q_id
stringlengths
6
6
title
stringlengths
3
299
selftext
stringlengths
0
4.44k
category
stringclasses
12 values
subreddit
stringclasses
1 value
answers
dict
title_urls
listlengths
1
1
selftext_urls
listlengths
1
1
itzx75
why is most butter salted?
I try to limit salt intake and hunt for items with less salt. Non salted butter is sweeter. So, why are most butters salted?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hn5p9", "g5hq62w" ], "text": [ "Depends on where you are. In Germany and Austria for example most butter is unsalted. I rather believe it is a matter of regional taste than scientific background. Also most bread in the US is much sweeter than in Europe.", "Salted butter keeps at room temperature for longer. In the United States, particularly the South where it gets very hot, having butter last without refrigeration was a major benefit." ], "score": [ 6, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
itzyvp
What does Snowflake (the company) do and why is it so popular?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hp018" ], "text": [ "They are a cloud-based data warehouse. Basically, enterprise generate a ton of data, and storing that data is expensive. Snowflake offers to store it all on their servers for a monthly fee and in exchange handle all of the maintenance, backups, etc. They also provide a suite of data analytics so that customers can get insights from the data. Again, having all of the data in one place and having good analytical tools is expensive/difficult, so Snowflake is able to offer that to customers for a fee." ], "score": [ 6 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu006h
What does it mean if someone says they’re a Gestalt nihilist?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hpots", "g5howru" ], "text": [ "Gestalt is a psychology term for seeing thinks as simply as possible while viewing the whole as greater than the sum, such as in the mind. Nihilism is the believe that nothing has explicit purpose or meaning within a specific context. I guess it means they are nihilist who follows gestalt principles. Honestly, it just sounds like some psuedo-intellectual nonsense to me. They person who said this probably watched a couple Wisecracked videos and thinks they're the second coming of Sartre now.", "It means that they don’t really believe that life “means” anything, or has any ultimate reason. But they have this set of “laws”, that are really just like, curious things they’ve noticed about the way we think. And they focus on looking at how the world and other concepts works as a whole, instead of dividing them into little parts." ], "score": [ 14, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu010s
Why does “popping” your ears feel good when you’re congested? Does it even help?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hw71g", "g5hx61x", "g5i12k1", "g5hx97z", "g5hx6fa" ], "text": [ "My understanding on this is the action of popping ones’ ears when congested feels “good” because you are equalizing a pressure imbalance within your sinuses (which your ear is part of). The pressure imbalance can be caused by inflammation of some sort, that causes the sinus system to fill with fluid. In turn this fluid can lead to feeling of pressure or fullness in ones face/ears - ideally you want to find root cause for the inflammation and attack that problem, but for temporary relief the act of popping one’s ears can feel good temporarily.", "Piggy back question. Generally speaking is everyone supposed to be able to do this? I feel like I can't and I don't know if there's something I'm doing incorrectly lol. A few years ago I traveled to Colorado and up the mountains for the first time (lived in Midwest all my my life). Going up was fine but when we came back down I had a lot of uncomfortable pressure and I couldn't pop my ears. We tried every home remedy, drops, and every thing. It eventually equalized i guess but it took more than a day. Sorry about the long post here but I'm just looking for any advice. Never been on a plane either but would love to withojt worrying about my head exploding", "As an ENT, I see patients with this all the time. Popping your ears equalizes the pressure between your middle ear and the outside environment. If the difference in pressure is large enough for a long enough period of time, you can develop what’s called a “middle ear effusion” or “serous otitis media”. This is what happens when people say they have water or fluid in their ears. Essentially, the negative pressure buildup in your middle ear sucks fluid from the mucus membrane lining the middle ear. Fluid will cause a hearing loss, increases risk of infection and developing a hole in your ear drum. Popping your ears helps prevent that fluid from collecting. It’s a good thing. People who have difficulty equalizing that pressure have Eustachian tube dysfunction. The most common cause in adults is allergic rhinitis. Other causes are viral URI and significant changes in environmental pressure such as air travel or scuba diving.", "It's because when the eustachian tube gets blocked, it often creates a vacuum in your inner ear, that gets equalized when you do it. I would recommend against \"popping your ears\" by holding your nose and trying to blow air through the nose while you are congested. There is a risk of spreading bacteria from the nose to the ears and give you an ear infection you could just as easily be without. Instead use nasal spray, the decongestive kind, and yawn/chew gum/suck on something to equalize your ears. If that doesn't do it, consider tolerating the uneasiness of an unpopped ear to save you from the risk of an ear infection.", "As the other comment said, you're making it so the pressure behind and in front of your ear drum are the same, so the tension is released and it feels good - I believe when you pop your ears you are doing so by clearing the tube that connects your ear canal to the sinuses (like fluid full on drains out sometimes) so that clearing can also relieve pressure in your sinuses too and that also feels good. I saw an awesome gif that explained it, if I find it again I'll link it!" ], "score": [ 322, 40, 39, 11, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu0d0n
If the universe is only 13 billion years old, how is the observable universe 96 billion lightyears in diameter?
Title says it all. I was just wondering how this would be possible if the furthest possible distance we could see light coming from is 13 billion lightyears (because it would have only had the time to travel for 13 billion years).
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hpmfd", "g5hr6o1", "g5hvwx3" ], "text": [ "The universe is expanding faster than the speed of light (and that expansion is accelerating). The \"speed of light\" only applies to information travelling *within* spacetime, not to spacetime itself.", "I gave an answer to basically the same question a few days ago which I'll reproduce here: 92(or 96) billion years is how long it would take light to cross this region of space if the region stayed the same size the whole time. But space itself has been expanding, so light was able to cross it a lot \"faster\" back when it was smaller. Imagine you're an ant walking along a very long elastic band, and the band is being slowly stretched outwards. With a tiny ant felt pen, you draw a mark on the rubber band where you're standing now. Then you start walking away from the mark. a minute later, you look back and now the mark is a good 5 minutes' walking distance behind you! How did you cover all that distance so fast? That's how the light of the observable universe was able to reach us from such distant places in such a short time. At the time that ancient light was emitted, the places used to be less distant.", "The universe is expanding so even if the universe is 13 or so billion years, the light travelled further than this. The Observable universe is just the distance for those 13 or so billion years light to reach us, the actual universe could be even bigger or even infinite. The reason is that the speed of expansion of the universe isn't limited by the speed of light. I'll use made up numbers, because calculating the real one is WAY out of my pay grade. The Galaxy GN-z11 is one of if not the most distant object we confirmed. It's 13.39 billion light year away from us. 13.39 billion light years is the distance the light emitted by GN-z11 took to reach us, but that's not the actual position of GN-z11 at this very moment. So let say that at some point in the past GN-z11 formed at 2 light years away from the Earth. Technically the light would only have to travel that distance to reach us, but the universe is expanding. So as the light travel, the distance kept increasing and it actually took 13.39 billion year for that light to travel to where we are today. But as the light was travelling toward us GN-z11 was going away from us because of the same expansion. Today, GN-z11 is actually 32 billion light year away from us if it even exist at this point we have no idea. What we see 13.39 billion light year away is what the GN-z11 looked liked 13.39 billion year in the past, not what it look like or where it is right now." ], "score": [ 16, 10, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu13cz
why do people get sleepy from 2-5PM but wide awake from 2-5AM sometimes? Why isn’t it the opposite always?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5i23cc", "g5inpj0", "g5i22fd", "g5ivhsk" ], "text": [ "When you eat, your body has to do work to digest the food. This is why you sometimes feel tired after lunch. Most people don't eat in the middle of the night, so this isn't going to be a problem then, but when it's dark and quiet, lots of people get worried about things that they are too distracted to think about in the daytime, so they feel awake thinking about them because worry makes you alert to look out for danger.", "No expert but I heard sleep scientist Matthew Walker say that humans evolved with biphasic sleep and our modern workdays do not allow for it so we get sleepy but have to push through during the day. The staying up at night may be due to stress for sure ( too much on our minds ) but also our exposure to blue wavelengths ( blue light from tv / phones ) which keep us up. Naturally, blue wavelengths are strongest/more present in the morning I think, so it’s triggering our brains to wakefulness. Again, no expert, just a fan of Matthew Walker’s book “why we sleep”", "I AM NO EXPERT. LIKE AT ALL. But there are a few things I know of that might contribute. Main one for sleepy in the afternoon is that you get sleepy after eating: Disgesting food take a lot of energy, so you're body likes to relax after a lot of food (lots of people like afternoon naps because of this). To add to this, if you eat a lot of food, especially with lots of sugar, you can have a sugar crash, where the body makes a lot of extra insulin to process the sugar but ends up making too much, making you sleepy. Other contributing factors could be a bad sleep schedule, or the fact that you've been doing something fairly boring for a while when you get sleepy in the afternoon.", "Because that's the natural way humans want to sleep. With the industrial revolution, people became tied to their schedules since clocks and artificial light were available. This disrupted the natural sleep patterns. You can read more about it here: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )" ], "score": [ 29, 12, 5, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu1ftz
How do rivers flow?
I have always believed that rivers flowed because of an elevation change from a higher elevation to a lower elevation. If this is true, wouldn't the water levels eventually even out? or are there so many natural events such as rain and hurricanes which bring the water back up to the higher elevation?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hwcei" ], "text": [ "> are there so many natural events such as rain and hurricanes which bring the water back up to the higher elevation? Yup. Precipitation and natural springs continuously bring more water up to higher elevations." ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu1g5s
Not being mentally fit to stand trial
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5hx0z0" ], "text": [ "Hard to really comment without the article as laws vary from location to location and we can't be sure if you're interpreting the article correctly. In general, if you're found incompetent to stand trial, generally speaking you will be remanded to a mental health facility until and if you become mentally fit to stand trial. At that point, you will stand trial, not get off scot free. It's possible that \"applied for time back in society\" in this case refers to the guy requesting bail, and that bail being denied - which is all very typical in criminal cases. Edit with more relevant info: At that point, it's possible that the defense could argue that the defendant was not in a mental state in which they were aware of what they were doing. Such arguments are rarely successful but it happens. The idea is that there needs to be intent to commit an act which is illegal - not to be confused with intent to commit an illegal act. So if the dude was aware that he was killing/harming people - even if he thought it was okay, and the prosecution could prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, he'd still be guilty of murder and sentenced. If they could not prove that the dude had any clue what he was doing at the time, he'd likely be either brought up on lesser charges as well or found innocent of the more severe charges. But a lot of this depends on the specific circumstances involved." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu278w
Why do people talk different in old movies and how did they do it?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5i0npx" ], "text": [ "You're probably talking about the \"mid-atlantic\" accent, which was a sort of a made-up accent that people in the media used to clearly communicate to both British and American speakers." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu2bkm
How do teeth not get smaller and degrade?
How come you can chip your tooth and it will not grow back but you can eat hard foods for your entire life and your teeth do not degrade at all?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5i1qn2", "g5i1kv7", "g5i1nin" ], "text": [ "They really do mate, even with amazing dental care you teeth can still suffer a lot of wear and tear over the years, certain habits are going to do it more damage than others of course. Looking after your gums is mega important, they can hold your worn teeth in fine if they have been looked after.", "Teeth do degrade. That’s why the dentist industry is a thing. Most people have crowns, caps, and fillings. If we just had our natural teeth, eating our modern diets, with no dental care our teeth would look pretty [hideous.]( URL_0 ) .", "You have enamel on your teeth. It’s the hardest tissue in the body and protects your teeth from decay. Cavities are holes in the enamel that need to be fixed before tooth decay happens" ], "score": [ 11, 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [ "http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Hillbilly+teeth+" ], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu2tr8
why do people with down syndrome have the same facial structure?
I dint mean this to be rude, but I want to know why people with down syndrome look similar. I looked it up on Google however it gave me too much gibberish to read
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5igyok", "g5i44zp", "g5i4rqp", "g5ie6nu" ], "text": [ "Probably not the best analogy, But think of the X and Y chromosome like colours. People have two chromosomes (colours) and get different features because mixing different colours makes different colours. Red and blue and blue and yellow make different colours. If you add another chromosome, you are adding a third colour. This colour is usually brownish. It doesn't matter what colours you started with, they end up looking similar when you mixed three.", "Downs is caused by having an extra chromosome. That extra DNA causes the developmental changes that lead to the facial structure characteristics of Down’s. The “why” goes into how the chromosomes code for different protein products that, when over-expressed, cause developmental changes.", "Like williams syndrome, Downs changes the way that genes are structured to have its neurological effect. The changing of a set of genes can morph the way the body expresses the others.", "I’ve explained this to people before and sometimes I see the same fear where people think they’re being discriminatory. Have no fear, some of the distinct features are a part of the syndrome." ], "score": [ 39, 34, 6, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu347s
How do employment statistics account for a person who loses a high paying job, goes on unemployment, then off unemployment for a much lower paying job?
Ziprecruiter reported temporary positions have gone from 8% to 28% of listings. Many workers are transitioning from lost full time to freelance work. If high paying, full time jobs are being replaced with low paying jobs without benefits then this kind of job growth doesn't reflect an economic recovery but a transition in the workforce. How is this reflected in reports of job growth and unemployment levels?
Economics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5i6gwl", "g5i6ljl" ], "text": [ "A bunch of people going from good high-paying jobs to a bunch of awful low-paying jobs don't show up in the unemployment statistics at all. Usually they count U3 unemployment, which counts only people with no job but who are looking for a job as unemployed. U6 is a more honest statistic, because it covers people who gave up looking and people who have a job but are still looking for another one.", "It doesn't really, and that's one of the limitations of unemployment numbers... even before the current issue, there was the issue of underemployment with people working jobs below their previous income, below their education/training. Some polling can try to estimate levels of underemployment, but it's not really in the official unemployment stats. I do think that there are official stats for those working part time who want fulltime employment, but not anything that tracks qualitative lesser paid/status job replacement employment." ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu3in7
What are Internet cookies?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5i90ll" ], "text": [ "Cookies are basically a way for websites to track and store data on you. So they can track things like what articles you read, what adds you click, what things you search. Websites will say that this benefits the users because it means they can give you adds more targeted to you. But at the same time they’ll also turn around and sell that information onto other companies. For the majority of people cookies really aren’t the end of the world, but anytime you see those pop ups there’s usually a button/link like “manage my cookies” where you can go and turn them all off." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu3lq4
How does the delivering country get paid for international mail that was paid for in the sending country?
