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lcx4o9
|
How do we draw a straight line on a curved surface?
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"How would you definite a straight line on a flat surface? No bends. No angles. Doesn't turn. Sure, but what's all that really come to. It comes to it being the shortest path between two points. If you pick point A, and you pick point B, well, then the shortest path between then is a straight line. So now move to any curved surface, and that holds up. What's the shortest path from Paris to LA on the spherical surface of the earth? Well, it's not a straight line, but there's definitely a shortest path a plane can take. We need a new word for this shortest path. And that word is geodesic. A geodesic is a more general straight line. How would you find the geodesic? Well, you can use math to get to the answer for a whole host of arbitrary curved surfaces. However, with a sphere, like say a globe, you can just pull a string. Pulling the string makes the tension find the shortest path and because the outside of a sphere is convex making the surface also the shortest.",
"Any straight line on a sphere will be part of the circumference of a \"great circle\", the intersection of a plane containing the center of a sphere with the sphere itself, e.g. the equator. Great circles are used in aviation to plot the shortest route between any two points. Any two points on the earths surface will define a particular unique great circle. This is why you pass over Greenland when flying from San Francisco to London- because that route is the shortest distance along the one and only great circle that contains those two cities."
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lcxgd7
|
Why is it that I pay for comprehensive, full coverage insurance... and yet, if someone hits my car and it's 100% their fault, I still have to pay a deductible?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Because that is what insurance companies agreed with you when you purchased the coverage. They want a deductible as a sort of buffer so you aren't constantly hitting them with minor claims that result in nickel and diming them into unprofitability. Now if you were hit by someone and it was 100% their fault then you shouldn't be paying a deductible. Why? Because you *aren’t using your insurance*, you are using the insurance of the person who hit you! Of course if their insurance isn't moving quickly enough or there is some debate on who is responsible then you might use your own insurance and pay a deductible which is then refunded when their insurance finally covers the event.",
"Generally you actually would have them pay but, it's easier and faster to have your company cover it and you pay the deductible. You end up getting that back if/when the responsible party pays out.",
"Adjuster here. In this scenario you have two options. 1.) Go through the claimant carrier for your damages. 2.) Go through your own carrier for your damages. Now with that being said, most (reputable) carriers will front you your deductible if you go through your own insurance (as long as the at fault carrier has accepted responsibility for the accident). If they don't front your deductible your carrier will start subrogation, which is the demand they will send to the at fault insurance company requesting reimbursement for the damages plus your deductible. Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's partially successful and sometimes it's not. Either way, most states have statutes on the books that dictate any money your company recoups from the at fault company will go towards reimbursing you your deductible first.",
"Because you bought a policy that has a deductable. Of course you should be reclaiming that from the other parties insurance.",
"It shouldn't. Unless the other party doesn't have insurance. Sometimes your insurance company might not press the claim too hard. Depending on where you live, filing a police report and staying on top of your claims adjuster/insurance person helps. You have to insist that the other party is at fault.",
"Your insurance company will try to go after the other party's insurance company for the full amount of your damage. If they are unable to do so, then your insurer will pay for your own damage, minus your deductible. The main place where this is an issue is if the other driver is uninsured. And, in that case, you can sue the other driver for the deductible (your insurer may also).",
"You don’t. If someone hits you, you are not required to report it to your insurance. Just take their info and get a police report. Side note, it should be reimbursed if you do get the claim through your insurance (which is way easier)",
"Plot twist: In Michigan, unless you have the highest category of optional collision coverage, auto policies require you to pay your deductible *even if you aren't at fault.* But hey, you can still sue the at-fault driver to make them cover it for you. Source: Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services [consumer guide]( URL_0 ). Auto insurance there is a complete racket."
