q_id
stringlengths 6
6
| title
stringlengths 3
299
| selftext
stringlengths 0
4.44k
| category
stringclasses 12
values | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | answers
dict | title_urls
listlengths 1
1
| selftext_urls
listlengths 1
1
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
l9t4x4
|
Why does it sometimes burn when you put lotion on dry skin?
|
Sometimes, lotion on dry skin feels great. Other times it burns and irritates. Why?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gljzls5"
],
"text": [
"When you have dry skin sometimes it cracks. Most Lotion has alcohol in it so when you put it on you feel the alcohol burn in the cracks of your dry skin."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9uhsk
|
How do mass distilleries keep the methanol out of their bottles?
|
Thanks all for the answers
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glk9mlw",
"glk9y51"
],
"text": [
"There isn't very much methanol produced in large distilleries. However, when distilling the beer to make whisky (for example), the liquid goes through a still. This evaporates off the alcohol, and condenses it, collecting the higher-proof liquid. The methanol evaporates off first. So, distilleries will run off the initial part of the liquid that condenses and not collect it, only beginning collection once things settle. This part that gets discarded is called the foreshot.",
"While the methanol produced in the first place is minimized, the process of distillation also removes methanol. In the fractional distillation process, methanol should be one of the first components to come over, and will do so around 64.7 degrees celcius."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9vgey
|
Is there a surefire (no pun intended) way to tell the difference between fireworks and gunshots just by the sound?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glke60c"
],
"text": [
"Not without a lot of experience with both. But as a rule of thumb, small arms fire (pistols and rifles) tend to have more of a “crack” to them while fire works have a lower pitch “whump” sound to them"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9vy5j
|
What does it mean when they say “this company grew too big too quickly”?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkh9gg",
"glkgzag"
],
"text": [
"Likely to mean that the management or owners of the company were unprepared to deal with the complexities that growth brought about. Small companies generally work with a high degree of informal systems and procedures. High growth usually requires hiring more people very quickly. The influx of a lot of new employees means the informal system doesn't work any more causing loss of efficiency, waste or customer issues. All companies also rely on external suppliers and high growth can outstrip supplier's capacity.",
"Usually it means that the company tried to open too many locations, by taking on a mountain of debt, and ended up going bankrupt or close to it and closing down a lot of location. Great example of this in recent times is Quiznos. They opened up sandwich shops everywhere near where I live. They borrowed a ton of money to do this. In the end, most individual stores were profitable, but not enough that the parent company could make the loan payments. So they had to file for bankruptcy. Currently there are only about 300 left, when at the peak there was close to 5000."
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9watq
|
Why does mouthwash cause a burning sensation in your mouth?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glki6io",
"glkibdn"
],
"text": [
"Most mouth washes have alcohol in them. That alcohol burns the mouth as you use it. Most people only feel a slight burning sensation, but some people are very sensitive to it. You can buy alcohol free mouthwashes and not have that problem. Another common thing is cinnamon. Cinnamon can burn the inside of the mouth. Like alcohol, some people are more sensitive to Cinnamon. If you are, get a different flavor and try that.",
"Alcohol on the mouthwash causes the burning sensation which irritates. Menthol can cause burning sensations too. Non alcoholic mouthwash does not cause the burning."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9wehj
|
why do people with tics say bad words?
|
I’m asking because this streamer has tics and a video is going around of her saying all of these bad words when she tics and people in the comments were sympathizing and some even were talking about how they can relate, so my question is why do people with tics say bad words when they tic and why does it seem common?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkj73d",
"glkl1bb"
],
"text": [
"Tourette’s is a neurological condition which features involuntary, repetitive “tics”, which can vary from case to case. Many people have physical tics, including arm or leg movements, or repeated gestures. Others have verbal tics including swearing, screaming, or repeated phrases. The reason these tics happen is due to extra and unwanted connections in the brain. You perform an action by a cascading flow of activity in the brain along very specific pathways between neurons. As you do an action more, that pathway gets easier to activate, this is how practice and training work on a physical level. In Tourette’s, certain pathways get activated for no voluntary reason. It is not an overwhelming urge to do the tic, it is your brain forcing your body to do it. As for why many people swear, I have read that taboo words are stored in a distinct area of the brain from common language, and if that’s the pathway that is activated, that’s what the tic is.",
"Disclaimer: I'm no doctor I just know someone who has been diagnosed with Tourettes. The first thing to understand, Tourettes manifests in a lot of different ways...but generally speaking, to my understanding, most of the things that those who have it *do*, happen as a sort of compulsion they feel. Almost like an itch that goes away once they do that action. Verbal tics are surprisingly not as common as you may think, often times people can have vocal tics like coughing or clearing their throat - but not always verbal that include words. Other types of tics often include physical, anywhere from moving an arm or hitting something, to just moving your facial muscles in some way (like pulling up the corner of your mouth or something). That said I don't know why cursing is so common when it comes to verbal tics, but the reason it *appears* to be so common is because it's very easy to notice. If someone is randomly saying curse words all the time you're going to notice it, even if you aren't looking at them. If they just have a small finger twitch or they do something with their head/face, you're unlikely to notice it unless you are in a 1:1 conversation with them. Generally speaking, the people you see with very flamboyant tics (don't mean this in a negative way, just the ones that are more \"showy\") are actually the outliers among those with Tourettes, it's very possible you know someone who has it and only has very minor symptoms that you never noticed - they also may have never noticed them to a degree that they went to a doctor to look into it and don't even know they have it. I think I know the streamer you're referring to, and to my knowledge she is more on the extreme end as far as Tourettes symptoms go (definitely seen worse, but I've seen many more minor cases too)."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9wg09
|
why do diamonds look colorful when you take a picture of them?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkrfbm"
],
"text": [
"A lot of the color you see in gemstones is actually a lot of different flares of color that come through at different angles as you move. When you take a picture, it's not moving so you usually don't get a lot of those flares."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9wgb6
|
What is the technological singularity and superintelligence?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkjg6r",
"glkmueh"
],
"text": [
"Imagine a \"thing-inventor\". This thing-inventor is able to invent things. One of these things is another thing-inventor, a little bit better than the original. It can also invent thing-inventors. As you go along this chain, you get an ever increasing level of complexity and power. This spirals out, until there is no improvements to be made. That's the technological singularity.",
"They call it The Singularity because it's like the one in a black hole: it's the point we can't see past. Once AI is sufficiently advanced to iterate and design on its own, we have no idea what happens next. All our predictions and models are based upon ourselves, nobody knows what true AI will be or do."
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9wjv3
|
Why is silence necessary for sleep?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkjjw0",
"glkk4vp",
"glkm7nc",
"glkk6fe"
],
"text": [
"It isn't necessary. It's just harder for us to calm down because our brains are wired from hundreds of thousands of years of humans being nomads that noise could mean danger. I used to go to sleep every night with the TV on.",
"Silence is not necessary for sleep. You may be used to sleeping with silence, so it works best for you. But if someone forced you to start sleeping with a TV on, for example, you would get used to it. What really matters are *unexpected* sounds. Our brain filters all of our senses and stops paying attention to things that it gets used to. This is why you never see your own nose...until you look at it on purpose. You can *always* see your nose, but your brain ignores it because it would be annoying otherwise. And speaking of noses, we also go nose-blind to smells after a few minutes. I'm sure you have experienced that. You walk into a place and smell something, but later you don't. The smell didn't go away, you just stopped noticing it. Your ears are the same. Noise that you have become used to just fades into the background. People often sleep with a TV or music playing on purpose because the distraction helps them drift off in peace. Some people live near outdoor noises like a busy road or train tracks, and they just get used to it. Your ears and brain are never really turned off. Unexpected sounds will wake you up because your brain isn't sure if it's a sabre tooth tiger creeping into your cave to eat you.",
"White noise can be conducive to sleep. I wear ear-plugs and run two fans, and I sleep like a baby.",
"It definitely isn't. I've slept many a hour in screaming engine rooms but you definitely have to get used to the noise."
],
"score": [
25,
17,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9wmcv
|
pc water cooling
|
How does pc water cooling work? Also, wouldn't it just short circuit the pc?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkjuec",
"glkkdcl"
],
"text": [
"All the components are isolated from the water, they transfer heat to metal heat spreaders, which immediately transfer it to a sealed closed loop of water.",
"The entire system is enclosed, the portion that goes from either the CPU or GPU doesn’t have water come into contact with the things they cool those transfer heat thru thermal paste (special compound that has great heat absorption and transfer properties) from the part thru the thermal paste to the metal surface which then has the back of it actually a whole bunch of little metal fins that look like window blinds right? Those are called micro fins and yes they are tiny and have a shit ton of em so water or whatever type of coolant you use can get in between them all and pull heat. The water or whatever is actually running across that Being pushed out the other line through the radiator there’s all those other friends to dissipate heat across them so by the time the water comes back down and makes a complete cycle through it’s cool that it’s constantly moving heat away from these parts.Theoretically could definitely short circuit a PC if it’s not properly sealed however in theory I could also take my entire computer put it within a bathtub full of water take it back out and just not plug it in until I am absolutely sure there’s absolutely no moisture anywhere then edit and it could also theoretically work my hard drives might be fucked but it might work thats only a major concern if you have a leak. You’ll know if you have a leak very quickly if you do a custom loop which is where you create all your own piping by cutting and bending the tubes the way you want it or you have whats called an AIO Which stands for all in one that’s a close system sold by major retailers that you literally just plug and play with basically there’s anti-growth within the line to prevent microbes and bacteria and what not from growing and it’s sealed so you never change the water there have been cases where those eventually start leaking but it’s extremely rare. Water cooling well there’s the argument it is better for temperatures which gives you to theoretically better performance and also drastically depends what you’re doing with the computer and there’s typically only a big computer enthusiast investment because it can be quite expensive but it is dope air cooling is perfectly fine for most people however. I have an AIO. PSA: if you think water cooling or improving your PC Temps in anyway will make your room or play space cooler since you pc is running cooler you are wrong. It will make the area hotter if its in say your bed room bc your pc is even better at dissipating heat and will make your room a swear lodge at times like summer."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9ws8e
|
How does gambling work and how do “odds” work?
|
With the recent legalization of sports betting in my region all I hear now is over under this, odds of 5-1 that. Then they start talking like pirates with parlay or maybe it’s parfaits, Are they meeting to discuss a truce for unpaid debts? I’m just so confused. Also who comes up with these numbers? Is there like a council of bookies that oversee the gambling world, are the numbers regional?
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkqg48",
"glmgeld"
],
"text": [
"The odds depend on the game being played, and the rules for those are usually the same wherever you are (barring any odd house rules that the casino may have). Basically, what the casino will be trying to ensure is that the odds of the punter winning mean, on average, they'll receive less money in winnings than they paid in the first place, because that's how they make their money. To reduce it to its simplest, if they had a game where you pay $1 to flip a coin and you win $1.50 cents if it comes up heads, the win on average will come out to $0.75 (because heads occur half the time) so the casino is ahead. The odds of winning in that case would be 2 to 1.",
"**Over/Under:** This is the total amount of points scored in the game (football). You'll usually see a number like 52.5. or 47.0. People wager on whether or not there will MORE (Over) than 52.5 points scored, or fewer (Under). Usually (but not always), the odds for a wager on a bet like this are 11/10, meaning you have to wager $11 to win $10. It's expressed as **-110,** meaning $110 would win $100 (or as was shown above: $11 wins $10). So how does the book make money? You think there will be more than 52.5 points scored and wager $11. I think there will be fewer and I also wager $11. One of us is going to win $10... and also get our money back for a grand total of **$21.** Yet the book took in a total of $22 in wagers. So they'll pay out $21 and keep a dollar for themselves."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9wtp8
|
How does movement of a muscle help with intramuscular injection pain/recovery?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkmazx"
],
"text": [
"Intramuscular injection a leave behind the injected solution in the muscle. The goal is to diffuse the solution into the blood slowly using the tiny blood vessels that weave through the muscle fibers. The pain comes from the fact that you've filled that space with extra fluid so there's a bit of pressure. In order to relieve the pressure that fluid need to enter the blood. By flexing that muscle you promote blood flow and increase the rate which that solution makes it into the blood stream, thus getting rid of the pressure and pain faster."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9x9zc
|
Why do we listen to music that we've heard many times when we can just recite the lyrics and beat in our head?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glknu3d"
],
"text": [
"At the end of the day, a memory will never be as real or engaging as a real experience. Would you rather think/remember about eating pizza, or actually eat pizza?"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9xeke
|
Is it a coincidence that there are 360 degrees in a circle and 365 days in a year?
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkplux"
],
"text": [
"No, it's not a coincidence. The 360 degrees in a circle comes from the ancient Babylonians. They designated a circle to have 360 degrees to match their calendar, which had 12 months of 30 days (or 360 days) in a year."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9xggh
|
How does posting quality content attract viewers/followers/etc, when you have no viewers/followers/etc in the first place?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkrh2c"
],
"text": [
"It doesn't. Quality content helps with retention, not acquisition. There is two part to producing entertainment. First, you need to bring people to you. Second, you need to keep them. Quality can only help you keep them. Keeping them is important, because to some extent, the viewer themselves can become a marketing campaign. If they like what you do, they'll refer to you. TL:DR quality stuff doesn't help attract. It help keep."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9xmxq
|
Why do balloons steal my electrons?
