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j1a1vc
|
What does this phrase mean: “Earth’s Ellipticity: Flattening at the Poles and Bulging at the Equator”.
|
I honestly have no idea what this means, so any simple answer would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to answer!
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6xx9o0",
"g6xwsx5"
],
"text": [
"You have an earth shaped ball made of playdoh the size of a golf ball. You put your thumb on the South Pole and your index finger on the north. Squeeze gently. The middle (equator) bulges out as the top (north pole) and bottom (south pole) flatten/come together. This is what’s happening only instead of outside forces acting on the earth, it’s the centrifugal force of the earth rotating that is causing the middle of the earth to want to push out while simultaneously drawing in the poles. Causing the ellipticity. I can’t explain that any better so I hope someone can not only confirm what I’m trying to portray but also elaborate on it.",
"Because the earth is rotating, the weight flings out at the equator, like a spinning dancers dress"
],
"score": [
6,
3
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"text_urls": [
[],
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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j1a4rg
|
Why sex fells so realistic in your sleep but you cannot get that experience from thoughts?
|
Sometimes in your sleep your experience is so realistic that you can't even imagine..why is that? How our brain simulate that experience for us?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6xytcb",
"g6xxmuo"
],
"text": [
"Immersion. Normally in a dream your mind is totally immersed in whatever you are dreaming, so it will fill in any \"blanks\" that are not actually there (feelings, smells, etc). When you are just thinking about something, you're not totally immersed in it. It's just one of many streams of input being processed, and \"reality\" takes priority",
"It does not fell realistic it's a fake memory. The brain is not recreating what you think you felt just the thought"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1a9p7
|
why is someone who carries messages a ‘messenger’ and not a ‘messager’
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6y3nrq"
],
"text": [
"As with most circumstances where this occurs in English, it's because the two words actually come from different roots--\"message\" is derived from Latin, but \"messenger\" is from Middle Ages French. In some cases they fiddle with the spelling to make the word association that much clearer (see: \"isle\" and \"island\", where they added the s to the second word to make it more similar to the first), but in others, they don't."
],
"score": [
17
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1afn0
|
What is it that gives us the feeling of sleeping on clean sheets?
|
Definitely a dumb question BUT, sleeping on fresh sheets is one of the most satisfying things. Why does it feel so nice?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6y2rli",
"g6yl09e"
],
"text": [
"The sheets smell like detergent rather than your own sweat and body oils. They also feel clean since detergent washes away your dead skin cells and body oils. They're a fresh canvas for you to make gross again.",
"Oil. Your skin is very sensitive, you are feeling the difference in the amount of oil that the fibers have absorbed. Take a scrap of freshly laundered terry cloth. Rub it, stroke your face. Now put some cooking oil on it and repeat the rubbing and stroking."
],
"score": [
15,
11
],
"text_urls": [
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[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1aikn
|
What source code does and why it is so bad if it gets leaked?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6xzgji",
"g6xzik4",
"g6yrzqt",
"g6xzjd2",
"g6xznxf"
],
"text": [
"Source code is the text of the program that is written by a human (usually) and human readable. It's not necessary bad (a lot of software is open source, so anyone can read and download the source code) but for large proprietary projects it can be seen as a copyright violation, and also it makes it easier for the hackers to find vulnerabilities in the software.",
"Source code is the uncompiled code for apps/websites etc. It's exactly what the programmer types in to make the app do whatever it's supposed to do. Leaking it is bad because it allows others to copy the app or find security vulnerabilities very easily.",
"The source code is the recipe. The program you bought is the cake. The hoity toity chef doesn't want you to see the recipes mostly because they don't want you making your own super cakes. And perhaps the recipe may disgust you, or you may discover it has illegal ingredients or whatever.",
"Source code is the code that was written to make the programs that your machine can run. Getting your source code leaked is bad since somebody can essentially copy your code. Additionally, if you have access to the source code of, for example, the source code of a server operating system then you can look through the source code and try to find flaws in the programming to exploit for malicious purposes.",
"Source code is the human readable code that is written and then later run through a compiler process to generate machine readable code that is executed later. A few risks can occur with unintentionally released source code. Firstly, it may contain intellectual property that you don't want others knowing about (ie your code is your own work, you don't want your competitor knowing how you implemented a features. Even more importantly, having the entire world being able to read your code means that anyone sufficiently motivated can analyze your code and point out flaws that might make it possible to do nasty stuff. (Like for example, if there was a flaw that lets an attacker run arbitrary code of their choice on the machine running your code)."
],
"score": [
38,
10,
3,
3,
3
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
j1awut
|
why are some antidepressants prescribed only after a certain amount of others have failed?
|
The antidepressants I'm on is only recommended in people who have not improved sufficiently on two other antidepressants, despite having similar effectiveness to other antidepressants. If it's similar in effectiveness, why is it used specifically after others have failed to be effective? Is this because it could have potentially worse side effects? What makes them think this one will work where others have failed?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6y1ilr",
"g6y89pj",
"g6y1h3z",
"g6y8qmz"
],
"text": [
"Sometimes it's a matter of cost and/or side effects. One particular medication may be more effective in specific cases, but it's too expensive to consider prescribing as a first trial. Other situations might involve a particular antidepressant that has potentially problematic side effects or interactions with other drugs that require more careful monitoring, but if it's effective it might be worth considering if other alternatives have failed.",
"Are you taking an MAOI? This is a class of drugs that’s usually reserved for after other drugs have failed. One reason for this is because they interfere with your body’s ability to process tyramine, a substance found in many aged foods like soy sauce, bacon and aged cheese. If you are on an MAOI it’s critical to be aware of which foods contain tyramine because consuming them can lead to a hypertensive crisis. I know this because my husband takes an MAOI and I am constantly annoyed by the long list of foods I can’t cook with :) [Here’s more info about MAOIs ]( URL_0 )",
"Same reason you can be prescribed amphetamines for depression after everything else fails. It's either more addictive or straight up worse for your body",
"Basically, they start with the one that works the most often while having the fewest side effects. Unfortunately, because everyone's body chemistry is slightly different what works for some people with no side effects can be debilitating to others. We still can't determine what will work for who without trying them all first. The drugs that are used as a last resort are usually saved until later in the process because the side effects and medication interactions can themselves be deadly or cause permanent organ damage so it's best to avoid them all together if possible."
],
"score": [
14,
6,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.verywellmind.com/foods-to-avoid-when-taking-maois-4136871"
],
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]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1cmf5
|
Why can't the democrats simply refuse to accept a new justice like the republicans did in 2016?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yazxn",
"g6yb2io"
],
"text": [
"Because Republicans controlled the senate then and now?",
"New Justices are confirmed by the Senate by a simple majority. In 2016 and 2020 the Senate majority is held by Republicans."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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|
j1cp08
|
When someone dies suddenly, what happens to their assets and money? How do they determine who to transfer to?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6ycenv"
],
"text": [
"If the person has a will, that will is typically followed. Usually their spouse or a close family member will already know where a copy of the will is kept, and which law office the deceased worked with to draft the will. If the person has no will, they're what's referred to as \"[intestate]( URL_0 )\", and their jurisdiction's intestacy laws are followed."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intestacy"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1cpoo
|
How do you gain weight after a run?
|
The other day I weighed myself before and after a run. Before the run I was 176 lbs. I drank about two cups of water, which google tells me weighs approximately 1 lb. Then I went for a 2.5k run. Out of curiosity, I weighed myself right after I got back on the same scale and it now said I weighed 179 lbs. I was naked for both weigh ins. I'm not wondering this for weight loss reasons, I know you should just weigh yourself at the same time every day, under the same conditions. What I'm wondering is from a biology perspective, where did that extra 2 lbs of mass come from? Does your body retain moisture from the air when running? Oxygen?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yg7l7",
"g6yfp17",
"g6yjvg1",
"g6ywbnu",
"g6yjpmi"
],
"text": [
"Probably simply your scales. I've never had a set that wasn't capable of giving different readings (sometimes significantly so) depending on precisely where I placed my feet on them, how my weight was distributed across my feet, and exactly where the scales were placed (one set would weigh me a pound or more different if I so much as moved them half an inch across the - tiled - bathroom floor). When the results matter to me, I pay attention to all of those - and then take at least three readings anyway, because I don't trust the first reading I take to be accurate.",
"Check the technical specs on your scale. It probably has an error range of about + / - 5% Besides, weighing yourself before and after a run is pointless you're not gonna see a difference other than sweat, urine and/or faeces. Even day to day how much salt you have eaten will have more of an impact on water weight. Spread out your weigh-ins to once a week to see the real difference or better yet, go by waist size and how you feel. Keep up the good work!",
"You can't gain weight running. Either you drank more water than you realised or your measurements are wrong. I strongly suspect your measurements are wrong. Bathroom scales aren't always accurate, and user error is very possible",
"This is one of the many reasons why most people will suggest weighing yourself every day, but add all those daily numbers together and divide by 7 and get your average weight for the week. Compare your weekly averages to track weight loss (or weight gain if that's your thing). Home scales aren't the most accurate of things.",
"OP, you need to run a control experiment. Pick a day and do the exact same thing but don't run. Rest the same, eat the same, drink the same and weigh yourself throughout the day. If your weight fluctuates weirdly then it's your scale as other posters have said. If it doesn't fluctuate then you're a mutant and there is a special school in upstate New York that is looking for you."
],
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32,
6,
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4
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"text_urls": [
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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j1cwpg
|
How can a woman create a fully functional baby in nine months but can barely heal a broken ankle that’ll never work again properly?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6ycyes",
"g6yde9i",
"g6yqs3g",
"g6yd3z8"
],
"text": [
"Because embryogenesis is a series of unimaginably complex and carefully sequenced construction tasks involving cellular machinery that is permanently switched off after the work is done. There's little room for error and everything has to happen right the first time- mistakes manifest as birth defects or failed pregnancy. After that, our body's own healing mechanisms are responsible for injury recovery, which are not meant to build human body parts but to repair them. It's like trying to repair a building after it's already built- you'd need to disassemble existing structures to replace what's broken. The body can't do that. We're complex creatures, and lack the ability to regenerate our bodies in part because a broken bone isn't the death sentence for us that it is for many other animals. We can still survive even if our body doesn't always heal perfectly.",
"It's worth noting that the mother does not \"create\" the baby; the baby creates itself. The mother's egg and father's sperm combine to form a zygote. The zygote develops into a blastocyst (a hollow ball of cells), which implants into the mother's uterus. At that point, the mother provides nutrients and waste removal, and the blastocyst develops into an embryo, and then a fetus, and then a baby, all under its own power.",
"It should also be noted that a surprising number of pregnancies fail. Estimates range from 10%-20% (older research) to over 50% (recent research from the last few years). The human body -- and life in general -- is amazing but not perfect. Survival of the *fittest* doesn't mean the *best possible*. It just has to work well *enough* to have made it this far.",
"The building a baby is part of how her body is built, and not every woman can have children keep in mine (my own mother had 5 miscarriages for instance). Conversely, the breaking a bone is never part of how the human body is meant to work. (Ergo, something *broke*). Now some people recover from broken bones better than others. Part of that is due to genetics, part of that is due to environmental factors and diet."
],
"score": [
44,
33,
8,
5
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"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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|
j1d2aq
|
How are nano-circuits actually connected to any kind of meaningful logic?
|
I understand how transistors work, and how logic gates create the actual (at least basic) processor logic, and I understand the basic idea of creating incredibly small transistors. But I can't seem to find anything online that explains how those billions of a few nanometer wide transistors are connected to create those logic gates, given their incredibly small size and the way they're crammed onto a board.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6ye22a",
"g6ygfig"
],
"text": [
"Transistors are connected in the same way that they're created. Manufacturers use a technique known as \"photolithography\", which is basically developing a photograph of the desired circuit layout, except instead of the photograph being developed onto a piece of photographic paper, it's developed onto a tiny silicon wafer. The result is that the entire microchip is created all at the same time, including all the billions of transistors, and all of the connections between them.",
"Everything is done with lithography, doping, and deposition They expose an acid resistive sheet to light, anywhere that light touches becomes acid sensitive (or vice versa), they then clear away the exposed areas. To make the transistors themselves they expose the right areas and hit then with a boron gas(p-type doping), phosphorus gas(n-type doping), or oxygen if they're making the gate oxide. To connect these doped areas together, they expose certain sections to acid for a while so it digs a trench, and then they expose it to copper which settles down in these trenches and forms a tiny network of wires in the chip Stuff in a modern IC is too small to mechanically manipulate, but lithography lets us make very complicated structures without needing to physically touch anything"
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1d94z
|
Why did old dial up internet make that screeching sound while connecting?
|
[dial up screeching sound]( URL_0 )
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yfshd",
"g6yf0e5",
"g6yf6lo",
"g6zow7o"
],
"text": [
"Dial-up connections send/receive data as sounds over the phone line. The \"screeching sound\" you're referring to is the handshake, where both modems were negotiating how to communicate with each other. That part was purposefully configured so that the user could hear it, so that you could troubleshoot common problems, like a busy signal, or a wrong number. Once the connection was established, the sound stopped being played through speakers for you to hear, but they kept being played over the phone line between the two modems, because that's how data was transferred. [This blog post]( URL_0 ) has a great dissection of the parts of a dial-up handshake.",
"That's the handshake sound. The other modem listens for that sound to start the connection process",
"Dial up uses the telephone line to send data, so if you pick up the phone, you can hear all these signals as sounds. That iconic sound is mostly the \"I'm connecting to the provider's server to get access to the Internet\" startup sequence.",
"Ah, the handshake... It can be described in 3 phases. The first phase is the network interaction phase. Are you a modem? I'm a modem! Here is a list of features I support that we can use. Ok, let's use these features... This phase sounds like a bunch of tones. The second phase is probing and ranging. This is a series of tests for how much of the audio channel is actually available and amplitude. They negotiate how loud the modems should transmit. During all three phases, the modems are transmitting at 300 bits per second. This phase is going to mostly determine the upper bitrate that is possible. The third phase is equalizer and echo cancelation test. This is the part that sounds like a bunch of noise, because it is. It trains the devices on how the channel sounds and how to cancel out noise. Final bitrate and other features are decided after this stage. Playing the handshake over a speaker is for human diagnostics. Ostensibly, an engineer could *hear* and diagnose problems during the handshake. Maybe? Maybe in the earlier days of modem communication? I dunno, I was never that good, or perhaps some of this was before my time. Home users of phone modems had the option of turning OFF the handshake audio, for convenience."
],
"score": [
30,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://www.windytan.com/2012/11/the-sound-of-dialup-pictured.html"
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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j1dc6u
|
why do organ recipients have to take immunosuppressants for life but ligament recipients do not?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yflmi",
"g6zg6ds"
],
"text": [
"Ligaments are bloodless, being inert fibrous connective tissue, and don't carry the markers vascular organs do that the recipient's immune system would recognize.",
"TIL organ recipients have to take immune suppressants. Even though the donor is the same blood type?"