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lcxi62
|
If our cells constantly born, grow, replicate and die, then why do we get old or die?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"One part is that new cells are generated when existing cells replicate their DNA and divide into 2 cells. The DNA replication process can generate errors in the code. There are systems in place to detect and fix, and also terminate cells that have errors. But they're not perfect either. So over long enough time, these errors add up. As for what causes ageing...",
"Not all cells are replaced, and the cells doing the replacing aren't flawless - they eventually wear out. We're a long way off knowing exactly what aging is, but what we know so far is that it's the progressive accumulation of damage on the cellular level. Eventually, cells that can't be replaced start dying, cells start dying faster than they can be replaced, and intentional processes that were beneficial early in life never get turned off and start to become a detriment. If you somehow avoid all disease and damage, your stem cells will still eventually mutate into cancer cells because that process is inevitable and simply a matter of chance.",
"Because the process of cell replication becomes less and less efficient as we age, leading to an accumulation of mutations and errors in our DNA, which reveal themselves as problems in the body. In some parts of the body, the cells stop replacing themselves altogether, and we have to live with old cells. The process of repair stops, basically. This happens, because the DNA of every cell is present in the form of 46 chromosomes, each of which has a tiny structure sticking out of one end (or both ends), called a telomere. Telomeres are longest at birth, and become smaller every time daughter cells are produced from a parent cell, until eventually they disappear, effectively ending cell division (there are some exceptions to this). However, not all cells replicate, and the parts of the body with cells that remain from birth are usually the first to get damaged. This includes brain cells, cells in the eyes and a few others."
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"url"
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lcxkpt
|
After all these technological advancements, why is cancer still incurable?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Because cancer is a whole group of different disorders. It's a bit like asking why car crashes are still a thing; there are so many possible reasons for cars to crash that it's pretty much never going to be solved. The only common factor in all cancers is the effect; cells in your body multiplying out of control and not stopping when told to do so by your body. Likewise, the only common factor in all car crashes is that your car has hit something. Cancers can be caused by anything that can cause damage to cells, like ionizing radiation, genetic factors, poisons/toxins, etc. Likewise, car crashes can be caused by anything that affects control of a car, like weather, car condition/function, driver skill/alertness, etc.",
"Primarily because cancer is the result of your own necessary biological processes running out of control. The difficulty comes from the fact you need to find a way to prevent the cancer cells from doing what they do without preventing the normal cells from doing the same thing. Curing cancer is relatively easy. Curing cancer without killing the normal cells (and therefore creating an even bigger problem) is the tricky part.",
"Cancer is not one thing. It is a wide spectrum of largely unrelated diseases. It's a type of symptom, like fever, which could be from a lot of different diseases.",
"Cancer is a bit of a catch all term for a certain category of diseases. But each variety is quite different and there is, so far, no universal approach. Bear in mind the one reason it is cancer is that the body doesn't fight it (effectively). So the treatment has to do most of the work - and that isn't easy because whatever works to kill the cancer cells also kills the healthy cells."
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|
lcy7du
|
Why do people build muscle faster when they first start working out?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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],
"text": [
"First, you need to know how your body builds muscles. Jayne Leonard, a writer for [MedicalNewsToday]( URL_0 ), explains that your body builds up your muscles when they are strained, stressed, or damaged. Once the muscles are damaged, your body will repairs them and fuses them together, causing an increase in muscle mass, size, and strength. This buildup of muscle is also helped by multiple hormones in the human body, including testosterone and the human growth hormone. Now, there's are a few reasons why new gym members build muscle faster, and two of them are explained by [Matt Jancer, a writer for Vice]( URL_1 ). The first reason is that since muscles are built from the stressing and breaking down of muscles, the first few times you workout you will stress your muscles more since it's a new environment. This causes the muscles to tear more, so that they can then grow more than they usually would. The other reason is a psychological part. Since this is a new experience for your body, you go into it expecting to see results. This causes you to get “neuro-gains.” Your actual muscle tissue will take longer to grow, but your brain will think you’re getting stronger quickly so you actually will feel it the next time you go to the gym. Eventually your body gets used to the exercise and the “neuro-gains” stop and the muscle tissue buildup is the main reason for strength growth for people that consistently go to the gym."