|
When you rub a balloon on your hair, you're transferring electrons from a mostly neutral source to a mostly neutral recipient. Why do they go at all, and why is it always from one to the other? What makes the balloon want my electrons more than my hair does? It would seem reasonable that after the balloon *does* steal some, it would immediately start returning them when you keep rubbing since your hair is now positively charged.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkugqu"
],
"text": [
"The [triboelectric effect]( URL_0 ) is the official name of that transfer of electrons. With different materials brought into contact, electrons will shift from one surface to the other -- whichever direction is favored by the total balance of molecular forces & lower energies. When enough electrons have transferred, there'll be an opposing electrostatic force that'll limit any further transfer. Different material combinations will therefore \"max out\" (so to speak) at different levels of transferred charge. Hair and a rubber balloon is a good combo. Another fun experiment is to rub a length of PVC irrigation pipe with something, on a dry day, and hold it horizontally to levitate a thin plastic shopping bag above it (thin plastic bags still not banned in California, at Home Depot checkout). Low humidity days will maximize the transferred charge, by reducing the rate of electrons moving back the other way."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboelectric_effect"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
l9y4ip
|
How did people know that stars are like the sun and that the sun is like them?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmia5p"
],
"text": [
"spectroscopy! you can see what something is made of based on the light it emits. so if you measure the spectra of a star and our sun then compare them you can see that they have very similar elemental compositions :)"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9ybig
|
why and how do we yawn? Is it even related to tiredness?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkudjr"
],
"text": [
"Yes, it is. Your body is trying to get more oxygen to keep you awake. The group yawning is caused by a trigger of primal reflex: One watcher yawns, other one sees it and yawns too. Which mean the first one is tired and his body wants more oxygen, the other one is getting ready in case of attack. In a herd it is observable not just with humans, but animals too. Evolution caused this, so everyone yawns at the same time and not randomly. Yawn is basically opening your mouth wide and inhaling to the bottom of your lungs, to refresh you a little. Sometimes accompanied by shedding a tear, to get your eyes wet and less tired."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9z3sp
|
What does the liquid in electrolysis do?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkwz6n"
],
"text": [
"Depends what kind of electrolysis you're talking about. Sometimes it's a medium to dissolve the stuff you split by electrolysis, sometimes it IS the stuff you split (like water to hydrogen electrolysis)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
l9zcjx
|
Why is stock shorting allowed?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glkym3s",
"glkyy8e",
"glkxyj4"
],
"text": [
"The theory goes something like this. A company's share price represents the value of the company. Having an accurately valued company is a good thing for the market and economy. An undervalued company is bad, an overvalued company is bad. If you think a company is undervalued, you should buy shares on the basis that sooner or later other people will realise this and the price will go up. Buying shares also functions as a signal to the market and pushes the price up, so its closer to its correct value. Later on you can sell the shares for a profit (or hold them for dividends). Following the same logic, if you think a company is overvalued you should sell any shares you have. But what if you don't have any shares to sell? It makes no sense to buy shares just to sell them. So what you do is you short them. This allows you to send a signal to the market that the price is too high, and help correct it. That's the theory, at least, as I understand it.",
"It supposedly helps with fair price discovery, and hinders that when not allowed. You see anyone who thinks a share is undervalued can expressly state so by buying it. However if you think a share is overvalued what you would do to express this sentiment is sell it, which you couldn't do otherwise if you don't actually have shares. That would be an inherent unbalance. Otherwise? Because it's never been forbidden and that is because it never caused trouble before. It used to even be allowed to short shares that you didn't have at all, without borrowing them. Granted only intra-day since you can't have a negative amount of shares once you get to clearing, but still that existed. And even if short selling were disallowed, what would that accomplish really? The short answer is practically nothing. The effect of short selling a share? You can always do pretty much the same through the options market by selling calls or buying puts.",
"To the investor/brokerage lending out the shares, it's just another way of making money off shares sitting in their account, since the individual shorting the shares is paying them a small amount."
],
"score": [
9,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la00jj
|
What is a clearing house in finance?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll1fah"
],
"text": [
"The clearinghouse validates and finalizes the transaction, ensuring that both the buyer and the seller honor their contractual obligations. They are the middle man. Every financial market has a designated clearinghouse or an internal clearing division to handle this function. The clearinghouse enters the picture after a buyer and a seller execute a trade. Its role is to accomplish the steps that finalize, and therefore validate, the transaction. In acting as a middleman, the clearinghouse provides the security and efficiency that is integral to stability in a financial market. In order to act efficiently, a clearinghouse takes the opposite position of each trade, which greatly reduces the cost and risk of settling multiple transactions among multiple parties. While their mandate is to reduce risk, the fact that they have to act as both buyer and seller at the inception of a trade means that they are subject to default risk from both parties. To mitigate this, clearinghouses impose margin requirements. [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clearinghouse.asp"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la05cs
|
If I drink a bunch of soda/pop/la croix/beer, where do the bubbles go?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll1wd9"
],
"text": [
"Well the bubbles are made of CO2. This as you may know is a chemical your body naturally produces. These bubbles have three ways to leave the body. First is to be burped up. Second is farted out. Finally it can be absorbed through your guts into your blood where it is exhaled just like the CO2 you produce naturally."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la09xm
|
Why do our legs hurt when we stand for too long, but not when we walk?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll3ded"
],
"text": [
"Movement keeps blood and other bodily fluids flowing through your legs. When you stand still for too long, this process doesn't happen efficiently (or at all), causing inflammation which triggers pain as the different parts of your legs (muscles, joints) starve of blood and other bodily fluids."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la0b1x
|
why can our houses still be cold while it’s warm outside ?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll3fsz",
"gll2zjy"
],
"text": [
"Simple. Heat is energy. Energy travel from one particle of matter to the next. Some particle have a hard time taking energy, some have a hard time giving away their energy. What we usually do in building is use \"insulation\". Which basically mean \"using some kind of material that doesn't let heat transfer easily\". As a result, most of the heat from inside doesn't escape outside, saving on fuel to heat the house in winter. But it works both ways: When the temperature outside is hotter, the insulation also stop the heat from entering. it's not a \"prevent heat to leave\" solution, but a \"prevent heat to travel through\" solution. One way AND the other.",
"Windows, curtains, brick walls, paint, and all the other layers of houses create a barrier like wearing multiple jumpers on a cold day. Eventually, the heat will get through these barriers, particularly if you keep a few windows open."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la11ly
|
Why do we get more light during the summer months than dark during the winter months?
|
I live in Anchorage, AK. During the shortest days of the year, we get 19.5 hours of daylight and 4.5 hours of “night”, and it doesn’t really count as night because it doesn’t get totally dark. But in the winter, it’s closer to 18.5 hours of night and 5.5 hours of daylight, and technically it’s closer to 16.5 hours of night because for 2ish hours of the day it’s not totally dark (as the sun is rising and setting). So why isn’t it more equal?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll77fh"
],
"text": [
"The sun is not a point of light, it has a visible diameter of about half-degree. The lengths of longest day and longest night would be equal if night changed into day when the center of the sun rose above the horizon, and vice versa. But instead night becomes day as soon as the upmost point of the sun disk shows up, even though most of the sun is yet below the horizon. Since at higher latitudes the sun doesn’t ever rise too high into the sky this half-degree diameter makes a lot of difference, and thus the longest day is significantly longer than the longest night."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la1934
|
how light can travel at the same time in the smae space than other light?
|
As I was going to sleep, I see two different light beams going through my window, iluminating two different spots of my bedroom but yet both going through my window at the same time constantly, how does that work? Are they in the same place at the same time? Or are they so fast that I can’t notice they are actually taking turns to come in?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll7r8d",
"gll7msj",
"glm3m9j"
],
"text": [
"Light particles (photons) can be in the same place at the same time. That’s just the way they are. Therefore light beams can intersect without interacting with each other.",
"Unless they’re the exact same color then they will be different wavelengths, and different wavelengths of light can occupy the same space without mingling. Like how in a microwave you can have “microwaves” and visible light both there.",
"(Please note: this explanation will trample all over wave particle duality, but... like... they’re 5.) There are two types of basic particles in the world: fermions and bosons. Fermions make up what you tend to think of as “stuff”, think of them like ping pong balls. You can’t have two ping pong balls exist in the same spot at the same time. Bosons, which include photons, which you can think of as ripples in water, can exist in the same spot at the same time. Congratulations! You now understand the Pauli Exclusion Principle! Another cool thing about bosons, is they are the universes way of applying forces on “stuff” (fermions). When two magnets pull or push one another, they are actually exchanging photons."
],
"score": [
8,
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la1bvw
|
why do so many tier lists go in order of S A B C D E ?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll7vlb"
],
"text": [
"\"A B C\" etc. is a little self explanatory— it's a grading system, where the first letter is the best, then the second letter, etc. The Japanese grading system considers every grade under \"C\" to be a failure, so when Japanese companies make video games that also have a grade system (think \"if you clear this level with a certain number of points you get a score\" type of games) they wanted to insert an even higher grade letter at the beginning so that there are more scores you can attain that don't feel like failure. They opted for S because it looks cool, and it stands for \"superb\" or \"super.\" Companies in the west thought it looked pretty cool too, so they started adopting it too. Now it's trickled down into tier lists too as fans also adopt the grading system to describe characters or objects in games."
],
"score": [
22
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la1crq
|
why does white blood cells attacks the germs first , when macrophage and killer T cells pack more punch?
|
I just want to understand what exactly is the advantage of using one of those cells over the other. *edit: my bad for the poor title, it's supposed to be why does neutrophils attack first when T cells and macrophages are considerably stronger?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glldpz1",
"gll80r6"
],
"text": [
"So yeh it’s quite a long answer to give fully, I would recommend a good book or YouTube video on the subject, but essentially yes each of the white blood cells has certain advantages and disadvantages, which result in them being strategically used at different times/areas. Neutrophils are much better generally against a say bacterial infection, as it has much more and varied defensive capabilities which could tackle a wider range of infections, and much more deadly, their problem is that they’re so powerful that they are very likely to damage healthy cells around them, and so are less able to discriminate. So for that reason they have shorted life spans, and are rarely found in organs/important places, instead usually found in big pools waiting for a place to attack hard and fast first, before the slightly slower but more accurate macrophages can come and take over.",
"White blood cells is a group of cells which includes both macrophange cells and T-cells. Your question is like asking why fire trucks are the first ones to a fire when the best thing to fight a fire is pump trucks and ladder trucks."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la1dgi
|
When we think about falling, why does our body feel like we’re falling sometimes?
|
This happens to me occasionally in bed. I think about falling and my body gives a sort of response to it by making me actually feel like I’m falling. How does this happen?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gll9ctc",
"gllikgv",
"glm5g3r"
],
"text": [
"For the same reason that thinking about a salty cracker can make one salivate. The body takes cues from mental processes about matters real and imagined.",
"Also, it's been shown through brain imaging that reading or saying or even thinking of active verbs (kick, punch, run, etc.) activates the same parts of our brains as doing the activity itself. The weird part is these same areas do not light up on scans i/r/t passive verbs and abstract ideas, like the variations of \"to be\" or \"to think\".",
"In Korea there's a saying that is the moment you are getting tall. Just an old belief heard from my mom lol"
],
"score": [
11,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la1rt3
|
how did the editing of shows and movies happen during the early days of television?
|
i really love silent films and early technology, it’s amazing to see where we started. i got my mother into the twilight zone, and we’re watching it right now. when watching the opening sequence, there’s things like tvs and glass smashing over top the night sky background, and the blinking eye. i was about to make fun of it but then i tried to imagine how tf editing software would even work, so i assume they didn’t have any. BUT IF THEY DID I REALLY GOTTA KNOW. or did they just literally lay films on top of each other? i have no idea
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glldq5w",
"gllg73d"
],
"text": [
"Early special effects were really amazing. There was the cutting and splicing to edit film, and that was every movie made. If you've heard the expression \"left on the cutting room floor,\" that's when a scene was literally cut out and then not placed back in anywhere. Filmmakers would use small props, they'd use tricks of focusing, they'd draw onto the film, so many creative ideas. It's a good topic for some research if it interests you.",
"Those Twilight Zone effects are mostly done with non-digital compositing techniques, using [optical printers]( URL_0 ), mattes, and [rear projection]( URL_2 ). > or did they just literally lay films on top of each other? One technique did exactly that. 'Bipacking' involved using cameras that could feed two reels of film simultaneously. One reel would already contain footage, which had been shot with part of the image blacked out by the physical equivalent of a Photoshop layer mask. The other would be unused. As you filmed, the two reels would touch each other and the image from the used film would 'contact print' onto the new film, overlaying it onto the scene you were filming. I remember that there are some episodes that use the really cool and really retro techniques like [Schüfftanning]( URL_1 ) too, where it's all about precisely placing mirrors and miniatures. Silent movies used mirrors in a lot of clever ways that overlapped with stage magic techniques."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_printer",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%BCfftan_process",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_projection_effect"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la1x6z
|
Why is tape and velcro sticky? What is happening on the molecular scale of ‘stickiness’?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllat8v",
"gllb1gg",
"gllvk60"
],
"text": [
"Velcro has 2 sides, the first is soft and made of tiny loops. The second rough side is made of hooks. The hooks catch on the loops until you pull them apart.",
"All surfaces are inherently rough at a molecular level. Any adhesive is just a substance that is flexible enough to get into the nooks and crannies of such a surface and get \"wedged\" inside it. Similarly velcro is mafe up of many hook shaped plastic tines which hook on to fibers on the surface and create a bond. That's why velcro works best with cloth like wool but won't stick on fine silk or nylon which have fewer stray fibers. PS: This is only valid for weak adhesives like tape not for strong adhesives like cyno acyrelic glues which work more on a chemical reaction level",
"Like people have said, velcro uses physical action between tiny hooks and loops. Nature also does this with different plant seeds that hook into animal fur to get carried around. Nothing is ever really smooth, Even at the smallest scales it's always full of little cracks and crevices. Most glues use this method to bind by mechanical action. That's also why most glue instructions say to rough up the surface first. To give it more little nooks and crannies to get into and hold fast. On the molecular scale is when things start getting weird. At this level stickiness becomes more about electric charges. For example on the pads of their feet geckos have tiny tiny little hairs that branch out into even tinier little hairs. Using something called Van der Waal's forces these little hairs essentially create tiny magnets with the molecules and atoms of what they're climbing on. Even though each individual hair has a very weak magnetic attraction there are so many of them they allow something big like the gecko to stick to walls and ceilings. Things like super glue use this level of stickiness they get into the same nooks and crannies like mechanical glue but then they make use of certain chemical reactions to cause the electrically charged level of stickiness. And that's why things like superglue are so strong."