Economics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ics23" ], "text": [ "there is an international organization called the Universal Postal Union that works to negotiate a set of fees called terminal dues. terminal dues are the fees one postal system pays another for the destination country delivery. the system has been massively unbalanced for years unfortunately." ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu4067
What’s the difference between race and ethnicity?
Like people say being Latino is an ethnicity and being black or white is a race. Every time someone explains it to me I don’t understand.
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5icdx9", "g5icqn6", "g5j34lv" ], "text": [ "Really both are social constructs—i.e. what “ethnicity” or “race” you are depends on where you are in the world and when we’re talking about. However, today, “race” is how a person would be perceived on sight—white, black, Asian, etc—while ethnicity refers more specifically to cultural and linguistic background. So within white you could say someone is ethnically German, Swedish, Czech, Circassian, etc.", "Race is a social construct based on skin color. Ethnicity is a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition. So you could, for example, be White (race), Cajun (ethnicity), and American (nationality).", "I'd say it's even more complicated than this. You have 4 aspects. Race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture. Race is your visible physical features that are common to a particular people group. This is what we typically categorize as \"white\" or \"black\" etc. Ethnicity refers to the historical background of where your ancestry is found. For example, if your parents (and their parents and their parents) were born in Mexico, you'd probably classify yourself as Mexican from an ethnicity perspective (or possibly a people group that's more specific, such as Zapotec or Mestizo). Nationality refers to the country you currently reside in and you claim to be a resident/citizen of. Culture is a similar set of traditions and traits of a particular people group. People often conflate culture with ethnicity, but that's not necessarily the same. As an example, if your parents were born and raised in India, moved to North Dakota, and you were born there and raised in the surrounding culture, you likely don't sound or act much like your parents did when they were growing up (or even how they might sound today) and likely have different traditions. Often, your personal culture will end up being an amalgamation of your parents' past culture that they kept and shared with you as well as the cultural elements of your community that you were raised in. Your culture is fluid and can change as you have different experiences. Your nationality can change. But your ethnicity and your race are relatively fixed." ], "score": [ 13, 8, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu4xp1
why does a punch to the jaw knock you out?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5iiqcf" ], "text": [ "A punch to the chin knocks you out. It rotates your head in a way that smashes brain against the skull. The point of the chin provides maximum leverage and faster rotation." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu58i2
What does different wavelengths of the electromagnetic waves measure? For example, when we say the wavelength of the visible light is 380 to 740 nanometers, what is actually physically at that length? Is it the wiggle of photons?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ilrss" ], "text": [ "It measures distance between oscillations of the electromagnetic field. The photon isn't moving back and forth through space. The photon moves in a straight line and the peaks and troughs of the electromagnetic field have some frequency/wavelength, and those peaks and troughs are whats being measured." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu5k27
What is the difference between Occam's Razor and Occam's Broom?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5io62m", "g5io5jf" ], "text": [ "Occam's Razor states that for any two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler is preferred and indeed more likely to be correct. So you're using a razor to cut away unnecessary factors in an explanation. Why did the car crash? Because it was blue and hit a patch of black ice at 70 mph. So what does it matter that it was blue? Occam's Broom is a play on Occam's Razor, invented by Sidney Brenner that states inconvenient facts are ignored (swept under the rug) by the intellectually dishonest. Climate deniers love to use temperature charts from the fall months to show how the earth is cooling, ignoring HUNDREDS OF YEARS of global temperature recordings (thank the Swedes for keeping great historic records for no other reason at the time than \"just because\"). By focusing in on a period of 3 months, and ignoring all recorded temperature data that contradicts their claim, they're intellectually dishonest. They're cherry picking data that is convenient to their narrative.", "**Occam's Razor** a somewhat dated idea of science, where the most simple explanation is automatically the best/correct explanation **Occam's Broom** a pratice in which inconvinient facts (so ones that dont support their theory) are simply ignored by scientists. Its a wordplay from occams razor." ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu5n8q
Why do people often see bugs crawling around themselves/the room whilst hallucinating?
My mother works on a transplant ward as a nurse and often tells stories of delirious and hallucinating patients on certain medications seeing bugs crawling up their skin or around the room. It is also mentioned a lot in the media and articles about people hallucinating be it through drugs or mental illness. I'm wondering what causes people to have a common vision during a seemingly random event.
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5iudf5" ], "text": [ "Everyone \"hallucinates\" all the time. Just what we hallucinate is most often is close enough to what's actually there that we don't even notice. We all have a blind spot where our optic nerve is that our brain constantly makes up what must be there given the context clues about the things it does see. [With certain optical illusions]( URL_0 ) the difference between what we see and what's actually there become obvious. Ever thought you saw something like your cat out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn your focus on it the object turns out to be a log? You brain took minimal information, a vaguely cat shaped blob, and filled in the gaps with what it expects your cat to look like. When the brain has less computational power, like when under drugs, it gets worse at guessing what is there. It's likely to see hair on arms and then 'fill in the gaps' to assume there are insects there." ], "score": [ 11 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4049214/Can-dots-Experts-reveal-blind-spot-optical-illusion-say-shows-brain-makes-see.html" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu5wei
What exactly do people do in office jobs where they spend all their on computers?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ips6l", "g5ipzz1" ], "text": [ "That's like asking what people do for jobs not on computers - tons and tons of different things. Maybe they coordinate getting product from point A to point B. Maybe they set up installations. Maybe they deal with customer service/complaints/technical support Maybe they deal with invoicing, or paying invoices. Maybe they deal with sales and marketing Maybe they do graphic design Maybe they coordinate manufacturing activities and order raw materials and set up work orders for completed goods. Maybe they're engineers that design products, build product models and documentation. Maybe they create documents for customers or the company. Maybe they're Human Resources and deal with everything between benefits for employees to dealing with employee issues, payroll, etc. All of these fields and many more often have varying different tasks within these specialties, some have some room for advancement and some have a lot.", "Write code, debug code, test code, and join business requirement meetings about what the code I write should be doing. That's about it." ], "score": [ 9, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu618f
How does sadness translate into tears?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5juzoo" ], "text": [ "distress leads to activation of [autonomic]( URL_0 ) (e.g. sympathetic and parasympathetic) nervous system which powers the lacrimal glands that create tears." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652637/figure/F6/" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu61vh
Why does water level lower when ice melts in a glass but rise a result of polar ice caps melting?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ir2xo", "g5iqr54" ], "text": [ "Most of the world's ice is actually on land (Greenland and Antarctica), with the remaining ice floating in the Arctic. As the land based ice melts, it flows down into the ocean, increasing the amount of water present.", "Ice displaces water (as all solids do). However, ice already in water displaces its own Mass, so the water level will not rise as the ice melts. But, if you were to add a bunch of ice (like a glacier that is on the land and not in the ocean), it will still displaces water, thus raising the water level." ], "score": [ 19, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu61y2
How does salt work?
ELI5: How does it work that salt makes everything tastier until a certain point? And why do many things taste like nothing without salt?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ivt0x" ], "text": [ "Think of your taste buds like the LCD pixels on a TV, except instead of RGB it is Salty, Sweet, Bitter, Umami, and Sour. Each type of taste bud has nerve endings that specialize in picking up different types of chemicals in your food. But it isn’t just 5 flavors....like your TV used light and dark and three colors to create a few million shades, your taste buds combine differences in the five flavors to help you identify every food on earth. Bitter and Sweet are opposing tastes. Salt suppresses the bitterness and enhances the perception of bright and sweet in how your brain interprets the flavor. Since typically our brain registers foods we shouldn’t eat as bitter this is immediately read as “the food tastes much better”. A second important component of flavor is smell. Salt changes the solubility of aroma molecules letting your nose in on the fun as well as spiking one of the five taste buds." ], "score": [ 8 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu6ah9
Supercomputers
My calculator can preform functions in fractions of a second. So why do we need to build huge computers to do big calculations, like weather patterns, etc.? Please explain for someone who barely knows how to add and subtract.
Mathematics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5itxxa", "g5iu0g2" ], "text": [ "It's not so much the \"size\" of any given calculation, but the sheer number of tiny calculations. One of the main uses for supercomputers is solving complicated equations. If you remember your algebra, the goal was often to \"solve\" for a particular variable by getting it all by itself on one side of the equation. This is not always possible. However, we can still \"solve\" the equation when this happens, essentially by guessing at which values satisfy the equation, then checking to see if we were correct. Computers are great at plugging numbers into equations, so we just let them guess a bunch of values and tell us which ones worked the best. (The reality is much more complicated - we don't just tell the computer to guess randomly - there are an incredible number of fancy algorithms to reach the answer faster by paying attention to which guesses worked well and which didn't) With a single variable, this isn't so hard, but two is much harder, and three is even harder than that, etc. This is called the \"curse of dimensionality\". For a complicated mathematical model like weather prediction, it can take billions and trillions of guesses before we get an acceptable answer, and the faster each guess goes, the faster we have our answer.", "A fancy calculator (Ti 84 Plus) might be able to do 91 calculations with decimal numbers per second. Complex calculations, like weather predictions, might involve quadrillions (1,000,000,000,000,000), quntillions (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) and many times, far more calculations, for a single small event. Doing a quadrillion calculations on a calculator can easily take over 350,000 years. That's why we need supercomputers that can do 415 quadrillion (415,000,000,000,000,000) calculations per second, which can do the same quadrillion calculations your calculator would need 350k years to do, in about 1/415th of a second (0.0024s). TL;dr: Big calculations need so many calculations to be done that it would take many thousands of years to do on even the fastest of standard computers." ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu6mti
please: Ayn Rand's Objectivism Philosophy
EDIT: Thanks everyone!
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5iyedu", "g5iv0kh", "g5jfb5b", "g5j47ki" ], "text": [ "Objectivism promotes selfishness as the ultimate ideal. It holds that the only moral choice is to act in your own self interest at all times, and that acts in the interest of others, or society as a whole, are immoral.", "When you take care of yourself you are in a better position to voluntarily take care of others. However taking care of others should ultimately lead to a better scenario for yourself to continue to do so.", "Objectivism is as Rand described: \"the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” Basically this means man should act in his own self interest. Instead of asking “what’s my purpose in life” Objectivism would say, “You.” You are the purpose for your life, and creating is the best thing you can do.", "Everything you do is and should be based on selfish motives. You help others because it makes you feel good, not because it’s the right thing to do. You save someone from drowning because you see yourself as someone who would do that and it would make you feel bad not to. Conversely, people who insist that you do things for altruism are lying to you and/or themselves by trying to manipulate you into doing things you don’t want to do." ], "score": [ 12, 9, 5, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu6n9x
I have a laptop with two drives and I don’t know how that works.
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5iund0" ], "text": [ "Put windowsand maybe 1 or 2 daily games on ssd, put the rest on hdd. Steam makes it trivial to move installations back and forth when your main games change." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu6qx3
where does electricity come from? How’s it made?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ivsxq", "g5iwioe" ], "text": [ "Grid-level generation comes from generators, which are just big motors that are being forced to turn instead of powering something. There is a magnet turning in a coil of wire. In this action, the magnets basically drag elections through the coil of wire. This flow of electrons is what we call electricity. Edit: wind, water, or steam from geothermal sources or burning fossil fuels are what turn the magnets. As for batteries, they're basically magic.", "Electricity is the movement of electrons between atoms. This makes electricity a type of kinetic energy (along with heat, which is the movement of atoms instead of just the movement of electrons). As energy cannot be created or destroyed, electricity isn’t really made; it is harnessed or transformed. This is usually done by putting two materials near each other with a large difference in electrons and a conductive surface between them. The electrical difference will induce a current as the electrons flow from one place to the other, balancing out the number of electrons in both places. It’s kind of like if we pour water in one end of a bathtub, it will flow to evenly cover the entire bottom of the tub instead of piling up at one end." ], "score": [ 8, 6 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu7gus
Why is it that when you have a poor connection while streaming a video, the video quality may go down, but the audio quality never does?
If you're watching YouTube on your phone on data, or just bad WiFi, it might turn the video quality down to 240p or 144p, but the audio quality is always the same, no matter the video quality setting or your connection, it either loads or doesn't load. Why? Is it not as easy to compress audio as it as video? Is it just not worth it?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j1496" ], "text": [ "Audio small, video big. When the pipe get small, the audio still fits in, but the video does has to squeeze." ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu7wx3
The benefits of OOP over procedure based
ELI5: In object oriented programming, why would I create and instantiate classes to perform a task, when I can write a function and just call it to do the same thing. What is the advantage to OOP over procedural programming? I've researched the hell out of this, and read a few books on it, but as soon as I sit down to write some code it's like my mind blanks on how / why to do a class and my inner voice just says "go with a function instead..."