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"https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319151",
"https://www.vice.com/en/article/3k9zy3/this-is-what-happens-to-your-body-when-you-first-start-working-out"
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lcyfvp
|
What good does daily flossing do for the health of you teeth?
|
Edit: *your
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"It gets rid of food that gets stuck in between your teeth. These tiny pieces of food mix with the natural bacteria inside your mouth creating plaque. If plaque is not removed before 48 hours it starts to mineralize a/o solidify, which creates the rock-like tartar. Tartar starts to break the gumline seal (the tiny vacuum seal on the root of your teeth) and keeps going deeper and deeper. As it gets deeper, it eats away at your bones. Once that happens, you get periodontal disease (periodontitis) which looks nasty and feels extremely awful. If periodontal disease isn't treated, the infection will keep traveling down and damage your jaw bones, which will naturally cause the loss of your set of teeth. What's even crazier is that people with periodontitis have been linked to have a higher risk for diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and diseases due to the inflammation and infection disrupting the blood stream, and damage to blood vessels in the brain. In the most rare of cases, periodontal disease has also been linked with pregnancy problems and dementia. So yes, floss, floss, and floss some more.",
"Flossing removes plaque and tartar from your teeth with mechanical force. The bacteria in your mouth form what's called a \"biofilm\" which is basically a slimy shield they use to prevent being washed or scraped away by saliva and normal mouth movements/eating. I believe this is what causes plaque and tartar to build up on your teeth. Flossing, if you do it right, is like taking a giant chisel and slicing right through the biofilm to force it to fall away from your teeth. If you look close in the mirror it's easy to see it. Flossing also keeps your gums healthy by keeping the bacteria away, and stimulating them with mechanical pressure so they don't recede Edit: to be clear, it's obviously a good thing to remove this \"biofilm\" from your teeth. If left unchecked, the bacteria in the biofilm can eventually eat into the enamel of your teeth, creating a hole. Once inside the bacteria can cause an infection which is why you want to get cavities treated quick"
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4
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lcyhfk
|
How does tap water stay cold.
|
How does tap water in pipes stay cold even if it's like a 100° day, wouldn't you expect it to be like lukewarm right.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm2qigl"
],
"text": [
"Water pipes are buried underground. Once you get more than a yard or two below the surface, the earth has a base temp in the mid 60s Fahrenheit."
],
"score": [
8
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[
"url"
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lcykcr
|
How do we go from reading a word (sounding it out) to simply seeing a word more as a recognized symbol that our brain just sees and interprets?
|
I hope I am explaining properly, I mean how you just are able to read at a decent pace if all the words are familiar, but if a random word like IMPIGNORATE is dropped in the mix your brain has to adjust to the oddball word and actually "read" the word. Why?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"If I’m remembering correctly, over time we come to recognize words more as symbols than having to read each word out in its entirety. It’s part of why we can scramble letters in the middle of a word and still read it, as we recognize the general pattern, so long as the first and last letters are in the same place. With a random jumble of letters, it’s not a symbol we recognize and so it takes more brain power to process and understand it."
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5
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[
"url"
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[
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lcyp0f
|
How does binary work?
|
So I understand the decimal system but binary seems like magic. For example how did we figure out what 4 or 5 or V or R mean in binary? Why is 3 =10 and 4=100? Like I said it’s magic I guess lol!