],
"score": [
48,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1dxdi
|
What is dividend reinvestment?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yk9t4",
"g6z19vn"
],
"text": [
"When you own shares in a company, at the end of the year you may get paid a dividend. Dividend reinvestment is when you use the dividend to buy more shares in said company.",
"If you have a bank account, you normally get interest. If you leave the interest in the bank account, you are reinvesting the interest. Shares in a company pay you dividends. If you buy more shares with these dividends, you are reinvesting your dividend. Some companies will automate this process for you."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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|
j1emjx
|
Why is it that whenever I see people who don't have teeth, it always looks like they're chewing?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zcbaw",
"g6zlxu3"
],
"text": [
"I once asked someone I was comfortable enough with to call attention to it (a mid-30's coworker who was not 'proud', but 'comfortable' with admitting he has no teeth due to drug use, usually accompanied by \"don't do hard drugs, they're not worth it\") why he does this, and he said \"my gums feel weird I guess. They bug me a bit if I don't, so I subconsciously just sorta... Do that.\" I assume it's kinda like how your tongue instinctively kinda shifts around a bit? I don't know if that's for everyone or just him, but that was the explanation I've been rolling with. Or, for a joke answer, \"because they have chewing gums.\"",
"Your jaw has a comfortable resting spot. When you lose your teeth your jaw no longer has a comfortable resting spot. That chewing is the jaw trying to find a resting spot that isn't there anymore. I wish I could remember the name of it. Edit: Thank you d_scotty10 for knowing the name: Tardive Dyskinesia"
],
"score": [
123,
31
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1esqd
|
What made old radio sound the way it did?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6ypulz"
],
"text": [
"There were of course several reasons why old radio technology degraded the sound. But maybe the most important reason was that the old AM radio bands are limited to 3kHz bandwidth. So high frequency sounds in music can not be transferred over AM radio. This makes the music sound \"tinny\". But of course there were lots of other sources of distortion and noise that made the signal sound worse."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1f3np
|
why do companies take so long to push out 'dark mode' updates to their websites or apps?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yrs7t",
"g6yurrz",
"g6znrif"
],
"text": [
"Same reason it can take a while to make a web site in the first place. They want it to look good, and it has to go through testing. You gotta make sure there's no obviously place where text is forced to be printed in black, and perhaps most importantly the company logo has to look good against a dark background and not be excessively bright when it was probably originally created for a light background. I'm sure there's some colour blindness expert who has to sign off on the design lest they get angry emails from users. If you've used automatic dark mode extensions in your browser you know that sometimes there are problems. A company isn't going to release their own dark mode layout unless they're willing to put their name on it.",
"I'm a web developer that works for a large company. We are constantly adding features to better serve our over one million customers. I would love to put in a dark mode for users but if it doesn't bring in dollars or improve the web traffic it's a low priority. The best way to get a dark mode or any other feature on a site is to message the company and ask/complain. We get enough suggestions for the same feature it will happen.",
"Coz it seems like a simple color change, but in reality it could be creating tons of cases where the text is invisible against the background. You gotta check everything first."
],
"score": [
6,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1fefw
|
How can respiratory or food allergies be tested by applying the allergen in your skin?
|
[I'm talking about these tests]( URL_0 )
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6ywhhj"
],
"text": [
"An allergy skin test involve poking a needle with a specific allergen into the skin, where it will be exposed to the immune system and elicit a response that can be recorded. You're not trying to cause anaphylaxis, but skin irritation at the site of injection that indicates a localized, mild immune response."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1ffy0
|
Why does uncovered chocolate left out for a few hours taste really weird, even though it's not stale?
|
You leave chocolate out overnight and it tastes weird :0 it's not stale at all, so what is the new, weird taste? I've alwaysss wondered this.
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yuefw"
],
"text": [
"It's called rancidification, or \"going rancid\". It's a chemical reaction between the fats in the chocolate and the ambient air, as oxygen oxidizes the fatty acids in the chocolate. We add preservatives to food to stave off this effect but it can't be completely prevented in most foods."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1fq4g
|
How is vegetable oil made?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yy5by"
],
"text": [
"Vegetable oil is made by heating the seeds (sunflower or canola) and then crushing them. This extracts about half the oil the seeds contain. They then use a solvent to extract to remaining oil, and refine it further."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1gail
|
Why is it so difficult to pick up small items when they're in the water?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6yzwpf",
"g6z7pt6"
],
"text": [
"Basically because your fingers cause a wave that is strong enough to push it away. In air the same happens with even smaller/lighter objects.",
"In addition to the other answers, water refracts light. So if is under water and not floating and the water has any depth compared to the size of the object or hand, it isn't *quite* where you see it, so you are just a bit off in your grab. It won't make a much difference with a larger item, but will with a smaller one."
],
"score": [
13,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1gtn8
|
What happens to the sweat you don't sweat from your armpits because of "anti-sweat" deodorants?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g704opx",
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"text": [
"I'm curious about this, because I know aluminum is used, but I'm also aware they've found aluminum in the brains of some dementia patients... Are these things related?",
"There is actually compensatory sweating that occurs when your pits are unable to sweat normally, and you might notice more sweat on your back or face.",
"I get really smelly feet if I use antiperspirants. I don't know why, maybe they sweat more through the day? I stopped using them for that reason because it literally fixed it the day after and has never come back. I even tried again once because I borrowed some from a friend and they smelled again the day after.",
"So many deleted comments... what went wrong with this deodorant question??",
"I knew a kid who didn't have arms. He did everything with his feet. He was super sweaty, he said it was because he had a lot less skin surface area to sweat from.",
"I dated a Russian girl several years ago that used antiperspirant instead of a deodorant from age 12-22. It gave her lumps like breast cancer does which scared the shit out of her, but they turned out to be fibroids that were non-cancerous. Long story short, if you choose to block a natural body process with chemicals you just might regret it.",
"Your body doesn't have a sweat reservoir that it needs to empty. It makes the sweat as it needs to. Antiperspirants block up the sweat gland pores, so no sweat can get out. Duct gets full, no more sweat gets produced. Deodorants kill the bacteria that eat the sweat and oil and produce the bad smell.",
"> You eventually either wash it off or it will slough off with your dead skin cells over time. You eventually either wash it off, it will slough off with your dead skin cells over time, or it'll soak into your shirts, turn them crusty, and ruin them. (FTFY)",
"In my case it blocks the pores and i end up with infected sweat glands I use deodorant that is not antiperspirant now",
"So my armpits don't sweat and I don't have armpit hair. Normal bodyhair/sweat patterns everywhere else. Does this mean I've absorbed all of it? Am I a walking s w e a t ?",
"I stopped wearing deodorant many years ago because I realized I sweat either way and I’m just wasting money. No one has mentioned that I smell so until someone does I’m rolling with it.",
"Thank you for using the word armpits. It's a normal word and has perfectly described a body area for decades. The first time I heard the word underarm was on a dove deodorant advert and it annoyed me immediately. It was obviously a corporate decision somewhere along the line to make a normal word sound nicer to a certain audience.",
"The greatest thing I've concluded about all the various comments about smell here is that the people in charge of naming soaps is probably men. Post after post men have described women smelling like strawberries, peaches, \"fresh, clean water\", flowers and just generally good adjectives. On the other hand they have referred to themselves as smelling like, \"a bucket of skunks left to ferment in the sun at a willie nelson concert\", \"boiled cabbage that's been left by the dump with a pile of onions\", more onions, and \"a roll of raw sausage\". Makes sense now why women's soap is labeled, \"jasmine\" and guys soap is labeled, \"Swagger\", \"Bearglove\", or \"Wolfthorn\".",
"You can also use plain baking soda as anti deodorant. Just dissolve some small amount in water and rub it in your armpits after shower. It doesn't work as an antiperspirant so it won't clog your glands, but it will inhibit bacterial growth. Bacterial growth is what makes sweat stink after time. Also, it doesn't stain your clothes as most usual antiperspirants / antiperspirants do. It is cheap and natural solution for removing the scent and it works all day long, even during the long and hot summer days. Just make sure that the package states that there is no added aluminium in your baking soda. Baking soda for consumption has no added aluminium, unlike the baking soda for cleaning and industrial use."
],
"score": [
72,
66,
11,
10,
9,
8,
7,
6,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1h2dr
|
Why do fans have their settings as 0-3-2-1 instead of 0-1-2-3?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z5i5w",
"g6z56cf"
],
"text": [
"So you get max power to the motor when you start it. Some electric motor design can have problems starting at the low speed setting. It was primary a problem in old motors so today it is in large part tradition. [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )",
"To keep the motor from burning out early. It takes a lot of force to move all that stationary mass. Theres more torque output at the fastest setting so the fan will start spinning. Once the fan is spinning keeping it moving requires less power so you can bump it down to one and not worry about burning out the motor ahead of its designed lifespan."
],
"score": [
43,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ3GW7lVBWY"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1h5k3
|
I have heard that flies go into hibernation when they get trapped in a fridge, but wake up when they defrost. Is this how all bugs survive winter?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z7cz6"
],
"text": [
"Flys and other cold blooded animals have metabolisms that are dependent on temperature. When it’s cold like in a fridge they breathe and need to eat way less to survive. Because of this they can survive for a very long time without much food or oxygen. Not all bugs survive winter using this mechanism but a lot do. Some burrow or migrate but many do survive all winter in this dormant state. Ladybugs can literally freeze solid and defrost and survive. Interesting videos of this on YouTube!"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1h8qs
|
How are news stations able to project which candidate will win a state after only counting 5% of the votes?
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z6viw",
"g6zemsb"
],
"text": [
"They compare it to the pre-election polls, and they do exit polls. If those two unofficial polls indicate a clear winner, and the 5% of votes counted align with those unofficial polls, then they feel safe calling the state. It's not official by any means, and no news station would ever call a state before polls close, so as not to affect people who haven't voted yet. But a state like California is never going to vote for Trump, so they can call it the second polls close.",
"Statistics. As long as the sample is an accurate representation of the total population, even a small sample can tell you a lot about the whole. Imagine a throughly shaken (mixed) bucket of 20,000+ yellow and orange jelly beans. Take a large scoopful--700 or so--and count yellow vs orange. The distribution of yellow vs orange you find in the sample is, with 95% confidence, within +/- 3% of the actual distribution in the bucket. The catch is, of course, you have to have reason to believe that the sampling is accurate. If the population isn't evenly distributed--for example, if we know someone just added a scoop of orange to the bucket and didn't mix it well, or if most of the votes counted so far came from affluent precints--the sample will not be an accurate representation of the whole."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1hc5o
|
Why do drinks taste better from a soda fountain?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z7hug",
"g6z7b45"
],
"text": [
"I only know why Cokes at McDonald's taste so good. It's because Coke determined how much soda water, ice and syrup make the drink taste best. They then worked with McDonald's so the Coke you get there actually tastes how a Coke is supposed to taste. Also, it's fresh made and hasn't been sitting around in either a bottle or a can for who knows how long.",
"Do they? I've always found the fountain to be watered down vs straight from the can."
],
"score": [
24,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1he4j
|
f=ma to me?
|
I’m having trouble understanding it
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z7f76",
"g6z7nr7",
"g6z7qm8"
],
"text": [
"When you put a force on something, you change it's velocity, AKA you accelerate it. How much do you accelerate it? depends on how heavy (mass) it is. If you push a small car, you're going to accelerate it much more than if you pushed on a large truck, because the truck has more mass.",
"Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration. So basically for a constant force an object that weights the half will accelerate twice as fast. I don't know what else to explain, depends a bit on what you need it for, and what you know already.",
"So objects move, and have mass, (m). When an object moves, it goes a distance per unit time (SI is meters/second), this is speed. When a speed changes, you get a distance per unit time, per unit time (meters/second/second) this is acceleration, and is the \"a\" in f=ma. So what f=ma says is that when you take a force, \"f\", and apply it to mass \"m\", mass \"m\" accelerates with value \"a\", or equivalently, when you accelerate mass \"m\" with acceleration \"a\", you have applied a force \"f\" to it."
],
"score": [
16,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1higy
|
How are we able to blur our vision on demand?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6z8ioq"
],
"text": [
"We force our brain to not focus our eyes, much in the same way a wheel can focus a lens, our brain does something similar."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1hwaa
|
How do shooting stars move?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zb67v"
],
"text": [
"\"Shooting stars\" aren't stars. They're meteoroids (small bits of rock floating in space) that end up running into the Earth. They're small enough that they usually just burn up in the Earth's atmosphere (because of the intense heat caused by friction and atmospheric compression). While they're burning up, they're called a meteor. That's what a shooting star is. And if the meteor doesn't completely burn up, part of it can actually land on the Earth's surface. We call that piece a meteorite."
],
"score": [
13
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1ihwv
|
what makes sweet chilli sweet?
|
I’m munching on some sweet chilli chicken strips but what makes it sweet???
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zeyut"
],
"text": [
"Sugar. Just look up any sweet chili sauce recipe. You'll usually find about a cup of sugar in the ingredients."
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1imfr
|
Capital Gains - how do they work and how do you get them?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zg1ab"
],
"text": [
"\"Capital\" basically means \"expensive thing that lasts.\" Think houses, buildings, land, art, airplanes, ships, factory equipment, stocks (chunks of companies). The value of those things can change over time. Say you buy a house for $100,000 and hang onto it for 10 years. It might now be worth $200,000. Your capital literally gained value. If you now sell it, you get $200,000 back out and you gained $100,00 over your original purchase. If the value drops, that's a capital loss."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1iq1o
|
How do buffets work?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zgbus",
"g6zphc5"
],
"text": [
"You pay either up front or when you leave, and it's usually a flat rate - adults pay $XX, kids pay $YY, so on and so forth. Then it's just a really big room with lots of tables that have lots of food, and you just take whatever food you want. It's pronounced \"Buh-fey\"",
"Most buffets have a set price, which may change depending on the time of day or day of the week. Buffets are set as \"all you can eat\" which means there is no limit to how much/little you want, and no limit to any type of food (if you want to eat only one thing that's okay, but remember other people eating might be annoyed if you take a full tray of something because the restaurant has to make more to replace it). Usually there will be personal tables to sit with your own group, and the food will be set up in serving areas that you choose your food from. The food is usually organized according to types (ex. Salads, sides/soups, meats/main dishes, desserts) I am from Canada and have only ever heard it pronounced \"Buff - ay\""
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1j3bi
|
Is there a way to prevent a caterpillar from turning into a butterfly?
|
If you interrupt it while it's trying to form a chrysalis, and continue to interrupt it, would it eventually die or would it just continue to live (even for years later) until it could finally turn into a butterfly?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zl6bp",
"g6zldz2"
],
"text": [
"Some forms of parasitic wasps lay their eggs on caterpillars. The eggs then hatch and the wasp larva burrow into the caterpillar where they consume it from the inside. One of the side effects is that the wasp larva release chemicals to prevent the caterpillar from turning into a pupa. These infested caterpillars can grow much larger than normal. The wasp larva will eventually kill off the caterpillar and crawl out to form coccoons on the caterpillar's body before repeating the cycle. Introducing the wasps is one of the common ways to control caterpillars destroying crops.",
"Caterpillars produce a certain hormone when they are young, and produce less as they get older which triggers their transformation. If they are unable to change into a butterfly they will continue to eat untill they cannot grow any further and usually end up dieing of dehydration."