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j5q9b", "g5j33tq" ], "text": [ "The best example from me for OOP is \"Do I care what the object actually is?\". Yes, you can say \"I have a function which connects to a database and closes it for every kind of database I know: mysql_connect() and mysql_close(), pgsql_connect() and pgsql_close() etc.\" and since in my code I know which database I have I call the right one.\". And then one day you (or a customer, or somebody else who uses your code) goes from \"I want to change from mysql to pgsql\" and you have to go through you code to replace mysql_ with pgsql_ and then it works for them. Little bit annoying to replace everything, but fine. Now it you had taken an OOP approach, you would have said at the beginning \"I need to do the following for every database class I know: connect() and close(). And then you write a database class which says \"I have the connect() and close() functions\". And then for every database you support you inherit that database class and implement the connect() and close() functions which call the mysql_connect()/pgsql_connect() and mysql_close()/pgsql_close(). Now when you initialize your generic database object, you make it of the right mysql-type because you use the mysql database. And when your customer/college/user uses it, they make it of the right pgsql-type because they use that. Does it change anything in your code? No, because you only deal with the generic database class, not with the specific database class. So, functional programming: You need to care in detail with what you're working with, OOP programming: You don't care what the implementation details are of the object itself, outside it you just work with the abstraction and functions provided.", "The main advantage of OOP is the ability to track an infinite number of things. I can have 30,000 transactions going on simaltainiously, but it's exactly the same amount of work to program as 1 transaction." ], "score": [ 5, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu7z49
What the fuck is cheese?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j2sfy", "g5j3s6o", "g5j7084" ], "text": [ "Essentially cheese is the concentrated protein and fat from milk. We concentrate it with enzymes from bacteria and/or acids and sometimes add spices, herbs, or other flavorings.", "Ok so first lets talk milk: As you probably know, milk is white. You might think that the colour comes from the fat in the milk but it actually comes from the proteins in it as it is very protein rich. Proteins can become what we call denatured under the right circumstances (e.g. egg proteins denature under heat making the egg become solid). Proteins can also get denatured from acidity (which is why milk curds up when mixed with vinegar or lemon juice). Now lets get to the cheese: To make cheese you gotta denature milk proteins by either A. Using an acidic compound (for fresh cheeses like mozzarella) or B. Make bacteria produce lactic acid by growing in the milk (like in affined cheeses like in brie) then you press up those curds leaving only the proteins and some fat and PRESTO, ya got cheese and the rest of the liquid can be thrown away. Extra credits: if you feel fancy you can let your cheese mould up a bit to make some blue cheese TLDR: Add vinegar to milk and just press it all together", "Milk is basically a mixture of protein, fat, lactose and water. If you distort the protein molecules using acid or enzymes, they get all tangly and clump up with each other, like a twisted wreck of chickenwire on the molecular scale. This messy tangled structure binds the fat molecules within it, letting most of the water escape. If you've ever seen sour milk go all lumpy, that's what's happening - though the random bacteria involved generally make it taste horrible. Strain out the water, and you're left with this scrambled-egg-like *curd*. Add salt, pack it into moulds and let *very specific* strains of bacteria eat the lactose, and they release lactic acid and a range of other chemicals that taste 'cheesy'. Leave it to very slowly dry out in very controlled conditions, and it forms the solid spongy stuff you know as cheese. There's a million different specific details - fat content of the milk, temperatures, curdling agent, handling of the curd, salt level, bacteria, storage - that determine what kind of cheese you get, from parmesan to camembert to cream cheese." ], "score": [ 24, 7, 6 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu81tt
Why do recorded voices never sound exactly like actual people talking?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j3e45" ], "text": [ "It depends on the microphone they are recorded with and the device playing them back. Also, it depends on the environment they recorded in and the environment you are listening in. In a nutshell, all these factors create frequency discrepancies that our ears can easily pick up on. Now if you mean more specifically why does your own recorded voice sound so different from hearing yourself talk, it's because the sound is resonating differently inside your own body than it does when it enters the atmosphere." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu88g9
why does an equal quantity of alcohol do nothing on some days, give me a buzz on other days, and put me to sleep on other days?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j80xd" ], "text": [ "There are variables in your day that will never be constant. Those variables are what will effect your relationship with alcohol. Those variables can include: how much water you had that day, how much sleep you got, how much added sugar you consumed, stress levels, hormones, amount of exercise you got, your mood, when you ate last, how fast you drank the alcohol, and much more. If you have a subway sandwich to eat on Thursday night and only had 5 hours of sleep the previous night, 5 shots might make you extremely tired or lazy. If you eat nothing all day and drink on an empty stomach, 5 shots could get you quite buzzed. You likely haven't experienced any days that were *exactly* alike. Sort of like how you'll never shuffle a deck of cards twice with the same order, too many variables." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu8cz1
Why do spiders build webs in abandoned/vacant buildings without a lot of airflow?
Having all the windows and doors sealed for a long time wouldn’t it make the likelihood of catching bugs almost nonexistent?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j5uv9" ], "text": [ "No building is sealed as tightly as you think it is, especially an abandoned building that hasn't had regular maintenance on its door gaskets and such. If a spider can get in, so can other bugs it can eat. The bottom of the food chain is either mold or dust (specifically the dead skin in dust). Various bugs including dust mites eat those things, which are abundant in an abandoned building. Then other bugs eat those teensy bugs and then spiders eat the medium bugs There's a whole ecosystem that's so tiny, you don't even see it!" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu8fnr
How does the Farmer’s Almanac work?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j5rzs" ], "text": [ "The actual methods used to predict weather in the Farmer's Almanac are trade secrets that the publisher refuses to reveal. Most likely the predictions based on a combination of anecdotal evidence, folklore, historical analysis of weather patterns, and blind guess work. The almanac claims it's upwards of 85% accurate but scientific studies on the almanac reveal it's claims are only about 50% accurate, which is as accurate as randomly guessing the weather. To put this in perspective that's about as accurate as putting a billboard of different weather patterns in front of your cat and ask him to point at what he thinks the weather will be like July 23rd next year. So while the almanac may be an interesting read, and have some interesting stories and articles, it's not a reliable source of information." ], "score": [ 9 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu8vin
why does turning off and on your technology usually resolve issues that your tech is having?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j8k9t", "g5j8mg6" ], "text": [ "Most tech is “state based”, meaning if there’s an error (say, can’t open a file on your computer), it’ll remain in that error until it’s reset to a fresh state. If you have a tub you’re trying to fill up with water and when you turn the tap on, it starts to leak, you close the tab, fix the hole, then turn it back on (incredibly simplistic metaphor because it’s how I understand it).", "Most tech basically has 2 copies of it's operating system. It has a \"pristine\" copy that lives in it's hard drive, and doesn't really get messed with. Each time you turn it on it loads a copy of this into RAM (memory), and that copy is highly volatile as it changes with each action you take. This changes eventually cause instability, and it breaks. Then you reboot, and it reloads a pristine copy for you to start over with. To really make this \"like I'm 5\", think of it like a child's blocks. The hard drive is a toy box that has the blocks stored all perfect and neat. Each time you turn it on it, you move the blocks onto a table where the child gets to play with them. Each action the child takes leaves the blocks more and more scattered about. When you reboot, you put them all back in the box nice and tidy, and start fresh." ], "score": [ 18, 14 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu8vl6
Why can't cameras record in 4k at high frame rates
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5j8u0g" ], "text": [ "Imagine recording 1 pixel at 60fps, your pixel is made of 3 colors, each with 1 byte of info, so you have to have 3x60 or 180 bytes per second. If you double that to 120fps, your storage requirements also double, and if you add more pixels, the storage requirements also multiply by the number of pixels. So wanting 2x the pixel density as 1080p, at 2x the frame rate means that you need 4x the storage. They can do it, but it's super memory intensive." ], "score": [ 5 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu90rz
- Why does food taste so much different/better when made in a cast iron skillet than a regular stainless steel skillet?
Last week I made sloppy joes in a stainless steel skillet and it came out well. My wife liked them so much I made them again this week for my brother in law and his girlfriend. The second time I used his Cast Iron skillet. There was a measurable difference in quality. I can't figure out why.
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jdwco", "g5js9qq" ], "text": [ "Could have been how the iron could have distributed the heat. If it's a well-used skillet and is treated properly, it could spices/fats/juice from previous meals. The iron is porous, so it holds onto those things, and properly kept cast iron isn't supposed to be \"cleaned\" in the traditional sense, just gently scrubbed with oil and coarse salt, so the flavors don't get washed away from soap.", "Did you brown the ground meat first? You get much better browning with cast iron than with nonstick. Meat has to stick to the pan to get a real sear on it, so nonstick doesn’t work well. Plus it takes a high temperature, which isn’t great for Teflon-coated nonstick pans." ], "score": [ 9, 6 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu98vx
How do marriage certificates work?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jb7on" ], "text": [ "You get the certificate in the town where your marriage happens. But the certificate is recognized in all fifty states." ], "score": [ 6 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu99wz
Why does taking hormones (like estradiol) change someone’s face who is born male, yet the same hormone not seem to affect the face of someone who was born female and is taking it?
From what I understand, some trans women take the same hormone (estradiol) as women undergoing some fertility treatments as well as women undergoing hormone replacement therapy due to health issues or age. Why does estradiol have a drastic feminizing effect on the faces of trans women but no effect on those who were born female? I would think that both groups would see the feminizing effect, even if one group was much more subtle, but that does not seem to be the case. Why is this?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jc881", "g5ju4nb", "g5jgmi4" ], "text": [ "One of the main effects (one of many) Estrogen will have on the body of an MtF person is fat distribution. Biological male and females will store fat in differing areas based purely on hormones; being Estrogen and Testosterone. Females will generally have a rounder, more softer facial features due to the fat distribution and bone structure in the cheeks and other areas. Someone who is undergoing transition will start to mirror these features, as their body adapts to the new hormone and disturibute fat accordingly. A person who is female from birth already has these features; that is why you generally see no change. Someone who is transition to female also has access to various surgeries that help adjust things like prominent, male identifying, bone features if they wish. Expensive though.", "Cis women's faces are affected by estradiol, but that's already normally present during puberty so adding some more when your body stops producing it as you age isn't going to change anything (at least as far as the face is concerned). It does change trans women's faces because it wasn't there before. Kinda like painting a red shed with red paint doesn't change much, but changing a green shed with red paint does.", "Because the cis woman already has estrogen in their system, and it has had any effects it's going to have on their appearance. When these women ultimately go through menopause, if they don't take estrogen supplements they're likely to see these effects face - their faces are likely to become thinner and more angular, because without that estrogen in their system the fat starts to migrate away from their face. Trans women are starting out without that estrogen in their system, plus they have testosterone which has effects of its own. So their face starts out more angular and with less fat, then when they start estrogen treatment fat migrates to their face and changes its shape." ], "score": [ 4, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iu9qgm
how diodes work in electronics
I have a really basic understanding that diodes act like check valves in an electronic system, but how do they actually work?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jgqxj", "g5jfvzr" ], "text": [ "It's all about charge carriers. A diode is a P-N junction: one side is in excess of holes or +'ve carriers (P) and the other side in excess of electrons or -'ve carriers (N). Applying a negative charge on the P side and positive charge on the N side pulls (opposite charges attract) their respective carries away from the junction so no conduction can occur. Applying a positive charge on the P side and a negative charge on the N side pushes (because similar charge repell) their respective carriers across the junction so you have conduction. So in the end you can describe conduction through a diode as either a flow of holes in one direction or a flow of elections in the other. Late Edit.", "So you have two materials, both of them semiconductors. One of them is \"doped\" with a material that makes it have a higher affinity for negative charges, and the other is doped such that it has a higher affinity for positive charges. To make a diode, you connect both of these together. When you do that, the boundary becomes neutral Then, when you put an electric potential through the diode, the behavior is determined by which side the current comes from. If current flows into the negative side, then it allows the negative side to flow into this neutral region, decreasing its size, and allows current out the other side. If however, your current flows into the positive side, it blocks the current by pulling the different charges away from the neutral region, increasing its size, and blocking the current from flowing." ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuairz
Why do old music recordings sound good but old speaking recordings sound bad
I'm listening to a piece of classical music recorded in 1968, and the quality is really very good. Its comparable to modern recordings, at least from my phone speaker. But a recording with a human voice in it from 1968 would not be comparable to today's recordings at all. why? Edit: it was a Brahms quintet, for more context.
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jkkwl", "g5jlz1z", "g5jtunt" ], "text": [ "I’m no expert, but I’m assuming that there is a lot more money to be made with popular music than there was with spoken word, so it’s presumably a difference in equipment affordability. It’s like the difference between a lowly podcaster in his basement and genuine recording studio.", "Just the time and money that went into the recording. The vocals in music from the same time frame sound as good as today's. Really most of it is the same equipment even. Today's industry standard voice mic is the Neumann U87 which was first made in 1967. The much more expensive and somewhat better U67 was made in 1960. The same goes for the Preamps and a lot of the other gear. So as to why many voice recordings from that era sound poor is because is they were done cheaply and usually not in a studio.", "I think it depends from recording to recording. If you are comparing studio recorded music to publically recorded speeches - with the type of microphone, ambience, noise etc. it's going to be different. I bet if you compare it to any properly recorded speeches, you'll find them to be of good quality as well. For [example]( URL_0 )." ], "score": [ 8, 6, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [ "https://youtu.be/tntqLTR3fYA" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuaiwm
What is cash poor?
Economics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jkjxg", "g5jko9z", "g5k2q10" ], "text": [ "If you own a $10 million mansion but only have $100 in your account, you're cash poor. It doesn't mean you're poor; it means the vast majority of your wealth is tied up in a non-liquid asset, such as a house.", "I’m in no way certified to answer this question, but I believe cash poor means all your money is tied up in assets, like properties, cars, homes, businesses, etc, and that you don’t actually have much money in a bank account.", "Let’s say you 100k cash. That’s your net worth. You invest all that money in to stocks, gold etc. now you didn’t lose that net worth. You are still worth 100k and most likely more because the value of tend to go up over time if you invest wisely. Now on paper you are worth 100k+ but you can’t buy anything it. You can’t go to taco bell and buy food with stocks. You are cash broke because you can’t preform a normal transaction. Sure some places you might be able to to but for the most part you can’t buy anything. That’s cash broke." ], "score": [ 20, 8, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuajji
Is there an optimal shape for flying through space?
On a planet an object flying through the atmosphere has to deal with resistance. Since there is no resistance in a vacuum is there an optimal shape for an object going through space?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jm72a" ], "text": [ "There could be. Thinking square or spherical maximizes internal volume is cool but if you're worried about striking dust or derbies at 200,000kmph then long and thin makes more sense. But what if you're using solar winds to pull you along? What if you solare radiation is your only means to keep the interior warm?" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuastw
could the current focus on cleaning and increased use of disinfects create a new class of superbugs like MRSA
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5joydv" ], "text": [ "It isn't likely. The issue with antibiotic resistance is sort of like if you took a generation of rats and killed off the slowest 80% in running away from danger. Then the next generation is descended from those fast rats that survived and will tend to be a bit faster, and you killed off another 80% of the slowest, etc. Repeat for many generations and you end up with a population of fast rats. Cleaning agents don't really present that sort of danger. It is like if you took that population of rats and shot 80% of them with a shotgun, and repeated for many generations. If a rat gets blasted or not doesn't really have anything to do with its innate features but is just luck of the draw. It also isn't likely that a rat is going to spontaneously develop a significant resistance to shotgun blasts in order to proliferate in the population." ], "score": [ 8 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuaxu0
How does Borax kill ants?