|
Mathematics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"To understand how to count in binary, you have to understand how to count in decimal. Decimal notation uses 10 symbols, 0 to 9. Let's count: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Now that we've used all symbols, how do we increase the count? We use two symbols with the same logic. Counting from 0 to 9, those numbers technically have a 0 in front of them, but we do not write it. Since we've counted from 0 to 9, with a 0 in the first position, let's do that again but with the next symbol in first position, that would be the 1: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Now that we ran out of numbers again, we replace the 1 with the 2 and keep going. When we reach 99, we add a third symbol in first position using the same logic. Binary is the same thing, but with only two symbols, 0 and 1: 0 1 We need more symbols, let's go with the next one, which is 1: 10 11 Damn, we need more, let's add a third: 100 101 110 111 And it goes on. What is \"111\"? You can see it's the 8th number in my list. Since we start at 0, it translate to 7. How do we convert from letters to binary? Search for the ascii table, it's a good read!",
"Let's count in decimal. One. Two. Three. Four... Eight. Nine. Now what? We're \"full\". We add another digit, so now we go from: 9 to 10. 11, 12, 13, 14... 19, 20. In binary do the same thing. 0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111. It works the same way, but with way fewer numbers to use. As for writing letters, we must find some way of encoding them. An easy system is to say that a=1, b=2, c = 3, and so on. Other creative encryption systems exist, but that's a lot of cans of worms.",
"An important thing to remember is that the *symbol* we use to represent a thing is not the thing itself. The \"word \"dog\" is not a dog, it's just a communication device to indicate we're talking about dogs. This is true for numbers as well. Four can be represented by \"four\" (English), \"vier\" (Dutch), \\*\\*\\* (counting) \"3\" (decimal), \"IV\" (roman numerals), \"100\" (binary) and whatever other type of system you want. Both decimal and binary are [positional number systems]( URL_0 ). You have a set of symbols (ten in decimal and two in binary) that you count through, and when you reset that counter to 0 and increment the next one by one. Here are the first twelve in both decimal and binary: Number dec bin (zero) 0 0 * 1 1 ** 2 10 (binary column full: reset and inc next) *** 3 11 **** 4 100 (column full twice: two resets) ***** 5 101 ***** * 6 110 ***** ** 7 111 ***** *** 8 1000 ***** **** 9 1001 ***** ***** 10 1010 (dec column full: reset and inc next column) ***** ***** * 11 1011 ***** ***** ** 12 1100 Counting in binary is basically the same as in decimal, except the columns get full much more quickly."
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[
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lcyrcl
|
a stock bid of 105.23 - ask of 114.85 - bid/ask size of 0 x 1.4k.
|
I'm still trying to figure out what that all means. I've never seen anything like that before. Thank you all for your time, be safe.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The highest someone is willing to bid (buy) for is 105.23 The lowest someone is asking (selling) for is 114.85. That bid/ask size doesn't make any sense though. Normally you'd see it like Bid Size: 105.23 x 500 Someone is willing to buy 500 shares at 105.23 Ask Size: 114.85 x 2100 Someone is selling 2100 shares at 114.85. Also, unrelated, but if a stock ever has an $9 dollar spread something is seriously wrong or you're trading on a third world country's Stock Exchange."
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lcywxv
|
Why is there a graphics card shortage?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"There is a global shortage in the manufacturing of wafers used to make the dies for all sorts of processors, not just graphics cards. This is caused by a perfect storm of events. 1. nVidia's 20 series GPUs did not have the performance increase that most people expected so gamers held out for the next generation so there is a lot of pent up demand. 2. Next generation consoles are consuming part of the manufacturing capacity of these wafers. Smart phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are also consuming this capacity. Over the past decade, Apple has relied on Intel to produce the CPUs for it's computers. Due to many reasons, like Intel's poor performance over the past 3 or 4 CPU cycles and Apple's desire to have it's smart phone and tablet apps work on it's computers, Apple is developing their own CPUs. Apple doesn't have a factory that makes CPUs, it contracts it out to the same foundry that AMD uses. (Intel makes it's own CPUs in house). 