],
"score": [
17,
15,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la233u
|
How does brain measure light received by retina, to send the signal to increase or decrease the size of pupil?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllgkh3"
],
"text": [
"I hope this helps.. the optic pathway gets a little jumbled with names, but in general: Special cells on our eyes called rods and cones receive light, communicates it to the brain via the optic tract and nerves. From that point it gets processed via our cranial nerves and travels to a special nucleus called “edinger westphal”, which computes that information and tells our iris sphincter muscles to contract/relax in response to change pupil size"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la282s
|
What is the reason for the sound of an app still playing, despite the actual app being closed? For instance, if I close my Spotify app sometimes the music will still play a few seconds afterwards.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllgl94"
],
"text": [
"The music file or a portion of it that is to play next is already buffered in the device’s memory, this buffered segment of the music or sound is set to play through the device audio circuits as soon as the current bit is done. Once you close the app, no further sections of sound are sent to memory, so the sound stops as soon as the memory location is empty."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la2szv
|
What exactly goes on in your brain when you’re reading?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmw27a"
],
"text": [
"There is a small section of the brain that is dedicated to the interpretation of letters which allows you to read fluently; [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) Imagine this section of the brain didn't exist, could you still read? The answer is yes, but with limitations. The 'letterbox' seems to have retooled a part of the brain that was evolved to do something else, the neural circuitry happens to function very well for reading. Interestingly, it has its limits, for example, while it is possible to read through your periphery - you have to really train to do it. The letterbox works best for letters that are in the center of whatever you are looking at. You can read left to right, right to left, or stationary with the text moving, all very effectively, provided it is within a fairly narrow viewing angle. So the short answer is that within the part of your brain that interprets letters, the brain is wired to quickly understand what it is seeing in such a way that forms the abstract idea of words and ideas without having to think about it. This is accomplished, as all things in the brain are, through a combination of electrical and chemical signals."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://dana.org/article/inside-the-letterbox-how-literacy-transforms-the-human-brain/"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la3bme
|
Why is call hold music always so distorted?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllkej4",
"gllko9o"
],
"text": [
"The telephone system is designed for carrying human voices. It has very limited bandwidth, so we actually add compression onto it as well. This is why someone doesn't sound the same on the phone as they do in person. The compression that we do for human voices makes music sound even worse. This is because music has a much bigger range of possible sounds than the human voice, so the compression takes it even further away from its original sound.",
"The frequencies used in telecom are optimized for the specific frequency range of the human voice. Music often encompasses a wide variety of frequencies, so it has to be crushed and compressed into a narrower frequency range in order to be transmitted over the phone. The effect is like trying to listen to an orchestra through a pipe."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la3hck
|
why is it that if we leave a battery overcharging it starts losing its charge-retention capacity? For example in laptops or phones.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllmolk",
"glljp44"
],
"text": [
"Overcharging isn't really a thing anymore since modern gadgets are smart enough to stop charging when a battery is full. They then bounce between 95-100%, discharging and charging as necessary. (Maybe not exactly, but roughly) But this still introduces wear since the battery is still providing and receiving energy. Lithium ion batteries also don't like to stay at the extreme ends of their capacity. (fully discharged or fully charged - I don't have an explanation to that at this time, I saw you asked in another comment) To help preserve life you sometimes get the feature to keep the maximum charge at 80% (again, this number can vary but it's a default) to reduce long-term wear. This is why the iPhone can learn your routine and charge up to 80%, wait, and then complete the charge when it's closer to when you wake up to reduce time at 100%. My laptop, some Android phones also have that feature but how it's accessed can vary widely.",
"It doesn't. That quirk only applies to Ni-MH batteries. Li-ion does NOT do that. It, however, wears out with recharge cycles, so you can only get so many (~1000) 0-100-0% cycles out of it before it can't keep charge anymore. In Ni-MH it's apparently crystals forming inside and inhibiting the movement of ions as a result of repeated overcharging."
],
"score": [
11,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la3wv6
|
do fish or other aquatic species feel thirsty like non aquatic species?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllmx1x"
],
"text": [
"Freshwater fish exchange water at their gills and don’t have to worry about hydration at all. Saltwater animals have a more tricky situation. Sea water has gotten extremely salty over the eons and it’s now much too salty for most of the animals to ingest freely. Despite being surrounded by water, marine animals do have to be careful about what they’re doing when eating. The massive salt load will ruin their innards if they just chug it, so they can “drink” it only sparingly and try to get most of their hydration from whatever they’re eating. Fish gulp something up, then expel all the sea water through their gills instead of swallowing it."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la3zkf
|
How do we develop or grow out of allergies as we get older?
|
I used to eat eggs all the time when I was a kid, but around the age of 25 I started developing an allergy to them... and now it’s pretty severe. What the heck happened?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllnyoy",
"gllqc16"
],
"text": [
"No one is truly sure why you develop allergies as an adult. The same happened to me with milk. Obviously your body changes as you grow and get older, and how you process and digest things can change also - your metabolism can have something to do with it. Ie my best friend developed an allergy to eggs while pregnant. Having a mild bad reaction to a food even one time as an adult can cause allergy symptoms to it for the rest of your life, because your body thinks that food is the cause and is alerting you that that specific food item is the cause.",
"There’s no one explanation, but as your immune system gets exposed to more and more things throughout your life, it can react unexpectedly to some things. So something familiar like proteins from eggs can suddenly become Mia classified as “invasive” and the immune system goes in defense mode. Just like some allergies develop later in life, some might disappear; a relative of mine used to be deathly allergic to bees (anaphylaxis and all that fun), and around age 60 got stung again...to no reaction bigger than redness and itching..."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la44u5
|
What would happen if everyone stopped paying their mortgages, and used that money to fund a short against mortgage banks?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glloo66",
"gllpup2",
"gllumk3",
"glln6tr",
"gllw9hj"
],
"text": [
"* Everyone would default on their mortgages and their homes would get repossessed. * Just because your mortgage company goes bankrupt doesn't mean you don't owe the money. * Someone else will buy up the debt and now you owe the money to them instead.",
"You get evicted and the mortgage holder gets to repossess your home. In case the mortgage holder goes bankrupt, their creditors take their assets, including your home. Ultimately the mortgage insurance corporation can take over the defaulted mortgages to prevent massive homelessness...",
"A company doesn't go bankrupt because their stock drops. The investors holding their shares lose money, not the bank. And even if it did affect the bank, the loan is an asset that would just get bought by another institution and you'd owe them the balance of the loan still. You'd also lose your house for non-payment, and not have a place to live. And because of the stunt, borrowing to buy a house would become crazy expensive or not possible, likely ending home ownership and the wealth building that comes with it for most.",
"Short positions require a long position - unlike traditional investing this type of speculative gambling requires another investor to gamble against. Nobody’s going to take that bet if the entire economic structure is unraveling due to mass civil unrest.",
"What you’re talking about would be a mortgage strike. If it really were everyone, you’d have a lot of leverage in negotiations for whatever you were striking for—debt reductions, interest reductions, etc. If it’s only a few people, they’d probably get foreclosed on."
],
"score": [
28,
8,
6,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la53ep
|
How are military coups prevented?
|
In light of the Myanmmar military detaining leaders in the country, I wonder: what stops the military from turning their guns around towards the government or citizens, especially if they effectively hold power as a legitimate threat towards civillians?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllue6h",
"glly8t3"
],
"text": [
"Most western countries and democracies in general base their government on the premise that the military is completely subordinate to the civilian government, and can only act against it when that civilian government undeniably violates the fundamental governing laws of the country. This system is not the norm everywhere. Some countries instead hold the military as a check on executive power- where the military is empowered to act against the ruling government if deemed fit. In this case, all you need is a majority of military commanders to support acting against the executive branch in order to execute a coup.",
"I think this is largely a question of \"legitimacy\". Legitimacy in this sense is: why do people think a government is right? Why do they do what the government tells them to? So first off, do the military think it's *right* for them to be in charge of a country? In a country like Myanmar, with a history of military rule, it's probably the case that they do - or at least senior officers. In a country like the US, with a history of civilian rule, most military personnel, from top to bottom, would probably think military rule would be very wrong. Linked to this is: what advantage does it give them? What do these people want? Money? More military spending? Less dissent? A stronger economy? A unified nation? A military takeover may or may not accomplish these goals. Particularly if it risks external pressure, sanctions, etc.. Second, who else thinks it's right that the military govern the country? It's very hard to govern by force alone, especially when you're talking about soldiers using force on people who might be friends, neighbours, family members. You need the cooperation of the police, bureaucracy, courts, and all sorts of other groups and institutions. So will enough of these people accept military rule as legitimate? The police are a key part here, since it's they, not the military, who enforce law on a day-to-day basis - a military coup that's not supported by the police probably won't last long."
],
"score": [
11,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la54yq
|
Why aren't humans more sexually dimorphic?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gllumou",
"gllvotd",
"gllulwj"
],
"text": [
"By mammalian standards we are pretty dang sexually dimorphic. Our males are about 50% more massive than our females, and there are a wide number of secondary sexual characteristics that can usually help you identify the sex of another human even at a distance. Among our close relatives, we are more sexually dimorphic than chimpanzees but less than gorillas this implies that we evolved from a social status that was roughly in between that of chimpanzees and gorillas. Gorillas live in groups dominated by a single male who breeds with most of the females, while chimpanzees have comparatively less sexual dominance by the males and more males mate with more females.",
"I mean, men and women have a ton of differences beyond simply genitals. Obviously everyone's different. Men have chest and facial hair, increased body hair, upper body muscular build/general ability to build muscle faster/increased strength, adams apple, heavier skull and bone structure, broadened shoulders and chest, increased sweat production, and generally being 10%+ more massive (height, width, weight) than females Females have enlarged breasts and functional mammary glands, different body hair distribution, widened hips, more flexible elbows, longer upper arms, etc Why aren't the changes much more dramatic? There's no evolutionary pressure to say, have your average man grow 50 feet tall or for a female to be 7 inches tall or have men be bright flashy colors to attract mates. In general with evolutionary things, if your question is \"why don't...\", the answer is \"There is no evolutionary pressure\". Evolution has no plan or design.",
"The reason for any differences is going to be a result from selective pressures and resources limitations. To be much larger would require more food and this lowering evolutionary fitness of the much smaller ones. Thought humanity’s history, food was typically scarce and starvation common. The question of why isn’t there an advantage would better be posed as why would there be an advantage?"
],
"score": [
7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la5c5o
|
Why is ranting/venting so relieving?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm1irg",
"glm1f46"
],
"text": [
"The process is known as catharsis. Its not just for venting or ranting either. It could be crying or anything else where you can express a strong or built up feeling or emotion. Its the expression of these feelings that provide that relief. Imagine it like this: ball your hand into a fist and squeeze it as hard as you can and keep holding on to it as long as you. This is your mind holding onto this feeling. The longer you hold it the more stress it causes you. Now release your hand. It feels better, right? Expressing your emotions allows you to resolve them and let them go.",
"Humans love to keep all their stress built up inside so when we are able to release it it’s like opening a coke bottle after you shook it. Psychologically humans love to share and be social but weird concepts make sharing some things “not acceptable”. and it has a negative effect on our psyche"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la5olk
|
Why do insect eggs not die when they freeze during the winter?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm3did",
"glmqcv0"
],
"text": [
"The simpler the biology of a creature, the less damage ice will do it. If you attempt to flash freeze a human - cryogenics - you can do it, but the water volume in a human body is significant and freezing water expands stretching out the body / organs / veins. Further, during the thaw, ice particles rip through the bloodstream and brain. In basic organisms this happens less. You can completely freeze and thaw many varieties of insects and even larger creatures. But the rule is, the larger and more complex it is, the more that will go wrong in the process. The Wood Frog is a natural example that freezes solid for months in the winter, thaws out and goes about its day. This is called cryobiosis. Ants, catepillars, all sorts of insects can also freeze as adults and not all will survive the thaw, but many will. Scientists have recently successfully frozen and thawed a rabbit brain showing that progress is being made in our ability to freeze and thaw more complex structures. It was not inside the rabbit, but not cells were damaged and in theory the rabbits memories and all functions should have been preserved in full. Hope that helps?",
"There are special molecules many types of plants and animals can produce that protect them from the damage caused by freezing water. They stop critical parts of the cell from being destroyed by the growing ice crystals."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la5wmf
|
How do we think about moving our body without actually moving it?