All I can find online is that “it disrupts their digestive system,” but what exactly does that mean?
Chemistry
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5joisg" ], "text": [ "It’s actually a slow acting poison. I’m not knowledgeable about the molecular reasons for the toxicity but molecules containing boron are almost always toxic to some degree. People mix it with something sweet or oily, depending on the ant specie. The ants ingest it, bring it to the colony where they regurgitate it up to feed other ants and especially larvae. Since it’s slow acting, the foraging ant has enough time to take it back to the nest and distribute it before dying. In addition, the ant leaves a chemical trail from food to nest so other foraging ants immediately go to the source and load up too. I can put a dime sized drop on the counter and in an hour there will be 20-40 ants feeding. In a day or two, they are done" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iubi9q
why are cannabis company’s stocks so bad?
For example tilray, the current stock price is 5.72 a share and 2 years ago it was 123. A lot of cannabis companies have falling stocks. Most of them
Economics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5js9vt", "g5juwrs", "g5k9g0i", "g5jt2og" ], "text": [ "Because when cannabis was legalized in many states, way too many companies jumped on the bandwagon and started cannabis companies. Now, a couple years later, most are going under because there isn't enough business to support them all. Here in my state of Oregon, we have whole huge farms that have gone bankrupt and left their crops of pot dying and walked away. There has also been a ton of issues with cannabis companies accepting anything other than cash. Since pot is not legal at a federal level, banks can't process their transactions since they are federal entities.", "Legalization brought on regulation, and did it ever! It was much easier to steal water, not worry about fertilizer runoff, not comply with non-discriminatory hiring practices ... Now that it's legit, almost anything that costs very much or can hurt someone, needs a permit, with a process that can drag on f..o..r..e..v..e..r unless you know your way around the state, county, and city codes, which most don't. So you'll need a lawyer, or specialist to help with the paperwork. And the taxes? In California, growers are taxed twice - once for cultivation, and again when it is sold. No wonder there are about 3x as many black-market growers and businesses as legal ones. And every good politician was looking at it to balance their budgets, so some businesses are paying State, County, AND City taxes on it. Until legal cannabis businesses can compete with the black-market, legitimate businesses will struggle to be profitable.", "People expected recreational weed legalization to move a little faster than it has. Also, high taxation in many states really pushes down profit margins if they don’t want to lose out to the black market. Lastly, it’s a highly competitive space and most people aren’t brand loyal — people buy the weed that’s available. Basically a bunch of idiots started weed related companies, went public as penny stocks, and only the good ones will survive. A few of them will become the Philip Morris of cannabis, and if you pick the right one you’ll do very well.", "Cannabis farm profits are very suceptible to changes in laws, not only about the legality of the final product. Sometimes subtle changes in laws prevent the growers from trasporting/distributing their stock, sometimes an area that was designated as a plantation is suddently unable to operate because a subtle change in administrative guidelines no longer makes them eligible for certain benefits/grants on which they thought they could rely. And of course undeniably some growers just smoke all of their produce." ], "score": [ 49, 8, 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iubs61
If someone had a large tumor and another person were to punch them in the tumor, would the tumor burst and spread tumor juice to other parts of the body creating many other tumors?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jvbbr" ], "text": [ "It depends. It would largely depend on the kind of tumor. Some types of tumors, such as ovarian cystadenomas, are liquid filled cancerous cysts that can burst under extreme pressure or a penetrating injury. Other types of solid tumors, such as lipoma (a benign tumor of fat cells) or hepatocellular carcinoma, are solid masses that would not spread if exposed to blunt trauma. - an M.D. from California" ], "score": [ 35 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iubsoc
how does animation actually work? Does each image have to be drawn out and then displayed one after the other in a fast motion?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jup3c", "g5jv6lm", "g5juwco" ], "text": [ "In essence yes. All moving image media uses frames. Live action movies are essentially just a shit load of photographs. Old school cartoons were literally 25-35(can’t remember exact number) hand drawn frames per second. Newer animation techniques in both cinema and gaming cuts some of the “make each cell by hand” work out for the artist by utilizing reusable or procedurally generated environments and characters but they still have to be converted in to “frames” to be delivered to whatever display your viewing on. This is why you hear the term FPS(frames per second) in reference to games and gaming equipment.", "With traditional hand drawn, sorta. They draw out a background. Then they would draw the parts that are moving on a clear piece of plastic thingy. And draw each and every single frame of it moving. They'd put the plastic on the back ground and photograph it. Then they'd put the next part of it moving, and photograph it again. There were some tricks to this. For example you could make the motion repetitive by using the same plastic frames several times. You could also just move the plastic bits around, if you wanted something moving on the screen but didn't need it to change. Of course this is for traditional drawn animation. These days you can do that with computers. A common approach is to draw a model, and define certain points that are movable, around certain points that don't. This is called an animation rig. You then move the thing like a virtual puppet.", "That is a pretty good description of how animation works. The animation doesn't need to be incredibly fine-grained, as our brains will fill in the \"missing\" information as long as the differences between two successive images aren't too great. Otherwise the animation will look \"jerky\". Nowadays, the images aren't all drawn out by hand. You can use computers to interpolate between images, for one thing. There are also techniques that can be used to avoid having to re-draw static or nearly static parts of each image every time. That's also how TV and movies work. They are a sequence of still images displayed very rapidly one after the other. Our brains interpret the changes as motion." ], "score": [ 10, 6, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iubwv0
Trade school
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jus36", "g5jv9mj", "g5jxo9s" ], "text": [ "It’s usually programs that teach the skills needed to be hands on labor. You can go to trade school to become a carpenter, plumber, electrician, mechanic etc..", "i went to a “technical high school” aka trade school. for 2 weeks we did regular school subjects (freshman & seniors were on one “team”, (sophomores and juniors were on the other.) then 2 weeks later we would go to “shop” - in my case hairdressing/barbering. it also offered culinary, plumbing/HVAC, auto body, auto mechanics, carpentry, electronics, electrical, graphics, and health tech (CNA certification.) it’s great if you know you/your family has no money for college or as an adult it’s still saving a lot of money vs a regular university. it’s also good if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life as a high schooler to have a career to fall back on", "Trade school teaches you a specific technical skillset and rewards you with a license instead of a “degree”. The school itself is more hours than college, but it’s a combination of book work and practical application. Usually much cheaper too. Examples of trade professions are barbers (I’ve been a Master Barber for 15yrs), electrician, HVAC repair, construction, car mechanic, etc. Barber school (TN) was 1500hrs total, 40hrs a week. We spent part of the day doing class work and part of the day working on customers, mannequins, or each other. After completing, you have to take the state board tests for licensure. It’s a LOT more work than it sounds like it would be, but trades can be lucrative careers. Our barber curriculum (for example) included anatomy, chemistry, electricity, bacteriology/disease, history of the trade, how to succeed in the business, laws and regulations, plus learning how to perform the actual tasks involved. I also brought home $1000 in one workweek a month into working at my first barbershop- what would be considered an entry level job basically if it were a college degree job. I once brought home $430 in a single day. I’m only using barbering as an example because I can give you a personal one. Welding is another example of a VERY high earning trade. I actually had a few customers who were pipe fitters/welders and made around $40 an hour after just a couple years on the job. I hope some of this helps." ], "score": [ 7, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iubz49
Why do you sometimes not register pain from, say, a deepish cut until you realize you're injured?
I can recall occasions where I've cut my leg or arm on something sharp, and not realized it at all until I've seen or felt the blood and realize I was injured, one of which resulted in a few stitches.
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jwh2b", "g5jw4x8", "g5jwxrk" ], "text": [ "Adrenaline. A lot of the times when you're cut pretty badly, a ton of adrenaline is released. Im not 100% sure why but adrenaline can make it so that in the moment, you don't feel pain.", "I am seriously interested in the answer. I cut myself two days ago any it was minutes later when the tacky feeling of drying blood and damp alerted me to a mess. I have heard that when the cut is deep and all the nerve endings ‘bypassed’ you don’t feel it. But this is a shallow cut on the fore arm and I have not felt pain or anything besides the discomfort of initial stickiness. Oh and the sting of alcohol swabs while cleaning it. No brain no pain, perhaps.", "You know how if you really get into a TV show or a book or really any preoccupation, any illness or pain you feel kinda dulls out and you ignore it? Well, usually if you don't notice you've been injured, you're doing something that's very preoccupying or otherwise distracts you from the pain. You turn the TV off or you finish the book and the pain or illness is suddenly so hard to ignore again. You notice the injury, and you're no longer distracted and your brain registers the pain over the task you were performing." ], "score": [ 6, 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuc29a
what causes us to slowly get bags under our eyes and why does everyone correlate it with sleep?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kueaf", "g5k6lc0", "g5kx9wd", "g5l3bpc", "g5l71fq" ], "text": [ "I'm not sure I agree with u/crashdemon's answer. It does not explain why you would have bags under your eyes the next morning. That has to do with your blood vessels dilating. If you do not get enough sleep, your body kind of relaxes your blood vessels, so there is more blood flowing closer to the skin. Because the skin under your eyes is so thin, you see the blood colour through it, creating dark circles. The poor circulation also means that some fluid might be left under the skin, so your eyes might look slightly puffy. Alcohol does similar things, so when you have been on a bender, you can have even worse bags than normal. (side note: this is also why alcohol makes you feel warm even though it actually makes you lose more heat.)", "When you've been upright for awhile blood starts to pool under your eyes, the skin under your eyes is really thin making it look dark, creating the \"bags\". Sometimes people with bad circulation will have bags under their eyes but the majority of people haven't laid down for awhile, that's why we associate it with being sleepy. Edit: I should have added there are multiple reasons people get bags, this is just the most common one associated with sleepiness. Sometimes it's large blood vessels, sun exposure, drinking, blood medications, sleeping with crazy women, etc....", "I blame my genetics. I am a consistent 8hr a day sleeper, fairly moderate stress in life, I have dark bags under my eyes. They do get worse with stress and Lack sleep. I was recently looking at a wedding photo of my grandma. Her sisters were her brides maids, they all looked like they had black eyes their eyes were so dark.", "As you age, your skin loses its elasticity especially due to the damaging effects of the sun. Eventually, gravity takes a toll on your aging skin and things begin to sag.", "It's the accumulation of tears and other lipids that seep from your eyes all the time. It usually get absorbed during sleep, and not all experts agree, but many say it happens most rapidly during rem sleep. Not entering a deep sleep stage or not staying in it long enough results in fluids remaining under your eyes. You can temporarily dry them by covering each eye with moist tea bags and leaving them on for twenty minutes. This does two things. Laying down provides a greater area for the liquid to go and the tannins in the tea are astringent, drying it up. Rinsing your eyes with distilled or filtered (R.O. filtered) will help. Keep you eyes open while you splash the water into them. The excess will accumulate into your eye bags and look horrible at first, but the pure water desaturates the liquid that has seeped in, allowing it to drain more efficiently. your bags will be much less conspicuous in an hour or so. The real treatment for eye bags is to have good rest for 8 hours for several consecutive nights. That treatment will improve your overall health too. So you'll not only look better, you'll feel better." ], "score": [ 573, 275, 59, 8, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuc7um
why does glue not get stuck and harden inside the bottle?
Chemistry
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jx1na", "g5k1ufq" ], "text": [ "Because air exposure is what causes the glue to dry. Inside the bottle, there is very limited exposure to air.", "While glues vary in their exact drying mechanism, they almost all require air to dry. Some glues react with oxygen. Others have some liquid solvent that evaporates, which can only happen into fresh air. Sometimes, this evaporation *prompts* a reaction. Some glue reacts with water in the air. If you count cement, then it reacts with CO2 as well. If you count epoxy, then it dries because you mix two components which react with one another." ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuc8ql
Why does Adderall cause a stimulant-like effect in normal people, but causes a hyper-focused and detail oriented affect in people with ADHD?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5jxto6" ], "text": [ "Adderall works on EVERYONE for hyperfocusing & extreme productivity. I was prescribed it for a few years and my doctor told me it has that effect on everyone. The only difference with ADD/ADHD people is that they NEED that medication in order to focus & be productive, while non- ADD/ADHD people can already focus & be productive without it. But when normal people take it, they are EXTREMELY productive.And wired. And it GREATLY enhances athletic performance." ], "score": [ 5 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuciqu
Why do humans not have a breeding season?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k2hz4", "g5k0l8p", "g5k80c7", "g5k0k89" ], "text": [ "Most mammals have an [estrous cycle]( URL_1 ), where they have periods of sexual activity followed by a dormant phase. They typically go into estrous during a time of year that is timed to seasonal availability of food, migration patterns, or predation risk for that species. This gives their young the best chance for survival. Humans (and a small number of other species, mostly apes but also some bats, the elephant shrew, and a species of spiny mouse) have a [menstrual cycle]( URL_0 ) instead. There are a few theories about what advantage these species get from menstruation, but it does result in many more opportunities for a successful pregnancy. Also, species that live in large groups are better able to care for young throughout the year in spite of seasonal variance in food availability.", "Because there's plenty of food for us to always reproduce. Most animals breeding seasons coincide with their food supply", "In temperate climates, most animals have breeding seasons because the chance that offspring will survive varies widely through the year because of changing food availability and temperature. These animals have breeding seasons because they are adapted to not waste time breeding when the offspring are unlikely to survive. Many tropical animals, especially those from environments where there aren't distinct wet and dry seasons, breed year round. After all, there's not a big difference in habitat from one time to another so there's no reason to limit breeding to a certain time. This is true of most apes. Humans carry on that tradition, and our ability to modify our environment means food and warmth are available year round even in temperate climates. Also, humans spend more than a full year as a helpless infant, meaning it doesn't really matter what time of the year they are born, they have to survive through the whole thing as a baby. Many other animals can mature over the course of a single season.", "I’m 100% sure if you did a deep dive into birth statistics and controlled for all the crazy variables you wound see patterns that relate to conscious behaviours that equate with a “mating season”... evidence is we already see “birth booms” related to key events in society that are ‘anecdotal’" ], "score": [ 52, 37, 7, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_\\(mammal\\)", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrous_cycle" ], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuck5h
Why an Android ROM can't be installed as easily as can be instaledl a Linux or Windows on PC?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k0axq" ], "text": [ "Basically it's because phone manufacturers don't want you to, so they lock down the ability to. They want you to use their build of the OS with their apps and such. They get paid to pre-load apps. And the phone carriers like it that the OS is locked down so people can't play around with stuff as much. Whereas on a PC you can install whatever OS you want on it (within limitations of hardware type). The manufacturer doesn't care what you do with the hardware once it leaves their factory. It's a 1 time purchase not something that has a monthly service." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuco4y
why do helium filled balloons deflate faster than air filled balloons?