3. COVID-19. A lot of people started to work from home, so a lot of people bought new computers last year. 4. COVID-19. As previously stated all sorts of supply chains were interrupted due to people not being able to work. 5. Yields are very low for nVidia's new process. Chips are made with a process called lithography. First a silicon crystal cylinder is grown in a lab. It's sliced into wafers 1 foot in diameter. It's bathed in a chemical that's reactive to light. An image of the CPU is projected on to the wafer, where the light shines on the wafer the chemical it's soaked in changes the electrical characteristics of the wafer, where it doesn't it stays the same. That's in a gist how the chip is made. It's not perfect, sometimes there's a defect in the silicon, sometimes the image isn't projected perfectly, we're talking about components that are 10 nanometers wide. For comparison, a stand of DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter. When they test it some functions don't work or it's not capable of running at desired clockspeeds. If this is the case then the manufacturer may decide to disable the defective part and sell it as a lower tiered component. e.g. some of the cores for what would be an intel i7 10700k don't work. They may disable part of it and turn it into an intel i3 10320 instead. Sometimes an essential component doesn't work and the entire die cannot be used. This is why AMD went with the chiplet design for it's CPUs. Each CPU is made from multiple small chiplets instead of one giant monolith. The chances of a defect being on a large monolithic die is much greater than on a small chiplet. Due to the nature of how a GPU works, it's on a relatively gigantic die compared to CPUs so it's more likely that a GPU would have a defect on it that would render it useless. 6. Crypto currency is starting to boom again, miners are once again competing with gamers in the GPU market. Miners also use special purpose processors called ASICS to mine crypto. These are purpose built chips used to mine crypto that are also tying up the manufacturing capacity for chips. Contrary to popular belief, especially in the gaming hardware subreddits like r/nvidia, r/AMD, etc there isn't a giant conspiracy among the manufacturers to limit supply. If AMD and nVidia could they'd produce as many chips as they could right now, but they can't. The shortage does not help them out in any way, especially when you see GPUs going on ebay being scalped for 2 or 3 times their MSRP. Every GPU AMD and nVidia make right now is literally printing money. If they wanted to charge 2 times the price they could and it'd still sell out.",
"There are several reasons: 1) The global pandemic has interrupted supply chains at all levels, the raw materials for the chips, the production of the components, the production of the cards themselves, etc. 2) A lot of new gaming content has been released or expected to be released soon and gamers want to upgrade to fully utilize the new games. (Demand) 3) The global pandemic has a lot more people working and schooling from home. This reduces commute time and raises non-work downtime that people didn’t have before and now want to game more. 4) GPUs still play à part in cryptocurrency mining and there will always be that ein of demand.",
"1. There are a *lot* of people who want them. That means there has to be a lot of *other* people to make them, and box them, and put them on trucks or planes or boats or trains that **other** people drive, to stores or warehouses where ***other other other*** people sort them or display them or price them, so that *other* **other** ***other*** #other# people can buy them. That's a lot of people involved! 2. In order to do all that, there's still *more other people* that have to make the boards and the wires and the solder and the boxes and the tape, *more more other people* have to mine the minerals to turn into the parts, or mill the trees to turn into the paper, etc. 3. The pandemic, or Big Sickies, means that *you can't really safely have lots of people all doing one thing,* because then they'd get sick and have to stop doing the thing. So instead of having *lots* of people all working to make the stuff to make the parts to make the cards, you only have *a little bit* of people doing it. Which means less parts get made, which means less cards get made. Less people ship then to ports or depots, less people sort them at the warehouses or ship them to the stores, less people put them on the shelves, and less people to deliver them to you, and there's less *of* them. 4. When *a whole lot* of people want A Thing, and at the *same time* there are much less of them being made, it means that pretty much ***ALL*** of the ones being made get bought up pretty much instantly."