|
What's the difference between thinking about, say, moving your arm and actually doing it? What makes the first one just a thought, and the second one a decision + movement? Thanks in advance, sorry if it's a stupid question. EDIT: Wow, thanks for all the awards and great answers :)
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm2bi2",
"glmf6ey",
"glmo26e",
"glmox4i",
"glmw6zo",
"glnkt0u",
"gln2mmx",
"gloilps",
"gln6fi3",
"glmxps0",
"glmxbum",
"glnsxji",
"glmohkx",
"gloczp3",
"glnixhn",
"glob8z2",
"glornkb"
],
"text": [
"Basically, whether or not the signal gets sent from your brain to the limb. Interestingly, a lot of the brain activity in the brain is similar when we think about something as when we do it. Might seem kinda obvious, but it goes deeper than you think. If you scan a musician's brain when they actively listen to music, it will light up in a similar way as when they are *playing* the music. This is different from someone who doesn't play an instrument listening to it. Or when you listen to someone speaking, part of your understanding comes from imagining yourself making those sounds, and working out what words you'd be saying if you did that. This is why you see some people mouthing along as they listen to someone speaking. Edit: thanks, kind strangers. Hopefully you meant to actually press the award button, rather than just *thinking* about it...",
"Relatively recently, scientists discovered there is a part of your brain (mirror neurons) that is active both when you move, and when you see someone else move. Most of the ideas about what these neurons do involve thinking about other people, but I think there are some that just involve thinking generally, so there are motor neurons that you use to perform an action (consciously) and mirror neurons that are involved in thinking about it, whether or not you are performing it. And, of course, there are plenty of motions that happen that we only are aware of as/after they happen, dimly or not at all. Edit: like other people have pointed out, there is a lot of debate around this topic.",
"Your brain is partitioned functionally into lobes. Each lobe is responsible for a specific function with some overlap in areas known as association cortex that integrates several senses/pieces of input together. An example would be cooking bacon... one part processes the smell, another the taste, one the sight, one for the sound and a last one for the sensation of it (in your hands and mouth). When all integrated together in this association area, this creates your perception of \"bacon\". The area of your brain that is responsible for movement of your limbs is the frontal lobe. Simplified, there are two key areas in your brain for movement within the frontal lobe: the premotor cortex/gyrus (gyrus = raised bumpy areas you see on the outside of the brain) and the primary motor cortex/gyrus. The premotor cortex plans out movements which is why you can \"think\" of moving before you do. Your premotor cortex talks with your motor cortex when it has definitively decided on enacting the movement. There are some additional detours for enacting movement too. These two areas of the frontal lobe talk with the Basal Ganglia (collection of neurons deep to the outside area you see when looking at a brain) which suppresses any excess movement that accidentally got signaled while planning to make movement crisp/seamless and the Cerebellum which aids in this effort but is more important for motor learning/correction. The cerebellum looks at the movement that your body produced vs what was intended (such as missing a basketball shot) and corrects it, which is why practicing physical activities hones your skills. On the way down the spinal cord to your muscles, everything from the brain (frontal lobe) also has to pass through the thalamus (kind of like a train station) which can also prevent any talking from the brain to the body (this mechanism is why when you sleep and dream, you don't flail about from thinking about moving) \\*edited to add TLDR; 1 area of brain plans movement and talks to area of brain that initiates movement but because areas are different, thought =/= movement. Also ancillary brain areas exist to make sure movement comes out perfect",
"Basically you want to know if you are telling your hands to wash themselves or if you are just standing there watching while they wash themselves? It freaks me out a little if I think about this too much.",
"It's not at all obvious that the thought prompts the movement. It could be that the movement (or in your case non-movement) comes before the thought. The [1983 Libet experiments]( URL_0 ) certainly suggested that. Perhaps our brains are simply creating narratives for what has happened. Would explain a lot about about human nature if that were the case. I know those experiments have been criticized. So the question of what's really happening is still open. This does, however, open up a counterintuitive (even mind-blowing for some) way of looking at it.",
"What's really messed up is the opposite. I had an accident with a kitchen knife last year and severed a tendon in my thumb. It's *really* disturbing to try telling your thumb to move and it not doing anything.",
"I can’t move on auto pilot like I used to. Think about skittering down stairs. I have MS (my own bod kinda eats my nerves). My proprioception ( URL_0 ) in my legs etc. is garbage. IT’S SO ANNOYING (and exhausting) that I have to consciously think about walking and other leg movement.",
"I feel there should be a sticky on this sub explaining that nobody knows how consciousness works. So the honest answer is nobody knows. We do know that different parts of the brain become active when we move and when we imagine things, the latter would include imagining the sensation of moving.",
"TLDR for other entries: we leave our transmission in neutral. Basically we don't engage the clutch between planning and execution. also consider the various incendiary actions you take without planning. you drive your car without constantly thinking of which way to nudge the steering wheel while on the interstate and so forth. In purely metaphorical terms your brain maintains a model of the universe including the model of your body position and actions. Your brain is also good at predicting things. Your brain is also good at running scenarios. If it didn't have the clutch and transmission assembly in the mid-brain you would be unable to plan any motion without actually executing it and that could be easily fatal. Any organism capable of planning that did not have this ability to disconnect the plan from the action would have died falling out of trees or whatever long long ago. It's a necessary survival thing. And it's not unique to humans. Watch a cat wiggling its butt while computing a jump or pounce.",
"Imagine your brain as a computer. You have the parts that bring in information (eyes, nose, skin... in a computer it would be maybe a camera, a keyboard, a mouse, a pendrive), there is a part that does stuff (limbs, muscles, heart, stomach... in the computer it would be the screen showing you a video), and then you have a part that decides what to do (the prefrontal cortex, or in this analogy, the software in the hard drive that says what happens when). Now imagine that computer going on about its day, when it gets information that it needs to do a test run of some program. The software starts getting everything ready, gives all the orders, tests every system, but at the last moment, it doesn't send the signal to the part that does stuff. That is the difference. In the brain it's the same-ish. There is a part in the brain for every part of our bodies, with input and output 'cables' (neurons), a part for emotions, a part for putting together ideas, and a part that is kind of a boss. So you get information from your eyes, like seeing someone dancing, and that information goes everywhere, your emotional part says it's pretty and uplifting, your part that puts ideas together decides that you could totally do this, and that part that controls your limbs does a test run, firing the neurons that would move your limbs in that way, but then the boss comes in and says 'nah, we're tired, I have intel here that says so, let's not send the order to the limbs', and so the order doesn't go down the neurons from your motor area to your muscles. You don't move.",
"Not an explanation, but I hope it’s ok if I piggyback on this. I have been wondering this lately too! Specifically regarding implications for Neuralink. For example, if you have the ability to do/control stuff with a Neuralink connection, how will it know the difference between an idle thought and a decisive action?",
"Fun story, think about every aspect of moving a finger or a limb - do it over and over - make sure you're thinking about everything you would need to move to execute the action --- but never execute it! Just think about it, time and time again - and feel the anxiety rising as your brain starts to get quite upset that its not being moved. It makes your thalamus (and related motor structures) angry, and it's a fun lil psych 101 classroom experiment. Evidently, this is a close approximation of what a phantom limb might feel like if any of ya'll be wondering.",
"Reflexes are examples of the only movement preprogramming that the standard human model comes installed with. literally every other movement is learned and therefore subject to conscious control.",
"Correct me if I'm wrong, because I absolutely have no idea what I'm talking about. But isn't it similar to the ideomotor effect when people play the Ouija board and they think that they're not moving the planchette when in fact they are?",
"Further question: when i was younger, as I was falling asleep and having those pre-sleep dreams, I would think about doing something such as doing a kickflip on a skateboard and the moment I thought of it my body would act out the motion of doing a kickflip completely involuntarily. Is this because in my sleepy state my brain confused thinking about doing with doing?",
"*A study conducted by Dr. Biasiotto at the University of Chicago was done where he split people into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make.* After this, he had the first group practice free throws every day for an hour. The second group just **visualized** themselves making free throws. The third group did nothing. After 30 days, he tested them again. *The first group improved by 24%.* ***The second group improved by 23% without touching a basketball!!!!*** *The third group did not improve which was expected.*",
"This isn’t necessarily an answer to your question by any means, but it seems related none-the-less. I recently injured my knee and for the first 4 or so weeks, I couldn’t use my quad muscles no matter how much I wanted to or tried to. I could engage the muscle, but it wasn’t strong enough to lift my leg from a straight position. So I’d straighten my leg and then engage my muscles, and I’d be able to lift my left leg, no problem, but my right leg just laid there. It was a spooky feeling."
],
"score": [
7909,
491,
104,
50,
48,
18,
17,
8,
7,
6,
5,
5,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwid8cnlr8nuAhUaHM0KHXpUACIQFjALegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.informationphilosopher.com%2Ffreedom%2Flibet_experiments.html&usg=AOvVaw1_ceL--bHM1V0lalCRLGzd"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception?wprov=sfti1"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la6xom
|
What are penny stocks?
|
I'm new to the whole stock & investing game, and I need some more information that I really don't understand.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm5yme"
],
"text": [
"Penny stocks are stocks under 5 dollars (there's no definite penny stock definition but most trading platforms make < 5 dollars the cutoff) and are considered risky and extremely volatile, but if hit right can provide high reward. Many people swing and day trade these, due to how hype-driven they are. If you're new, I wouldn't recommend getting into penny stocks. It's an easy way to throw money away. If you're interested in them though, remember the phrase, \"Buy the hype, sell the news.\" Keep track of which companies have announcements or have hype behind them by watching their volume of shares traded. And whatever you do, don't \"chase\" penny stocks. This means buying a penny stock immediately after it already jumped up a significant margin. It's almost never worth it. Disclaimer: This is not financial advise"
],
"score": [
16
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la6zhm
|
Why do some sign language speakers use exaggerated facial expressions when signing?
|
In watching some of the White House press briefings, I noticed that the sign language interpreter uses very exaggerated facial expressions when signing. Is this just an affectation of specific signers/speakers or is it a part of the language to convey additional meaning? It doesn't seem to correlate to the speaker's tone, so curious how it works and what it is. For example: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) Edit: appreciate the responses. Thanks!
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm77o7",
"glm64fi",
"glmtjil",
"glm6w1h",
"glmfomx"
],
"text": [
"A lot of signs can look quite similar to each other. Doing facial expressions is a way of helping differentiating between the different signs. It is also common to mouth the words as well so that people might get some hints by reading the lips. People also use facial expressions to express emotions similar to how people might use their hands to gesture when speaking.",
"It’s the same as when you raise/lower your voice or use different tones to enhance the meaning of your words.",
"As others have said, facial expressions (as well as body language, hand position, etc) all convey information alongside the specific signs being used.",
"its too give off more info, they do it on purpose - they are trying to get as much info as they cant to the deaf person",
"Facial expressions are part of sign language. If you study sign language, with a lot of signs they teach you also the correct \"mouthing\" for the sign. I don't know anything about the English sign language, but it could be that the word you sign is \"dog\" but your mouthing is \"wahwah\", and that is just a part of the sign. (Assuming that the system is the same as in my language's sign language. I only studied the basics though, and that was years ago). It is probably because, as someone already said, a lot of signs would get easily mixed if the facial expressions weren't taken into consideration."
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la7ejo
|
How does one prove that light takes all possible path?
|
So I understand that light takes all possible path and most cancel each other, leaving you with the fastest path. (I'm thinking light as particles) Now, is there an experiment that shows that light can take unusual paths if they don't cancel each other out?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmdhr5"
],
"text": [
"This is basically what the double slit experiment does. Properly setup, you can watch individual photons interfere *with themselves*. This is only possible if they’re taking multiple paths at once. If you force them to take a single path (by measuring which slit they go through) they stop interfering with themselves."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la7ey6
|
How does water stain things if it has no pigment?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glm9sil",
"glmonze",
"glmaawl",
"glmt1un"
],
"text": [
"Because minerals and other compounds might be dissolved in the water. When the water evaporates, these minerals may be left behind as discoloration or plaque on the surface.",
"It doesnt stain things. It just leaves a residue of anything that was dissolved in it as it evaporates. Pure (distilled) water doesnt do that. The water we drink isnt pure (even when its purified) it has minerals dissolved in it. Ive heard drinking distilled water isnt good for you. Ive got a few bottles for my humidor (its exepensive and comes from a pharmacy) and it doesnt taste good at all",
"There might be a couple methods at play here but the two I'm thinking of are polarity and impurity. Water is a polar molecule. One side has a slightly positive charge and the other is slightly negative because of the relative locations of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the molecule. This polarity helps water act a solvent. Even though it has no pigment, things inside a fabric *do* and they're soluble. When water evaporates, those dissolved molecules come out of solution and are re-deposited on the fibers of your fabric at the perimeter of the water stain, and at different rates, depending on the particular chemicals. The other method is impurity. Water has all sorts of stuff in it and some of that can interact with the fabric and alter is color profile a little bit. A great example would be lined paper. Water won't change the color of paper but if you get a droplet on a line, the ink dissolves, diffuses through the paper, and when the water dries you end up with a big smeared spot where there used to be a nice crisp line.",
"Just because water doesn't have any pigments doesn't mean that it can't dissolve whatever pigments are already there and move them around."
],
"score": [
128,
13,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la8t08
|
- How do you interpret R values?
|
Hey everyone, I was hoping someone could help me out. I’m having a hard time interpreting r (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) I understand that r values allow us to judge how well two variables are related to each other. And I also understand that values range from -1 to 1 What I’m not sure about is the actual data. Let’s say I have an r value of .5523 (55%) Would this mean that on average the Y value changes in proportion to the X value about (55%) of the time or am I thinking about this wrong? Thanks for the help and sorry for the low level question.
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmh7pp",
"glmifhp",
"glmi0te"
],
"text": [
"It means that X and Y move in the same direction 55% of the time. It DOES NOT mean that if X move up by 1, Y moves up by 0.55. It is a common source of confusion As an example, if you have the X that moves always up 1 And the Y always moves up by 0.55, the correlation would be 1.",
"Correlations aren't %. Basically what a correlation tells you is if you were to throw all of your data points into a diagram, how perfectly aligned are these data points. It's about how closely associated the data points are. In a perfect correlation they form a straight line. That means if you were to get a new data point and only know value x, you would know exactly were on the plot this data point is, as y can be deduced by looking at that straight line. The more and more your data points stray away from that perfect line, the lower your correlation is. Which means you can't deduce y anymore directly from x. You can only say \"if x is this, then y has to be somewhere between this and that\". As to how you interpret r values: there are generally agreed upon thresholds (they vary a tad depending on source, but not by much), .0-.2 is very weak or no correlation, .2-.4 weak, .4-.6 moderate, .6-.8 strong, .8-.99 very strong (same for negative correlations with negative r values)",
"It isn’t quite as perfect as being able to say that it increases by a perfect proportion. Instead it is more about how linear the relationship is, if you have an R value of +1, you have a perfect positive linear relationship, or a straight line with a Positive slope. If you have an r value of -1, you have a perfect negative linear relationship, or a straight line with a negative slope. An R value of 0 means there’s no relation. In your example, an r value of .55 mean that there is a moderately positive relation, meaning that as x increases, y also probably increases generally, but you can still get y data points scattered lower and higher, just with a general upward trend. No where in this does it express exactly how steep or shallow the slope is."
],
"score": [
5,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la8ykh
|
. Vacant mall retail space
|
ELI5. Why do we see "dead malls"? If the owners of these shopping centres (private, REITs, etc.) have empty locations one would think that they would reduce the cost of rent/lease to entice tenants. Wouldn't some rent be better than no rent? Quite often these shopping centres fall into disrepair or obtain a bad name and even turn into a white elephant. I've never understood it. Cheers.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmj2on",
"glmj795",
"glmjy4a"
],
"text": [
"If you discount lease on square footage for one business, your probably going to get called out on it and have to discount for all the others when lease contract comes up. It would be a downward spiral. Not only that but with lease contracts being typically a year or more, the mall may be holding a spot vacant waiting for a next door spot to clear out, and remodel both spots to be one larger space.",
"Remember that there are differences in upkeep costs on a closed-up storefront vs. an open one, particularly in terms of water and power usage, as well as presumably financial instruments (e.g. insurance). Thus, there's a minimum value of rent below which it makes more sense to just let the location remain empty.",
"The owners themselves can also go bankrupt or lose the property. They are also responsible for paying things like taxes, insurance, staff (security and janitorial for example), and utilities and such. Its not always as simple as just reducing the rent for stores. But it could also be that there are no retailers even wanting to setup a store in a mall. Like if the location is bad or demographics have changed. The individual stores could fail to make enough to justify staying open. There is a mall where I live that is right in the middle of downtown. It's a high population area with a community College across the street, a major university down the road, a baseball park nearby, a rail system, and tons of businesses and hotels around. And despite that the mall is STILL struggling financially. Every couple of years rumors go around that they're likely to close soon. And businesses inside are constantly going out of business."