Chemistry
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k17fv" ], "text": [ "Helium tiny. Nitrogen big. Holes exist between rubber molecules big enough for lill helium to slip by." ], "score": [ 25 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iud8g7
What does alcohol do the boody?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k3xrq" ], "text": [ "In many cases, it makes it thicc and more likely to be open for business at the end of the night. Sometimes not though depends on the lady." ], "score": [ 15 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iudany
How do steroids make muscles bigger?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k8hlm" ], "text": [ "What do steroids do exactly? Well, there’s a very long and complex answer to that…. so I won’t say “exactly” - but in simple terms, you are adding testosterone (or things like testosterone) to your body and that results in numerous physiological effects…. the good ones are that your muscles become more efficient and less prone to injury, you have more energy and your body becomes better at turning protein into even more muscle, which means you will recover faster from hard training and come back even stronger and ready for even more hard training. The effects can be dramatic, it’s next-level shit. Does it make you stronger? Yes, absolutely. For the above reasons. Muscle efficiency and more muscle energy. You will smash through existing plateaus whilst on steroids. You will have more stamina to train harder and longer. Does it make you LOOK more muscular? Well, potentially, yes - in two ways. Firstly, water. Some steroids, like testosterone, increase water retention. Due to this - all your muscles will look fuller and more pumped. I can put on 6kg of water in the first couple of weeks of a cycle. This also makes you stronger (cells volumized) and less prone to injury. Secondly, new muscle. Later in a steroid cycle, you should actually have added some new muscle. This of course will make you look bigger because you actually are a bit bigger. Note that after you stop taking them - all the water goes away and the strength and the power…. but the net effect when all said and done should be some reasonable gains in lean muscle." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iudw8i
How did people set their clocks to tell the correct time prior to cell phones/ computers that automatically get the time?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5k8kib", "g5k7jhm", "g5k7mu5", "g5k7lmu", "g5k8a28", "g5kd1dw", "g5k9gf6" ], "text": [ "There were no accurate universal time until quite recently and everybody had to figure out how they set their clocks. Many people considered clock towers or the timing of church bells ringing to tell the \"real time\" and set their clocks based on that time. Of course, this wasn't very accurate but it didn't have to be. There was no reason to synchronize time accurately across long distances and it didn't really make a difference if your friend's clock was set 5 minutes ahead of yours. This served adequately until the introduction of rail travel in Britain, which made it possible to travel fast enough over long distances to require continuous re-setting of timepieces as a train progressed in its daily run through several towns. When the telegraph was invented in the mid 1800s, it now became possible to synchronize clocks across large distances by broadcasting the time over the telegraph. Greenwich Mean Time was developed and all clocks in Britain were set to this time baded on telegraph time broadcasts regardless of local solar noon. Standard time was originally proposed by Scottish-Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming at a meeting of the Canadian Institute in Toronto on 8 February 1879. He suggested that 24 standard time zones could be used locally, but they were subordinate to his single world time, which he called Cosmic Time. This eventually became UTC time and time zones. Later in the 1900s, we developed radio broadcast clock transmissions and finally in the 1980s, we developed NTP (network time protocol) which allowed computers to synchronize their times over the internet.", "How far back are we talking? There was time told on TV, on other clocks, on the radio, there was a phone service where you can call and hear exact time. Before all of that and if your clock is the only one around, look at the shadows on sunny day - when they're shortest it's the astronomical noon, getting you the hour right, then correct for longitude if you know where you are to get the minutes almost right. You'll be by up to 5 minutes off still, but do you really care about that, apparently stranded away from all the other people?", "One way was to call the local time and temperature phone number. In most jurisdictions it was 555-1212. I don't know if that works everywhere though, as I just dialed it and got a different business.", "In the UK the BBC news would have the time displayed in the mornings, and there was a \"speaking clock\" you could phone and it would give you the precise time. Prior to that I know that in London there were people who would \"sell the time\", they would go up to greenwich to get the exact time then go round London setting the clocks in businesses, who would pay them for it. Elsewhere in the country I believe more guess work was involved, though sunrise has a fairly consistent timing once you know how it changes each day so the guess would've been fairly accurate", "In Italy, the state sponsored radio station would announce the exact time a few times a day before broadcasting the news, there was also a phone number you could call. There were also clocks in front of railways stations, and often outside of banks, post offices and jewelers.", "From experience, way out here in Africa, we used to listen to the BBC World Service on shortwave radio. They would have a countdown of the last five seconds to the top of the hour. It was a pointless but immensely satisfying fact for me to get the second hand on my watch to hit exactly 12 when the final, longer tone played. Combine that with knowing we were GMT+2 in our summer and you have the time.", "Many countries actually have a phone number to call to get the correct time . Earlier that banks and town squares had a clock available that world chime bells on the hour. Then there was the train station with a clock. The railroad was actually responsible for the adoption of standardized time in the western world and the adoption of time zones in the US. Before the railroad each town just had their own local time estimated by the sun" ], "score": [ 84, 45, 19, 9, 5, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iue46w
What are CDNs (content delivery networks) and how do these companies (Akamai, Fastly, Cloudflare) make money ??
- please really explain it like i am a five year-old. I don’t even understand the basics of it and I’m supposed to do research about the industry (for my job)... help me out ? :))
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kof9o", "g5k9an1" ], "text": [ "You run a candy company and sell directly from your factory - your candy is super delicious and customers love it, but for your customers who live over an hour away from your factory the process to drive to your factory, buy the candy, and drive home is unbearably long. Because of this you make a deal with a chain of stores nationwide to sell your candy. They send trucks to you daily to pick up from you then send it to all their stores, and you pay them to do this. Now your customers can buy your candy really quickly, rather than a 2+ hour round trip. In the above analogy, your candy = your website, your factory = your main server, the nationwide chain of stores = the CDN.", "You own a website, and you host it in a particular datacenter somewhere on the globe. You have users who are geographically widespread. The ones who are physically closest to your datacenter get a noticeably better experience on your website than the ones that aren't. You want to improve on this. A CDN company offers you geographically distributed servers where your content can be made available. You pay them for this service, and update your hostnames so they point at the CDN company's servers instead of your own directly. The CDN servers get the data from your servers on your users' behalf, but they keep it available locally for a good while in case more of your users ask for the exact same thing. That way, much of an individual users' traffic only goes to a server that's local to them. This makes responsiveness and data throughput better and users' experience improves." ], "score": [ 7, 6 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuej9g
Proxy Servers
Why some websites don’t work well with Proxy Servers ?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kfahu" ], "text": [ "> Why some websites don’t work well with Proxy Servers ? You will need to be more specific about what you mean and possibly consult r/techsupport. The statement \"Some websites don't work well with proxy servers\" by itself does not make a lot of sense, something is missing here." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iueo4m
How do computers know to power back on when you restart them?
How does it know to execute that command after it has powered down?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kbnmq", "g5kbd4b", "g5kbas9", "g5khq5d" ], "text": [ "There is a small piece of software running that doesn't actually turn off. Motherboards have a tiny chip called the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which has instructions on how to turn the rest of the computer on and when you start the computer all the button does is tell the BIOS chip to start everything up. When you restart the computer, the BIOS chip is given an instruction to turn the computer on as soon as it detects that the computer is turned off and then the computer shuts down normally which triggers the BIOS to start it back up again.", "A computer has many separate systems and you don't shut down all of them. If you press restart the main system sends a message to the power controller system ([ACPI]( URL_0 )) on the motherboard to immediately reapply power after it stops running.", "The motherboard doesn't power down all the way. A small part of it, running on what's called 'standby power', remains 'awake' while the rest of the system powers down, and then initiates the reboot. Standby power keeps your network adapter going, so that you don't have to reconnect to the network from scratch after every shutdown, and it also runs the system clock. (Not the CPU timing clock, but the \"what time of day is it\" clock.) Probably other stuff too, but those are the only ones I'm sure about.", "The other posters are correct to say that modern computers don't usually completely power down, so part of the system is still running and has the ability to power-up the rest. This \"soft power\" feature is true for most modern electronic devices and appliances. Anything that can be turned on with a remote was never completely dead. BUT, older computer didn't work this way; they had actual power switches that cut all power from the processor. And even new computers *can* be powered completely off. So, how does a computer start up when it really was completely dead? Well, here's a simple example of how it might be done: At the very heart of a computer, at it's most basic hardware level the computer has a fixed number of states it can be in and it is continually looping through these states depending on it's instructions and inputs. The danger of powering on for the first time is that this state is completely random. Every register or counter that normally keeps track of what the computer is supposed to be doing is now full of garbage. The only way to prevent a crash in this situation is to make sure every single possible state is accounted for and is part of the loop, and that part of that loop checks to see if it has just been turned on. Then it will start the boot-up process that checks on the hardware, sets all of the registers, loads the operating system, etc. An example that might help you understand this type of \"state machine\" is a traffic light. If you watch a traffic light you can see that it goes through a series of different states: At one point the East-West light are green and the North-South lights are red. Then the East-West lights turn yellow, then red, and the North-South lights turn green. Each of these configurations is a state and you could document them all on a sheet of paper if you watched the light for a while. The loop might be the same every time, or it might chang based on inputs. maybe there is a left-turn lane and a light dedicated to it so that when a car is in the left-turn lane the left-turn light turns green at the appropriate time instead of the North-South lights. You could document how the traffic light works in a flow chart. A computer is much more complex, but works essentially the same way. Instead of turning lights on and off it might add two numbers, store a value in memory, or display something on the screen." ], "score": [ 17, 4, 4, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface" ], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iueuk4
Why is it that when you glide your hand perpendicularly on a sharp blade, you don't get cut?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kdc6c" ], "text": [ "Blades work by concentrating an applied force to a tiny surface area. When you cut with a knife, the concentrated force applies a significant pressure where the blade meets the thing you're cutting. This breaks the bonds holding that material together. A sharp blade is simply one that has a narrower edge, thus transferring the force to a more concentrated area. When you move your hand perpendicularly across a blade, you're not applying that force into your hand. You're moving your hand parallel to the blade. So the force multiplication effect doesn't come into play." ], "score": [ 6 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuf17a
How does the sense of harmony work?
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert and will certainly use the wrong terminology, but stick with me How does the sense of harmony work? When we say that something "sounds good", why does that happen? And is this sense universal or changes around the world? I know that different music around the world uses different chords, scales, notes, and rhythms, so if I grow up in Europe listening to "European classical music" or grow up in India listening to "Indian classical music" will my perception of what sounds good and what doesn't differ? In which way?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kf0ks", "g5kirrl" ], "text": [ "To answer your question as to whether or not things will sound \"different,\" or if different things sound good in different cultures, the answer is yes. We'll come back to that. Just to level-set, harmony is the concept (on a basic level) that certain combinations of notes sound \"good.\" The term \"good\" is subjective in almost every other sense, but working within any tonal system has rules (for example, European classical music). These rules are referred to collectively as \"Music Theory.\" These rules largely define what notes can be played together, which notes should be played on what order, and which notes shouldn't be played at all. This is established through years of tradition. Music is an ever-evolving concept. If you look at popular music from today and from recent history, it's easy to find similarities between classical music and what is heard today. However, you could compare popular music to almost any cultural center and find those same similarities. Take Rock for example, which has many influences from classical music but draws most heavily from blues, a genre created by slaves in America who brought their diverse musical traditions from Africa. Blues also morphed into Jazz concurrently some time in the early 20th century. Both Rock and Jazz evolved from the musical traditions of African music, and have been shaped by European classical music during its formation (which took many years). Even bluegrass, one of the most \"American\" genres was created, again, by African slaves (the banjo is actually an African instrument). To get back to your question on harmony, westerners (which include central Europeans) typically have expectations on how things should sound, again defined by the rules of their music culture. A good example for Western music is that the tonal center for any song (called the key) is the first note of a scale which that key is based on (called the root note). The seventh note of a major scale (think \"happy\" sounding) is often referred to as the \"leading tone.\" Any time you hear a leading tone in a song, you expect the next note you hear to be the root note. This is called resolution. There are many examples of these rules in action across all notes of a scale, and across all chord combinations in a key. Can these rules be broken? Absolutely! This is precisely how new genres are created, but within the context of traditional music, these rules are very important. Baroque music (Johann Sebastian Bach is the best example) has VERY strict rules about what can and cannot be played within the confines of this genre.The theory which is taught in most music schools is based on mid-18th century European (primarily German) classical music. You may wonder why this is the case, as the answer boils down to the fact that Europe had immense power at that point in history. That doesn't mean that other cultures don't have their own traditions, and even their own music theory concepts, which govern their music. Adam Neely does an AMAZING job explaining the different cultural aspects of music theory in his video \"Music Theory and White Supremacy\" ( URL_0 ). Don't let the title fool you, it's extremely relevant to your question and doesn't push any kind of agenda. Many of his videos talk about different cultures perception of music, and I can't recommend his channel enough. I'd go poke around his channel for more if you are interested!", "To add to u/WthNCellsInterlinked - absolutely mind-blowingly thorough by the way -, and to answer your following question from another angle: > So would you say that a person who grew up in an eastern country would find Bach \"non-harmonious”, being used to different rules and expectations for what notes should follow at any given time? First off, \"eastern country\" is a bit vague, as it includes both traditions that derive or can be related back to our basic \"12-tone octave and 4 beats per measure\" and some that don't at all - for example, the [Arab Tone System]( URL_1 ) further subdivides our semitones into quarter tones, meaning there's another note between C and C#, called C half sharp, but it's possible this is a development of an older [17-tone octave]( URL_0 ), which, you guessed it, would have sounded *batshit insane* to someone never exposed to it, and so our music would have sounded to an Arab musician at the time. Also, the connection we make with certain chords, scales and sounds being \"happy\" or \"sad\" or \"powerful\" is absolutely a construct given by our culture. Will try to reference this later, but you can see this by looking up solemn, ceremonial or funeral music for non-western cultures - South American Native was definitely one to check out, although I can't find the specific piece I'm thinking of. A friend of mine is also doing a study on exposing babies from different cultures to each others' cultures' lullabies and sure enough, our idea of \"calming\" is cultural. TL;DR: they probably would have found it \"nice-sounding\" - depending on which exact culture the person would be from -, but they would not have understood the implications we give to harmony, melody and texture and could have easily misinterpreted the whole message of the piece." ], "score": [ 10, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://youtu.be/Kr3quGh7pJA" ], [ "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_equal_temperament", "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_tone_system" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuf5td
How does text to speech work? Do they get the people voicing the "speech part" to say a lot of words or is it a different way all together?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kdw50" ], "text": [ "Depends of how advanced the text to speech is. In the early days of text to speech they only recorded sounds like \"Ch\" and \"ee\" combining them to make the words, The result was sloppy. These days they voice whole words by getting the voice actors to read whole sentences, like from a book and put that into an AI. The voice actor for Alexa spent weeks to months reading out loud and recording it. The voice actors try to read with little to no emotion yet still fluid speech so when the AI does need to chop up a word it can without it sounding strange." ], "score": [ 21 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iug7ts
Can you pre-program your mind only to sleep for x amount of hours ?