],
"score": [
41,
15
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1j55n
|
How exactly does birth control work (whether it be pills, iud, etc)? what makes the percent chance of getting pregnant reduced
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zjhka",
"g6zuagq"
],
"text": [
"I mean, that depends on what type of birth control you use. A condom obviously has a different mechanism than a birth control pill. Condoms mechanically stop sperm from even getting anywhere, whereas the pill will hormonically subdue ovulation.",
"Very superficially: \"The Pill\" stops a woman's ovarian cycle so she doesn't ovulate. (It makes her system think she's just ovulated, and that it should wait to see if the egg gets fertilized - but there's no egg.) IUDs irritate the uterine lining so that a fertilized egg can't implant. Tubal ligation (\"tubes tied\") keep eggs from traveling from the ovary to the uterus, and also keep sperm from getting to them. A diaphragm is a physical barrier at the top of the vagina, over the cervix. A cervical cap is the same idea; in fact I'm a little unsure why those two have different names. A condom keeps sperm from getting into the vagina. A vasectomy keeps sperm from getting from a man's testes to his urethra, so they never leave his body. ...and that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there are others."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1j7dw
|
What prevents video game developers from spawning in items and selling them for cash?
|
I understand it’s probably illegal, but who’s monitoring them to make sure it doesn’t happen?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zkbw0",
"g6zk148",
"g6zlp4u"
],
"text": [
"Game devs release new content (skins, items, levels) that people pay real money for all the time. Is there a part of the question I am missing?",
"Developers have very restricted access to a game when it's actually running in a production environment (i.e. when it's public for people to access). They (the developers) purposefully put restrictions in place to stop themselves from being able to do what you describe. Both because it would be unethical, and for the more practical reason that they don't want their boss to be able to say, \"Just use your developer superpowers to fix things on-the-fly instead of having things go through the proper support channels.\"",
"Also keep in mind for that to happen, there have to be people willing to purchase items at that price. If there was some mythical item that there were only 10 of in existence, and an admin spawned in 100 of them and tried to dump them in the market, the developer might find that the price they can get for them drops dramatically since the rarity of the item suddenly vanished (which the player base might bind questionable and start asking questions) Also, marketplace platforms like Steam might find it suspicious that a game developer is being paid out from sales of their own game's marketplace items. This at the very least would become evident when collecting information for tax forms."
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1jqmz
|
Why does stretching feel good?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zw4xe"
],
"text": [
"I can't give a molecular reason of what hormones are released on why it feels good, but an evolutionary answer seems reasonable: Stretching allows a larger range of motion and supports continuous use of joints/muscles/skeletal bones which fights against atrophy (degradation of those things). Along with this large range of motion, it probably allows for higher chances of survival compared to those who didnt feel a need or benefit of stretching. So over time, the feeling of relief or \"goodness\" after stretching encourages people to stretch to ensure highest possibility of survival."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1jwfo
|
. Why are blue whales called Blue Whales when they're actually gray?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zoy8v"
],
"text": [
"The name ‘blue whale’ was derived from the Norwegian ‘blåhval’, (literally, 'blue whale') coined by Svend Foyn (The guy who invented, among other things, the harpoon gun.) The Norwegian scientist G.O. Sars adopted it as the common name in 1874. No one knows why Svend gave it that name."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1jxia
|
How do scientists work out how hot a sun is?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zobs5",
"g6zovgc"
],
"text": [
"Generally, we fit a function (called a black body function) to how bright it is in different kinds of light. The brighter it is at a wavelength, the closer it is to that average wavelength, and the average wavelength is directly controlled by the temperature",
"Humans can only see combinations of three different colors. However light is composed of a continuous range of colors of different wavelengths. It is possible to split the light using a prism and measure how much light there is of each wavelength. When you do this you will notice a common pattern that almost all objects emit light in. And the hotter the object the shorter the wavelength and the more intense this pattern becomes. This is what we call black body radiation because a perfectly black body would emit a perfect pattern. What we can do is to compare the pattern of wavelengths given off by the Sun to the same patterns from objects with a known temperature. Even if the intensity is not the same due to different distances the frequencies of light should not change. We can therefore know if something have the same temperature as the Sun and then measure the temperature of that."
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1jz3t
|
What is an alternate hypothesis in writing?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zrtzz"
],
"text": [
"Romeo and Juliet is a story about romantic love. An alternate hypothesis is that it's a story about idiot teenagers and the dumb things they can do. You would then have to back that hypothesis up with evidence from the text that you think shows R and J are indeed idiot teenagers."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1k27v
|
If there’s a 50/50 chance for every chromosome ending up in each gamete, how is it that some parents seem to produce only boys or only girls?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zpguh",
"g6zpih8"
],
"text": [
"In circumstances of complete random choice between a binary, streaks of one choice or the other are completely normal and indicative of the presence of true and complete randomness. Since the chance of either one being chosen is the same, streaks of the same outcome again and again are no more or less likely than individual sequences of mixed outcomes. An interesting illustration: [ URL_0 ]( URL_1 )",
"It's just luck. Even if a couple have 5 children, the odds of them all being the same gender is 1 in 16, which isn't that bad. (Math: the first child is a freebie since there's nothing to compare it with yet, then the next 4 have to be the same gender. 2^(4) = 16)"
],
"score": [
14,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/\\~hildebr/fakerandomness/",
"https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~hildebr/fakerandomness/"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1k5vj
|
How can something so small ( considering the effect ) like a nuclear bomb make so much damage ?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zpz5i",
"g6zrb6w",
"g6zr3vz"
],
"text": [
"Because there is a lot and i mean a lot of energy stored in the bonds between particles inside an atom",
"It goes back to the age old Einstein equation E=MC^2. What that means is that energy is proportional to mass. C is a physics constant which is 300,000,000 m/s known as the speed of light. What this means is that you can take a lot of energy and convert it into a little bit of mass or take a little bit of mass and get A LOT of energy from it. Subatomic particles, like neutrons and protons, can combine to make atoms. Hydrogen is the lightest element made of a single proton and electron. Combining two hydrogen (also includes deuterium and tritium) atoms together produces helium. This process is known as nuclear fusion because it fuses two atoms together to produce a new element. The helium atom is actually very slightly less mass than the total mass of the previous hydrogen atoms. This loss in mass is caused by creating energy which holds the helium atom together, called nuclear binding energy. Now we can take a look at Uranium and Plutonium which are elements used in nuclear bombs and roughly 200 times more massive than helium. That means there is a lot of binding energy holding these larger atoms together. Uranium 235 is used in nuclear bombs because its fissile and unstable. That means when a neutron is combined into U235 it becomes U236 then fissions into two lighter elements. This process releases the binding energy and some neutrons. Those produced neutrons then hit more U235 causing a chain reaction. This sudden release of massive amounts of energy is what we call an explosion. TL;DR nuclear bombs convert a little bit of unstable mass into A LOT of energy.",
"The energy released is described by the classic formula E = mc(2). The \"c\" stands for the speed of light, which is about 186,000 miles per second. It's an *enormously* big number to multiply something by."
],
"score": [
7,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1kdmz
|
So if only thing that can cut through diamonds is a diamond saw. How was the first diamond saw made if there was no diamond saw to saw through a diamond to make the first diamond saw?
|
Wow that was a lot of "diamond saws" in one sentence...
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zqza0",
"g6zrh2l"
],
"text": [
"Diamonds are very difficult to cut but can be easily pulverized. You can crush a diamond with a hammer without trying that hard. Diamond saws are just saws with a fine grit of diamond dust on the edge to grind through material.",
"You can cut diamonds with steel but your tools wear quickly and it's much slower. Typically the way it was done before lasers or other diamond abrading tools was to locate a weakness in the diamond and cut along it."
],
"score": [
49,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1kez0
|
How do companies collect data on their users and what happens to this data?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zrmim"
],
"text": [
"Companies (not just tech companies) collect data on everything you do. Anything they can possibly collect, they collect. Who you are, what you do, and every possible detail about you. The more, the better. What do they do with that information? For the most part companies use that information to make their advertising and marketing more efficient. Or that data is sold to other companies who will use it in that way. Making sure that advertising gets to the people who can use it, and not wasted on people who don't. A baby food company wants to know who has babies, and who doesn't, so that they don't waste 5 million dollars getting their products in front of people who aren't in a position to buy their products. That's wasted money. It could have been better spent by putting it in front of people with babies. But you can only do that if you know who has babies. You see what I'm saying? The modern world runs primarily on advertising and marketing. EVERYTHING is advertising. And making sure that your advertising is getting the most bang for its buck is job #1, but in order to do that you need information on everyone. As much information as possible."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1klr7
|
if water doesn't conduct electricity then how does it break electronics, in detail? And why are they called "shorts"?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zsjha",
"g6zsplj",
"g6ztdh0",
"g6zuzl3"
],
"text": [
"Water is often full of impurities (salts, minerals) that make it better at conducting electricity. Distilled water should be fine on electronics, but the stuff from your tap is a problem.",
"It's called a short because it literally shortens the circuit. Electricity has to follow a circuit (go in a loop), usually with several components, especially ones early on to control the flow of energy. A short circuit is something that connects the circuit along a shorter route, often skipping the parts that regulate the flow of energy. Water can cause it by directly carrying the current (water isn't a great conductor but it can conduct) or by causing corrosion of contacts.",
"Water isn't called a universal solvent for nothing. Water will dissolve just about anything. The water you drink, even if it's been distilled or Reverse Osmosis (RO water), still contains a whole lot of dissolved ions in it. It's these substances in suspension that make water conductive. Even if you had Ultra Pure water (used heavily in the semiconductor industry as an industrial solvent), which is literally NOTHING but H2O molecules, at that point, it would dissolve your circuit board faster than regular tap water normally would, and short the circuit with conductive molecules out of that. In a sense, the circuit board ends up shorting itself. They're called a short circuit because electricity is a differential trying to seek equality, like how water flows down hill in order to seek its own level. A circuit path that offers lower resistance and impedance will end up carrying the majority of the current. It's a shortcut. It's the shorter path. Just like water flowing through a delta, the majority of the water will take the path of least resistance to the ocean.",
"Every material conducts electricity. Both water and air does conduct electricity but with much higher resistance then most metals. For example copper have a resistance of about 0.00000001 Ω⋅m while sea water have a resistance of about 0.2 Ω⋅m, fresh water about 20 Ω⋅m depending on how much trace amounts of salt in it and air have a resistance of about 10000000000 Ω⋅m. The reason why water and air does conduct electricity is because there is always some free ions that is able to move around. These ions will work similarly to the electrons and holes of a metal and will conduct a charge from positive to negative in the same way. Water have a lot more ions then air and will therefore conduct electricity better, adding salt to the water increases the numbers of ions even further. When people design electronic devices it is common to allow for some exposed metals to be separated by air. Even though there is technically some current passing through the air this is very little because the resistance is so high. So it does not make a huge change in the circuit. However if the air gets replaced by water then the resistance drops by up to ten orders of magnitude. It is still very high compared to metal but it might still carry enough current to be significant in the circuit and change its behavior. A short circuit is an unintended path for the current to take that lets it bypass the load. Generally you have a power supply that feeds power to something that use it. The amount of power that goes through the circuit is limited by the load that is using the power. However if you were to add something conductive between the power line and the ground then you can make the current pass through this instead of going through the load. This can create local heating, it can draw more current from the power supply then it is designed for and it can overheat or it can pull the voltage too low for what the load is designed for and it can misbehave. And when we are talking heat it is usually enough heat to cause damage, set fire to something, melt away metal, cover the circuit in conductive sot that causes more short circuits, etc."
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1l323
|
How are we able to think "sound"?
|
I know thoughts are conveyed through neuron transmitters in the brain that branch off and do crazy stuff, but how am I able to almost perfectly replicate a song going through my head? Not just music, when I'm reading comments and posts I have like an inner voice i guess that speaks to me while I read. Does that make sense at all? Without it, I can imagine just not being interested in reading at all because with this inner voice words become more expressive. So how is my brain able to make this "voice" in my head (and no, it doesn't sound like a literal voice lol I promise) while I'm reading so fluently? I can tell that there's a speech pattern too and it just seems like a lot for my brain to handle but no it comes in naturally.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zvhcy"
],
"text": [
"> but how am I able to almost perfectly replicate a song going through my head? You are replicating it to the extent which you are able to remember it, based on your best recollection of the sound. You see where that is going? You are comparing how well you remember it to your memory itself which of course is going to perfectly match, regardless of how good your memory actually is. > Without it, I can imagine just not being interested in reading at all because with this inner voice words become more expressive. Some people subvocalize words, in essence engaging the part of their brain which processes spoken language. This allows the written word to be mentally associated with sounds, but also is a bit slower than if you can directly translate words to meaning. Very slow readers aren't very good at that direct translation so they need to go the slower route of text to sound and from there to meaning, often silently mouthing the sounds themselves."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1lc0x
|
What would be the last services to stop working in case there is no one maintaining them? Like a tougher lockdown.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g6zwyoy",
"g6zxg0x"
],
"text": [
"First or last? You're asking both. First to go would be non-essential cleaning/maintenance on little-used buildings and properties. Stop mowing the lawn at the park that no one can get into. Last to go would be essential communications -- radio and emergency broadcast. You need to be able to tell people where to get help, even if you're not the one actually providing the help itself.",
"I work in broadcasting, and a “crisis channel” as well, and it would have to be a pretty severe lockdown for us technicians to stop coming to work. We even have an obligation to keep working because of close relationships with the national defence. If there’s a war or crisis, you’ll hear about it on the radio. We’re talking zombie apocalypse or maybe a major national SARS outbreak for us to start talking about staying home. Hell, we could probably get by with two or three people on the whole station and we could keep 10 meters apart at all times if we’re careful."
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1m79e
|
Why is it that when you go to sleep on a full stomach, you wake up in the morning hungrier than when you go to bed without eating?
|
This may just be me but it always seems when I got to sleep on a full stomach I wake up significantly hungrier than when I go to bed without a full stomach.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g704ucy",
"g726oz3"
],
"text": [
"you made me curious. Found this: “Some people are more sensitive to large doses of carbs, which can lead to low blood sugar after a big meal,” says Dixon. “Their bodies can ‘overshoot’ a bit on insulin production in response to a carb-rich meal (especially if the carbs are simple).” The result? Blood glucose can drop too low an hour or so after eating, and this could be why someone wakes up super hungry after eating a big meal right before bed. URL_0",
"If I go to bed hungry, mainly because I’m lazy, tired, or uninterested in food, I’ll wake up maybe a little hungry but if I eat a whole pizza before bed I’ll wake up starving. The glucose comment makes sense. I tend to fast a lot (mainly from being busy, or just not in the mood to eat I guess) and maybe eat one meal a day most days. It’s so difficult to convince anyone trying to diet to try fasting. The “pain” of being hungry sucks but it goes away and your stomach shrinks. When I was younger(and I’ve always been kind of skinny) I could physically eat 3x the amount of food I do now in one meal. Now it feels like even when I’m starving, I get full so fast eating small amounts. I can still occasionally gorge but it is not pleasant."
