiction novel, \"Milkweed.\" The main character is shocked when NAZIs shoot at him protesting, \"But I'm not Jewish!\" To which an older, wiser character responds: \"If they shoot at you, you're Jewish.\" This is pretty much how things were. Jewish, Polish, Gypsy people were whoever the NAZIs decided they were. Of course, you are probably aware that Hitler himself was likely Jewish, and certainly far from Aryan. Yet he was exulted as an ideal man. Edit: ~~Jerri~~ Jerry"
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5uatbf | They day he leaves office, a former US President still knows many secrets. Is his lifelong security team responsible for protecting the man or the secrets? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The person. There are countless number of people who are aware of countless number numbers of highly classified and secretive information. The Secretaries of Defense and State are likely to know almost as much information as the President, but they don't get lifetime protection.",
"The secrets also become dated. The world was a very different place in the 1990's. Are Clinton's secrets about Saddam Hussein really as valuable today considering the fact that he's dead? I'm sure it's interesting, but probably not that useful. Also, in 1997 Congress signed an act that limited Secret Service protection for presidents to ten years after office. Obama reversed it, though, so now all presidents receive lifetime protection again. But the protection becomes much more limited. When I was in school in Boston 3 years ago or so Bill Clinton walked through the bookstore and all he had was a few agents with him. Contrast that to the current president where they close off highway exits that lead to where he is at the time.",
"Continuing Secret Service protection also means you can't credibly threaten a president with future harm once they leave office. Former US presidents are guaranteed a cushy retirement. And they tend to retire gracefully, which is good for the country.",
"The person. The Secret service is never responsible for protecting the secrets. That is the duty of the person with the secret themselves and the National Security agencies.",
"When you get a security clearance you are held to the rules for the rest of your life or until the data is declassified",
"It is part of counterintelligence to consider this. If a person is compromised, then whatever information they ever had access to is considered compromised. That's why security breaches are so painful. It's also why the modern intelligence aparatus must be compartmentalized. Most of the incriminating information is about how we collect information. For instance, if we have a record of who the attaches are in an embassy that belong to that nations intelligence service, it's not as important as the how we got it. All of them will be replaced, and as long as our method of obtaining information is secure, we can continue to monitor the correct people. Generally speaking, the president won't know, the how we get something. He doesn't have time for it, he'll just know the what. As for the how, it can get pretty dicey, especially when we get it from a third party. Everyone spies on their allies, since often our allies know the kinds of things we want to know about our enemies, but they can't tell us because it would compromise their sources.",
"The security team is composed of Secret Service who are responsible for protecting the physical safety of the person in their charge. That is the official line. We wouldn't really know if they had secret orders to kill former Presidents to prevent capture because, you know, **secret** orders. But that seems extremely unlikely as anything the former Presidents knew was likely obsolete anyway.",
"Just having a former president abducted or killed by anyone would be a huge problem for the country. It would be a major embarrassment, it would anger a large number of people, and quite possibly take us to war. That's a big part of why they are protected."
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5uaujl | Why are so many Americans in favor of illegal immigration? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not so much in favor of it, but more pragmatic of the reality that many illegal immigrants are already here and a key part of our society and economy. While there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants here, the net numbers are actually declining (more are returning home than are coming). But they fill many critical roles in our economy, from picking crops to caring for the young, sick and elderly, to cleaning public restrooms and washing dishes in restaurants. They are often the only ones willing to do the low paid, dirty, smelly, thankless jobs others refuse to do. They also spend lots of money by paying rent, buying food, cars, clothing, etc. And contrary to the perception of many, they are feeding more money into the government coffers than taking out -- they don't qualify for welfare, food stamps, social security, etc. and yet they do pay sales taxes, many do have taxes withheld from their paychecks, their rent indirectly pays property taxes. So since they are here and contributing to society, let's acknowledge the fact, let those here have a path toward becoming legal (there can be requirements, fines).",
"I browsed and didn't see this answer in the comments, yet: Because who gives a shit? Are illegal immigrants really harming you or your way of life? Or are they just another on a long list of things used by the people in power to distract you from the real issues? I constantly hear this cry of \"but it's illegal! It's about the law! They broke the law and they need to be held accountable!\" Really? Do you always drive the speed limit, or do you go five over? Do you always go to a crosswalk to cross the street, or do you just cross right here because, fuck it? Ever moved to a new apartment and got some junk mail intended for the former tenant? Did you go to great lengths to make sure they got those coupons, or did you just toss them? Ever smoked a joint? If any of these situations describes you, then guess what; you're a fucking lawbreaker. But do people give a shit about those things? No. Because it's smalltime, petty bullcrap that affects nobody. Most people are probably more likely to decry the government for having it's fingers in everyone's pies than to berate the people committing these infractions. But when it comes to immigrants? They're the other. Outsiders. Foreigners. We have problems, and we need someone to blame them on. Can't find a job? Foreigners took them all. Crime all over the news? Foreigners are all lawless thugs, blame them. And on and on. It's just a distraction. The people in power want you focusing all your frustration and distrust and suspicion on anyone but them, and immigrants are one of many easy targets.",