Hello, I have been reading a action thriller book recently and the main character is an ex-army guy. Sometimes in the book he can program his mind by saying "Now I just have to sleep 2 hours" and he wakes up after precisely 2 hours, without an alarm clock. Is this possible ? How can you learn this super-power ?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kjfd1" ], "text": [ "There are a lot of things you can do with a disciplined mind, and self-awareness of your body's internal clock. I'm usually not that precise, but I have a tendency to sleep right through alarms. So if I do have to be up for an appointment I can usually tell myself that I have to be awake no later than X, and generally make it, unless I'm just completely wiped out. I'd suggest starting easy. Before going to bed set the intention to wake up 30 minutes before your alarm or something, especially if your alarm is set for the same time every day. Whether you're aware of it or not, your mind and body generally do know about when that is. It takes practice, but just keep telling yourself you're going to wake up at X time until you can see that you're getting consistent results. From there it's easier to start saying \"I'm going to sleep for X hours\" since you're getting your subconscious mind and body used to listening to the \"wake me up at X\" requests." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuh17j
Is young's modulus the same for a material or not? Answer from google search is confusing me
[answer from quora]( URL_0 .) Sorry, i dont get it. So if there is two metal rod of exactly the same matter, but one is 100 times longer than the other, are their young's modulus same or not? If one rod has circular base while the other is rectangle, will it change the young's modulus? . They also talk about isotropic and anisotropic, what do they actually mean?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kmnaw" ], "text": [ "> So if there is two metal rod of exactly the same matter, but one is 100 times longer than the other, are their young's modulus same or not? The *rods* don't have a Young's modulus; the material they're made of does. > They also talk about isotropic and anisotropic, what do they actually mean? Some materials are stronger or weaker in some directions than others. The classic example is lumber: it has a grain, and it's stronger (in both tension and compression) along length of a board than it is across the face of it. *Isotropic* materials are ones whose strength is the same in all directions; *anisotropic* is ones where it's different." ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuh3oj
why do we see those colorful (red,blue green) spots in our eyes after looking into the flash from camera?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kqiua" ], "text": [ "From what I know about how the retina (optical sensor of the eye), it will mildly desensitized after staring at a bright light source. Now because camera flash is usually very bright (compared to background light level) and flashing at a very short amount of time the effect of desensitization is very pronounced, resulting in the complimentary color spot In your vision. Now what I meant about complimentary color is the inverse of the color your eyes are exposed to (e.g. a bright flash in warm tone may result in a bluish spot). You can also experience this effect by staring at a bright screen/lamp and then suddenly close your eyes. You'll see a sort of shadow image when your eyes are closed." ], "score": [ 5 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuh9xs
Why does hot air come out of our mouth when it's wide open, and cold air when we blow through pursed lips?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5knh9m" ], "text": [ "You push air faster through pursed lips. Try to do it at the same pace and air will come out same as through wide open" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuhbac
Why in US, my race is 'white', but I am clearly Hispanic?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5knuza", "g5ktdcz", "g5ko3bg", "g5kwhqw", "g5kr7r7", "g5ktnch" ], "text": [ "Race is normally used to describe outward appearance. So if you have white skin, they are likely going to label you as white. And then your ethnicity would be Hispanic", "tl;dr — because it was advantageous to identify as White in a racist country Back in the 1930s, the US census tried putting “Mexican” as a race option. One lesser-known fact is that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were vilified during the Great Depression and were blamed for causing it just like we blame Black people for crime today. The Mexican-Americans filling out the census said “yeah man, we don’t want to put a target on our backs” and started identifying themselves as White on census forms. Furthermore, back then, you couldn’t be a citizen unless you were White, which further motivated Mexican-Americans (most of whom became “geographic Americans” when the US took over a big chunk of Mexico) to legally identify as White. It was a logical conclusion — when the US took over Mexican land, they promised that the “geographic Americans” would be treated as full citizens…which was only possible if you were White anyway. It gets messier. Let’s go back to the 1930s to explain why. Many groups lobbied against the “Mexican” category and it was removed from the census. It was a victory for that time, since Mexican-Americans could better protect themselves. But once we shifted our focused hatred back to Black people with the civil rights movement, Mexican-Americans felt more comfortable expressing pride in their identity…but they had been identifying as White for the last 40 years. After a “limited release” in 1970, a Hispanic identity question appeared on all census forms in 1980. It originally appeared before the race item in the questionnaire, but census researchers found that Hispanic people weren’t answering it because they weren’t sure whether they should be counted as White or not. To address that, the current census tries to distinguish between respondents who identify as White Hispanics and non-White Hispanics.", "White in the US means from Europe, and with the Spanish colonizing most of latin america, a lot of Latin America is (at least partly) white.", "Because race isn't a real thing. Race theory doesn't agree with genetics. It's only based on what is convinience for the people in power at the time.", "Race is a social construct. The problem here is that you are trying to be reasonable. The racist alternative is way simpler: if a person matches your idea of the stereotypical hispanic, then that person is hispanic.", "You can be white and Hispanic or black and Hispanic - but if you’re from Brazil or Belize you’re not Hispanic, because you’re not culturally associated with the Spanish conquest of America. You can even be indigenous and Hispanic - several tribes in Mexico (Tlaxcalans, etc) allied with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztecs. In my family A cousin’s wife is descended from original Spanish settlers of Santa Fe in New Mexico. They are very proudly Hispanic and very white. To call them Mexican would be an insult. Another cousin married a woman from Costa Rica - he met her there and stayed with her family for several years. She is Mayan but is also Hispanic. The term Latino is inclusive of other romantic culture (Portuguese Brazil, for example) . It does have a less-then-stellar origin as it was the term the French under Maximilian used to legitimize their conquest of Mexico during the American Civil War (since French and Spanish are both cultures originating from Latin origins)" ], "score": [ 17, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuhevd
how music labels work - eg Kendrick Lamar signed to TDE but associated with Interscope and Aftermath?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kpacz" ], "text": [ "If you are rich and famous enough and have enough marketability, contracts are what you want it to be. An artist can negotiate terms - perhaps with one group for concerts, another for the albums (and this can be limited to, say, 1 album), limit it to a country etc etc. So it is hard to describe how a more generic \"music label\" works when the example is as popular as Kendrick Lamar. In a sense, you can say KL can negotiate pretty much what he wants because nearly any label would want him to sign on." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuhh3i
why do most injuries to our bodies heal rather than not, and was this the result of a "random genetic mutation"?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kpkmf", "g5lkfgg" ], "text": [ "Essentially everything about our bodies is the result of a random genetic mutation at some point in the evolutionary past. It's important to note that natural selection is _not_ random though. For example, the first organisms to have some kind of healing mechanisms obviously had a massive survival advantage, so the mutated gene was passed on. Essentially our bodies can heal because our distant ancestors could heal, and the ones that didn't died.", "It is not wrong to call the ability for life to heal itself a mutation. All qualities life possesses began as mutations at some point. I just wish people would be more careful with the words “random” and “mutations”. It tends to make the layperson think backwards about how evolution works. I’m not going to go deep about the mechanics of evolution here, but instead I would like you to be aware of something called the Anthropic Principle. Many people would look at healing and say: “Wow-isn’t that CRAZY how we got so lucky that our bodies can heal themselves? Doesn’t seem so random to me- I mean what are the chances we would be so lucky? There must be other powers at play here!”. But the reality is that it’s kind of a moot point; We would not be here right now to appreciate evolution in the first place if the ability to heal did not emerge. THAT’s what I mean when I say thinking “backwards”. Another playful example of the Anthropic Principle to demonstrate how obvious it is; Imagine that a puddle of water woke up, looked around and said: “WOW! I’m so lucky to have found this hole in the ground that is shaped exactly like ME!! Isn’t that crazy? I mean what are the chances that I would find this hole, and it fits me perfectly? Somebody must have designed this hole just for me.” That’s the error many people make when contemplating evolution. The puddle is obviously thinking backwards. We need to be careful not to do the same when teaching evolution." ], "score": [ 10, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iui27h
Alkalinity
Chemistry
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kvozu", "g5lxjpo" ], "text": [ "Water by definition is neutral, with a pH of 7. So what you're really referring to is the dissolved compounds in the water, and the reactions between them under conditions of differing pH. Some compounds are pH sensitive, and indicate via color change, and some reactions can release energy as heat, but they're not necessarily always caused by a change in pH. Mixing acidic and basic solutions will create a pH equilibrium between the two-and there's a whole field of chemistry focused on that area.", "You can’t have pure water at pH other than 7. To get pH 11 “water,” you’d need to add something like sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to it to raise the pH. Conversely, to get pH 5 “water” you’d need to add something like hydrochloric acid (HCl). If you mix pH 11 water (H2O and NaOH) with pH 7 water (H2O), there would be no reaction. However, the pH would change; remember that pH is a function of hydrogen ions (H+, or H3O+). Likewise, mixing pH 5 “water” with pH 7 water would yield no reaction other than dilution. If you mix the pH 11 and pH 5 “waters” together, you get a reaction: NaOH + HCl - > NaCl + H2O. You might get some foaming, and the water would become slightly salty." ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iui5xz
Why are a 100 people shouting not a 100 times louder than 1 person (not only apparent to us but also in decibles)? Is there a way to calculate how many times louder they will be instead?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kt3pu", "g5kx597", "g5l2ac4" ], "text": [ "Decibels are not linear, they’re logarithmic - so you need ten times the energy up the decibels by 10. 100 people is about 100x the energy, which will ~~triple~~ add 20 to the decibels. The scale is built that way because your ears aren’t linear either. You can hear a fly buzzing and the roar of a passing freight train. One is billions of times more energetic than the other, but you don’t experience it as a billion times louder and explode your skull. Edit: early morning mathematics", "Others have already explained the decibel scale - ill not go into that. Theres more to it though. Sounds are pressure waves travelling through space. Lets define the normal pressure of the atmosphere as zero (it isnt strictly, but the math gets easier). At the 'peak' of the pressure wave, we have a pressure of +A. At the lowest point, we have a pressure of -A. What you perceive as 'loudness' is essentially this value A. Not imagine you have two waves and \"add\" them. * It could be that the peak of wave 1 is in the same position as the peak of wave 2. In this case, you get a new wave, with an 'Amplitude' (Amplitude is essentially the \"height\" of the wave) 2A. * It could also be, that the peak of wave 1 is exactly where the valley of wave 2 is. In this case, the waves cancel each other out completely. Thats how noise cancellation headphones work btw. In reality, its usually something in between, and it gets further complicated by the fact that not all waves have the same frequency, so they cancel each other out in some places and amplify each other in others. I hope this gives you an idea why sound waves just down simply add up linearly.", "Voices don't stack. Each voice is roughly the same number of decibels, even combined. It's like saying \"If my oven goes up to 500°, how come 10 ovens don't go up to 5000°?\"" ], "score": [ 531, 23, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuiccs
Why is it that animals use bright colours as warning signs (eg poisonous frogs), but plants use brightly-coloured fruits (eg strawberries) to attract animals?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ktbay", "g5kvzbf", "g5la6p2", "g5l1lky", "g5l629z", "g5l0xa6", "g5l85nx", "g5l73fw" ], "text": [ "Because they both attract attention. A warning isn't very effective unless it can be seen, so the bright colors in frogs allow animals to clearly identify the frog and learn/know the danger associated with disturbing it. This is called [aposematic coloring.]( URL_0 ) Similarly, animals that are drawn to the bright colors in fruit can learn that those plants make good food.", "Also fruits are only brightly colored to birds and primates. Many animals are unable to see shades of red, a pigment which evolved in ripened fruits to signal a simple, sugary energy source that has the side effect of seed scattering. Birds have the longest ranges of most animals, so they are the intended target, but primates evolved red-green color perception to enter that niche as well.", "If you divide all colors in nature into “bright” and “dull”, you’ll find that the “bright” colors are the ones used to communicate, and can communicate all kinds of things. Bright colors draw attention to themselves by virtue of being different than their surroundings, so they’re the ones useful for communicating information. It’s the same reason traffic signs are bright colors instead of the same colors as the landscapes around them. And like in nature, sometimes those bright colors mean go, and sometimes they mean stop.", "Funny thing about the frogs, they aren't brightly colored as a warning sign. Take the poison dart frog for example, they themselves aren't actually poisonous. They secrete the poison due to the insects they eat. If you take a poison dart frog out of their environment and feed them different insects, they no longer secrete the poison.", "So I don't actually know why, I just want to apologise for all the people who are explaining that a animals use bright colours as warning signs and that plants use them to attract animals. You obviously already know both of those things, and want to know why the same trait, bright colour, has two effects that are opposites. I apologise.", "Many fruits are brightly colored so they'll be noticed and eaten by animals because the seeds well pass through digestive systems and that spreads the seeds for them.", "In nature, bright colors usually correlated with poison. More poison means more color. If you ate a colorful frog at past, you won't want to eat it again. So, frogs use this correlation to make themselves more colorful, even if they're not poisonous. This is a defence strategy. In the other hand, there is no such a correlation at plants. When you see a bright colored apple, you don't think \"That's a poisonous apple!\" and most of time they are not. Even, colorful apples would be more delicious. So, plants use this colors to make themselves more noticeable. So, this brightness thing is just a tool. Not a strategy itself.", "Often bright colored poisonous animals arent immediately poisonous. It's a message to young predators to invite a taste. The poison is usually bitter or otherwise immediately unpleasant and relatively harmless; [and so spat out].However, older predators who are more angry than curious will truly die,[when they actually eat the poison.]" ], "score": [ 1203, 238, 33, 24, 22, 5, 5, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aposematism" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuicg8
Could it be possible to bring back a “version” of a extinct animal?