],
"score": [
95,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.cookinglight.com/eating-smart/nutrition-101/reasons-you-are-waking-up-hungry"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1me3c
|
I hike to some out of the way lakes. Most don't even have names. The local Ministry in charge of wildlife stocks fish at these locations via helicopter. My question is why do they stock them with Sterile fish? Wouldn't it make more sense to stock breeding fish?
|
I have googled this question. The only reasonable answer that it had was that they don't want farmed trout breeding with wild stock. But at these lakes there are no other fish out there. It seems like an awful lot of work to transport these fish that are sterile every year instead of just transporting a breeding population once.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g703qoy",
"g707mdc"
],
"text": [
"With very few exceptions lakes are all interconnected via small creeks and streams. There may be a worry that smaller not full grown fish could escape from the isolated lakes to lakes that may already have an established population. Also, it's *never* a good idea to introduce a breeding population of *anything* into an environment they are not native to, it can easily result it massive ecosystem damage(see rabbits in Australia).",
"There was a book and a movie about stocking wild lands with animals that turned out to be able to breed when scientists didn't want them to. It was called \"Jurassic Park.\" It doesn't have a happy ending for anyone. Except at the box office. Stocking fish is inherently unnatural. But then, so was making a man-made lake or damming a river. We stock fish to balance out the damage, maintain wetlands, create recreational opportunities, etc. But doing this by releasing fertile fish is a recipe for disaster on top of disaster. Life finds a way..."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1nrf9
|
What exactly happens to the gums when teeth come in? Do the teeth gradually push the gums out where they just kinda gradually fall off? Or is it something else?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70dn5d"
],
"text": [
"They kinda cut their way through from the inside... It is very painful for babies. Nothing falls out... Its not like a plug of gum drops away... They just cut through like a knife through meat."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1ny7t
|
() when certain foods becomes sweeter after cooking "boiling" do that mean it gained calories?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70c8e2",
"g70dzzo"
],
"text": [
"I’m not sure which foods you would be referring to but no, unless there are ingredients added to the food that would add calories the calorie count would stay the same. There would be no additional calories added by the act of boiling in water alone.",
"Each food, unless you add something to it, contains the same amount of energy / calories. The only thing that's changed is the availability of that energy. In an ripened state, the larger energy storage molecules have broken down into smaller sugars, making it taste sweeter. The main difference is actually in the amount of energy it takes to process the food, being greater for the larger unbroken energy storage molecules due to the energy that goes into breaking it down."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1nz3n
|
Why are shaving razors so theft protected?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70bwwb",
"g70cebc"
],
"text": [
"They're small, somewhat pricey and probably quite commonly stolen. Same thing happens here in New Zealand, along with some cough syrups and often condoms and pregnancy tests too.",
"They're small and expensive. They're a likely item for a thief to steal and then return to the store (or another location of the store) for a refund."
],
"score": [
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1o6b6
|
How come sometimes when we look at words they look like they're spelled wrong even though they're not?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70ih0l"
],
"text": [
"This is the phenomenon called “wordnesia” It is a brain glitch where words don’t look like words. And sometimes become scrambled or you can’t understand what they mean or how they’re spelt. Reading words is pretty much just on autopilot in your brain-so when you actually try to look at the words-and overlook at them-your brain gets a bit confused. Like how driving becomes natural and actions eventually become automatic. Then when you think about driving, you suddenly can’t remember quite what to do."
],
"score": [
42
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1obcx
|
when taking cuttings from a plant, how come we need to remove all leaves except for about two so the roots can grow faster?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70e6pp"
],
"text": [
"The plant can only absorb a certain amount of nutrients in a given time period. So they have limited resources to use to grow. If you remove the leaves, it forces the plants to use the nutrients to grow the roots as opposed to making the leaves bigger."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1opvg
|
Why are Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting in an ongoing war? Why is Azerbaijan split in two parts?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70z3co",
"g77v65a"
],
"text": [
"There's a part of Azerbijian that is predominantly ethnically Armenian. The Armenians there don't want to be part of Azerbijian, and the Azeris don't want them to leave.",
"They are fighting over a region called Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnically Armenian region which is home to Artsakh, a self-proclaimed independent country that no one recognizes. Kind of like the situation with China and Taiwan. The Armenians there don't want to be part of Azerbaijan and they are backed up by Armenia. They fought a major war in the early 90s which resulted in the status quo, and ethnic Azeris getting displayed from there in the process, and there have been periodic clashes every now and then between Armenian/Artsakh and Azerbaijani forces. Azerbaijan views Nagorno-Karabakh as it's own rightful territory. To the Azerbaijanis, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are a bunch of illegal secessionists and Armenian forces acting in support of them are occupying it's rightful territory. To add to that, the decline in global oil prices as a result of Covid has been putting a strain on it's oil-dependent economy, so the Azerbaijani government was likely feeling domestic political pressure and may have decided that now is the time for a military adventure to distract from that."
],
"score": [
13,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1ov3f
|
What is the maximum capacity of your average human muscle when hysterical strength kicks in?
|
We've all heard the stories of mothers lifting cars off of their children, which would normally be impossible for pretty much anyone - so, what would be the (probably theoretical) limit of physical capacity a human could exhibit when experiencing physical strength? Also, is adrenaline a component in hysterical strength or is that more of a subconscious thing where your brain takes off the training wheels of your muscles, so to speak?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70lqx3",
"g70ku6a",
"g712aec"
],
"text": [
"There was a dude who was hiking/mountain climbing. He got stuck under a falling rock, he pushed the rock of himself amd in the process ripped this muscle from chest. He saved himself. This was in a show where they compared the strength of human vs apes. Humans apperently have a part in the brain that wont let you use the strengt to rips the musle from your bones. Kind of a limiter. And apperently primates dont have that part/or its not as big as ours. And in the emergency that part is shut down, to allow the use of all the available power of the muscles. Wich makes a lot of sense. If someone is really angry or has lost it, the person is almost like a bear.",
"Would depend greatly on their existing muscle mass. A strong man would have a different capacity than an athlete than an average office worker.",
"Over time we've evolved to use our muscles more efficiently without having to use it in full force. This is beneficial because it keeps us from injuring ourselves and conserves energy. When fight or flight kicks in and we get an adrenaline rush, more blood and oxygen is directed into our muscles and we're able to contract our muscles with much more force and power than normally needed. It's not a heavily studied phenomena because life and death situations are hard to recreate in a lab so we don't know the true extent of raw human strength but it probably varies from person to person. A lot of people who experience this come out the other side injured though"
],
"score": [
9,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1ovzo
|
How does striped tooth paste come out so perfectly? Even if you mush it around it comes out pristine.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70lr0a",
"g70iwlo"
],
"text": [
"If you cut open an empty tube, then you will be able to see the dividing wall between the two chambers of the tube. Same for the triple swirl mix. Cunning engineering at work.",
"I'm pretty sure there are different chambers in the tube itself that keep them physically separated."
],
"score": [
13,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1owxv
|
How can audits and tax investigations go on for years or be dragged out with no conclusion?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70uixt"
],
"text": [
"Have you ever been reading a big novel, like any of the Game of Thrones books, and just stopped for the night because you got tired? Or it was past your bedtime? How about because you got bored, and then the next time you pick up the book you have to go back a few pages and re-read a section because you missed a key part of the action or some little detail that made you go “wait, what? Who’s this character? When did they come in?” Magnify the length of the book by a thousandfold and then multiple the boredom factor by a hundred, for a bunch of accountants and auditors pouring over spreadsheets that DON’T read clearly and linearly like a novel. So every paragraph has to be read and re-read for every new plot point, person, etc that comes into the story. Now imagine you’re debating what one paragraph or another is going to mean for whether a character lives or dies at the end, but George RR Martin is live-tweeting brain farts from his trampoline instead of finishing the book, so now you’re really confused over whether someone will live or die and can’t tell if the person who was just killed off is actually dead or is going to be resurrected later. And if they get resurrected maybe it’ll be as a Night King zombie, but maybe not because it could be the Red Witch doing the resurrection. That’s how your average corporation’s tax audit can drag on for years with no conclusion, leaving every accountant trying to finish with a serious case of mental blue balls."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1pbk0
|
why do some remote controls that use AA or AAA batteries have a little ribbon in them that gets in the way? What is this for?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70kb8p",
"g70kakm",
"g70kes3",
"g710f4m"
],
"text": [
"It's to help remove the batteries because they're so tight. You thread it under the batteries so you can pull the ribbon to pop them out.",
"You put the batteries on top of the ribbon. Then when you change the batteries you pull the ribbon and they magically pop out.",
"If you lay the ribbon flat you can put the batteries in the controller then you'll see that there is a little bit of it still sticking up, a tab if you will. If you have to change the batteries before the controller breaks or is lost, then you can pull the tab and the batteries come out easier.",
"Hell four people have already answered this but it looks like we aren't caring about that. You put the ribbon under the batteries and then when it is time to replace the batteries pulling the ribbon makes it easier to remove the batteries. Neglect the ribbon at your peril."
],
"score": [
31,
13,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1pgc6
|
why is birth control made for women when men can get far more women pregnant?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70nhap",
"g70lpwr",
"g70rmh5",
"g70m5og",
"g70nwqz"
],
"text": [
"There were some pills for man, but because of side effects it was not very widespread. Women on the other hand use pills despite side effects because they can \"lose more\": pregnancies and abortions influence directly women's body and life.",
"Female birth control mimics pregnancy which naturally stops conception. Men don't have anything similar. Duplicating that had risks and had not been as effective.",
"Female birth control makes a little more sense intuitively. Women don’t ovulate when they’re pregnant, so make a pill that tricks the female body into thinking it’s pregnant. That’s kinda easy to do, as it’s using hormones to trick the body to do the desired effect; working with the body instead of against it. Men don’t have a corresponding natural time of infertility which can be prolonged. But wait, there’s more. That was the theory that got going when chemical-based contraceptive was first researched heavily. Today, we know female birth control has a ton of negative side effects. If there wasn’t also large benefits (including things other than contraceptive), it would have been pulled a long time ago. There are a few male birth controls out there, but are having trouble gaining traction because a viable female product already exists. And to my knowledge, none of them have significant positives aside from contraceptive. (Though that might just be because we have a much smaller set of people on it.) I hope for a future where both are equally popular and effective. We’re getting there, but at the pace of non-essential medicine.",
"There’s no good way to answer this question without addressing male privilege. Epidimeologically, it makes more sense to develop male birth control than female birth control, I agree w that. Vasectomy should be more hyped in general I think for men who are looking to be in a birth free relationship. Especially since in the short term, vasectomies can be reversed, though slightly more invasively than IUD removal.",
"Female birth control merely locks women into a non-fertile part of their cycle. Since men don't have a fertility cycle, any sort of similar mechanism would cause significant side effects by creating a hormonal state not natural to their bodies. Also, from a practical standpoint, women are generally unwilling to trust men with birth control and men gain no real advantage themselves because they'd still be legally responsible for a child even if they were on birth control themselves."
],
"score": [
17,
8,
5,
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1pgxd
|
what does Russia get out of destabilizing the United States?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70lpo8",
"g70m3fy",
"g70s0cn",
"g70oilm"
],
"text": [
"I think it's fairly self evident that the US has been the main hurdle stopping Russia doing what it wants in the region. Putin wants to try and recreate the USSR, and the US doesn't want that. The more organized the US and western Europe are in their collective opposition to Russia political maneuvering, the harder it is for Putin to get things done. When the US is distracted by their own internal government problems, and the US government refuses to stay in solidarity with western european ideals, the less likely it is that anyone can interfere with Russia's larger plans.",
"The more the US is busy handling its own problems, the less time and energy it can focus on countering Russian affairs and goals. Russia has its own ambitions and goals and countries it wants to Influence, like how it annexed Crimea a few years ago.",
"Well others have mentioned the core parts. But another to add is psychological: the man who controls Russia (Putin). There was a period of time after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that Putin at least appeared to genuinely be offering assistance in US anti-terrorism efforts and wanting to cooperate internationally. However, it's not like it was for free. Putin has motives. Putin was a KGB officer during the time of the Soviet Union. It's reported that for him (and many powerful people in the soviet union), the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy. Going from the other world superpower to a totally broken Russian state teetering on economic collapse and devastation is not very nice. Putin wants a powerful Russia. For himself and for his allies. I doubt he is ideologically opposed to the United States the way the old communists were in the USSR. Perhaps he thought after 9/11, Russia could cozy up to the US and that would give him leeway to exert Russian influence on former soviet territories; what he regards as Russia's sphere of influence. Rumor is that the talks with NATO of allowing Ukraine or other post-soviet countries into NATO, totally ignoring Russian interests, was when he decided playing nice wasn't working. So he went more openly aggressive.",
"Russia likes to do what it wants. For example, annexing Crimea. There’s lots of intrigue in there, but It’s part of Russia now because ‘the people voted’ to leave Ukraine and become part of Russia; right after Russia moved an army of soldiers into the area. Everyone thought it was fishy, but no one did anything about it because they were worried about their own issues, and were following the US’s lead. If the US devolves/has devolved into civil upheaval, it’s not gonna worry about what Russia’s doing. And then the rest of the world is gonna be looking at others to take the lead against Russia when it’s being naughty."