"> They all say it's 'racist' to be for protecting borders/laws. Here's the thing: Nobody in power has proposed anything that would \"protect\" our borders. They don't need any additional protecting. The wall with Mexico *is* racist because it was proposed solely as a symbol. It's meant to be a slap in the face. No informed person thinks it could ever possibly have a meaningful impact on illegal immigration (which isn't really a *threat* anyway). It's a relatively small number of undocumented immigrants who got here by literally sneaking across the border, which is already excessively patrolled. And then there are the calls for mass deportations. First of all, losing 10 million people would immediately cause an economic recession. Those people represent a big chunk of our economy. Undocumented immigrants also pay more in taxes than they get back, so in the midst of our new recession, we'd have some combination of higher taxes, lowered government services, or just a bigger increase to the national debt. In addition to these conservative-friendly reasons, it's also just straight up cruel. Many \"illegals\" grew up here, know no other home, have no real connections to the country they were born in, and often don't even speak the language of the place they'd be deported too. Deporting undocumented parents/grandparents of citizen children/grandchildren means splitting up families. And for what? Why on earth would we subject everyone to this horror? To appeal to stupid racists who tend to live in abnormally white communities far from the borders and generally don't even know the people whose lives they want to ruin.",
"Lots of people are saying the same thing. No one \"supports\" or is \"in favor\" of illegal immigration. I'm a democrat, and don't support it. What some may favor is common sense immigration policies and procedures. Building a wall IMHO isn't common sense just because it sounds like a huge expense. Someone is only a racist, in the context of immigration, if they use stereotypes to strengthen their argument. Simply saying it negatively effects the economy and could threaten security doesn't make someone a racist.",
"Two reasons: One, I've been through the immigration process trying to get my wife here and it's a massive expensive slog. We had the easiest possible path and it still took us two years and thousands of dollars. We met a couple that were trying to bring her father over to live with them and had been working on this for five years. Two - Who do you think will be a harder working American? Someone who has enough fortitude to pack up everything they own, learn a second language, sneak across multiple national borders and a huge desert ... or someone whose only qualification for being \"American\" is that they got born in the right place and remembered to breathe? An illegal immigrant has had to struggle harder to be an American than I ever have and ever will. Who am I to look down on them? If you get enough booze in me I'll start actually suggesting that we should deport _everyone_ to a random country at age 16 and only those who are able to sneak back in can be citizens. Weed out the lazy.",
"You ask a very fair question because both the right and the left are talking past each other. The right want illegal immigration to stop and want those who are here deported either because they broke the law, they bring down wages, or they are considered bad seeds. The left are more tolerant in their thinking with many favoring an open border policy or amnesty for those who are already here. If we lived in a functioning democracy, we would have the following compromise, which, in my opinion, is the platform democrats need to run on: (1) Tighten borders and immigration control to prevent further illegal immigration. (2) Create strong punishments for illegal immigration to deter future illegal immigration. (3) Illegal immigrants (and their dependents) who have lived here for XX (3? 5?) years or more are granted a path to become a resident alien contingent upon (a) paying a penalty/fee or agreeing to xx hours of community service, (b) committing to only working on the books moving forward, and (c) lack of criminal record (focused on violent or drug crime, not including weed). (4) All other illegal immigrants who do not meet the criteria above will be subject to deportation and actively sought out, with federal funding cut off to local governments that refuse to turn over and identify illegals who are captured for crimes. Personally I think this is a good compromise. It deters illegal immigration in the future, and doesn't penalize those who have managed to live a good life and settle into america. It gives the folk on the \"right\" their pint of blood by kicking out newly immigrated illegals and strongly deterring future illegals and making the path to citizenship come at a cost (a fine/community service hours), while also stopping one of the biggest real problems of illegal immigration - lowering wages (the myth that only illegals will work at those rates and thus no-one else will take those jobs is FUCKING RETARDED - the REASON those jobs are so low paying is because those companies know they can take advantage of illegals - its almost a form of servitude that liberals \"celebrate\" not realizing that we should try to get illegals paid the minimum wage like everyone else which will then push the salaries of those shit jobs upward). It also gives the folk on the \"left\" what they want - to not punish \"good\" illegals.",
"I just care about em. Their place sucks and ours is pretty nice. They want to come here so they can earn an honest living and provide for their families, which I want them to be able to do. I can't see why people would be so upset about sharing our plenty with those who have so little.",
"Nobody is pro-illegal-immigration. Many people are pro-open-borders (which means no restriction on who can come in as long as they do so legally) and many are against deporting those who are already here (whether they came legally or not) as any immigration reform shouldn't be retro-active, especially if they've paid their dues and contributed to society.",