So i’ve just heard of the idea of a chicken-saur, and the flaw in that was the DNA being too old. So why haven’t we just had the same idea with recently extinct animals. Are there any problems with this or something that just makes it impossible?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ku07o", "g5kui0q", "g5kveap", "g5kv3vo", "g5ktgly" ], "text": [ "Sure, we've actually done it with a few different recently extinct animals. I forget its name, but there's a kind of gazelle like creature that we brought back from DNA taken from a skin of the animal that someone had as decoration. We need two things to make it happen. First, we need a quality DNA sample of the creature to work with, and the we need a living relative that's close enough genetically that we could implant the embryo into it, and have that surrogate animal carry the fetus to term.", "Long-gone animals like the dinosaurs haven’t left any viable DNA behind, so there’s nothing to work with and nowhere to start. Their closest living relatives have changed radically in the intervening 65,000,000+ years and that DNA is only marginally better than nothing. More recent extinctions like the mammoth or the sabre-toothed tiger have left reasonably good DNA samples and very close relatives around, so in theory you could reconstruct an approximation of their genome and attempt to clone one using a surrogate animal. This is of questionable scientific use though, since the animal you create isn’t really a revived mammoth but rather a modern elephant with a bunch of probable mammoth genes hacked into it. It’s hard to say how accurate you were since there’s no living mammoths for comparison. It’s also ethically dubious, as you’re likely to create a lot of failed/sickly attempts first. Even “healthy” clones aren’t that healthy due to the genetic damage they accrue during the cloning process.", "Extinct animals have been brought back to life for a while, but we're still not good enough at making them able to survive a few minutes after birth, as they usually die for some horrible defect or malformation. > The last natural Pyrenean ibex, a female named Celia, was found dead on January 6, 2000. > The Pyrenean ibex became the first taxon ever to become \"unextinct\" on July 30, 2003, when a cloned female ibex was born alive and survived for several minutes, before dying from lung defects > URL_0", "Also it is not enough to clone one or two animals from remains. To reproduce a group of animals must have genetical diversity to avoid inbreeding or close realtives offsprings will die from genetical illnesses.", "We don’t know what parts of the DNA do so we can’t put it together, think of a jigsaw puzzle without seeing all the pieces" ], "score": [ 26, 11, 8, 4, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [ "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrenean_ibex" ], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuiglp
Why do clouds turn a weird green-grey color when there is about to be a tornado?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5lx760" ], "text": [ "A storm is formed by a strong updraft of air. In a tornado producing storm, that updraft is so strong that an unusually high volume of hail forms high up in the atmosphere. The green light is the sun's light refracting through the mass of ice." ], "score": [ 35 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuimdn
How do composers such as Mozart learn to compose so well from such a young age?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kvtq5", "g5l1b2e" ], "text": [ "Wolfgang Mozart was the son of Johann Leopold Mozart, a famous and talented composer in his day. This is true in most cases, Beethoven and Bach were also the sons of prolific musicians/composers.", "Most of the \"greats\" were people who came from a long line of talented people in whatever they were \"great\" at, whether that be music, painting, science, tactics, or anything else. They were taught, more or less from birth, about their \"thing\". Did Mozart have an exceptional ear for music and excellent manual dexterity? Absolutely, but if he had been born poor he would have never made a name for himself and probably would have died in anonymity in a factory. \"The greats weren't great because at birth they could paint; the greats were great because they paint *a lot.\"*" ], "score": [ 11, 7 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuivhz
Can someone explain hibernation?
I was taught for the longest time that animals who hibernated just ate a bunch of food and slept through winter but that’s apparently incorrect??
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kx4ed" ], "text": [ "That’s sort of what they do, but they’re not “asleep” in the traditional sense. Hibernation is a much deeper state where core bodily functions drop to very low levels to massively conserve energy. The animal is not responsive during this time, and may be impossible to awaken until external conditions improve. This is different from just asleep, where you retain some level of awareness and your core functions only drop slightly. You’re still burning almost as much energy asleep as you do sitting around the house, and you can be shaken awake fairly quickly. Some animals hibernate through the entire season in a single lengthy block, others will occasionally wake up to change location or shore up their hiding spot. The length and depth of hibernation varies between species. Squirrels are frequently active throughout the winter raiding their food stores, some types of insects and amphibians are practically frozen to death for months and then come back to life when they thaw." ], "score": [ 8 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuix9c
If someone handed you a blanket that was the color ultra violet, what would we see?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5kwq5m" ], "text": [ "It would look black or, maybe, really dark violet, depending on the shade and purity of the color. \"Being of X color\" means \"reflect light waves on frequencies corresponding to X color and absorb other light in visible spectrum\". So, a \"ultra violet color\" paint, by that definition, would reflect a portion of UV light and absorb the entire visible spectrum, making it look black." ], "score": [ 11 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iuj51w
What is my computer actually doing while I’m waiting for a game to load?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ky1oq", "g5kzd99", "g5ky9l3" ], "text": [ "Rendering the level you’re about the enter, as well as loading all the information tied to that level in one big loading screen instead of maybe having a laggy experience with a bunch of small loads everytime you interact with soemthing. Conceptually it’s similar to letting a YouTube video buffer before you start playing it. Yea you’ve gotta wait a little bit But it’ll make the overall experience smoother.", "It’s copying the stuff form your drive to the ram, because ram is super fast and the cpu can only execute code directly form ram, but the storage drive is a lot slower than ram so it takes quite a while for the game to load", "It's loading all the resources and assets it needs into memory. Sort of like if you're getting ready to make a presentation and you need one person to connect the cables between the computer and the speakers and the computer and the projector, and you need another person to actually pull up the PowerPoint on the computer, and a third person to distribute all the relevant talking points to the people attending the presentation." ], "score": [ 8, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujf9a
What exactly are Pyramid Schemes?
Economics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l0a03" ], "text": [ "They are almost always scams whereby the person or group starting it put in some money to make it look legitimate, then they advertise and recruit more people who pay in to whatever the program is. Part of the program is recruiting more people who pay in to the program. And then *those* people recruit even *more* people who pay in to the program. All that money from all the levels finds its way up to the top somehow. It's called a pyramid scheme because it starts with a small group of people who recruit a larger group who recruits an even larger group so that it spreads out like a triangle or pyramid. They're considered scams since you're not really buying anything, just paying money to be a part of something. And then recruiting more people to be a part of something. And you might get *some* of that money from recruiting those people but for the most part that money just goes up. \"Multi-Level Marketing\" (MLM) operations are oftentimes associated with Pyramid Schemes, but the difference is that with MLM you're not just trying to recruit people, you're also actually selling a *real* product (like cosmetics or knife sets or encyclopedias). The problem with these is that it's generally a lot harder to sell these products than the managers of the operation make it seem, so you might buy $200 worth of cosmetics for $500 with the promise that \"you can sell this at the retail price for $800!\", but you'll be lucky if you sell it all." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujj3l
Why do you need WIFI to install video games on your computer?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l0due", "g5l0kjw", "g5l0fgs" ], "text": [ "You need internet, not specifically WiFi. Games these days aren't small enough to fit on a disc anymore so additional files are downloaded.", "> You're just installing the games files and assets into your computer. Yeah from where? Does it get whipped out of a magician's hat? You download stuff from the game company's servers (or Steam's) via the internet. Wi-Fi is a cable to short range radio adapter for an internet connection so you don't need to run a cable to your PC from the router which is plugged into your main internet cable.", "Depends on the game. It may be requiring a check for patches, more likely for physical media it has some sort of DRM where it needs to check a product code against a license server." ], "score": [ 11, 8, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujt2c
- Gaming PC Process
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l47cz" ], "text": [ "While air is always air, what ends up as a frame goes through countless other forms which have little in common. In a game, the cpu is generally in charge of things happening. Collisions, movements, damage calculations, status effects, quest progression, etc. Your RAM sticks hold the information that is needed for any software you are running, including the operating system and the game. The ram inside your graphics card, called g ram, exclusively holds texture and mesh information. And then of course the graphics card itself does all the rendering. The motherboard is in charge of smooth power distribution and communication between parts. So then the cpu pushes the game from your hard drive to your ram and g ram via the motherboard, and then over and over again the cpu calculates a new state for every single thing that is loaded in the game. e.g. asking each object how far it needs to go considering its speed and what speed it needs to have considering its acceleration, asking each object if it's hitting any other object, etc. The time frame for these updates depends on your frame rate. So the cpu will go “the gpu took 0.01 seconds to render the last frame. This bullet travels at 100 metres per second, so by now it should be 1 metre ahead of its last position” and if the gpu took more time, then the cpu would move the bullet farther to make its speed consistent with real time Then, the cpu will give the gpu information about objects' positions, light sources, etc. through the motherboard, and the gpu will take each object's appearance from its own g ram, use all of this to render a frame and then pass it on to the screen to be displayed." ], "score": [ 5 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujvqj
What causes phobias?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l3m9w" ], "text": [ "It is caused by classical conditioning. There are some research studies that show some fears may be inherited and part of the survival skills that are 'pre-loaded' in our brains. Babies show more eye contact with 'spiderish' shapes. Also, the 'fingernails on a chalkboard' effect on humans around the world is believed to be the remnants of a survival response to possibly a predator from long ago. [ URL_1 ]( URL_0 ) The Baby Albert experiment also shows that phobias can be induced at an early age. My own son, when he was 2-3 years old loved Cars with Lightning McQueen. The Cow-tipping scene includes a sudden ROAR from Lightning McQueen. It made him jump in fear. He would hand-sign 'more more' (he developed speech just fine as he grew up) I would turn up the volume and he would jump again in fear and laugh...rinse...repeat. However, now that he is older (6ish) he won't watch Cars, he says it's too scary." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment#:~:text=The%20Little%20Albert%20experiment%20was,Rayner%2C%20at%20Johns%20Hopkins%20University", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little\\_Albert\\_experiment#:\\~:text=The%20Little%20Albert%20experiment%20was,Rayner%2C%20at%20Johns%20Hopkins%20University" ] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujwn5
Why does getting my blood drawn hurt terribly sometimes, but at other times I don’t feel a thing?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l3230" ], "text": [ "I do think it's the skill most of the time. My veins are very difficult to find so some nurses have to poke around with the needle, others can hit the vein without any problems. If you're already tensed or nervous about something else (and it's short term), it might get your adrenaline up so you'll feel less anyway, but that would be rare." ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iujyhc
How do animals recognize other animals of the same species for mating when some species look very similar?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l41o5" ], "text": [ "Two things: How do you recognise your family/friends? They don't look the same to each other. There is also if two species do interbreed in MOST cases it cannot produce offspring, if it can they are most likely sterile." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iukabo
Why is falling asleep so hard at night, but so easy when you're snoozing?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l65yw" ], "text": [ "Elaborate. Snoozing? Like taking a nap or hitting the snooze button?" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iul0yq
What does a market exactly mean in business? Also what’s the difference between creating a new market and entering a new market? For example I’ve heard that Southwest Airlines created a new market, what does it really mean?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5l9uf1", "g5l9zew", "g5lafnv" ], "text": [ "A market is just a high-level term for the people that could buy your product. If you sell men's climbing shoes, then your market would be all men who climb. If you don't sell those shoes in Japan, then men who climb in Japan is not part of your market. Entering an existing market is just that. Back to my previous example, there are men who climb in Japan and those men are already buying climbing shoes, so if I start selling my shoes there I'm not suddenly creating new potential customers - I am just offering my product to customers that already exist. Creating a new market is actually getting people who were never interested in buying that product category _at all_ to start buying. Southwest Airlines initially targeted people who didn't purchase airfare because it was too expensive - they were not going after people who already bought airline tickets, but rather people who took ground based transportation.", "A market is the pool of potential customers for your product or service. Creating a new market is identifying a new set of customers who are being ignored or missed by your competition.", "\"Market\" is the term used to say that there are people selling a product and people buying a product. Let's say you want to sell apples in a town that already has a couple other companies selling apples. The apple market already exists in this town, so I'd be \"entering the market\". There are challenges associated with this because I need to convince people to buy my apples instead of the other established apple selling companies. The benefit though is that I already know people in this town want to buy apples. Now let's say I want to sell oranges. Nobody in town is currently selling oranges, and no one is buying oranges. No market for oranges exists! This is a good opportunity for me because by starting to sell oranges, I would be \"creating the market\" for oranges. I would have no competition. The potential downside is that there is no guarantee that people in this town would want to buy oranges. The challenge would be to convince the townsfolk to start wanting oranges." ], "score": [ 9, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iul67h
Green light is a mix of yellow light and blue light, so why do screens and monitors consist of RGB LEDs instead of Red, Yellow, and Blue LEDs, that could also create green light?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5lam4a", "g5lax3d" ], "text": [ "The primary colors of pigment are not the same as the primary colors of light. Pigment is CYM (cyan, yellow, magenta) - you mix colors together to get new colors Light is RGB (red, green, blue) - you take colors away to get new colors. If you mix cyan and yellow paint, you get green. If you mix blue and yellow light you do _not_ get green.", "Green light isn't a mix of yellow and blue. Green is everything except yellow and blue. Paint or ink use a subtractive color space: when you add yellow ink to blue ink you get something that absorbs both yellow and blue light (so you are only left with green light and thus get green ink). Screens use an additive color space because they emit light. Our eyes have sensors for red, green and blue lights, so every color we can see can be made by mixing different amounts of red green and blue, which is why screens use RGB." ], "score": [ 9, 4 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iulby5
What does it mean when a fluid (or anything really) goes “super-critical”?