],
"score": [
15,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1q8q0
|
How do stars burn for so long?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70rzry",
"g7118uf"
],
"text": [
"They are massive. Like enormous, bigger than you can probably actually imagine. According to NASA the sun burns 600 million tons of hydrogen per second. Given its weight of estimated over 10\\^30 Kg, it would take around 50 billion years to run out. Now, that is a pretty huge simplification, and in reality, the processes in the sun will change before then, but it gives you an idea of just how large it is. Another factor is that most stars also go through stages, for instance, they generally start fusing hydrogen at the beginning and through a lot of their life. That Hydrogen turns into Helium. Once a star gets old enough, it will start fusing helium. Once the helium begins to run out, it fuses carbon. In really large stars this process can create iron. Basically, the star makes more fuel from it's used up fuel, continuing to get energy out of that matter.",
"Because most smaller ones, like our sun, are actually barely burning at all. It would be more accurate to say the sun is rusting. It's not chemically reacting with oxygen so both are wrong, but it's a lot more like iron oxidizing to rust than gasoline oxidizing to smoke. It's not fast or energetic. A compost heap puts out more energy power volume than the sun. The sun makes 0.0002 watts per kilogram of mass and 0.3 watts per square metre. This is comparable power to an indicating LED on your TV that tells you it is on. That's a laughably small amount of power, it barely even burning. I'm not joking when I saw a pile of rotting garbage puts out way, way more energy than the sun per size or weight. Forget a fire, an explosive, or a nuclear bomb. At this trivial rate, the sun will take billions of years to actually burn through its fuel. But why? A nuclear bomb clearly shows nuclear reactions can burn really fast. A hydrogen bomb (also called thermonuclear, fusion, or H bomb) is fusing hydrogen just like the sun. Why doesn't the sun quickly burn out, or explode for that matter. Well, this is going beyond a five year old, but there is really no answer that is satisfying otherwise. There's a whole chain reaction from turning hydrogen into helium, the fusion process the sun uses. Most of the steps will happen in an instance and release an absurd amount of energy in a very short time. Except one step, the very first one. Hydrogen in space is just a lone proton. When these get sucked up by gravity into immense temperatures and pressures, like inside a star, they can occasionally collide. On earth, they never will. They electrically repel each other, like trying to stick two magnets north to north. Once they collide you have helium right? Well yes, a very, very unstable form of helium. Helium normally has two protons, and two neutrons. Protons and neutrons stick together from the aptly named nuclear force. Protons are positive so repel from the electric force. Neutrons are, well, neutral, so don't repel from the electric force. As such, some neutral neutrons can add some more nuclear force that helps overcome the protons wanting to electrically repel. Helium-4 (that is two protons and two neutrons, regular helium) has this. Helium-2 (just two protons) does not have this help, so it near instantly flies apart. So how they hell to we ever get helium (helium-4) and energy out of the sun from all that hydrogen (protons, hydrogen-1) fuel? Well, in the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second that helium-2 exist for before flying apart, it can actually radioactively decay. Beta decay. Where anproton swaps to a neutron, and throws a positive electron (positron, antimatter) off to keep the whole thing electrically neutral. Lot's of atoms beta decay, it happens all the time as natural radioactivity. It's just so damn rare for helium-2 to do it before it flies apart. A low probability times a low probability is a new massively low probability. The sun has so few of these occur that it's hydrogen fuel last for billions of years. This beta decay is controlled by the weak force, and as the name implies, it's weak. After this beta decay, helium-2 swaps to hydrogen-2, also known as deuterium. If you're wondering what happens to the positron, it smacks into an electron eventually, and when matter meets antimatter, light is all that is left. But back to the Hydrogen-2, it can then collide with more protons and after a few more, much more rapid steps, you have helium-4 and a lot of energy. They don't rapidly decay before anything further can happen. None of these steps rely on chance beta decay and the weak force, just the nuclear (or strong nuclear) force charging ahead. How fast? Well, back to the nuclear bomb. Specifically hydrogen bomb. These don't use hydrogen-1 as fuel. As this has all been about, that's way too damn slow and low power, even in the centre of the sun. These use hydrogen-2 (deuterium) or hydrogen-3 (tritium) as fuel. This is cheating half way through the process. As you've seen the result, a very large near instant explosion. How come we have deuterium and tritium but the sun doesn't? Well, a star out there long ago already smashed stuff slowly together for us and left this. We just take over halfway through the chain reaction for the easy part, and we only need very trace amounts to make a cosmically tiny bomb on earth. But what if the sun was even more massive? Well, gravity would increase the pressure even more, and this can actually cause the star to more rapidly burn through its fuel. Larger stars burn out quicker, contradictory as that is. Still not human life times, but much much quicker than the sun. More gravity means more pressure which means mode collisions. More collisions overcome how infrequently the collisions actually undergo beta decay, that is go somewhere useful. But what if the sun fused heavier elements? It will. Once the hydrogen is gone, it will collapse a little, make the core higher pressure, and then fuse helium. During which, it's going to start putting out a lot more power. It will fry and probably swallow the earth. Large stars actually fuse all the way up to iron before completely running out of fuel, then violently imploding as a supernova. Once they run out of hydrogen and helium, collapse a little, and have enough pressure to start fusing carbon it's a run away chain more like a nuclear bomb right up to iron, and then bang. So fusion can be very fast and stars can burn through their fuel in an instant. I don't even mean astronomical instant, the last few fusion steps before the supernova we're talking years or even days for an entire star to burn through its new fuel source. Contrary to other answers, **it is absolutely not their size.** Large stars are burning through massive fuel piles of silicon and neon, well larger than our sun, within your lifespan. The answer is simply this can't happen when a small to midsize star is burning hydrogen. That's an incredibly slow process you'd be hard pressed to call burning because the first step in the chain is so, so unlikely."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1qnh0
|
How does muscle memory work?
|
Muscle memory is fascinating to me. Humans can perform complex processes with very little cognitive awareness regarding specific movements taken. How does it work? For example, I'm a guitar player. When I play a complex legato run or a particularly challenging chord progression, despite it being fairly advanced, I'm not thinking to myself "alright, I'm going to place my first finger on the 1st fret of the E string, 3rd finger 3rd fret of the A string...". It doesn't work like that. I just kind of pick up my guitar and play it without really putting much thought in to it. Sometimes when I'm playing something really difficult, it feels automatic and robotic, like I'm not even playing it. Just watching someone do it. Similarly, any changed variables can completely throw me off; a difference in the string gage, string tension, scale length. Once it becomes dissimilar, I have to take a step back and actually *think* about what I'm doing because the muscle memory fails me. Despite me knowing in my head exactly what to play, my fingers just don't seem to cooperate because the environment is so different than what I'm used to.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70w80u"
],
"text": [
"One thing to keep in mind, is that conscious thought is only part of the brain's many jobs, and quite a bunch of the stuff in your brain is devoted to automatic stuff your body does without you knowing it. Heart beating, breathing, digestion, all that stuff. There's also an area which coordinates a lot of your voluntary motor control - the muscle movements which *are* under your control, like playing a guitar. One cool thing about our brain architecture is that it seems to like to make shortcuts. When it has to do something repeatedly, it tends to form special \"shortcut\" connections to skip a bunch of intermediate steps. This can happen in our cognition, in our sense perceptions, and in our motor skills alike. So when the cerebellum has to command the same combinations of muscle movements in a repetitive way, in the same order again and again, it may form some neural pathways which automate that combination of motor commands and accomplish it in fewer steps. The other cool thing is that there is neural tissue distributed all through our bodies, responsible for carrying the messages back and forth, made of a similar type of cell to the stuff in our brains. It takes some time for signals to traverse these nerve fibers, so there's a limit to how quickly you can respond with your body to what your senses are telling you. But amazingly, these nerve fibers are capable of that same shortcut-forming trick that your brain is, which means that *some* very rudimentary decision-making can be \"outsourced\" entirely outside the brain! One example of this is pain reflexes. If you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove, there's a good chance you'll jerk your hand away *faster* than would seem possible, given the amount of time it takes your brain and your hand to send messages back and forth. This is possible because the decision to jerk your hand back was made outside your brain - by your nervous system, your spinal cord and the nerve fibers in your arm. Other repetitive physical behaviours, like sports or dance moves, playing musical instruments, things like that, can also, with time and repetition, be 'outsourced' to your nervous system. When people talk about muscle memory, they're talking about some combination of these, our brain's ability to automate complex procedures so they don't occupy our conscious thought anymore, and this ability for procedural knowledge to be embodied outside the brain in our our nervous system. Most of the time, a lot more of the former than the latter."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1qoqg
|
If you don’t pop a pimple, does the icky stuff get re-absorbed back into your skin? How does your body get rid of it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70u37s",
"g70tvxu"
],
"text": [
"In the case of cysts your body doesn't. It just keeps trying to destroy the material in the pocket and it keeps growing. Some of them to horrific proportions. Typically though, the body has cells that kill the hostile organisms and carry off the waste. In that case everything is working as it should. In the case of some blackhead types you're body scrounges away most of the material and the ejects the remainder as a little hard bead you scratch off or you clothes rubs off. Yes, picking is considered dangerous but, that is because a lot of people are bad at it. With proper preparation, sterile tools and the right technique, pimple popping can be an important part of the healing process.",
"Your body has organs whose job description includes processing junk and getting rid of it safely: liver and kidneys. The liver in particular regenerates, which is nifty since it processes toxins. Junk in your body has a way of making it to your liver/kidney depending on what and where it is. There's a couple things that \"bioaccumulate\" (they don't leave your body quickly or easily), but that's stuff like mercury and lead."
],
"score": [
61,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1raio
|
How is a mirror made and what is it made of?
|
I don’t get it.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g710pmv"
],
"text": [
"The reflective part of a mirror is an extremely thin layer of a shiny metal, usually either silver or aluminum. Because the layer is so thin it needs to attached to something stronger so it doesn't get scratched or rubbed away when the mirror is handled. Glass is used because it's transparent, and it's easy to make a very flat piece of glass which prevents the image in the mirror from being distorted. Most mirrors are made by taking a sheet of glass and applying a series of chemical treatments which cause a thin layer of metal to grow on one side. The metal then gets an opaque coating such as paint on the other side so the super thin metal coating is protected from damage on both sides."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1reuh
|
Why does your head hurt when you sleep too long?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g70ye7r"
],
"text": [
"Generally doesn't happen to me, but you may be dehydrated. Dehydration causes headaches and if you slept a long time, you probably had no water."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1rwei
|
What is the “kindling” effect in alcoholism?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g712okc"
],
"text": [
"Alcohol (along with benzos (like xanax), z-drugs (like ambien) and barbituates (not really used in the US anymore)) all work on a chemical in the brain (also known as a \"neurotransmitter\") called GABA. GABA is responsible for slowing down how quickly your brain cells talk to each other. These drugs bind to GABA receptors, making you more relaxed, less anxious, and fall asleep easier. Unfortunately, GABA is a very finicky chemical. If a brain cell receives more GABA than it is used to, then it will get rid of receptors for GABA to try to balance it out. When the alcohol or other GABA drug is stopped, those receptors don't come back right away. Now, until the receptors grow back, the GABA naturally in your brain can't have as much of an effect. This is what the bad feeling of withdrawal is. Kindling happens when you withdraw multiple times. Your brain remembers what alcohol is whenever you start using it again. It knows that it needs to get rid of receptors, so it does it a little faster and a larger amount because it expects you to be drinking for a long time, like you did last time. When you stop alcohol again, you have even less GABA and even less receptors than you did last time you quit, so the withdrawal is even worse. Your brain still remembers the next time, and the next time, and the next time, getting rid of GABA and receptors more effectively every time you start using again. If you do this enough times, your brain just gives up trying to heal because it is always expecting the drug. Eventually when the drug is taken away, your brain cells just go \"what's the point of regrowing these receptors? He/she's just going to give me alcohol soon anyway\". And then you have almost no GABA or receptors in the brain, so you could have given yourself a wide variety of chronic - maybe permanent - symptoms associated with low GABA; severe anxiety, insomnia, tremors, muscle issues, cognitive issues, memory issues, and even epilepsy. The first time you quit it can take a few weeks to a few months to get your receptors back. By the umpteenth time, it can take years to heal, if you ever do. The only way to make you a functional human being is to introduce a new GABA drug to mimic the effects of the chemical. However, these drugs - you guessed it - lead to down regulating GABA over time, so you need to take more and more and more. GABA is one of the most vital chemicals in your brain for you to live a comfortable and happy life, but it's also one of the most finicky and can wreak absolute havoc on your life if it's low. That's why kindling is rare for most other drugs, but it's nearly unavoidable specifically for GABA drugs should you withdraw multiple times. Edit: Kindling, as I alluded to early on, can also happen easily with benzodiazepines (Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax, Valium, Rohypnol (illegal in the US - also known as a \"roofie\") etc.), Z-Drugs (Ambien, Imovane, Lunesta, Sonata, etc.) and barbituates (usually only used for veterinary purposes nowadays - these are what put dogs down (and they could put you down too, which is probably why they're not prescribed anymore)). There are safer GABA drugs that work a little differently and in a different area of the brain. Anti-seizure drugs like gabapentin (neurontin) and similar don't cause as much downregulation and are safer for long-term use. TL:DR - Kindling is your brain remembering that you are replacing its natural chemical with another chemical, so it gets rid of its ability to use its natural chemical because it simply doesn't need it anymore. Every time you re-expose the drug, your brain still remembers it and gets rid of its natural chemical more and more until it gets rid of so much that you either die, take years to heal, or live the rest of your life as an anxious, insomniac, and possibly epileptic wreck."
],
"score": [
26
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1s3hk
|
How does looking at genitals arouse us?
|
Like how is it that we get aroused by looking at certain body parts but looking at hands for example won‘t make us feel anything.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g712c14"
],
"text": [
"Because those body parts are normally covered. And when they are uncovered, it gives us an idea that we might be having sex sometime soon. So we get aroused. Not all of us do. Men are typically much more visually aroused than women. Of course, not all men and some women are very aroused visually. But this is one of the reasons why the porn industry mainly targets men."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1se8k
|
What actually happens when a food or drink "goes down the wrong pipe"?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g713thf"
],
"text": [
"There are two pipes! Your throat basically has a flap that leaves one of two tubes open. You can open the tube to the lungs, or open the tube to the stomach. Only one can open at a time so you don't drown while drinking. Sometimes your body tries to transition the flap a tad too soon or too late, and a bit of stuff goes into the tube meant for air. Your body instantly realizes the mistake and tries to force back out whatever wasn't air that tries to go into your lungs."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1selb
|
How does alcohol proof and alcohol per volume correlate?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g7142ud",
"g7147k1"
],
"text": [
"Proof = 2 times percent by volume. Example 80 proof vodka is 40% alcohol by volume. 100 proof would be 50% 190 proof would be 95%",
"Alcohol proof is simply twice the alcohol by volume. 80 proof means 40% alcohol; 100 proof means 50%. This comes from back in the 1500s, when the tax man wanted to see if you were selling hard spirits. If he could take your drink, light it on fire and see the characteristic flame of ethanol, it was \"proof\" you were selling hard liquor and could be taxed for it. This was obviously a wildly inaccurate test due to temperature variations, but we didn't have anything better (specific gravity) until the early 1800s, and by then the term \"proof\" had gained staying power."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1sl8u
|
In Jane Goodall’s MasterClass, she talks about a chimpanzee “no doubt” dying of grief after his mother died. How can an animal (or human) die of grief?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g7155xx",
"g719pxi",
"g71a1lz",
"g718l38"
],
"text": [
"Pretty simple, unfortunately: they're so broken they stop eating and drinking. That kills people in about three days, and I assume it's about the same for chimps.",
"As the other comment says, they become so emotionally distraught that they stop eating and drinking. [ URL_1 ]( URL_0 ). Rats also grieve. And anecdotally, I keep rats, and had two brothers that were in the same litter, and when one of them died from a long health battle, the other one, who was perfectly healthy, pulled back socially, stopped eating and drinking and died within a week. There were other rats there, but they were much younger and he wasn't as emotionally bonded with them.",
"There is actually a thing called broken heart syndrome. URL_0",
"They've done experiments where they've deprived baby chimps of maternal contact. It's not good. URL_0"
],
"score": [
20,
12,
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"http://ratfanclub.org/grief.html#:~:text=Rats%20can%20experience%20grief%20after,companion%20just%20as%20humans%20can.&text=They%20may%20or%20may%20not,the%20surviving%20rats%20extra%20attention",
"http://ratfanclub.org/grief.html#:\\~:text=Rats%20can%20experience%20grief%20after,companion%20just%20as%20humans%20can.&text=They%20may%20or%20may%20not,the%20surviving%20rats%20extra%20attention"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takotsubo_cardiomyopathy?wprov=sfti1"
],
[
"https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/harlows-classic-studies-revealed-the-importance-of-maternal-contact.html"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1svjh
|
How do toddlers and children have so much strength and stamina
|
I’m just amazed how they can literally stay all day in the playground running and climbing up and down and barely breaking a sweat. my son watched a neighbor doing pull ups and imitated that on the monkey bars like it was nothing. also. how come they dont sleep through the night?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71a7un"
],
"text": [
"I suspect that it has to do with their expectations. When we do something we keep energy in reserve to get us through the day until we can go to sleep. What I notice with my toddler is that he keeps running around until he is to tired to move at all. It may also have something to with their small bodysize. It takes much less energy/muscles to move a small body than it takes to move a larger one. (Compare an ant which can lift x times his bodyweigth to an elephant which can’t)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1svwc
|
how does a server work and what’s it purpose?