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lcyy4n
|
How are things see through?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Three factors come into play. How messy it is, what the electrons in the substance are able to do, and what the likelihood of a collision is. To expand on them: * The structure of something on a large scale. If it's messy, it's not going to be transparent. Look at frosted glass, clouds, snow, turbulent waves, powered sugar. These are all transparent substances, but when they are messy they aren't anymore. It's at best going to be translucent (light through but no clear image) and possibly opaque. Why? Because the random shapes cause light to bend, reflect, and scatter everywhere. This ruins any image, and with enough thickness blocks lights. The end result, opaque white for all these transparent substances. This goes for a lot more too. Rocks, sand, wood, these aren't usually clean, pure, and perfect large crystals. The messiness to them makes them opaque in part. * The light is made of photons. Each photon has a given amount of energy that depends on the colour. Blue has about twice as much energy per photon than red. Radiowaves and infrared (IR) have a lot less energy than red, and ultraviolet (UV) and x-rays have a lot more energy than blue. For a photon to be absorbed, so in other words for light to be prevented from going through unimpeded, something needs to be there to take that energy. Metals block and reflect radiowaves through to ultraviolet, simply because the electrons free to conduct electricity can also respond to light. Metals are universally opaque across the spectrum, until you start to into x-rays and gamma rays. With something like glass where the electrons are tighter bound, they can only absord certain amounts of energy. They're Goldilocks electrons. For glass, it simply can't absord visible light. It's just not the right amount of energy for the electrons in glass, so the visible light just passes right by. Glass however can absorb IR and UV just fine, it's opaque to them. Glass will reduce sunburn very well, and a thermal camera won't see through it. It's not a one stop answer, it a complex and unique property of every single material with no golden rule about density, phase, etc. It's also not some single threshold where a short or long wavelength go through or whatnot. And it's not just solids. Even gases. You think the air is transparent, and it is, to visible light. You know global warming? This is because the atmosphere actually isn't transparent to all light, visible light is just a good window in it. Visible light from the sun comes in, heats up the earth, the earth radiates infrared back to space, but CO2, water, methane and other gases in the atmosphere actually block some IR so it can't escape back to space, giving earth a blanket. A blanket that we are making thicker. * The likely hood of the light actually hitting something. This is why you can see some light through a sheet of paper but not wood. There's enough holes in the fibres that you can see some light through a sheet of paper. When it gets thicker, the odds of the light making it through consecutive holes gets lower and lower. But there's more to this as well. Note your microwave oven has a lot holes in the door, about half the visible light gets out because of these holes. But almost none of the microwaves (also light of longer wavelength) get through. It's not just about there being holes or not, it's the size of the holes relative to the wavelength too. You can go to x-rays and gamma rays (very short wavelengt light), and most of a solid object is a hole. They basically need to strike the inner electrons around an atom or the nucleus itself to be absorbed, otherwise they pass on by with nothing to take there massive amount of energy (see the previous point). Lead can stop gamma rays so well simply because it is really dense, so packs more atoms for a gamma ray to hit in the same area.",
"Metals at least have a certain frequency (plasma frequency) above which light is transmitted through rather than reflected off- this is how you can see through aluminium etc. with x-rays, which are just really high frequency light. That said, some clear plastics are opaque under blacklight even though UV light is higher frequency than visible as the molecules interact more strongly with the higher energy photons- so it's all to do with whether the molecules in the substance interact with the specific frequencies of visible light or not."
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lczilg
|
- Why do we get the munchies when we smoke marijuana?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm33282"
],
"text": [
"Here are a couple reasons in brief: 1) a subset of brain cells (POMC neurons) that typically signal \"I'm full\" switch to an \"I'm hungry/craving\" signal. 2) An increase in dopamine makes eating more enjoyable. 3) An increased level of the \"I'm hungry\" hormone (ghrelin) is pumped out. So you not only feel hungry, but giving into the craving has high reward."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lcziuz
|
Why do our mouths water when we see something tasty?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm2xr93"
],
"text": [
"The brain turns on body things before hand, so it’s ready to go the moment you need it. Saliva lubricates the mouth and such so the food slides down, and also starts the digestion process. When you look at food, your brain thinks you’re about to eat, so it turns on the saliva system."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lczs6f
|
What do the owners gain when they give part ownership of a company to an investor during an IPO?