"As a Mwxican I don't care if USA wants to tighten their borders, it's their right to do it, but I care about being called a rapist and a criminal, for no reason, most people jumping the border are parents who want to give their kids a better future. I'm single I can live with a job that pays $10/day, people with kids probably won't, and sometimes, those people are paid $4/day (The minimum wage here).",
"Im not \"for\" illegal immigration. But i think legal immigration should be easier, and i think people who are already here should not be deported if they havent comitted a serious crime. And becsuse of those thoughts, spending 10s of billions of dollars on a border wall is an absolute waste of money.",
"It was applauded when Bill Clinton said it. Its who said it that appears to make the difference...",
"The issue is less that they came over illegally, the issue is that supporters don't think the people who are already here should be sent home. Nobody's denying they broke the law, it's that they're already here, the vast majority who can work do so (often at cheap & manual labor jobs Americans won't take), and that if we send them back to Mexico they'll just come back because their lives, families and resources to make money are here. Kicking them out would screw up the US's economy, especially around food and produce prices.",
"I just think it's a bad investment. The cost of stamping it out would be enormous and the benefit of stamping it out is almost certainly nonexistent and quite likely would negatively impact the economy."
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5ub32e | How do youtube resolutions work? If I choose 1080p and watch it at fullscreen it's showing at 1080p. But if I'm looking at it on the small player what resolution is it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Still 1080p, you monitor just scales it to be whatever size it is, think of a sponge, same amount of sponge but if you fold it in half and squish it to the same height you end up with it in a smaller space"
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5ubb78 | What makes cancer seemingly impossible to cure? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's a couple of major barriers: 1) Cancer, biologically, is almost identical to your own cells, which makes targeting really difficult. We can kill bacteria easily with antibiotics because they're different enough that we can design stuff that poisons them but has no effect on our own cells; this is much, much harder to do with cancer. 2) Cancer isn't one disease, it's thousands of different diseases with similar pathologies. Trying to \"cure cancer\" is like trying to \"cure virus\"; a treatment that works on one type may be totally ineffective on another."
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5ubo2u | As a civil servant, can the POTUS hold private rallies and eject people because they are lawfully protesting him? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Anyone can hold private rallies for any reason in the US. It is a part of the First Amendment right of Assembly. The POTUS does not have his rights eliminated due to his position of power. And any assembly has the right to prevent people from entry to said assembly by requiring the sale or tickets or membership cards, and they have the right to kick anyone they deem disruptive from the assembly. So they cannot ban you from protesting outside the rally, but they can kick you out of the rally itself."
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5ubt8o | How do historians agree on a consensus that a person historically existed based on secondary and tertiary sources alone? | Hannibal, Alexander and Socrates are such persons without contemporary first hand accounts yet historians accept that they have existed by relying on sources which were written long after they died. So how do we know with a good degree of certainty that these people existed? I am asking because I have often seen arguments being forwarded, particularly in religious debates, that there were no first hand sources about the person therefore he/she never existed. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They look for consistency among contemporary and near contemporary accounts. With Socrates, for example, three of his contemporaries wrote of him, and many more took his historicity as granted a mere generation later. Also, at the time, juries in Athens considered of 500 people. If Socrates was an invention of Plato to make a point, there would have been a lot of people running around Athens who knew better. But instead, near contemporary authors take his trial as fact. Compare that him to Jesus, whom he often is. There were many leading authors and historians in and around Judea, like Philo, Pliny, and Seneca, but the earliest accounts range from 55 AD to 112 AD, depending on your standard of evidence. Most of the New Testament has questionable authorship, and almost certainly were not written by whom they have been attributed to. Nor can we be sure exactly when they were written. The earliest secular account was either Josephus in 92 AD or Tacitus in 112 AD. I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusion about Jesus, but to say the evidence for his existence is on par with Socrates greatly misunderstands both the practice and the content of history.",
"I think it is worthwhile to compare it with a person whose historicity has been questioned and is refuted, namely King Arthur. Merely in the Wikipedia article one can see the extensive cross-checking done between historical texts. The absence of consistency - except where one source is probably a \"copy\" of another source - is a key issue. URL_0",
"Because people leave things behind. I mean a bunch of cities got created with the name Alexandria. That had to have a cause. Entire nations started to change significant parts of their culture...hmm I wonder why. Artifacts such as coins or artwork or pottery from one specific location start popping up in other locations. Hmm, there might be a connection. Hmm a bunch of old skeletons now seem to be injured by steel weapons at the same time a new group of people with steel weapons entered an area. Might be a connection. And so forth."