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la91i6
|
Learn the difference between being aggressive and being assertive.
|
Can someone explain this?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmiqzk",
"glmkpxe",
"glmiln3",
"glmj9ry"
],
"text": [
"Aggressive I would say is more about pushing other people in to doing something that you want them to do. Whether it's by means of constantly hassling them, getting angry, making threats, etc. Assertive is more about simply being firm about your position on a matter and waiting for the other party to give in. You don't actively try to make them accept your terms, but you don't give in at all to compromise.",
"Assertiveness is defensive: you state your position, and defend it when challenged. Aggression is offensive: regardless of your position, you attack someone else's.",
"Assertive is about being resolute in your decision, standing up for yourself, etc....aggressive tends to focus more on being threatening or bullying in some way. An assertive person can also be aggressive, but not all assertiveness is aggression.",
"I was taught that it's partly intent: aggression is forceful, you want to force someone else to do/not do/believe etc. \"You *will* give me your car for the weekend!\" assertive is more about forcing yourself and/or not allowing someone else to force you to do/do not/believe. \"I said, no thank you. Do not ask again.\""
],
"score": [
6,
4,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
la9fnx
|
What is RAM and why is it important for browsers?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmlowp",
"glmljve"
],
"text": [
"RAM or random access memory, is the memory used by programs and the operating system to handle work. This is very fast memory that allows the programs to read and write to it very quickly and not lagging and buffering. Picture the countertop on your kitchen. If you have MORE countertop space, you can lay out all your ingredients, recipes, and equipment to prepare a large meal. This allows you to perform efficiently. Now picture a tiny kitchen in a submarine. You only have enough space to handle one task at a time, you have to now prioritize what to work on with the space you have. This greatly slows down your ability to make a large meal, and possibly prevents you from making the large meal altogether.",
"RAM is pretty much the ability to store information so it can be instantly recalled rather than loading. So if you visit a website like reddit over and over it can just go to that spot in the ram, put it where it belongs, and go on to loading other stuff. The more you have, the more you can store to instantly recall."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la9nzg
|
Why does sweet, cold and warm hurts on the bad tooth?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmnvg5"
],
"text": [
"A \"bag tooth\" is usually very sensitive, weather the outer enamel had been pelted away or if the nerve endings are exposed. When eating cold foods its usually a shock to our warm mouths, for a bad tooth it will amplify the shock causing pain, hot food same thing but kind of like a burn instead of a cold shock, with sweets the sugar or other \"enamel eating\" products, actually physically eat into a weakend tooth. If your have a bad tooth with weak enamel is usually because the outer layers have been peeled away, this is kinda like your skin, your outer layer of skin is your toughest, but if your skin peels you'll notice the softer more vulnerable skin underneath, eventually though your skin can toughen up. With your teeth however, they only \"toughen up\" if you actively clean them, so when you have a bad tooth is like having weak skin, and sweets and sugars have proven to easy away at the teeth, so when they eat at bad teeth is eating at weaker teeth much closer to nerves than your original tooth would have been"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
la9sdn
|
What is that high frequency noise we hear, when there is total quiet?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmn2j2",
"glmo7id",
"glmovt7"
],
"text": [
"You could have tinnitus. Could be from nerve damage and listening to music at high volumes.",
"If it's really quiet, you can also hear the blood pump through your ears. It's a very quiet sound, like a rock slide, but very soft. There are evenly spaced slightly louder beats. Most people can hear this if they close their ears.",
"Tinnitus. Go get your ears checked for hard, impacted earwax and get removed. If that doesn't work, you might have nerve damage (the \"sound\" is a phantom noise created by your brain trying to figure out what the crazy info from your damaged ear-nerves is, it's kind of overcompensating)"
],
"score": [
14,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laau7y
|
If it takes 6-8 hours for food to pass through your digestive tract, then how do some foods "go right through" and come out right away?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmwc0a",
"glnfp4s",
"glnfbj4"
],
"text": [
"For the most part it doesn't; people just think it does. If you really want to test it you can put some food dye in your food as a marker and watch for when it comes out. Or just eat a big bowl of fruit loops. But if something is irritating your GI tract it can speed up motility, e.g. IBS. \\*tract, not track",
"I also had to take the swallowable camera pill that records your entire digestive track from in to out. I took pill at 8:00am and it passed around 2:30/3:00pm. So around ~7 hours or less.",
"I disagree with all of you. One occasion: I've had lunch, miso soup that had those seaweed leaves in it. 45min later on the ride back from lunch I felt a sudden oh no moment and had to run to the bathroom. When it shot out it was the miso soup bc I saw the seaweed leaves in the toilet. I did not eat seaweed or anything green that day or two before. Food can pass right thru you very quickly."
],
"score": [
69,
12,
11
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laaw7o
|
if a country splits into two (peacefully) how are citizienships and other shenanigans like that resolved?
|
Edit: another question I didn't consider originally how are people abroad treated e.g. with Czechoslovakia someone would leave to live in another country but then their fatherland split
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmukqm",
"glmy4c8"
],
"text": [
"At that point, you're playing Calvinball. All the rules are made up, and the countries can do whatever they want. This makes giving any generalizations near impossible. As well, your premise of a peaceful division of power is already incredibly rare in history, so again, any answer you get is pure speculation based on the relationship between the powers, public popularity of the split, the specific wording of the treaty used to cause the peace, and so on.",
"It was exactly peaceful, but Ireland gave citizenship to anybody born on the island of Ireland, had a parent born on the island or lived on the island for 7 years, unless they were a citizen of another country, then they could refuse citizenship. The law has changed several times since independence,."
],
"score": [
11,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
labavo
|
How do we know what is the state of matter inside neutron stars? How do we know about the existence of strange matter?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmxh3w"
],
"text": [
"Many things, like strange matter, are our \"best guess\" to reconcile our current understanding of physics with what we observe. Even if we can't observe it directly, we can usually gather enough data to make an educated guess based on our scientific knowledge. In this case, we have a good enough understanding about the physics of neutron stars to know that the conditions inside them are inconsistent with the existence of any other sort of matter we know about. But, we assume something must be there. Strange matter is the answer to that- a type of exotic quark matter whose properties are consistent with the hypothesized conditions found at the core of a neutron star. Those conditions are so extreme that they're almost beyond human comprehension, and our current models of physics simply begin to break down at those kinds of numbers."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
labay4
|
How do fish swim? How does the side to side motion propel them forward?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glmy6o4"
],
"text": [
"The angle of their fins, mostly their tail, pushes water backwards. There's also some sideways motion but it's mostly pushing water backwards, which pushes the fish forwards."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
labv7d
|
- Why do you get morning breath after an hour of napping but not after and hour of awake activities with your mouth closed?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln0g7i",
"gln0voh",
"gln10se"
],
"text": [
"The way my dentist explained it to me: if you're asleep, you might breathe through your mouth, drying it out, and helping bacteria grow.",
"Because when you're active, the saliva isn't just sitting around in your mouth incubating bacteria.",
"Saliva washes away a lot of mouth bacteria before they can build up and make your breath stinky. But when you sleep you don't produce as much saliva, so the bacteria are allowed to build up unchecked"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lac1i9
|
() Why do we need to pee really bad after swimming?
|
I don't get it 😐
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln598h"
],
"text": [
"1. The cold water sucks the heat of the blood vessels that lie near the skin surface. 2. The blood vessels constrict, to conserve the body's heat, which decreases the flow of blood in the body’s extremities. 3. This prompts a quick increase in blood pressure. 4. The body responds to this by compensating for the increased arterial blood pressure by relieving itself of liquid. 5. The quickest and easiest way for your body to do this is to pee. The water doesn't have to be very cold for this to happen, just cooler than body temperature. Also works in cold air, as in when you leave a pool and the air hits your body."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lac869
|
How do microcontrollers understand/read code?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln51kt",
"glnmwzu"
],
"text": [
"The different modules in the processor is controlled by control signals. These are single wire signals that can either be on or off as set by the control logic. For example an adder might have control logic to activate it, select between a handful of inputs, set the initial carry bit, activate the output, etc. A register have control signals to set it, clear it and activate its output. A muxer will be used to select input based on the control signal. And so on. So in order to control a processor you need to set these hundreds of control signal to the correct value so the processor does as the instructions say. The simplest way to do this is with a simple lookup table. For each instructions and each sub-instruction cycle you program into the table what exactly the control signals should be. The hardware will then be able to use the current instruction and the sub-instruction counter to look up in a ROM to find out what the control signals should say. The control signals will also read inn the next instruction and reset the sub-instruction counter when the instruction is done executing. Note that this is how they would do it in the 70s. Modern processors are far more complex but the basic principle of setting the control signal to its correct value using some sort of fixed logic is still the way it is done. However modern logic is less fixed and your processor might receive microcode update which change this part of the processor.",
"There are a few ways to answer this question because your question is really a bit general: 1) Microcontrollers don't understand/read code. They operate on a series of on/off signals provided to their pins as they propagate through the internal logic circuits (usually timed through a clock signal). It is a very sophisticated state machine. This is kind of at the level of an electrical engineer who designs the microcontroller. So this is probably not helpful. 2) Microcontrollers are designed to understand binary inputs given to it called machine language or machine code. These are just on/off signals but are often written in hexadecimal numbers so that some (really sad) engineer has to hand code it by referring to the machine language instruction book written for that particular microcontroller. For example: 100A might be the hex code for \"load the signals at the data pins into the accumulator register\". Maybe not so helpful unless you're writing very time sensitive programs/code. 3) Programs are written in some kind of high level language (C++, Python etc). There are programs that will convert this high level language into machine code and there are also programs written that will transfer this machine code into the appropriate memory locations in the microcontroller so that it can then execute the program. In nearly all cases, the microcontroller will have a basic OS already preprogrammed into it. This OS is sort of a \"master program\" that will call the code written and downloaded and have it executed by the microcontroller. All 3 explanations are more or less correct and it depends on what level you are approaching this question. If you are using some kind of microcontroller board like Arduino for the first time, then probably explanation 3 makes the most sense. If you're actually building your own microcontroller based circuit, then explanation 2 is relevant. If you're planning to design your own microcontroller, then explanation 1 is most relevant."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lacvk1
|
Why isn't there more counterfeit precious metal jewellery
|
There was some sort of antiques program on TV the other day and the expert was confirming a piece of jewellery was real by checking the hallmark that was stamped on it with a magnifying glass. I've always wondered why something so simple is taken as proof that the metal is what it appears to be. surely a hallmark stamp is very easy to reproduce/fake? or is it not?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln6j7t"
],
"text": [
"TV is a lot different than reality. Markings are easy to fake, but metallurgy isn't. There are a variety of nondestructive tests a jeweler can employ to test a piece of jewelry for its metallurgical properties and even the quality of its gemstones, all of which could be drawn upon to authenticate a potentially rare and valuable piece."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lacy28
|
when a photon is emitted by an atom whose electron jumps down an energy level, why is that photon energy emitted as a discrete photon as opposed to emanating outward as a spherical bit of energy?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln7leb"
],
"text": [
"Well, it is. This is quantum mechanics for you. The photon travels outward in all directions, and only chooses to be one discrete particle when it interacts with something."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lad58d
|
When explaining arms for example. Is your left arm left for the observer or left for you? I still don’t understand this.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gln8ndn",
"gln96yc",
"gln9qpr"
],
"text": [
"Your left arm is YOUR left no matter who observes it. You could clear up confusion by saying \"my left, your right\" because to the observer, your left arm is on their right side.",
"Depends on the context, if you’re talking about your experience, then everything is based on your positioning, so your left being your left arm. Left and right are 100% based on context, which is why you hear “your right” or “my left” or “his left” so often, you have to set the context. For example, if you and a friend are playing catch with a ball, and you accidentally throw the ball way off to the right, your right from your perspective. From his perspective you’ve thrown the ball way off to his left. This left vs right confusion is actually why the medical staff/surgical world has a set of rules for this, in the case that any “left” or “right” or “front” or “behind” is always from the perspective of the patient, always.",
"Out of curiosity, is your native language one of those where you have an east arm and a west arm? I've always thought those languages were interesting. Anyway, when referring to body parts left and right always refer to the person whose body they're attached to. So if you're talking about your arm then it's your left, but if you're talking about Bob's arm, then it's Bob's left (which would be on the right for you if you're facing him). If talking about things other than body parts it's easiest to say \"my left\" or \"your left\"."
],
"score": [
8,
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ladl21
|
Why do people with Down syndrome all look the same?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnbvi8",
"glnc7xi",
"glncqsp"
],
"text": [
"Because the cause of Downs Syndrome is the same- an extra copy of our 21st chromosome- and the physical/intellectual manifestations from that extra copy will be relatively uniform across all patients, with only a little bit of variability. In other words, the same genetic defect has roughly the same effect on every patient who has it, because the underlying mechanism is the same. Everyone with Downs Syndrome has the same genetic malformation.",
"Down's syndrome is caused by having an extra copy of chromosome 21 (chromosomes are the packages of DNA that make up our genetic code). That extra generic material causes a number of developmental things to go off their typical path. Among several others, it causes some common physical traits that, when combined, cause a more similar appearance (there's still lots of variation): smaller chin, greater eye angle, flatter nasal bridge (the upper part of the nose), smaller mouth/larger tongue (which can cause some tongue protrusion). Since humans are \\*really\\* good at recognizing and categorizing faces, we fairly quickly notice the pattern.",
"In individuals with the most common type of Down's syndrome, Trisomy-21, the extra chromosome 21 leads to the physical features and developmental challenges that can occur among people with Down syndrome. Basically, this gene controls certain parts of physical and mental development, and having the extra chromosome fucks with that developmental process in a fairly consistent way. Individuals will vary significantly in how they develop and express these developmental problems depending on their unique genetics. You can read a bit more about this topic [on the CDC page about Down Syndrome]( URL_0 )."
],
"score": [
8,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome.html"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lae03k
|
In the animal kingdom there are albino and melanistic mutations of certain species. However in Humans, only albinism is observed, why is that?
|
Just to expand on the title a bit I've seen numerous examples of different animal species where the offspring can be either melanistic or albino. Whereas with humans whether the parents are darker skinned or lighter skinned, only albino offspring occur. You never see two lighter skinned parents produce darker skinned offspring. Why does it only happen one way and not the other? (And please, serious replies only.)