|
You know the big things corporations have that people in movies and game hack into to?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g716nwq",
"g718bl1"
],
"text": [
"A server is essentially just a big, fast computer, and its purpose is to serve. To serve what, you might ask; and the answer is, whatever the corporation wants it to serve. It could be an email server, or a web server, or a database server, or anything, really. Anything that a client would need to connect to and request data from.",
"A server is just a type of computer. Any computer can act as a server even the one you are likely reading this on. All you need is a server application to run on the computer to make it act as a server. Because running stuff on desktop PCs, tablets or Iphones is not always the best way of doing things, computer makers make specialized hardware products to run Server software on. Confusingly the hardware, the software that runs on them are both referred to as Servers. (this doesn't make things easier). Really all that is needed for a computer to be a server is for one computer to act as client and a computer to take up the server role in an exchange. A computer can even do both roles at the same time and can be client and server simultaneously. The web-browser you are liekely reading this on is an example of a piece of client software: a web-browser or web-client. The computer that sends out the reddit website to you is a web-server. You home PC could act as a web-server if you wanted to, but it wouldn't do a terrible good job of it. There are all sorts of things that involve servers. email-servers that send and receive emails, file servers, that you store files on, print-servers to allow many different people to access different printers in a company... All sorts of applications that people use in a typical business work on the client server model where a client to access the information is on the desktops and a server is running somewhere in a server-room (or the cloud which is just someone else's server room). These server applications run on specialized computers. These computer often have a form factor 19 inches across so they can be stacked easier in a rack, they have redundant component like two power-supplies in case one breaks and often much more power than your home PC. They may runs special server operating system like a Sever version of Windows. Server applications will be installed on them to go along with the client software on the people's PCs. Usually something called virtualization will be involved. Hollywood movies about Hackers are not usually very accurate. In part because reality is far less exciting and looks very boring. Hollywood like to show Servers as if they were still the sort of giant room filling mainframes that companies used in ages past when in reality they will be a stack of pizza boxes in a shelf somewhere with some very uninteresting LEDs glowing in a dark room and nothing really indicating that anything extraordinary is happening. Hacking also usually doesn't involve any exiting typing or passwords that are 'cracked' by slowly revealing the letter one by one. But in real life companies do have hackers break into their system s and steal the data on their servers. It just isn't very exiting."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1t0as
|
Why is euthanasia an acceptable treatment for animals who are suffering, but not for humans who are suffering?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g717yc4",
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"text": [
"In some places it's legal. But you need to be super careful that it isn't abused. Not only inheritence, but also people who don't want to pay their relatives care anymore for example. Here in germany the highest court just cancelled our laws that ban \"active dying help\" saying everyone has a right for a death on his own terms. \"Passive dying help\" was legal already. Wich is basically not limiting drugs that relieve pain even if it gets to deadly doses.",
"Animals can't own property, so nobody tries to off them for the inheritance. I'm for voluntary euthanasia, but it is a tricky legal area, new laws have to be crafted with the outmost care.",
"Hi from the Netherlands here, it's euthanasia is legal here. Okay so pets, they don't really know what's happening, or if they do they can't say so. Because they are not capable of saying \"hey living is worse than dieing at this point\", it's up to us to say \"hey it's ok you don't have to hurt anymore.\" For humans it's more complicated, we know what's happening and we can communicate about it. Here in the Netherlands you have to convince several doctors that your wish for euthanasia is legit. If they don't believe you're legit, no euthanasia for you. The complications come from our awareness of the circumstances, like for instance, someone might not want to be a burden. That's not a legit reason for euthanasia. But if living is too painful to bear, at least we can say so. Seen in this way, euthanasia is actually more acceptable for humans than it is pets.",
"There’s a very good documentary about human assisted suicide called how to die In Oregon but damn it is an emotional rollercoaster. So many variables!",
"It's legal in some countries, I think the Netherlands and Switzerland, and there are many cases of people with terminal diseases traveling to those countries specifically to die on their own terms, rather than being forced to live out their last year's in chronic pain or having lost their mind to dementia etc. The main issues are surrounding how well people can give consent, if you have terminal dementia for example you have to have given consent before you reach the stage when you have lost the ability to reason and remember, however it is precisely those stages that most people want to avoid and die beforehand. There is an excellent documentary about it I would recommend to you called Choosing to Die, by the famous author Terry Pratchett, who was diagnosed with dementia in the last 10 years of his life.",
"Religion mostly. Outdated silly superstitions that says Euthanasia is inherently bad no matter the circumstances. There's no rational reason for it.",
"It is perfectly legal on the west coast of America. I believe in most places it has to be done under doctor's supervision. I actually had a friend who didn't feel like doing chemo and radiation a third time after going into remission twice so we had a super party, went on a gnarly trip with cannabis and psychedelics and the next day we had an awesome dinner and his doctor came over and we said goodbye one last time.",
"From a more moralist/theological perspective, the argument against euthanasia is usually that human lives have some quality that inherently makes them more precious and less disposable than non-sapient animals' lives. Whether it's an immortal soul, being made in God's image, or whatever, they believe that euthanasia cheapens the value of human life by reducing it to simply a quality of life threshold below which it is no longer worth living. Pope John Paul II, for example, referred to the US as developing a \"culture of death\" as movements in favor of abortion and euthanasia became more prominent.",
"The simplest and most accurate answer: we value nonhuman lives less. I happen to have spiritual principles that tell me all life is precious, even painful life, and this is no less true for nonhuman animals. Living those principles could make end-of-life for a pet quite expensive, and pain relief and comforting therapies would be the only recourse for a deadly and painful condition, just as with a human. I haven't had a pet as an adult in a long time, so this isn't an issue now, but it could be in the future.",
"in canada we have had MAID (medical assistance in dying) since 2017. This allows for people who meet strict criteria to have a doctor or other medically certified person basically euthanize them. The difference for animals is that in many, many places, animals are legally classified as objects. a distinction for them being living creatures, or notions of them having any sort of rights simply does not exist.",
"I'm sure eventually a christian will chime in. Obviously it's because animals have no soul..... /s No I think if your suffering it should be fine for either. I think its more acceptable for pets because most people see animals and there quality of life drops a lot. We had an old spitz, it was blind, partially deaf. It would like jump when we pet her. It tore me up, everytime. She was literally suffering. If I was 100 and blind and deaf, i mean in reality what would be my quality of life??? lets be truthful. I think if society took a deep look, also had like mental health professional adequately equiped it'd be a different story. But then health care has a profit motivator, so if a company had a choice theyd just perpetually pull the plug.... who knows.... its scary."
],
"score": [
207,
98,
38,
21,
7,
5,
5,
5,
4,
3,
3
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"text_urls": [
[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1t824
|
How does radioactive/Carbon dating work? How do we know what elements of a substance/item are a certain “years old?”
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g719nb7",
"g71aeys"
],
"text": [
"1. Radiocarbon (C-14) is radioactive that has the half-life of about 5730 years. 2. Despite it decays, the C-14 percentile in the atmosphere throughout the history is relatively steady due to constant creation of new C-14's by cosmic rays. 3. Living things consume carbon from the atmosphere and from other living/fresh organisms that have been consuming carbon from the atmosphere. This maintains C-14 level within their body. 4. Once they die, no C-14 will be induced anymore (cause they're dead) so C-14 level in their body starts decreasing (cause it decays). 5. Thus by putting the half-life into the analysis, you do the estimate/dating. In reality, the dating is much more complicated because despite C-14 baseline in the atmosphere being relatively steady throughout the history, its error/deviation is most of the time too large. One way to correct this is by obtaining more accurate C-14 history data from old trees. And since the discovery of radiocarbon dating, we record C-14 percentile in the atmosphere.",
"The basic idea is that any radioactive substance decays at a set rate. This has been proven time and time again. So for example, Carbon-14, which is used in carbon dating, has a half-life of about 5700 years, plus or minus 40. This means that if you have an amount X of C-14, which is radioactive, you should expect to see that this amount of C-14 will have decayed to half the starting amount within abour 5700 years. This alone doesnt help you, as you still need to know the starting amount. However, in this particular case, we know the total amount of C-12 (Which is regular carbon) and C-14 in the sample. If you now know the ratio at which the C-12 and C-14 enclosed in the sample should have appeared when it was enclosed, you can, from there, calculate how much C-14 you shouldve had at that point, and crunch the numbers on how many half-lives have passed in that period. Of course, this assumes that the sample was isolated the entire time. So for instance, if the sample has been touched by a human before testing, the results will be off, because the grease that covers our skin, any skin cells that you shed touching the sample, etc. will all contain C-14 that is registered in the sample aswell, thus throwing these measurements off. Its also of note that each method can only be used within a certain time scale. So for instance, C-14 is only good for anything older than 100 years but younger than 50 thousand. If the sample is too young, you wont be able to detect a meaningful amount of decay. If its too old, same problem, except here, the amount of material being measured is so small, its hard to tell the difference."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1tnoj
|
How does pouring water on a burning log actually extinguish it?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71bb9l"
],
"text": [
"It's both. By dumping water over a wood fire, you are suffocating it by creating a water layer, not allowing it to reach oxygen in the air, as well as reducing the temperature below the burning point for wood (although this effect is negligible, despite water's high specific heat capacity, as you will see in the next example). Remember for a fire, you need three things: fuel, oxygen, and heat. Removing any one of these extinguishes the fire. But this exact reason is why water is not good for every fire. If you are burning petrol for example, you can't douse the flames with water. Whilst you may reduce the temperature slightly, the water will not form a barrier over the fuel, like it would for wood. The end result is the petrol floats on water and usually will just overflow out of the container it currently is in since you've just dumped water on it, thus just spreading the fire. It is for a similar reason that water is not used to put out gas fires."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1towr
|
Why haven't people who use the "fake news" rhetoric been sued for defamation?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71cz48"
],
"text": [
"Because in all cases where it is demonstrably false, it is also something no reasonable person will believe. So your argument to sue them is also their argument to defend against claimed damages."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1tx0l
|
where does the eyelash go once it disappears into the eye socket ?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71deni"
],
"text": [
"They become floaters, just kidding! From what I read when I was first getting contact lenses and feared losing them behind my eyeball, there is a lining that covers the exposed area of your eye which is where your eyelash might slip in worse case scenario but generally it will come out after blinking, in your sleep, or if you wash it out. Things can’t end up behind the eyeball without puncture."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1uce5
|
What (healthy) foods do vegetarians buy at a grocery store?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71esb6",
"g71exau"
],
"text": [
"Here's some of the stuff I buy from the store and eat: Breakfast: stuff for breakfast burritos (eggs, cheese, potatoes, onions, peppers, optionally some veggie sausage or beans), pancake mix, oatmeal, fruit, acai with granola, english muffins for egg sandwiches, ... Lunch: sandwich bread, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles. Instead of meat I'll use veggie meat or hummus. Occasionally PB & J or some other nut butter. Sometimes avocado, sprouts, etc. Dinner: pasta, soup, tacos, pizza, curry, stew, an entree salad...there are literally so many options I don't even know where to start. Your options include: 1. Make something that works great without meat, like a taco, quesadilla or spaghetti 2. Or, make something that's naturally vegetarian like most Indian food 3. Or, make something that's usually with meat and use tofu or a meat substitute or some other protein instead I hope that helps!",
"Basically just like a meat eater, but replace the meat with other proteins like beans, peas, soy products, eggs and so on. If you have a fridge you can buy fresh vegetables for a few days. Typical \"No idea what to Cook today\" meals are Veggie Stirfry, Soups, Rice pan, Spinach+Potatoes+Omelette, Chili sin Carne. Groceries usually depend on whats cheap currently, but Broccoli, Zucchini, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Eggs, Rice, Canned beans, frozen Spinach are things we buy literally every time."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1ukt9
|
In terms of literature, tv, movies, etc what does a deconstruction mean?
|
The Boys is a deconstruction of the superhero story Neon Genesis is a deconstruction of the mecha genre I see these phrases often online but I'm not exactly sure what the term means, is just a subversion of tropes or is it something more?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71gqg7"
],
"text": [
"A deconstruction is a play on the genre that, while conforming to the genre, goes deeper than the normal stereotypes. It finds some internal contradictions and develops them further, so while it's technically still the same genre, the tone is usually radically different from the \"normal\" for that genre."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1vmh8
|
What's the proof for all fingerprints to be unique?
|
I can imagine that it's extremely unlikely for two different fingerprints to be the same, but what is the actual proof that there are no two identical fingerprints from different persons?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71k5yi",
"g71k9zd"
],
"text": [
"There isn't one. URL_0 It's speculation based on the fact that fingerprint are random, and so two fingerprints are unlikely to be alike. But there have been cases of mistaken identity due to fingerprinting.",
"There isn't any, we're just confident enough to say that the odds of two people having the same fingerprint, given the incredibly variability in ridge patterns (even the same person might give two slightly different prints), are low enough to make it a valid means of identification. That's not without controversy, of course, and the legal validity of fingerprinting is frequently challenged. Fingerprints alone are unlikely to stand up in court without supporting evidence in many cases."
],
"score": [
7,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM1QgwaKv4s"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1vt6t
|
When we touch a thing it's basically the repulsion of electrons we feel, than why do we feel the touch of different things differently when everytime it's the same electrons repelling each other?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71l2of"
],
"text": [
"The simple act of repelling only means you have hit something. On top of that, on a way larger scale, that repelling has more metrics. The repelling happens across a surface, which has a pattern, flexibility etc. The material also has thermal conductivity and temperature. So individually its only electrons repelling across objects. But in total that repelling happens in a specific way - distinct to this object."
],
"score": [
16
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1wgyo
|
How does a rechargable battery work if batteries produce electricity using chemical reactions?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71ntxm"
],
"text": [
"The chemical reactions in rechargable batteries is reversable. That means that there is chemical reactions that will change the chemicals back to their orginial forms given that there is current flowing the other direction."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1wipv
|
Why armenia and azerbaijan are fighting and who is on whose side?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71umc5"
],
"text": [
"In the Stalinist era ethnic populations were purposefully transported to the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people who were not like them, and then the federal borders were purposefully drawn in order to not accurately represent the ethnic boundaries. & #x200B; When Azerbaijan and Armenia were independent, and broke away from the USSR \\~1988, Azerbaijan was full of Armenians and Armenia was full of Azerbaijanis. This led to a conflict wherein Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war, each hoping to successfully annex areas that were filled with their fellow men, and at the same time refusing to release minority ethnic groups to their countrymen. & #x200B; Armenia won the war in 1988, and annexed the Western 1/5th of Azerbaijan that is like 95% Armenian. This was a national disgrace to Azerbaijan because despite being superior in literally every way imaginable, they got their ass kicked. Azerbaijan wants that territory back not only to restore their national pride, but because it's internationally recognized as the correct side, if only because that was the status-quo before the war ie that's how they were released when they left the Soviet Union, with flawed borders that were purposefully created 75 years ago to make separation and Nationalism impossible. The idea was is to lock the two nations in perpetual conflict because either no border will geographically work, and no border will accurately represent the people who live in the nations whose borders are defined. If I was the two countries, I would do a joint population-transfer, deport Armenians to Armenia and Azerbaijanis to Azerbaijan, but neither wants to do that because they want the land. & #x200B; [ URL_2 ]( URL_2 ) & #x200B; [ URL_0 ]( URL_1 )"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages\\_of\\_the\\_Caucasus#/media/File:Caucasus-ethnic\\_en.svg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Caucasus#/media/File:Caucasus-ethnic_en.svg",
"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Armenia/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x40155684e773bac7:0xd0b4757aeb822d23?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzxdXXqY7sAhWUqZ4KHV4vAWIQ8gEwAHoECAsQAQ"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1wpmg
|
why is hold music usually a much lower quality than having a phone conversation?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71p79a"
],
"text": [
"[Relevant Tom Scott video]( URL_0 ). In short, phone calls are compressed to allow sending more data and/or multiple calls on the same wire. This compression is optimized for human speech, but not for music. In particular, it commonly discards frequencies that are outside of human speech frequency range, but are still in music frequency range."