During my evening exploration around the internet, I stumbled upon some science videos about Aero-Gel and another on radioactive material and in both cases the term “super-critical” was used. What is actually happening and what does it mean when something is “super-critical”? Can I go super-critical?
Physics
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5le458", "g5lhhlf" ], "text": [ "You likely already understand that things transition from solid, liquid and then gas based on an increase of temperature. You might also understand that you can also sometimes transition things from gas to a liquid and sometimes a solid by an increase in pressure. Think how Nitrogen at room temp is a gas but if you compress it into a tank, it can be a liquid at the same temp. Now, there exists a range of high pressures and temperature values where its hot enough to be a gas but also compressed enough to be a liquid. When its in this state its not really a gas and not really a liquid and generally has properties between the two states. You could theoretically go super critical, but it would not be pleasant... or survivable.", "For nuclear fission, \"super-critical\" means something different than it does for liquids/solids/gases, etc. So if you are hearing it in the context of aerogels and radioactive materials, if the radioactive materials are undergoing a nuclear chain reaction, they are using it in a difference sense. When a uranium-235 nucleus splits, it releases some neutrons. Those neutrons can, under the right conditions, split other U-235 atoms. Which release more neutrons, which can, under the right conditions, split more atoms, and so on, and so on. This is a nuclear chain reaction. \"Critical\" in this context means whether the conditions are such so that those splitting atoms will split other atoms. So if the average number of new atoms split by each U-235 atom is less than 1, the number of splitting atoms will decrease over time, not increase. This is \"sub-critical.\" If each U-235 atom that splits leads to the splitting of another U-235 atom, that means it is \"critical\" — it is self-sustaining. If each U-235 atom that splits leads to _more_ than 1 new U-235 atom being split afterwards, then it is \"super-critical,\" and the number of U-235 atoms split will grow exponentially. In a nuclear bomb, you go from \"sub-critical\" to \"super-critical\" in practically one step, if you do it right, and so a handful of U-235 atoms splitting will, in less than a millisecond, become a trillion trillion split U-235 atoms. In a nuclear reactor, you go from sub-critical to super-critical, but you set it up so that it will settle into being just critical so you get a long, sustained set of reactions, not an explosive amount of them. There are many conditions that affect whether a given collection of U-235 atoms can become critical or not, including how many atoms there are, how close together they are (their density), their temperature, their geometry, and so on." ], "score": [ 5, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iulmk0
Why are some berries poisonous when the whole purpose of fruits is to be picked up by animals to let their seeds spread?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5le8au" ], "text": [ "Berries that are poisonous to humans are not necessarily poisonous to animals, or vice versa. If the berry exists, that means that there is some animal immune to poison, eating it, and spreading the seeds." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iulxbd
Why does coffee sometimes wake a person up, and other times sends them into the Rapid-Heartbeat-And-Still-Tired-Shadow-Realm?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5lq6oa", "g5ly67g", "g5mhb0z", "g5n5s0o", "g5lrfky", "g5n69vm", "g5mhj0k", "g5mlkom", "g5nhhf9", "g5mi4wj", "g5mvqp4", "g5mg2tq", "g5nca5t" ], "text": [ "Coffee doesn’t actually give you “energy” it just suppresses the tiredness. if your body hits the emergency brake to prevent you from giving yourself brain damage from lack of sleep, no Caffeine is going to work.", "So tiredness is caused by a chemical in your brain called adenosine. Coffee has caffiene in it, and caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors in your brain, which prevents your brain from accepting the adenosine. This means that caffiene doesn't actually reverse the effects of the adenosine that has already been accepted, as it may seem. Caffeine also stimulates parts of the nervous system, which is why it can increase heart rate and blood pressure. I think it just becomes more noticeable when it hasn't blocked the adenosine receptors in time to prevent drowsiness.", "Caffeine acts as a Tireness Blocker in most people by binding to the Cell Receptors that recive the \"You're Tired!\" neurochemicals. It can also act as a Dopamine Substitute (as do many chemicals that end in -ine). Dopamine is a neurochemical used as the activator for a lot of Executive Function Behaviors- emotional regulation, the wake/sleep cycle, feeling hungry, knowing what time it is, and remembering things. When people drink coffee but are have been awake for Too Long according to thier bodies, the caffeine is shuffled off to go do other things Dopamine normally does, resulting in flooding some of your higher functions and getting sent to the mental shadow realm. When people who drink lots of coffee stop, the withdrawal can really feel like a sudden onset of depression, because thier body got used to having caffeine and not making as much dopamine, and one of the first things to be affected is Serotonin Production. They will feel low, irritiable, and suffer from headaches, nausea and sometimes tremors until they return to normal. People who have clinical depression often feel that awful all the time, becuase they cannot manufacture enough Serotonin at any time. Relatedly, people with ADHD, Bipolar Disorder and Clinical Depression and other mental illnesses caused by insufficient Dopamine often find coffee to act as a mild sedative- Dopamine helps regulate and maintain a lot of your basic maintainence functions, and if you don't have enough, you can't produce the \"You're Tired!\" Chemicals your brain needs to begin the Sleep Cycle. People with ADHD will often drink a cup of coffee and then be ready to got to bed because the caffeine acts as a dopamine substitute and finally gives them the 'energy' to start the Sleep cycle. Yes, it takes energy to fall asleep normally. Not a lot, but it's a mental process that has to boot up and if you can't boot it up from insufficient neurochemicals, it's impossible to fall asleep normally and you end up in a 4 AM feuge shitposting to reddit before your brain hits the emergency Sleep Brake and you black out at your computer.", "Well Billy, I’m glad you asked! Here’s the deal: “sleepiness” is just a bunch of messages in your brain that say “you need to rest” kind of like how Harry Potter was getting all that mail inviting him to Hogwarts to be a wizard. Coffee works like how the Dursleys did: it hides and messes with the messages as they arrive. But just like in Harry Potter, eventually there are too many messages to hide and your brain (Harry) finds out that it needs some sleep (gets to be a wizard!).", "Caffeine is like pressing the gas pedal on your body. If you run out of fuel, you can’t move. Edit: “An award?! I never got an award before!”", "I actually go through this all the time and had to do some research when I thought I was going to have a heart attack. So, caffeine is just a stimulant.. just. It speeds up your heart a little, increases your BP a little, etc. But keep in mind it's not a robot.. it doesn't much care what else you are going through. Your body, however, does. So if you are sleeping well and have your head together, maybe it will shake you up a little and give you a little wakey boost. However.. if you are not sleeping well and have a nice little sleep debt going, it may not affect you noticeably at all. Or worse, if you are going through some emotional disruption or severe sleep issues, it can actually do the opposite and knock you out. Worse, if you have large anxiety or hypertension issues, which themselves can cause disruptions left and right , you may, instead, OVERreact to it, making the anxiety shoot through the roof. Note that having anxiety can also make you notice your heartbeat more, which can make a normal heartbeat speedup seem like you are going to die (your heart is a drama queen and loves attention. Don't believe me? Take your own pulse at your neck for a minute. It will speed up as you notice it.) So tl;dr, it's not the coffee that's changing how it works, it's your body going through it's own drama and dealing with it differently. If you are constantly having panic attacks when you drink coffee, take a break from it for a few days and try to catch up on some sleep so your heart doesn't overreact.", "As others have mentioned, coffee works by denying the \"sleep\" signals to the brain. This keeps you awake and prevents your body from enacting \"sleep pressure\" on you that makes you want to sleep. Since you are not sleeping but still low on energy your body will dip into your reserves for energy and burn those to keep you going. So if you have too much coffee your body will be working hard to burn energy to keep you awake (the heart rate increase) but then if you're tired enough and likely low on energy reserves there will be too much \"sleep pressure\" for the coffee to deny it all and you will still be tired. This is why there can often be a crash from caffeine because your body doesn't stop producing the sleep pressure chemicals so when it can no longer be denied, then it all hits you at once and you get really tired.", "Anecdotally this happens to me when I am extremely low on sleep and haven't eaten much before drinking too much coffee. I refer to the feeling as \"slamming on the gas when there's nothing in the tank\"", "I've actually written a post on this. It essentially blocks adenosine receptors in your brain. Think of it like a dam: the water is still there, but it's being held back. However, if there's a certain amount of water, it will only slow it down, not stop it. [Here's the more elaborated post! ]( URL_0 )", "Also....coffee is a diuretic...which means it makes you pee a lot. If you drink coffee without having had enough water that day and then pee a lot you get dehydrated and it can make you sleepy. Used to happen to me all the time, at work of all places, until my sister who is a doctor explained it to me. The more you know.", "Coffee/caffeine has never had a strong effect on me for some reason. I wish I could feel it like most people :(", "Not everyone is affected by caffeine either but can sometimes have similar reactions purely as a placebo because we're all told caffeine keeps you awake.", "Caffeine binds to the same receptor that the thing that makes you tired binds to. Caffeine works when that receptor is free. If youre tired, those receptors are likely already bonded so Caffeine cant plug in as the sleepy binder is already in its place That's why you'd still be tired" ], "score": [ 4083, 753, 208, 175, 77, 11, 8, 7, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "https://modernistpotions.com/how-does-coffee-wake-you-up/" ], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iulz3y
Why does hanging up a call on a landline phone not end the call on mobile?
Just had a chat with a department store. He hung up his landline, but the call didn't end on my cell phone. This always happens. What's the deal? Edit: The call does eventually drop (after about 26 seconds), but it's different depending on which side initiates the call. See comments below for details.
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5ln36d" ], "text": [ "If you waited for a few seconds, it should have hung up. On a landline it's really obvious when one party hangs up...the circuit is broken at one end. The phone network knows and you immediately hear that they've hung up on the other end. But mobile phones occasionally drop their signal (switching towers, building got in the way, etc.). Just because there's no signal the mobile network won't immediately assume you hung up and drop the call, it will briefly wait to see if you just temporarily dropped off and are coming back. After a few seconds it'll figure it out and hang up the mobile call. This might be network specific...I'm on AT & T in the US and we get landline calls all the time for teleconference meetings...when the \"meeting\" hangs up there's a lag of 2-3 seconds then the mobile network figures it out and ends the call." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iume6q
why do carbonated drinks make your tongue burn?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5llw9f" ], "text": [ "When you drink carbonated drinks, you are actually drinking an acid. Carbonic acid is the dissolved form of CO2, and acids are sour, like drinking lemon juice." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iumrdf
What causes people to choose one way to sleep over another. Such as im a side sleeper but my mom is a back sleeper. Is there any specific reason or is it just preference?
Other
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5lzszt" ], "text": [ "Herniated neck disc here- doc said I have to be a back sleeper for my brace to work properly. If you think learning to write with the opposite hand is a hard task, try teaching yourself to sleep in a position you don’t prefer. 2 years later and it’s normal now, but that first month sucked butt." ], "score": [ 7 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iumyyp
What is a stiff neck in technical terms & what causes it?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5lqg8z" ], "text": [ "It can be a variety of things, from benign to medically serious. Muscle stiffness or strains in the neck is a common cause, but it can also present with meningitis- where it is caused by inflammation surrounding the meninges of the brain and spinal cord." ], "score": [ 3 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iup0vy
Why do cuts that you get from shaving bleed so much?
Biology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5m2u68" ], "text": [ "Scabs form from blood cells accumulating on rough edges of wounds. razors are so sharp that blood cells are unable to stick to such a clean cut. and you have tiny capillaries right under your skin, so your body has to mend /two/ wounds of the sort." ], "score": [ 9 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iup75t
Most materials can be turned into liquids at the right temperature, even rocks. Why can't wood?
Chemistry
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5m47ff", "g5m417e", "g5m64dg", "g5mubus", "g5ma71h" ], "text": [ "Not all rocks *can* become liquid. At least, not without a fundamental change in their material. Like limestone. Carbon can't normally become a liquid, for a non-rock example. Limestone and wood both break down at high temperature. The bonds within their molecules cannot hold together when they are vibrating too aggressively. Almost all molecules encounter this eventually, but some encounter it before they are able to melt. This is especially common for things with long carbon chains in them, like flesh and plastics, since these chains can't always easily slide past each other to melt, but their bonds are relatively weak compared to the bonds of other materials like ceramics.", "I believe it's due to the fiber material that make up it's structure. Much like other vegetation and things like cloth -- the fibers catch fire and dont melt, but burn up.", "Carbon reacts with oxygen to burn long before it gets hot enough for the molecules to \"fall apart\" and melt. Ash, all the elements that didn't burn, will melt and has been used as a ceramic glaze for thousands of years. Rocks are made of a bunch of different elements, mostly silicon, which do not react with oxygen. Pure carbon, heated without oxygen, can be made to melt, but this takes temperatures waaaay higher than what kilns or furnaces get to. So, if you heat wood without oxygen you could theoretically melt it, with the right conditions, but at temperatures we make it just turns into charcoal.", "Wood CAN be melted. It's just that the temperature needed to melt wood is higher than the temperature at which the wood particles start to react with each other and the environment.", "Parts of wood can. I'm a ceramic artist and when we fire our kiln with wood the ashe will settle on the pots and start to melt. Look up wood fired pottery on Google and you'll see images where it looks like there were leaks down the side." ], "score": [ 68, 32, 9, 8, 5 ], "text_urls": [ [], [], [], [], [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]
iupbl6
How come tech devices / video games / software updates have bugs and flaws although it has been tested by developers and advertised as working smoothly?
Technology
explainlikeimfive
{ "a_id": [ "g5m54tn" ], "text": [ "When you develop a feature, you have to take in consideration if the code you are writing or editing will have impacts on other features. Some times, you have the right scope and you know exactly if it will, some times not. In the case that you impact another feature without knowing, the testing team should raise a bug and a developer should fix it. The main issue is: time. If the client says \"deliver the project\", we have to do it, and sometime, some fixes are missing or some bugs haven't been raised. It really depends on multiple factors, but know that we - Devs - wish to deliver a perfect product at every delivery, but we stay humans and make mistakes. I hope this answer will help you understand better! Sorry for my English, I'm a bit rusty!" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text_urls": [ [] ] }
[ "url" ]
[ "url" ]