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5ubuey | How do sharks survive when they don't sleep? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For one thing, not all sharks have to keep swimming to continue \"breathing\". Nurse sharks, for example, can and do sit on the bottom all day with no trouble. As for the sharks that do swim all the time, a quick Google search suggests that there's no clear answer on whether or not they sleep at all or how to even define \"sleep\" for them. However, dolphins have similar breathing troubles as sharks because breathing is always under conscious control for them (i.e. they only breathe when they think about it) so they'd drown if they fell asleep like humans do. Since dolphins are so much easier to study than sharks (sharks can't be trained to cooperate with researchers), we know that dolphins get around that problem by only sleeping with half of their brain at a time. At such times they have only one eye open, they tend to hang out at the surface, and they can and do move around sluggishly. I know you didn't ask about dolphins, but since there's no answer for the shark question, I figured I'd throw it in as lagniappe. Source: URL_0",
"They go into a fugue state: half of their brain essentially shuts 'off' to recharge, while the other half remains active."
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5uc00c | What are the benefits/drawbacks to certain products being made "from concentrate". | For example, dish-soap. Some are made from concentrate and others are not. The same goes for food items like juices, which also are/aren't made from concentrate. What does the addition/subtraction of "concentrate" do to the effectiveness of the product? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Part of the reason juice companies use concentrate is so that they can keep their juice tasting similar throughout the season, despite different types of oranges being harvested from different countries even. By mixing the concentrates, it gives a uniform blend to their juice throughout the year. For example, when the winter oranges are harvested, part of their juice is added to summer concentrate, and part of it is frozen or canned. Then during summer, vice versa.",
"Concentrates of liquids like dish soap and juices take up less space on shelves, and in the case of dish soap it cleans better with a smaller amount when it's concentrated. As for juice, it's easier to get a taste you like if you start with concentrate, since you just keep adding water until it tastes best.",
"For soaps and such, it just means it's more concentrated, as the name would imply. Dish soaps and laundry detergents are typically mostly just water. The water added makes it mix easier and measure out easier. It also makes it look like you're buying more of something on the shelf, so you think you're getting a better deal (12oz soap for $1 vs 24oz for $1). Most of the top juice replys are somewhat wrong. Juice (like orange juice) goes bad after not too long, even stored and refridgerated, and orange growing season is not steady all year. So science (florida university in the 1940's) figured out that heat and pressure can remove most of the water and many other compounds/nutrients from the juice to store for much longer, and then add it back when they need to use it. This leaves it tasting not the same as fresh squeezed, though. Also, \"not from concentrate\" juice isn't really much different. Instead of freezing after removing water, they de-oxygenate it and store it as a liquid. This also strips much of the flavor and vitamins out of it, which are added back (usually added back from extractions of the orange peels. This is for concentrate and not from concentrate.) to it after being stored for up to a year.",
"It depends on the product. Concentrate normally means they've taken water out of something to make it 'stronger'. For cleaning products, I suspect it is marketing. The thinking with that would be we assume and associate concentrate with with being stronger, so a concentrate cleaning product must be X times better than a non concentrate product. For juices, again it can be marketing. **NB**:Where I live, juice from a supermarket has no concentrate. If it did, it would be a fruit *drink*, not fruit *juice*. A fruit juice has 100% fruit juice, a fruit *drink* has some fruit juice (usually not much) + all these additives, sugar etc. In this context concentrate means they have taken some water out of the juice to make it stronger. They've then put some of this concentrate juice into the drink along with other things to make a new fruity drink. Another possibility (common in fast food joints), concentrate means they've taken some water out, transported it and added water back in, all to cut down on transport costs. In McDonald's (again, at least where I live), they link the concentrated drink, whether it be Coke or juice, directly into the [dispensers]( URL_0 ). The dispenser also has a water hose and when pressed there is some ratio of water to concentrate that is supposed to come out.",
"I'd like to believe it's more about economics. If you can manufacture and ship 1 unit of product that the end user can turn into, say, 10 units simply by adding water, there's more money to be made by the company, and money saved by the consumer. Water is cheap at the consumer end, but costly to package and ship.",
"[Here is a great clip from the Adam Ruins Everything episode on nutrition about orange juice.]( URL_0 )"
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