],
"score": [
15
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2A8q3XIhu0"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1wqq0
|
Why wall clock lag time after particular period
|
I set my wall clock with the current timing on my phone about a couple of months ago and today I saw it was lagging behind by 7 mins
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71q6m9"
],
"text": [
"Both digital and analog clocks measure time by looking at how a specific object swings back and forth and counting the number of swings. An analog clock have a pendulum or a weighted wheel while a digital clock have a specific crystal like a tuning fork. The problem is that this object may not be shaped perfectly so it might not have the exact right amount of swings in a second. With a pendulum you can often adjust its length to solve this. The other problem is that things like temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. can alter how fast it swings. And this might require constant adjustments which itself might not be completely accurate. Your phone have a built inn service which checks the exact time with a networks of accurate clocks around the world. This is done either by the cell phone network, GPS or the Internet. The phone is then not only able to set the time correctly from time to time but also adjust the clock by changing how many cycles it counts to for every second. You can get wall clocks with similar features. But these are often more expensive and usually say so in rather prominent text on the front."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1wrce
|
Why do our ears ring, and what is the actual physiological process by which we hear a ringing sound?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71pfi5",
"g71pop8",
"g71s5nx"
],
"text": [
"This is tinnitus. It can be caused by several things, but it's most commonly associated with hearing loss. It's the result of an issue with or damage to the little hairs in your ear canal that translate sound into something our brains can process.",
"The way our hearing work is that each frequency of sound have their own little hair frolicle at a specific length matching that frequency and a specific neuron connected to the hair that detects movement. But these hairs and neurons gets worn out and damaged over time. Especially the high frequency ones. And when they stop working they signal the brain continuously. Think of it like a dead pixel in your monitor or camera. Because each neuron signals one frequency the brain perceives the change as a continuous high frequency continuous pitch. Noramlly the brain is pretty good at detecting that something is wrong and will ignore it after a few seconds.",
"URL_0 this is a video by ted Ed explaining how the ringing in your ear happens. It is really interesting. It also has good visual demonstrations and a little story telling. I recommend it if you’re intrigued"
],
"score": [
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/TnsCsR2wDdk"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1x2do
|
why does your need to sneeze increases when you look directly at light?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71qvs3",
"g71wagk",
"g723x70"
],
"text": [
"It's actually something that only affects about 1/3 of the population, and we don't know the reason for it. There's evidence to suggest the two branches of the trigeminal nerve (optic and maxillary) can sympathetically stimulate each other, causing a sneeze when the optic branch is triggered.",
"When you tilt your head up to look at the light the photons tickle the inside of your nose.",
"this happens to me and a small part of the population. the thalamus region of your brain acts as a sensory relay station, sending sensory information to the appropriate areas of your brain (ie, vision is sent to the occipital lobe in the back of your brain). stimulation from your eyes passes through here and, depending on the light’s intensity, can trigger sneezing because your brain thinks there is an irritant (sensation) in your nose. funny enough, someone men also sneeze after having an orgasm for the same reason!"
],
"score": [
21,
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1xkvd
|
Why do we get words or small phrases stuck in our heads over and over and over and over?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72gpnz",
"g72jd6f",
"g72iyzz",
"g72ibar",
"g72ekbm",
"g72o1lw",
"g72icev",
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"g72pnsk",
"g72hv84",
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"text": [
"Your brain uses different parts and different amounts of energy to process words versus syllables. Processing a phrase as simply words takes more energy, so when you repeat a word or phrase over and over your brain gets tired and begins to process it as syllables, which has rhythm and musicality! Then it’s much like when you have a song stuck in your head. Edit: here’s an example here: URL_0",
"This particular bit might not be true for everyone, but ADHD and Autistic folks sometimes experience something called \"echolalia\" - repeating a phrase over and over and over as it's stuck in their heads EDIT: A few people have commented to let me know that this isn't exactly echolalia, echolalia is more focused on the compulsion to repeat phrases you might here over and over, rather than it being stuck in your head. I fear their replies have gotten lost among the comments so I wanted to make sure it was seen! That said, I have heard neurodivergent people say that this stuck-in-your-head thing does still happen with them often, lots of people below even. I urge you to do your own research, I am definitely not a professional!",
"Your brain is criss-crossed with little fleshy wires called \"neurons\" that carry electricity all around to different parts of your brain that do different tasks. If your brain has to do a certain task very often, it tries to get better at it making those \"neuron\" wires for that task stronger and more connected. When you decide to say something, first the words (\"verbal\") part of your brain picks the right phrase, then the neurons send that information to the talking (\"motor\") part of your brain. In this way, the little neuron wires between your \"verbal\" and \"motor\" parts of your brain tend to pair up and get connected really well for words that you say all the time. This can happen between other parts of your brain too. Now, sometimes those really good strong connections go into a feedback loop, and in order to prevent your brain from getting stuck in that loop, each time it repeats your brain forces the electrical neuron wire signals to get weaker. That means, the strong connection between \"verbal\" and \"motor\" get's weaker for a little while. This makes you feel like you are saying that word or phrase, but you can think of what it means. This is known as \"semantic satiation\". But then! ANOTHER part of your brain sometimes gets activated and sucked into the problem. It's not really a 'part' of your brain, but more like a habit your brain has to want to finish tasks that it started. Your brain doesn't want to leave a job half-done; it wants to finish. Sometimes, when \"semantic satiation\" is happening, your brain thinks it is an unfinished task, but it can't finish because it can't connect to the \"verbal\" part of your brain to find the meaning of the phrase. So, your brain tries to start the task over again, hoping that it can trigger those strong connection \"neuron\" wires by following the same pattern from the beginning. But it keeps failing and so it starts over and over again. Now, the CRAZY thing is that this can happen completely inside your head without you ever saying it out loud.",
"This happens to me when I'm running a fever, typically if it's keeping me up late or wakes me up through the night. Ive always assumed it was more like the brain shorting out a little as it fights something.",
"I have had this happen way too many times. I couldn’t say the word wool for 2 years after thinking it on repeat so long I lost all pronunciation of it. I think it’s more of a twitch/obsession. Right now mine is “ok,” and “alright” - I think it’s soothing to the mind somehow where you get to fixate on one thing and maybe distract from another (even though it’s extremely annoying and frustrating in the long run).",
"Why can’t I relate to this??? I’ve only ever had words stuck on my head (if it’s not a song) when I try to not forget something and repeat it in my mind so I don’t forget. Also when I’m reading or writing and the last phrases I repeat in my mind sometimes to absorb the meaning of the words. I’ve never had non musical words unintentionally stuck in my mind! Why is this? It’s not like I have no sense of rhythm either...",
"I'm not an expert at psychology or the behaviors of the brain, but I was able to address this behavior in myself a few years ago. In addition to repeating items in my head, I also had rapidly increasing anxiety and frustration as each day progressed. It was inexplicable and for someone with a pretty chill attitude and life, I was distressed. I then remembered how I managed my time in college and at my first desk jobs. I would write down the items I'd been repeating in my head, and tasks that I was working hard to remember, thus popping up throughout the day. The simple act of taking out a notebook, drawing a horizontal line, and writing the thing in my head, enabled me to clear that task from my mental checklist. I keep the notebook by my work computer, so there's no chance of losing it or misplacing it. I don't know the particulars, but I think humans are wired with a limited number of \"high priority items\". When you get more than that number, your anxiety increases as you actively try to remember everything. Silly words, phrases, or even songs, can take up one of those slots, involuntarily. When I get a song stuck in my head, I go on Spotify, find the artist, song, year of publication, and associated albums and songs. I write a line on my notepad about the song and move on to other tasks. Often, this act satisfies the ear worm as my subconscious knows that I don't have to remember anything about that song anymore. When I have a word or phrase in my head, I write it down, when I last heard it, and why I care about it (or whether or not I care at all about it). Again, I don't know the reason for this, but I've always felt that it was because I wanted to remember the word to use it again...or share a phrase with my wife or family member, or look up the song at a later time, or some other subconscious desire. My mind repeats it to avoid having it forgotten, and trying to stop remembering never works. I write it down. My brain knows where to find it in the future, my anxiety disappears, and I move on with my day. Hell...I think I would have exploded in 2020 if I hadn't learned to do this...",
"Discaimer: this is not medical advice, I am not a doctor. If you find that your thoughts repeat themselves over and rarely stop on their own, you might have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. An obsession is an repeated thought that is involuntary or unwanted. A compulsion is an action or behavior that you feel that you *must* do. Obsessions typically cause some sense of anxiety or just bad feelings in a person with OCD and performing the compulsion temporarily relieves this anxiety. Over time, performing the compulsion becomes less relieving and the person must have to complete more intense activities to achieve the same degree of relief. This can lead the person to spend debilitating amounts of time performing rituals. When you get a phrase stuck in your head, does it feel a little uncomfortable? Does it feel a little less uncomfortable when you say the phrase out loud? Or maybe when you write the phrase down?",
"Sometimes I get words like \"Trebuchet memes\" or \"diminishing return\" on my mind, especially when it's stressful at work. I keep thinking of them during stressful situations when I need to concentrate. My native language is Norwegian, but these words are usually in English.",
"If it’s OCD related, it’s because a circuit’s off switch is broken. The electrical pulse keeps going round and round because the brakes have broken on the track.",
"Dental plan. Lisa needs braces. Dental plan. Lisa needs braces. Dental plan. Lisa needs braces. Dental plan. Lisa needs braces.",
"Simplifying hugely: it’s probably because there’s a bit of our memory called the **phonological loop** that can store 1-2 seconds of audio. Psychologist Alan Baddeley found this via some brilliant experiments getting children to memorise sequences of numbers. It turns out that Welsh-speaking children can memorise shorter strings than English-speaking children, while Chinese-speaking children can memorise longer strings. That’s because pronounced Welsh digits are on average longer than English digits, and Chinese digits are on average shorter. In all cases they could memorise what they could say in two seconds or so. See URL_0 for a non ELI5!",
"Really should have stopped scrolling before I got to the \"maybe you have ADHD or some other mental aberration\" portion of the proceedings. I'm a singer and very often get ear worms...one time I had \"All About that Bass\" stuck in my head for a week and seriously considered checking myself into a hospital because it was making me cry by that point. But as far as words, I often have conversations and arguments in my head while getting ready for work in the morning, and weirdly it's the tail end of those conversations that will sometimes get stuck in my head and go round and round for a while before they dissipate.",
"Thanks for asking this! I've always been curious about this. I get odd or unique names stuck in my head and will sometimes repeat them in my mind throughout the day. One that is a constant is a now retired NFL player, D'Brickashaw Ferguson. I have zero affiliation with him other than hearing his name while watching UVA vs FSU back in the day, when FSU was worth a shit but I digress.",
"I feel like I’ve had the fancy dude from the supercalafragalisticexpialidosis song in Mary Poppins saying “indubitably” in my head any time I agree with something for the last 20 yrs.",
"I always wondered this because for about 5 years my brain would repeat \"potato\" when there was nothing else on my mind .",
"Does this happen to anyone else to a MUCH STRONGER, insanity-producing degree when they're sick or have a fever? Or is my brain just fucked?",
"Babushka. This damn word is stuck in my head now because the trending post before this one has a babushka standing beside a bike. Babushka..",
"Extremely late to the party, but anybody here ever seen the horror movie Pontypool? It’s really good and unique, and about this exact thing. Go watch, but it’s a little hard to find.",
"I assumed this happened because i have really bad thought OCD. Usually people get music stuck in their head but not words or sentences. I get words and sentences stuck in my head A LOT and i attribute that to intrusive thoughts cause by OCD.",
"I never get words stuck on my head... music on the other hand, is an absolute nightmare. If a song is catchy, it'll get stuck immediately. I've learned to live with music constantly playing in my head, and I consider it my own personal radio. I can even change the song by remembering another catchy one and it gets stuck until I replace it.",
"Everyone who relates to this: go to r/ADHD to read some first-person accounts of what ADHD is like. I had no idea I had it because people think \"it's just issues with focus and attention\" and don't know that there's a zillion other ways it affects your life. It's much deeper than that and this is one of the things that's common with ADHD and doesn't make sense to most people without it. You might find a whoooole lot more that you have in common with ADHD people if you go to that sub, and you might have so much in common you get diagnosed and medicated (like me), changing your life for the better."
],
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3330,
466,
285,
130,
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49,
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[
"http://philomel.com/asa156th/mp3/Sound_Demo_1.mp3"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100422"
],
[],
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1xzdp
|
Why does resetting a router make it magically faster?
|
What causes it to slow down and seem buggy? And what happens when you reset or turn everything off and back on to make it work better?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71volx",
"g72cynp",
"g71vzxv",
"g71whpn"
],
"text": [
"Software crashes and bugs occur in any reasonably complex program. While good programming will allow you to minimize disruption to the program, the cumulative effect of those bugs can have an overall negative performance impact. Resetting allows everything to get cleared the software to start fresh, restoring performance to normal.",
"ELI5: Imagine you have a single piece of paper and a pencil. When people tell you things to do, you write them down on the paper so you don’t forget. As you finish things, you erase them, but your eraser isn’t very good and you’re in a hurry (because lots of people are giving you things to do!), so sometimes parts of words are left behind. After a while it’s hard to fit everything on the single piece of paper, so you start writing smaller, or write different parts of a task in different parts of the paper. Restarting the router is like getting a new piece of paper, whatever someone might have told you to do before doesn’t matter, and you have all this empty space to write things down. Other people mentioned, not all routers are like this. Cheaper consumer-grade routers are more likely to have less memory and less care given to their software. Enterprise-grade routers are usually expected to not need to be restarted unless you’re updating the software or upgrading the hardware, but they’re usually more expensive than the routers you get from your internet provider or from Best Buy. As a personal example, my router hasn’t been restarted in over three months, and the same setup at my parents’ house has rebooted four times in the past year.",
"You know how when you stay up super late you get really tired and start not functioning correctly...then you sleep and allow your body to rest and reset and you go through the next day more easily than the previous night? That's kinda what happens with computers (and a router is just a small, very specialized, type of computer). Over time software bugs cause weird things to happen. Good software can handle most of them okay but not always, and those instances of not always cause things to build up in the cache, can affect how things are stored in temporary and permanent memory, etc. Restarting the device clears the build-up of issues from these bugs and allows it to run better until those issues inevitably build up again. Well-built devices (as in little to no software issues) can still accumulate issues, as hardware can contain defects and such. If the hardware and software were perfect, this wouldn't happen and you wouldn't need to restart the device to \"make it faster\".",
"I'm specifically talking about internet where you've got a pair of copper wires that enter your home. That's what most people have (in the UK at least!) but there are other internet types. When your modem (which is a part of your router) first tries to connect to the exchange, it tries to arrange to get the fastest speed. Your modem can detect how good your connection to the central 'exchange' is by listening to the 'noise' on the line (literally the same as when you're making a landline call and there's buzzing or crackling on the line) - so the router will try to negotiate with the exchange to 'sync' at the best upload/download speed possible, given how much noise is on the line. Once it's done that, that's how fast your internet is. HOWEVER, the amount of 'noise' on your line will change - when it rains and if that conductive rain touches The very conductive copper wires (like because the insulation was cracked or old and degraded?) Then you'll get more noise. So when you're sending packets they're gonna start getting garbled and the exchange won't understand. But it's all good because the exchange detects these garbled packets and tells your modem to slow down - send packets more slowly allowing each packet to be more clear - to be heard over the 'noise'. Every few minutes or an hour or a day, whatever, the modem tries to up the 'sync' speed again and either it will succeed or the rain is still there and it will fail. If the rain lasts long enough, the modem will just get used to the slower speed and just accept that this is it's connection speed now. BUT WHEN YOU REBOOT THE ROUTER, It starts from the beginning, trying to sync at the highest possible speed which is now faster since the rain has stopped. So the internet is faster after the reboot. Edit: replace 'Tue' with 'the' Edit: replaced the below Terms with a simpler explanation."