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnfbhb"
],
"text": [
"Mainly becausa a human with full melanism would not be able to get any vitamin D from sunlight and would die quickly, so the ones that had this gene probably died out many, many generations ago."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lae0i7
|
Why do people pace?
|
I’ve always done this but never knew why, no one in my family does it so I don’t think it’s learned behavior. Why do we do this when stressed/excited?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnv1aq",
"glndnea"
],
"text": [
"When stressed or excited, your body is producing and reacting to \"fight or flight\" hormones. Increased heartbeat, respiration, sharpened eyesight, hearing, etc. Yet, there you are, in an environment that isn't dangerous, but your primitive monkey brain is still indicating that you should be getting out of there. Pacing is a physical action, and now those hormones are getting a workout; you might not be running full-tilt from a larger predator, but you *are* moving, fulfilling whatever biological imperative is stuck in your brain at the time.",
"i do it to release energy that’s bouncing around me from anxiety. If i don’t pace, that energy kinda explodes into crying and panic. By pacing, i can get rid of that energy in small consistent levels"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
laep3n
|
What are categorical imperatives?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnmgm5",
"glnn5iq",
"glnolse"
],
"text": [
"A \"categorical imperative\" is a moral standpoint that applies to all circumstances and is not dependant on perspective. Take the trolley problem for example. One track has serial killers on death row about to executed in an hour and the other has the greatest saints that have ever existed. If a \"categorical imperative\" was \"killing people is wrong\" and the track was headed for the saints, you wouldn't be allowed to switch the track or you would be morally incorrect. Killing people is killing people, it doesn't matter the circumstance, it doesn't matter the perspective. & #x200B; Opinion: Kant's a little funny.",
"Categorical imperatives -- and the related hypothetical imperatives -- are a key part of the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant. In brief, the categorical imperative is a moral principle that results in a positive outcome for all involved. A hypothetical imperative is a principle that results in a specific end. For example, consider taking someone's life. That might (or might not) end up with a positive outcome for one person (the killer), but the outcome for the other (the victim) is decidedly negative. So we might say \"Do not take the lives of others\" is a categorical imperative -- a moral principle that everyone must follow. An example of a hypothetical imperative: you need to practice a musical instrument to become a rock star. While true, not everyone wants or needs to become a rock star. Practicing a musical instrument is a means to that end, but it's not something that is *required* of everyone. Categorical imperatives are moral principles that a reasoned person must adhere to. Hypothetical imperatives may be reasonable, but they are only a means to a particular end that reasoned individuals may or may not need or want.",
"There's not multiple of them, it's \"the categorical imperative.\" This comes from the philosophy of Kant. The categorical imperative describes a central idea in his philosophy about how to determine if an act is moral or not. So, say you're faced with a moral choice. For example, you need to feed your dog, but you don't have money for dog food. You have an opportunity to steal some dog food and, let's say for the sake of this problem, you won't get caught. The moral question is: Should you steal the dog food? If you don't do it, your dog will have to endure a lot of discomfort (this is the only way it can eat in this hypothetical), and will eventually die of starvation. On the other hand, if you steal it, stealing isn't generally regarded as moral. What is the most moral choice? In any hypothetical like this, one of the goals is to understand what the morality applicable to the situation hinges upon. In other words, is it as simple as I've stated it: letting an animal suffer vs stealing? Let's assume the answer is that it is; if we find an answer, it is equally applicable to *every* such circumstance where stealing and animal suffering are in direct opposition. With a little thought, it's easy to see that this isn't the case. The morality probably does hinge on things we're not considering. One example of such a consideration is: Let's say that the shop owner is actually a global conglomerate that has cornered the market on dog food and is selling it only at an extremely high price. Or maybe the shop owner refuses to sell it to people of your race, or maybe refuses to sell it to anyone with your breed of dog. Does that change the moral calculus? If so, then it means we haven't really done the work yet to understand the moral question: What does the morality of this situation depend upon, exactly? (Or, at least, as best as we can put it.) Okay so now you've done the work to push on your question, and now you think you've identified everything the morality of the situation hinges upon. Now we're asking a useful question. (To be clear, I'm not doing this work in this post, so you'll have to imagine we've arrived at some question based on some hypothetical that takes all of that into account.) So back to the original business, what's the answer? What's the moral choice? The categorical imperative says that, whatever decision we make, we should accept as \"universal law.\" In other words, if we decide stealing the dog food is the moral thing, then what we are saying is that we've identified a moral choice that *everyone* *should make* in the same moral circumstances. (If we've done all the work above, it's very likely that we're talking about a category of decisions that apply to more than just dogs and shops selling dog food; in that same class of moral questions might be things like providing health care to the poor, etc. It's surprising how moral questions can balloon in scope sometimes.) One function of the categorical imperative that makes it useful for moral reasoning is that, when applied properly, it removes any built-in perspective bias in the question. For instance, I could have asked the question differently. I could have said: You're a shop owner and and someone comes in and steals from your shop. Should you take measures to secure your shop to prevents theft in the future, or should you make that item available to the thief for free next time? This seems like a totally absurd question, right? How on earth does it make sense to ask if a shop owner should respond to theft by giving the item away free next time? Yet, if we do the same work on this question we did on the original one above in order to pose it properly, we might end up recognizing that our shop sells some items that people cannot do without, even in cases where they can't afford them. What is our moral obligation to address that? (If that overextends us and the shop goes out of business, then that is a net harm because those folks will no longer get what we were willing to give away anyway, etc, etc.) So there's a lot of different directions to come at a moral question, but Kant's basic assumption is that if we've done all the proper work taking all the morally relevant stuff into account, the answer should be the answer no matter what role we're playing. So, in our example about the dog food above, if we decide that the most moral choice is to go ahead and steal to feed the dog, *that necessarily means* that the moral action for the shop owner is to give us the dog food. The categorical imperative means that getting the food to the dog is the moral choice *no matter who we are* in this scenario, so everyone should act toward that same goal. Another easier to understand (but maybe less precise) way of looking at the categorical imperative is as \"hypocrisy armor.\" For instance, most people would agree that there are circumstances in which one person should be allowed to kill another person…like if you're being attacked and in genuine fear for your life through no fault of your own, you can defend yourself with deadly force. But saying that \"you are allowed\" to defend yourself is different from saying \"you morally should\" do so. If you think it through and decide that, yes, according to the categorical imperative it's morally okay to defend yourself with deadly force in a given situation, then that is identical to saying that, *if you are the aggressor in that same situation, your victim should kill you*. So coming to a decision using the categorical imperative is granting moral license to everyone else to act a certain way toward you, and in any case where that comes to pass, as a moral person you should not only expect it, you should not only accept it, you should *embrace* it, you should *demand* it—remember, your role in a given moral situation is irrelevant, so if you would demand a certain outcome from *any* role, you should demand it from *every* role. The way this translates in actual practice is that you first define moral standards that consider the situation from a universal perspective, and then hold yourself accountable to those. (Another tool you might be interested in along these lines is John Rawls' \"veil of ignorance.\")"
],
"score": [
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laeqes
|
Why do doctors stick that stick on your tounge and make you say ahhhh?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glni6q2",
"glnjmes"
],
"text": [
"They're looking at your throat. Saying aah opens it up and the stick is to hold your tongue out of the way.",
"It is a way to get you to open your throat which allows the doctor to look at your tonsils and how it interacts with your airways. The tonsils develops, grows in children and then starts to shrink in adults. So it is common for doctors to check the tonsils of children during regular checkups as it might require removal if it obstructs the airways. In adults it could also become infected causing great pain and harm. But they are generally not inspected during regular checkups and only if you complain."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laexqt
|
Why do we need at least 8 hours of sleep?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnm5r9",
"glnov5d",
"glnr59y"
],
"text": [
"Studies show that you can go down to about 6 hours of sleep, without any major problems. You just have to get used to it. As for why we need sleep at all, we literally have no idea. Stanford sleep researcher William Dement said that after 50 years of studying sleep, the only really solid explanation he knows for why we do it is 'because we get sleepy'.",
"You need at least 4 rem cycles to fully rest, in average a person completes a rem cycle in 90 minutes it means you need at least 6 hours of effective sleep to achieve that, sleeping 8 hours you secure at least 4 of those",
"I've also heard your muscles have to release lactic acid which builds up in the fibers. If you stay up for extended periods of time, you may find you start to ache all over."
],
"score": [
13,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laf4cp
|
What's the difference in hardware between a gaming console and a PC?
|
Moreover, how is a console cheaper than a PC with comparable performance?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnlf5b",
"glnlhd9"
],
"text": [
"The answer would depend on the game console and the PC build you are comparing. Generally speaking, game consoles are cheaper because they have less internal hardware and less expensive components than that of a PC, additionally, Microsoft (XBox) and Sony (Playstation) tend to cut out unnecessary components or find less expensive alternatives. Most PC have more internal components and better grade components. For example, Sony usually has their own proprietary graphics card for their PlayStation while someone who is building their own PC and spend $1000 for the best graphics card on the market.",
"So first of all a motherboard manufacturer has to have a bunch of expansion slots for more RAM, expansions cards, multiple GPUs and tons of USB ports, SATA drives etc. The hardware contents of a game console are fixed and aren't going to change over the lifespan of the device**. That design decision can cut out a lot of stuff on the motherboard which reduces cost and size. Since the GPU and CPU aren't going to change you can mount those right to the mainboard and put a dedicated proprietary cooling mechanism in place - better cooling for cheaper. Lastly, since you're going to be making tens of millions of them your economies of scale for components (either on the motherboard or in the case) is a lot better than any PC manufacturer. Western Digital would rather sell you 8 million of something than 100,000 of something and they'll set the price appropriately to land that sale. ** yeah, rev B might have a better CPU or GPU but itll fit the same socket/pin pattern on the main board. The benefit of consoles to a game developer is that you can custom tweak your game engine a lot to run specific things specifically better on that platform because they're all the same. On PC its a nightmare; on a DX12 card it looks great, but on an older DX11 card it might look terrible. Meanwhile if you develop for one XboxS, it looks fabulous on all of them."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lafef4
|
what Apogee is when launching orbital rockets
|
I’ve been interested in orbital rockets for a while now and I just want to understand the terminology better. Can someone explain apogee for me? Thanks in advance!
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnmjn1"
],
"text": [
"When an object is in a normal elliptical orbit, there is a single point in the orbit closest to the thing it's orbiting (*periapsis*, from Greek *peri-* \"around, close to\"), and another point where it is farthest from the thing it's orbiting (*apoapsis*, from Greek *apo-* \"separate/far away from\"). The term for both of these points is *apside*(s). These terms get refined based on the thing they're orbiting: * For Earth (root *geo-*, as in *geology*), we call them *perigee* and *apogee*. * For the Sun (root *helio-*, as in *helium*), we call them *perihelion* and *aphelion*. * For other stars (root *astron*, as in *astronomy*), we call them *periastron* and *apoastron*. So \"apogee\" is \"the highest point in an orbit around the Earth\"."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
laffze
|
If someone is injured, why do we try to convince them to stay awake instead of passing out?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnnpzm"
],
"text": [
"It is really more of a movie thing than anything that actually happens. It might be useful in the case of emergency situation that someone who is conscious could give some additional feedback to a paramedic. But those \"stay with me, buddy!\" stuff is mostly fiction and drama."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lafiws
|
Why can phone providers do nothing to stop robocalls?
|
Is it a matter of reluctance on their part, because they don't want to lose the revenue from robocallers paying for phone service? Because I cannot believe the alternative scenario, which is that it just can't be done even if the providers wanted to. Is it really that much of a technological impossibility to find the individual, group, etc. that is sending out the calls and block them at the source (to say nothing of shutting down their operations)? Are we seriously supposed to accept that in 2021 something like this is completely beyond our capability? Please help me understand.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnsb21",
"glnp0z2",
"glnv48x",
"gloh6xp"
],
"text": [
"a large part of it is the law. carriers used to be forced by law to connect any dialed call, they had no legal ability to not connect a call. notice that you don't get spam text messages nearly as often. those laws don't apply to SMS, and cell carriers usually hire a 3rd party (my old employer used a very common one, synniverse, who also does SMS interconnect for Verizon and Sprint as well as others) which filters out spam.",
"Simplest explanation: Phones calls used to be made over phone lines. With the advent of VOIP (that is, voice over Internet protocol) calling, every scamming jerk with a script can trick the phone system, because the data is infinitely easier to manipulate at many points during the direction/travelling of the call. As far as being unable to just shut off access to the bad guys, think of it like a monster that grows a new head every time one is cut off.",
"The telephone system as currently built doesn't really have the capability to stop everything. They stop a lot, but not everything. Its fairly trivial for someone (generally abroad in places like South Asia) to get equipment necessary to to do robocalling and get it by all the protection. Phone systems essentially work on a one-way street of trust, the \"caller\" is always trusted, the system doesn't ask them to verify themselves and assumes everything is OK. This allows a nefarious user to do some things like act as if they are calling from a number they aren't and used automated systems to call. In fact though-- the phone companies are working on solving this, just slowly . As part of the next-gen version of the phone system there planned to be some quite robust anti-spam like functions which \"verify\" certain callers as to prevent this type of activity slipping through.",
"By law, the carriers must connect all phone calls. The law was first put in place to prevent anti-competitive behavior, the ol', \"If you wanna talk to your auntie, you're going to have to do it from our phone network!\" The US government needed a reliable and connected nationwide network for times of war or emergency. The carriers are aware calls are coming from VoIP links into the phone system. They know the caller cannot be verified beyond that point and that it's likely spam. Spammers use these systems because they can carry out automated calls at effectively zero cost and they can dodge all the existing anti-spam legislation that exists which assumes an autodialer attached directly to the phone system, meaning such a thing CAN be traced back to them. Back before the internet, that was the only way you could have run a spam service. Up until recently, all they could do is warn you that the call was likely spam, which is displayed on modern smartphones, but, legally, they HAVE TO connect the call, and it has to be you who declines the call. The FCC has ruled very recently that carriers now have the power to mitigate spam calling on their own. The details go off into the weeds. What I expect will happen is that carriers will stop connecting VoIP calls from uplinks that get themselves blacklisted."
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lafleu
|
Why do some bruises on our body cause swellings, and some don't?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnvhct"
],
"text": [
"All injuries swell somewhat but how big it looks depends on what's underneath. On your head, the only way the swelling at an injury site can go is outward. In your abdomen it can go in all directions so doesn't look so large."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laflwu
|
- Why exactly does a capacitor do what it does, and what even is capacitance anyway?
|
So I understand that the purpose of a capacitor is to store a charge, and I think it must also always discharge at a constant rate; otherwise you couldn't use them for "smoothing out" of power supplies. But the concept of capacitance is rather odd to me. What is the farad? Why don't we measure capacitors in how much charge they can store - i.e. in coulombs - or in how much energy they can provide - i.e. in joules or watt-hours? And how does having a pair of conductors with an insulator in between - which, as I understand, is the basic construction of a capacitor - create this affect?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo55tp"
],
"text": [
"What helped me really *understand* the concept of capacitors at an ELI5 level, when I was starting out, was *water analogies*. In a water circuit, water equals charge, pressure equals voltage, and flow equals current. In this analogy, a capacitor is like [an elastic membrane]( URL_0 ). If you increase the pressure on one side (apply a voltage), it will bow in the opposite direction - letting some water (charge) store itself on the capacitor. If you remove the pressure (turn off the pump), the elastic force of the membrane will apply a restoring force (voltage) moving the water back to its original, even, distribution. > But the concept of capacitance is rather odd to me. What is the farad? Why don't we measure capacitors in how much charge they can store - i.e. in coulombs - or in how much energy they can provide - i.e. in joules or watt-hours? Now, crucially, the amount of water that the membrane actually allows you to move depends on the *pressure* you're applying. Even though the physical dimensions and properties of the membrane are obviously unchanged, applying only a little pressure makes it bow only a little (thereby storing only a little charge). This is true for real capacitors as well - the more voltage you apply, the more current you can store on the capacitor. This is why we use Farad instead of measuring the charge directly. `1 F` is equal to `1 C` at `1 V`. But at `100 V`, that `1 F` capacitor would instead store `100 C`. This is also the reason why it doesn't make sense to directly rate a capacitor in terms of its \"stored energy\" - the more voltage you apply, the more charge you get, so the energy stored in the capacitor also goes up (twice, resulting in quadratic scaling!). > So I understand that the purpose of a capacitor is to store a charge, and I think it must also always discharge at a constant rate; otherwise you couldn't use them for \"smoothing out\" of power supplies. There is a possible error in your assumptions here. In a DC system, a capacitor does not actually gain nor lose any charge - it acts like an insulator. The reason they're used to \"smooth out\" power supplies is because, like a big \"tank\" of charge, they smooth out sudden *changes* in the supply voltage. Going back to the water analogy, imagine a sudden shockwave in the water front - when it hits the elastic membrane, it would get directly transferred through this low resistance membrane to the other (low pressure) side, rather than through the high resistance main system that you're trying to protect from such shockwaves. The reason this works might be above ELI5 level but the tl;dr of it is that capacitors have a variable resistance depending on the frequency - so sudden changes in voltage (lots of high frequency components) result in relatively low resistance through the capacitor, whereas for low frequencies (especially DC, which has a frequency of 0), a capacitor acts like an insulator."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://ece.uwaterloo.ca/~dwharder/Analogy/Capacitors/images/membrane.02.png"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lafzj5
|
Can someone explain why inflation happens and why some governments have a goal of keeping inflation on for example 2% per year?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnqndv",
"glnyzk3"
],
"text": [
"There are a lot of reasons but one of the main ones is that a lot of business practices and modern economics relies on debt. For example, mortgages, student loans, and vendor debt. Let’s say you have a $200,000 mortgage. Ignore interest rate right now for the sake of explanation. As long as inflation is in place, it will become easier and easier to pay that debt because you’ll earn more money consistently due to inflation. It might take more money to buy a loaf of bread, but the debt is fixed. If deflation happened you might be able to buy more bread for the same amount of money, but it will take more work to pay off that $200,000 worth of debt. Now if you extrapolate this to every region of the economy that uses debt you can see where deflation would cause a massive collapse in the ability to pay back the principle. Hence, the goal is to have the lowest inflation rate possible for stability and sustainability while never letting it go into the negatives (deflation).",
"Deflation murders an economy. Governments do not have absolute control of prices. The best they can do is make a goal to get a decent average. High inflation also murders an economy. 2% is a good goal because you absolutely do not want deflation. Inflation should always happen. The less the better. So 2% ends up being a good cushion. It allows you to dodge deflation while minimizing price increases."
],
"score": [
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lag0fl
|
When you close your eyes and it's completely black, if you run your finger on the top of your eyes an "electric" show will light up correspondingly at the bottom of the eyes. What is it actually and what causes it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnv60s",
"glo1y64"
],
"text": [
"The lights are called phosphenes. Our sense of sight is based on what happens when the rods and cones in our retinas are stimulated. We tend to think of this stimulation as happening when light enters the eye and strikes these receptor cells, and that *is* how it normally happens. But it's not the only way to stimulate them. The brain can't really tell *how* the receptors in your eye are being stimulated -it assumes it's all coming from light- and so they register to your sense of sight in the same way (usually as flashes of light). Mechanical phosphenes are the type your question is concerned with, and may be the simplest to explain: when you rub your eyes, you create brief spots of pressure in your eye. Sometimes the receptor cells *feel* that difference, but because the brain thinks only light can stimulate your receptors, it registers this feeling as light. But there are other sorts of phosphenes too. Powerful magnetic fields (like those used in TMS therapy for depression) or radiation (as with cancer therapy) also commonly cause them.",
"Photoreceptors in the back of your retina respond to light the best, but they also respond to other stimuli if they are strong enough. When you close your eyes and rub them, the physical pressure will activate those photoreceptors and the best interpretation your brain (visual cortex) can make frlm those optic nerve signals is those colorful TV static-like sparkles and squiggles."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lag4iu
|
How do millitary coups work?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnrh09",
"glnrdgi",
"glo6asg"
],
"text": [
"You might find the book \"Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook\" an interesting read. I read it some years ago when I wondered about this, very enlightening.",
"In Myanmar, the military already had guaranteed representation in their parliament. Much like a Political party. It's quite a bit easier for them to just assume total control because they have connections in every political sphere, and they also happen to be Myanmar's armed forces too. I doubt many other countries can pull it off as quickly and relatively bloodless as Myanmar did.",
"Modern nation states are by and large “Hobbesian”, this refers to the political philosopher Hobbes’s work “Leviathan”. This means the state is the only legitimate agent of violence. Or in other words, only the “state” (as in the state itself - led by whomever is leading it at the time) may choose how to use violence (punish criminals, fight wars, defend borders etc)’on behalf of its citizens. In a coup, the military, being a legitimised agent of violence by the state, use non-state-sanctioned violence to overthrow those currently leading the state, and establish themselves as not just legitimate agents of violence, but THE ONLY legitimate agents of violence, and refuse to recognise the leadership of any other parties within the state."
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lag4s5
|
Why do we get cold when we are tired?
|
I've always wondered why this happens, but don't recall ever reading about it. But whenever I get tired I often get cold too.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glnruxr"
],
"text": [
"As your body and mind become exhausted, they are generally operating at lower functionality levels, so putting less active effort in to generating heat through movement or other smaller processes while placing more importance on keeping the mind as alert as possible under the circumstances."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lah8if
|
Why do chameleons walk like they're pondering every step?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo2426"
],
"text": [
"They are trying to look like a branch or leaves waving back and forth in the wind, instead of like a walking chameleon. If they just strolled along then their prey would spot them and they would starve, or predators would spot them and they would be eaten."
],
"score": [
26
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lahb03
|
What is the reasoning behind limiting icing an injury to 20-30 consecutive minutes? Can it cause other side effects, or does it get less effective...?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo1hpm",
"glnxydu"
],
"text": [
"Basically its to prevent local frostbite and cold-induced skin/tissue damage. If you've used an ice pack correctly, the skin will start to \"burn\" under the ice, that's your cue to take it off",
"Yes, there is a risk of damage to local tissue. The low temperature can damage cells in that area. Essentially you could get some frostbite there if you way overdid it. I am sure there are others reasons as well."
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lahejm
|
what is the concept of absolute space and relative space
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glocvq5"
],
"text": [
"Absolute space is like where we are on map, but relative space is like where we are compared to each other. Say we were in a tall building. Maybe I'm on floor 10, and you're on floor 20. That would be your absolute position in that frame, but you could also be described as being at floor 10 relative to me (i.e. 10 floors above me). But, really there is no such thing as absolute position. Position is *always* described relative to something. In our case, it's relative to the ground. Zooming out, the Earth moves relative to the Sun, the Sun moves relative to the centre of the Milky Way, the Milky Way moves relative to the centre of our galactic cluster, and the galactic cluster moves relative to...well, to everything else. There is no fixed point in space that we can measure things from. It's always compared to other things."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lahqdh
|
What is Furin Cleavage and what does it have to do with Covid 19’s uniqueness?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glonyw8"
],
"text": [
"So I am a biochemist, I do not work with viruses but I have a basic understanding of how they work. Covid is still so new that I do not think we 100% know what is going on but there is a theory based off of the couple papers I glanced though. I'll do my best to break it down, but feel free to ask follow up questions if you need more explanation TL:DR Furin makes a cut that may act like an on switch for SARs-CoV-2 spike protein entry into cells First some basic background. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which carry out most function in our cells. There are 20 different standard amino acids that are all slightly different but have the same backbone. To make a protein our DNA tells the cell what order to put these amino acids in in order to make the protein. The amino acids get put together in a long chain, this chain folds in on itself to turn into a specific 3D shape for a protein. Some proteins fuse together with other identical proteins to make structures that give our cells shape or act as markers to indicate what kind of cell this is so that our body can keep track. Other proteins help to make chemical reactions happen more quickly these are called enzymes. Furin is a proteolytic enzyme, meaning that it cuts another protein. It does this at a specific amino acid sequence. Other proteolytic enzymes cut at other amino acid sequences. Viruses unlike cells are unable of replicating on their own. In order to replicate they must insert their genetic material into a host cell where the cells machinery reads that material and turns it into more viruses. SARs COV 2, the virus that causes the disease Covid-19, is a specific species of corona virus. Corona virus all have what are called spike proteins that stick out from their membranes. these spike proteins look like points on a crown hence corona(crown) virus. The spikes job is to recognize specific cell types in humans and and then pull the virus into the cell so that its genetic material can be read and turned into more viruses. Up to this point everything is pretty well established because there are many other corona viruses that we have previously studied. They behave in a similar way, but SARs-CoV-2 is more infectious hence it becoming a pandemic. From what I can tell through reading a couple papers the spike protein has 2 parts one that recognizes the cell it wants to infect, through the ACE receptor, and the second part helps to actually fuse the viral membrane with the cell membrane and empty the viral genetic material into the cell. One of the differences between SARs-CoV-2 and other corona viruses is that in between those 2 parts of the spike protein it has an amino acid sequence that can be recognized and cut by Furin. Flu viruses have a similar method of entry into cells and it has been shown that having a Furin site between the 2 domains causes greater infectivity of the flu virus. So the theory is that a spike protein with the Furin site would also be more infective. The paper I read seemed to argue that they do not believe this to be the case based off some science they did, but it is hard to draw a conclusion based off just one paper. This paper came out in June and I would assume there were more after but I would have to put in quite a bit of effort to find them if they even exist."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lai16y
|
How are we able to zone out while driving but still, for the most part, drive perfectly fine?
|
I thought about this on my way back from work. I just zoned out while driving but would still respond to a car’s brake light or color change, even though I wasn’t focused at all (even my eyes were out of focus!)
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo6ml5",
"glo587q",
"glojcah",
"glo6fj3"
],
"text": [
"It's actually called \"unconscious competence\" - it is when you know the task so well that you can do it without thinking about it. Previous posts are correct - most mistakes are made in this zone. Goal is to be \"consciously competent\" - you know what you are doing and you are thinking about it. (Envision a great surgeon) Practice staying \"conscious\" by watching what other cars are doing, or pedestrians. Note the make and model of the car to your right/left/front. Watch who is turning and who is entering lanes that are close to you. Watch cars as you are approaching traffic lights....that stuff will help you maintain awareness but don't focus so deeply that it turns into distracted driving :)",
"The simple answer is that you aren't perfectly fine. Driving is a monotonous task, made easier by straight roads, markings, automatic transmission and so on. When you're driving like that, it's basically muscle memory rather than actual ability. If you were in an actual emergency situation, such as a child running out in front of you or some other unpredictable event, you would most likely have an accident. Zoning out while driving is bad, if you're tired take a break.",
"There's a story about a man whose son tried to kill him in his sleep. The son buried an axe in his head. The man didn't die immediately. When his alarm clock went off in the morning, he got up, got dressed and tried to go to work, but had forgotten his keys. He was found dead from blood loss on his door step (having apparently tried to go back for his keys but had locked himself out) He clearly wasn't capable of any rational thought, but he was able to go thru the motions of his day with a large portion of his brain missing. Don't mistake the surface action of driving with actually being capable of driving safely.",
"Our brains tend to disconnect from the outside world when they don't think anything particularly important or dangerous is going on. Basically your brain decided to edit out the boring commute and focus on more interesting thoughts inside your head. As for the perfectly fine driving, much of that is muscle memory, you likely make the same movements and driving decisions at pretty much the same time when you commute, so even without your conscious attention your body can just run through the same routine until something changes in an interesting or potentially life-threatening way."
],
"score": [
65,
34,
7,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lai5is
|
What is nervousness?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo3a6f"
],
"text": [
"Because it's a trait carried over from when we were primitive animals, and the response to getting nervous assumes that what you are nervous about is something that might kill you. Our monkey ancestors didn't have class presentations, or prom dates, or other modern anxieties. If you are an animal, and you are nervous, it's because you think you are about to run away from something that might kill you, so your body prepares for such events."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laj3t8
|
How do they know the time of the sunrise/sunset, chance of rain/snow/sun, percentages, the UV-INDEKS, etc. Anything weather related. How?!
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glo92yz"
],
"text": [
"The earth rotates in a very consistent manner. We can determine the time of sunrise and sunset very accurately for any date far into the past and future."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lajn5q
|
How does limiting buying of certain stocks, but not selling, help Robinhood meet their clearinghouse deposit requirements?
|
I just got an email, as I'm sure many other people did, about how: > For Robinhood to operate, we must meet clearinghouse deposit requirements to support customer trades. and... > We had to take steps to limit buying in those volatile stocks to ensure we could comfortably meet our deposit obligations. ELI5 please!
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gloinc6",
"globy1n"
],
"text": [
"Robinhood doesn't buy $100 of CME when you place an order. That's 1/3 of a share, and there is no other market in fractional shares. Instead, they wait until they need 100 shares (a standard exchange transactional amount) and then they buy 100 shares and update their data base of which 300 people each own $100 worth (to extend your hypothetical). When you \"sell\" your $100, they do nothing but put money in your account. If enough people sell, then they sell 100 shares and \"pay themselves back\". Here is a problem if the stock is super volatile. You buy 1/3 of a share at $100. The next person buys 1/3 of a share at $102. ... The 300th person buys a share at $250. Now Robinhood buys 100 shares at $250, and only collected half of the $25,000 from you and your 299 friends. This is bad. So, instead, they predict what's going to happen and maybe buy 100 shares at $110. To do that, since Robinhood users have only contributed $500, they have to get the rest of the $11,000 from somebody. That means they have to have cash.",
"I have the same question. If I’m buying $100 worth of stock, wouldn’t they deduct $100 from my account and use to settle the trade?"
],
"score": [
19,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lajq6d
|
Why haven’t we gone back to the moon?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glod3iv"
],
"text": [
"It's very expensive to send humans to the moon, and it's not really that much more useful to send humans instead of probes. It's risky, expensive, time consuming, and needless. The main attraction is the sense of accomplishment, but that's about it for now."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lajrlg
|
When vegetables in the fridge are about to go bad, how does cooking them make them last a few days longer?
|
Whenever I have something about to go bad, I cook it. But how does that stop it from going bad for a while longer when it’s still getting older?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gloddvm"
],
"text": [
"It kills the bacteria that have been breaking down the food. Basically, the cooked food without bacteria or more accurately dead bacteria is more sanitized than the previous state of uncooked food with bacteria. It's a similar principle of putting food into zero degrees Fahrenheit freezer, which stops all bacterial growth."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lalauh
|
Why do humans need sleep?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glonoa8",
"glonvjs"
],
"text": [
"There are a lot of theories but none of them are very heavily supported. So as of right now, the only really solid reason we have for why humans need sleep is because we get tired.",
"We don't know exactly. From observation we can see that basically any animal that lives longer than a day and a half needs some way of resting for an extended period. This is true of fish, cats, bees, humans, and pretty much everything. This tells us that it's either a hard physical requirement for fast moving life, or was an evolved trait extremely early on, and was never evolved away."