],
"score": [
57,
29,
12,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1y96z
|
When searching for signs of extraterrestial life, exactly what are looking for?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71x44r",
"g722tf6"
],
"text": [
"Anything that's not natural, or what we consider to be natural. On earth for example, an alien might see straight line structures and conclude they're a sign of intelligent life (straight, symmetrical structures are very rare in nature). In space we're focusing on energy emissions, especially radio waves, and their patterns. A burst of radiation that occurs once or twice every few years? Probably natural. One that appears precisely every two hours, follows a pattern, and originates from the same place? Might be worth investigating. Our theory is that a space-faring species will have developed technology to either broadcast their presence through the galaxy, or significantly alter their environment at a planetary scale in a way that we could observe, whether directly or indirectly.",
"We also look for signs of chemicals in the atmospheres of other planets that we know are critical to life on Earth, or we believe are only produced through biological processes. This is what got everyone excited about Venus last week- phosphine gas. The scientists that discovered it in Venus' atmosphere believe only a living thing could produce it."
],
"score": [
7,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j1ybat
|
What is the benefit of being a territory (US or otherwise) rather than being an independent country?
|
What benefit is there for Guam, Puerto Rico, etc to being a US Territory rather than a state or an independent country?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g71xk2q",
"g71xlic",
"g71zeeg",
"g71xwux"
],
"text": [
"You get a US passport, US military protection, the right to travel and work in the US, the use of the US dollar as an official currency and you get to send non voting members to congress.",
"You get all the military protection of the host country while retaining a mostly independent government. The downside is you don't get much political representation in the host country.",
"Wow! Thanks everyone! That really helps clarify it for me!",
"They are owned and managed by the US. Which means they can potentially benefit from all of the resources US has to offer. While this is not guaranteed, it is a far sight better than being on your own and receiving no benefit. Important to note is that those \"resources\" include the United States Military to protect it from foreign powers. Since the US operates on the principle of Federalism, if there is a local government, they have a pretty broad latitude when it comes to self-governance. If they are independent, they get unfettered self-governance, but are on their own in terms of all those resources and military protection."
],
"score": [
24,
13,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j1ygsd
|
What is the article 9 argument in Japan?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72041g",
"g72zz5k"
],
"text": [
"Article 9 says that Japan will never ever declare war on anyone ever again. The people who say they should keep it say that the last time Japan was declaring war willy nilly, it resulted in their entire island burning down and getting nuked. Besides, being peaceful is a good thing and it should stay in the constitution. The people who say they should remove it say that WW2 was a very long time ago, and that people are different now, and it makes no sense that a strong nation should keep that thing in the constitution. Complicating this is that the people who got invaded, enslaved, and genocided by the Japanese feel that they were never particularly sorry. And that removing that clause would be another sign of how not sorry they were. Also those people also don't want a repeat of the last time the Japanese invaded them, so they'll be buying/building more war stuff. And everyone pointing more war stuff around is not a good thing for peace.",
"After World War II ended, the US occupied Japan for 7 years and rebuilt the nation and its laws. The US wrote a constitution for Japan. Here's what article 9 says: > *Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.* > > *In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.* There was an attitude within the US forces at that time (immediately post-World War II) that Japan was an inherently violent and aggressive nation that was a danger to other nations. By putting in this article, it was an attempt to change how Japan behaved and was a response to this inacurate belief. Article 9 was interpreted to mean that Japan should not have military forces and never fight aggressively in a war. So instead of Japan having their own military, the US established extensive military bases throughout Japan and Okinawa and is there ostensibly to defend Japan. The bases are still there today. This was a biased view that Japan was inherently violent and militaristic--it's no more so than other nations, but to be fair it was the propaganda that the Japanese military leaders had been putting out for decades. But while people in the West have extensive knowledge of Germans and Germany and so could separate Nazi propaganda from understandings about Germans and Germany as a whole and historically, they were worse at sniffing out such distinctions regarding Japan. But this is just background as to *why* the article is there, not about the current argument. The Japanese public was overwhelmingly OK with article 9 at the time the constitution was written. The public was sick of war and had seen a tremendous amount of death--there was less support for World War II among the Japanese public than you might think based on stereotypes and movies. So with the end of the wayr, Japan was completely demilitarized and there were just police, no military forces. Then, after the US left, Japan gradually started to take a few steps, like establishing the Self-Defense Forces, basically like a National Guard. Over time there were a few more military steps that Japan took, but fairly minor ones. Japan sent troops to assist the US in some endeavors, but in non-combat roles. But by and large, the vast majority of Japanese people were pretty happy for many many years with article 9 as military action was unpopular and several generations of Japanese people grew up with no sense of having a military or being aggressive or even thinking in those terms. The Japanese self-image was of a peace-loving nation with war far in the rear-view mirror. Over time and especially in the last 20 years or so, militaristic, conservative forces in Japan have gained a significant amount of power and position, and these far-right groups have long chaffed about Article 9. They want to have a military and an army. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't unreasonable--every country has an army and the ability to defend itself and Article 9 was imposed by a military occupational government. But in reality this is troubling, because the people agitating to abolish Article 9 are militant and aggressive and will upset the status quo that Japan has known for the past 75 years, as well as being contrary to the desires of a large percent of the Japanese population. And it could escalate some regional conflicts with China and North Korea. These same guys also want to amend the Constitution to remove the measures giving women equality to men, as part of an overarching conservative agenda."
],
"score": [
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j201km
|
Why do some online payment processors require the CVV code and others don't?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72cfaj",
"g73cosx",
"g72s1l8",
"g757xdz"
],
"text": [
"Two main reasons. You can process a payment without a CVV but there's a higher degree of fraud. Bigger companies may accept that risk because it's still a small percentage of their overall payments. Smaller companies like mom and pop stores will suffer badly with a fraud payment so they absolutely need the CVV. Also some nasty websites will store the CVV after the first time you use it, and provide it automatically. However this is a MASSIVE risk and they may get shut down or fined over it. There's an entire audit process called PCI around this.",
"I've never found an online payment system in the UK that doesn't require your CVV, and honestly I'd find it pretty shady if they didn't. Then I noticed when working at an airport, that a lot of our American customers weren't used to signing for card payments or us actually checking the signature, so maybe the requirements on processing payments are just less stringent. We also had to insist on chip and pin over swipe and sign if their card was able to go through via chip and pin (Although we still took contact less payments which seems to sort of eliminate the point of both chip and pin and swipe and sign.) Edit: More accurate to say 'non European' than American, similar issues with customers from China, India etc.",
"The card processing companies charge different rates based on how they got the card info. The more information provided with the transaction the lower the rate. For instance, you can process a payment based only off the number. But the processing companies will charge a higher percentage because of the risk of using someone else’s card. Providing the full information found all over the card(front back) significantly reduces the risk that the card is being used fraudulently. So the processors will charge a lower rate. These rates are not all that different, but 0.1% makes a big difference across thousands of transactions.",
"Online credit card processing can be done in many different ways according to many different options. Strictly speaking, to bill a card, all you need is the number. All the other information is optional. Credit card processing companies are in charge of collecting credit card processing fees, authenticating the card, and billing the credit card company. Whenever a company wants to take credit cards, they negotiate and sign a contract with one of these companies. If the account holder follows more security protocols to process cards, they get a discount. So most places ask for CVV to save money. So a contract can be drawn up to not require CVV codes. But there may also be technological reasons preventing adopting new security protocols. For example, a lot of stores don’t use chip readers, because they don’t want to pay to replace their credit card machines. Online, a company might not want to upgrade their computer software to support CVV codes, because it costs money. Above someone asked why a company would not want the most strict security options to reduce risk. An important point is that the fraud risk is not the merchant’s problem. The credit card company loses money if the transaction is fraudulent. The merchant gets paid no matter what. So the processor basically insures every purchase against fraud by including that cost in the processing fee. The question is whether a lower processing fee offsets the cost of increased security measures. When you do the math, sometimes less security saves money."
],
"score": [
90,
12,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j203f3
|
What makes a dialect a dialect and not a new language?
|
Sometimes dialect sounds so different that it sounds like a language on its own? How do linguists classify a dialect as dialect?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72b1ei",
"g72a9cm",
"g72fwel",
"g72m1q0"
],
"text": [
"Politics mostly. Basically don't look for any kind of hard, logical rule as to when something is a dialect and when it is a language. Because you won't find any hard rules without a ton of exceptions. Languages aren't neat and discrete and human attempts to categorise them are messy and flawed. That's how you get Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin being considered \"languages\" while being essentially identical while Arabic is considered a \"language\" despite its many \"dialects\" being unintelligible to each other. \"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy\" is a well-known quote.",
"It depends on who you ask. Generally to be considered a dialect, it has to be mutually intelligible with the parent language. If it's not then it's a language of its own. If you're deferring to another language to answer grammatical or syntactic questions about it, then it's a dialect of that language. But there is no universally accepted definition or set of criteria for determining a dialect vs language, just what's most commonly agreed upon.",
"An extreme generalization I learned was that basically if two people can generally hold an understandable conversation with each other even using different words/rules, that's a dialect. If they can't, it's a different language.",
"It's mostly linguistic politics. Speaking the same language is very important to cultural identity: that's why when the modern nations first formed they started mapping the languages spoken in the torritory, creating the first modern grammars to unify them. The line between what is still the same language and what's not it's rather about people being considered a part of the same community/ nation/ empire than any formal aspect of the languages themselves - including intelligibility. So basically, a variation between two linguistic forms becomes a different dialect or language when people say and accept it is: it becomes a dialectic when they want it to be consider it part of the same \"whole\", and a different language when they want it to be separated."
],
"score": [
33,
6,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j208w1
|
What exactly is magnetic field?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72bian",
"g72pl90"
],
"text": [
"Certain things— bar magnets, electric currents— cause magnetic forces, which apply to moving electrically-charged objects. This is similar to how certain things (though in this case it's basically all things) cause gravitational forces, which apply to massive objects (that is, objects with mass, not necessarily huge objects). A magnetic field is the, I guess you'd call it a map of how strong those magnetic forces are, and in what direction they pull. (There's a mathematical complication, because the direction we use to describe the magnetic field isn't the same direction magnetism accelerates affected objects, but that's under-the-hood stuff that you don't need to worry about in an ELI5.)",
"A field is just math-talk for a region in space. So literally, the space that is affected by magnets. This space happens to be everywhere. The magnets affect the space, and the space in turn can act on magnetic objects, allowing for that spooky action-at-a-distance you see when magnets are pushing on each other without touching."
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j20bwn
|
Are micro expressions real?
|
On this show “lie to me”, the whole premise is that people show micro expressions that show how a person really feels (as opposed to controlled expressions). Is there any truth to that, or is it made up? How much control do we have over our expressions?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72ledn"
],
"text": [
"Poker players have been doing this for years to try to get an idea of how good the hands of the other people are. Thus we have the \"poker face,\" hiding all indications of emotion, and the \"tell,\" the failure of someone to hide the emotion. So take what poker players have been doing for a long time and turn it into a science. Classify all the tells by testing the expression responses of a large group of people. This is what scientist Paul Ekman did, and the basis for the show. In the show, Lightman is Eckman."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
j20dpe
|
Why can’t saltwater fish survive in freshwater?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72lhxg",
"g72d4o9",
"g72b7fw"
],
"text": [
"Most animals, including fish and humans, do something called osmoregulation, which is regulating the concentration of water and salts in our tissues. If we humans drink seawater, for instance, it will make our tissues too salty. To regulate it, water will move out of our cells and into the solution to reduce the concentration. This is bad enough but your kidneys will need even more water to filter and excrete the excess salt, and the net effect is dehydration and ultimately death. The same sort of thing happens when you put a freshwater fish in salt water. Saltwater fish have the opposite problem. They live in water that is much saltier than their own tissues and they can't really avoid consuming it. So to compensate, their organs are constantly pumping the excess salt out of their bodies. If put in fresh water, their body doesn't know to stop; they keep excreting salt and holding onto water until they either bloat up and die, or their electrolytes get so low that their nervous system fails. Humans can also die in a similar way: it's called water intoxication, although it is rare. There are fish that can live in both salt and fresh water, e.g. salmon. They're called \"euryhaline\" (as opposed to stenohaline organisms, who can only live in a narrow range of salinities). However since most fish have no reason to move between waters of different salinity, its biologically \"cheaper\" to adapt to just one salinity.",
"Saltwater fish will explode if put in freshwater because freshwater goes into their gills too easily. It's like a baby bottle nipple being too big but instead of drooling out the milk the baby explodes",
"Their bodies are adapted to the osmotic pressure of saltwater. In freshwater, they wouldn't be able to maintain electrolyte balance within their cells."
],
"score": [
14,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j20je8
|
what are the little white spots that appear in your fingernails and how do they form?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72en3q"
],
"text": [
"These spots, called Leukonchyia, are caused by the abnormal growth in, or damage to the structure of the fingernail. Specifically, light is not reflected by them as it would be from a healthy section of the nail. There are many potential causes ranging from vitamin deficiency to psioraris to arsenic poisoning, but the overwhelming majority of cases stem from minor injuries to the nail and the nail matrix. Consequently, nailbiters are especially prone to have these spots on their fingers."
],
"score": [
20
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j216x5
|
- Why is Drake's Passage in Antarctica so popular?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72iape"
],
"text": [
"Because transporting goods over water is *way* cheaper than transporting them over land and Drake's passage is one of only 2 ways to get from China to Europe/Eastern United States without having to cross land or pay significant tolls for the use of a canal(Panama or Suez). Going around the southern tip of Africa is a shorter distance but also even more heavily traveled(because it's shorter)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
j218k8
|
Why is it that when water or other liquids go up our noses it is super uncomfortable but when we cry the tears drain through our noses and it just feels like mucus?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"g72ig9t"
],
"text": [
"Salt content. Basically plain water is not isotonic with our cells. In sensitive areas like eyes and nasal cavities. The cells are trying to balance the salinity causing us to register pain. If it's salt water then there's too much salt and the same thing happens. If you have a solution that is isotonic with the body. Around .9%. Then it wont hurt at all. Tears dont hurt because they have the right amount of salt."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
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