],
"score": [
10,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laly3f
|
Is "energy" something characterizing the brain or the body?
|
Sometimes you're energetic, and sometimes you're drowsy. But is that feeling a 'brain' thing or a 'body' thing? At times, my brain is on 100% but my body is tired. So in those cases, my eyes are tired, but I don't want to sleep. Does that mean the brain doesn't need sleep? At times, I'm mentally exhausted/stressed despite having slept recently. But that doesn't make me drowsy at all. Does mental rest need to happen separately from physical rest?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gloz5vc"
],
"text": [
"Both! Your brain and body are integrated together and affect each other. So that’s why your body can feel tired after an emotionally taxing event and your brain can feel tired after a physically exhausting event. An interesting example: when you feel hungry, you might think your brain is measuring your stomach to tell you to eat. Actually, your stomach measures itself and tell your brain to eat! It can also influence what you’re craving based in your nutritional needs"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lam7hf
|
Why do small temperature changes feel super dramatic indoors but barely noticeable outside?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glowodn"
],
"text": [
"The rate at which you lose heat (which is what you're feeling, the loss of heat) is roughly proportional to the temperature. Indoors, your thermostat is pretty well calibrated to a \"comfortable\" rate of heat loss for your body, since you're constantly generating heat. Essentially, you're at a steady-state. Any difference in the temperature throws this out of whack, meaning you will lost more/less heat, and will almost immediately feel uncomfortable from the change. Since everyone's body is slightly different, there are a lot of different \"room temperatures\" that people feel is most comfortable for them. Compared to the outdoors, where you're generally not in the same state of comfort. Usually, it's going to be either too cold or too hot for you to form a comfortable steady-state. If you're already feeling cold, feeling a bit more cold or a bit less cold doesn't really do much to make you feel better or worse. The same applies if you're feeling hot. So small variations in temperatures are masked by the general discomfort of being outside."
],
"score": [
26
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lamdyn
|
How is it that the world record for breath - holding is 24min but we are declared brain dead if we don't receive oxygen for > 5min?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glou4hb",
"glouhwf",
"glouwyy",
"glov7mw"
],
"text": [
"We aren't declared brain dead because we don't receive oxygen for 5 minutes. You are declared brain dead when they do a test on you and discover no brain activity. Plenty of people have come back after being under water way more than 5 minutes.",
"When we take in a deep breath, we actually intake a much larger amount of oxygen than we need. In addition, those who train to hold their breath also train to reduce their heart rate, which further decrease the amount of oxygen they need. So, as long as they keep that one breath in their lungs, they can hold out for a while. The 5 minute rule typically applies to a person who is unconscious or has an obstructed airway. In these cases, the person does not have a full breath in their lungs, and might have nothing in their lungs. No one takes a solid deep breath the moment they start to have choke, or the moment before they pass out. While in the state of emergency, they might lost control of their diaphragm and exhale unwillingly. This is why a person starts to become hypoxic, when the oxygen in the lungs is not there.",
"using special breathing techniques. there are ways to breathe that accomplish two things, first, oxygenating your blood as much as possible and removing as much CO2 as possible, and then after than using a breathing technique called \"lung packing\". where you learn to being able to pinch your lungs shut with your throat muscles, and only unpinching when you use your cheeks to force more air into your lungs. Like pinching a balloon with your fingers while blowing it up to keep the air from coming back out. using these techniques you can get highly oxygenated blood and pack extra air into your lungs. This is a technique that has to be trained and learned, so your average person isn't going to do this. Plus, even these world record holders wouldnt be doing this normally, when they go to break an attempt it can take them many minutes to prepare before they finally go under. a normal person getting knocked out or in a traumatic accident isnt going to do that right before the accident. But i also feel the need to mention that you arent just flat out declared brain dead after 5 minutes without breathing. It is that the likely hood of having serious brain damage after 5 minutes thats to increase more quickly, and the likelihood that you will wake back up starts to decrease quickly. But other factors play into it as well, such as age (younger people may be able to hold out a bit longer). what im trying to say is that 5 minutes isnt a hard line where doctors will just say \"thats it give up\", thats just where the odds of coming out unscathed really start to go down.",
"It's not like they just slap a \"brain dead\" sticker on you when the timer hits 5 minutes. It's just a rule of thumb to let you know when you are in danger of permanent damage. Doctors will always actually monitor your brain activity to gauge your health status, and will use that information when deciding your prognosis. Not a clock."
],
"score": [
18,
15,
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lan0qc
|
why is it so hard to get to the sun
|
i saw in a science video that the parker spaceprobe that landed on the sun had to work hard to actually reach the sun. this doesn't make sense to me though. i thought since the sun has high gravity that everything will be pulled towards it like a ball rolls down to the bottom of a valley. why does the spaceprobe have to fire its rocket so much to get there, can't they just drop the spaceprobe and let it fall towards like the sun? also how did it actually land on the sun, i thought it was too hot that it made metal melt.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gloy9io",
"gloyfz7",
"gloyzck"
],
"text": [
"> i thought since the sun has high gravity that everything will be pulled towards it like a ball rolls down to the bottom of a valley. Something stationary relative to the Sun would. But anything we launch from Earth is moving just as fast, relative to the Sun, as the Earth is. And the Earth is in a rather high orbit, 200 million km above the Sun. An object that just escapes Earth's gravity will go into an orbit around the Sun very similar to Earth's. To get *down* to an orbit next to the sun takes just as much energy as getting *up* from that orbit to Earth's would, because you have to slow down the probe just as much as you'd have to speed it up to boost it up to the Earth's orbit.\\* > also how did it actually land on the sun It didn't. It's targeting a low orbit close to the Sun. The Sun does not have a solid or even liquid surface, so even if it weren't too hot, you couldn't land there. ----- \\* _Actually, even though thrusting forward raises you into a higher orbit, lower orbits are faster than high ones. So the probe has to thrust against its motion, which slows it down, which lets it fall into a lower orbit, where it will ultimately go faster. This is pretty counterintuitive, but it's how orbits work._",
"It’s closest approach is more than 13 million km from the surface of the sun. To put that in perspective - the moon is 384,400 km from the earth. The Parker probe would be 35 times further away than that - nothing man made will ever touch the “surface” of the sun intact, it will definitely stop working and melt long before that.",
"A couple of things first, the Parker Solar Probe didn't land on the sun, and it's not going to land on the sun. It's going to get to within about *6 million km* of the surface of the sun. Which is about 500 Earths if you were to line them all up. So it's still going to be really damn far away from the sun, in human terms. Oh, and it's not going to do this until 2025, it's not there yet. On to the main part of your question: > can't they just drop the spaceprobe and let it fall towards like the sun No, the only way to travel to the sun is to basically cancel out all of the speed you have on Earth which is traveling really really fast. The only way to cancel out all that speed is to go really really fast but in the opposite direction. Objects in motion stay in motion, it's the same reason you don't fly off the planet every time you jump & #x200B; When we travel *away* from the sun, we just need to add a little bit more speed and then wait."
],
"score": [
10,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lan3v1
|
Why do our joints ache when we get sick? What do we do?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gloyoxu",
"glozrnr"
],
"text": [
"When you’re sick, your body produces more immune cells to fight the sickness. As a part of the immune response, these cells produce inflammatory chemicals. Because there are so many of them, the amount of inflammatory chemicals is much higher than normal, causing more of your body to be inflamed and painful. Joints are a vulnerable area for inflammation, so they hurt",
"When you're sick, your immune system is releasing chemicals (called cytokines) that cause inflammation. This can be beneficial, as inflammation means more immune cells can get where they're needed! However, when this inflammation occurs in our joints and muscles, it can be achy/painful."
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
laodzk
|
What exactly is a normal distribution?
|
Hey! I understand the properties of a normal distribution and that it's bell shaped and I know that it's a probability distribution. But I'm not able to grasp what that means. Would be great if someone could tell me. And while we are on the topic would u mind telling me what a test statistic is as well 🙇🏻♀️
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glp801v"
],
"text": [
"A normal distribution shows that it is more likely that numbers in the middle will occur than numbers at the end. Like in a class, few people are likely to get 95 or higher, and few people are likely to get a 65 or lower. You're likely to get a lot of grades in in the 80-85 range. An easy example to think about is rolling two dice. To get a 2, you need to roll two 1s. That's not very likely. To get a 12, you need to roll two 6s. That's not very likely either. 2: 1+1 3: 1+2 4: 1+3, 2+2 5: 1+4, 2+3 6: 1+5, 2+4, 3+3 7: 1+6, 2+5, 3+4 8: 2+6, 3+5, 4+4 9: 3+6, 4+5 10: 4+6, 5+5 11: 5+6 12: 6+6 Do you kind of see how the numbers in the middle have more options? This gets more pronounced with the more dice you roll. So you could flip this on the side and draw a line above the number (or make them into bars if you want). The ends are less likely because there are less possibilities, and in the middle it's more likely because there are more combinations that lead to a higher probability of getting that."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
laof43
|
What are flowers why does a plant need flowers and why do other plants have different flowers
|
Started growing roses and got kinda curious
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glp6ic3",
"glp79k8",
"glp8lui",
"glp7mvg"
],
"text": [
"Flowers are used to attract bees and other creatures to spread the pollen of the plant to other plants. This is how they make more plants.",
"They're the plant's reproductive organs! Some plants may reproduce sexually similar to humans. When a plant's pollen (analogous to sperm) lands on the pistil of another plant (an inner part of the flower, analogous to eggs/ova), seeds are then formed which can grow into new plants. Some plants can self-pollinate. Others get their pollen from pollinators, which pick up and deposit pollen as they bounce from flower to flower. Yummy flower nectar and bright petal colors attract pollinators like butterflies and bees.",
"Different flowers can attract different kinds of pollinators. A hibiscus loves hummingbirds, so it has a long funnel deal for hummingbird beaks, whereas a daisy likes bees. Some even smell like death or rotting to attract flies!",
"just like u need sperms for animal reproduction and this is transmuted through intercourse....but in plant kingdom u dont have that privilege so the they create flowers and place their genetic materials along with some chemicals which attract insects ....so this insects transmute this genetic material to other similar plants though flowers again. this is called insect pollination."
],
"score": [
6,
6,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lap2fg
|
how scientists know carbon is absolutely essential for any extra-terrestrial life to form if the only life they have to reference is from earth?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glp9hsx",
"glpe4di",
"glpahd4",
"glphduc"
],
"text": [
"We don't know. It's just that we have absolutely no idea what non-carbon-based life would look like at all, so we have no clue how to go looking for that. Same thing with water. All life on Earth depends on it, but we have no idea how to go looking for theoretical aliens that aren't based on carbon or use water.",
"We don't know for sure, but we also don't have any examples of life forms based on other chemistry, so that us argument 1. life is about turning energy into patterns that can decide, act and replicate. Physical life has to do this with chemistry. Whatever chemicals we pick, they need to be able to circulate, create complex patterns, and be able to move and direct energy. We don't know of any other chemistry beyond hydrocarbons that have all of these properties. Some people have proposed silicon based life, but silicon dioxide is a solid for most reasonable temperatures while co2 is a gas, which enables the carbon cycle. Water, which is the important solvent for carbon life has some very unusual properties including the fact that it gets less dense when it freezes. Silicon has no such analog. For people who insist there could be other chemistries for life, the burden is on URL_0 show that basic life processes are possible. The most simple thing to demonstrate is this: matter and energy flow in and out, but the specific pattern remains. Next show that the pattern can sense, decide, and act. Finally, show that it can self replicate.",
"We *don't* know if carbon is essential. It's just that *all* \"life as we know it\" is carbon based. So when looking for life elsewhere, it makes sense to start there. And looking at the properties of carbon, there are clear advantages over other proposed biochemistries. But the universe is cleverer than we are, so it's worth keeping an eye open for oddities that might be different forms of life.",
"We're playing the odds really. When you get right down to it, life is just a complex symphony of chemistry. For life to exist, you need three basic things: * A building block for making complex molecules. An atom that is capable of forming many stable bonds with other atoms to create a variety of complex molecules. * A means of generating energy because without energy, there won't be a way to animate life. * A medium in which all of that wonderful chemistry can take place. For chemicals to react, they need to get in contact with one another. That requires a medium in which that can happen. And ideally, the elements above should not be rare. The more common they are, the higher the likelihood that things come together in a way that makes life possible. That's why all Earth life is carbon-based. Carbon is an extremely common element in the universe and it can form up to four stable bonds with other atoms. It's not just capable of doing so, it tries extremely hard to do so. That makes carbon capable of creating a staggering variety of complex molecules. Nearly all life on Earth generates energy through the process of oxidation. Once again because this a chemical reaction that uses an extremely common element, namely oxygen. And it's a simple reaction that creates a lot of energy. And finally, Earth life uses water as a medium for those reactions to take place in because water is a very effective solvent made of two of the most common elements in the universe, hydrogen and oxygen. So why not alternatives? It's not impossible but when you start to look at alternatives, they all complicate the likelihood of life by a lot. The periodic table of elements is very predictable. It starts with hydrogen, which has one proton and one electron, then comes helium with two protons and two electrons and so on. This predictability means we know we're not missing any of the basic elements. We sometimes discover new elements at the far end of the table, but the further you go, the more unstable and rare these elements get. Instability isn't really conducive to the existence of life. That means we can limit our view to the stable and common elements on the periodic table. And in that list, most of the other candidates simply don't look as likely as carbon-based life that needs water and oxygen. Take for instance, silicon. Silicon can form four covalent bonds just like carbon. That means that in theory, silicon can support a large number of complex molecules just like carbon. The trouble is that silicon loves binding with oxygen. In fact, it loves binding with oxygen so much that it will break molecules just to bind with oxygen instead. If silicon comes into contact with water, it'll break the oxygen atoms out of the water molecules to bind them to itself. And when silicon binds with oxygen, you get silica. Which is basically rock. As you can imagine, turning to stone in the presence of oxygen is problematic for the existence of life. Especially since it means you can now no longer use water or oxygen-based reactions like oxidation. So we're not saying that it's completely impossible for life to be very different than we know. But if you want to play the odds, there are no better components for life than water, oxygen and carbon that we know off. Based on our knowledge of chemistry and physics, which we can extrapolate a lot of thanks to the predictable way the periodic table works, we can't imagine better components for life. And based of our understanding of how atoms come to be, we certainly can't think of any more common component atoms for life than oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. So if you want to search a truly stupendously, unimaginably large universe for life, water and carbon is not a bad starting point for the search."
],
"score": [
48,
7,
6,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"them.to"
],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lapepi
|
Why does your heart hurt when you cry or when you’re in love?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"glphn3y"
],
"text": [
"Your esophagus, lungs, stomach, and heart are all around the same area. When you experience pain in your chest it could be caused by any one of those things. A huge amount of people go to the hospital thinking they’re having a heart attack but it’s actually just acid reflux. When you cry your body goes through a number of physiological changes; your muscles tense, your breathing changes. This could cause a sensation of pain in the chest. As for being in love. It’s hard to say since all of us express and feel love differently. But, I would think it’s something similar. Heart aching for love to me implies a feeling of longing or want which could cause stress or feelings of sadness. Both cause our bodies to have all kinds of odd physiological reactions."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.