|
I might be wrong here but how i understand it is the owner gives away part ownership to an investor for money in an IPO which essentially belongs to the company . What do the owners get to gain in this? They lose both ownership and the money is not their to spend either.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm2zmqm",
"gm2zjq4",
"gm30098"
],
"text": [
"They get money to allow their company to do things they want it to do...\"working capital\". They can hire employees, buy equipment, etc. Those are things that they presumably desire to allow their company to become more successful, making their *remaining* ownership of the company more valuable. Without enough working capital, a young company sometimes cannot survive. 50% of something is worth more than 100% of nothing.",
"You are right, it’s not their money to spend, it’s the company’s money to spend. That said, it is money that will hopefully make the company better. They get the cash they need to make their company better in the long run, and hopefully that betters the company to the point where the profit from the stake they gave up is far outweighed by the additional profits they bring in from that investment. IPOs ideally work when the public thinks the company is better than it actually is and is willing to funnel money into it for not necessarily a large stake. Do note that the additional money raised weirdly increases the valuation of the company, and thus the valuation of the stake the owners have remaining. If a company raises say 10 million during an IPO, that company is worth 10 million more than it was the previous day.",
"The two main reasons for an IPO — it generates funds for the business to use in growing/operating, and it allows founders and investors to recoup their investments/cash out. Much of the proceeds go into the company to allow it to fund expansion or give it more runway as it tries to grow toward profitability. Investors who put money in prior to an IPO, like angel investors and a venture Capital firms, typically want to see returns in their money in 3-5 years so they can move on to the next investment. That could be an acquisition or it could be an IPO. And it’s a way for the founders to have access to cash rather than just having paper wealth tied into their company. It’s a lot harder to buy mansions in SF or Ferraris with privately held shares. By going public, founders can start recouping their sweat equity into cold hard cash. They may place some of their personal shares into the IPO and then may set regular sales of stock once their lock-up period expires."
],
"score": [
10,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lcztb4
|
If our brains do not have pain receptors, how does it seem like we want to split our skull when we get migraines or headaches?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm2zcug",
"gm3ehle",
"gm3my29",
"gm32k60",
"gm3vzxm",
"gm3yioy",
"gm3zv7n",
"gm3uflp",
"gm3wq3u",
"gm47cg2",
"gm6b0xp"
],
"text": [
"While the brain itself doesn't have pain receptors, it is surrounded by networks of muscle, membranes, blood vessels, and the like. That's what experiences the pain instead.",
"The protective layers of the brain, the meninges, have a ton of pain receptors, and they are pretty sensible. In the case of headaches or injury, the swelling may compress them and cause the pain. Edit: thanks for the silver, kind stranger!",
"Migraines or headaches are mostly perceived through a specific nerve - the trigeminal nerve. This nerve innervates (or ends at) the meninges - which are like a layer of skin that protects your brain. These meninges DO have pain receptors and the signal of pain can be transported via the trigeminal nerve into your brain. Usually **headaches** are caused by irritation or traction of the meninges or the surrounding tissue (e.g. blood vessels). Now, **migraine** episodes are a little bit different and are not fully understood. It is however believed that these episodes or attacks are also caused by sudden irritation of blood vessels, meninges, or maybe a general malfunctioning of specific brain areas.",
"[Referred Pain]( URL_0 .) Basically since the organ doesn't have pain receptors, it finds something that does and makes *that* hurt. That said, headaches and migraines aren't actually cause by your brain. It's the muscles on your head that ache.",
"Oh boy! I've literally just finished my dissertation on this... Well actually it focused on Posture and Cervicogenic headaches (still a hot topic of debate in the research community) ELI5: staring at your lap all day (phone, laptop) over a long time causes changes in the structure of your neck and how they tell the brain what is painful. Elaboration: Most of my research was based around the relationship between Posture and headaches. Specifically Upper Crossed Syndrome (UCS) and forward head posture (FHP). Both of which are postural adaptations with a gradual onset. FHP is usually seen as extension of the upper cervical spine (C0-C3) flexion of the lower cervical spine. The C2-C3 area is where the trigeminal and occipital nerves \"meet\" (for lack of a better word) and pain information from both nerves can get mixed up, referring pain to the head (occipital) and face (trigeminal) Disclaimer: my approach to this topic was based on my knowledge of anatomy and physiology as a sports therapist and so my total understanding of the neurophysiology of the brain and neural interactions in the spinal cord is far below that of any pain specialist",
"Not a doctor, but I am a chronic migraine sufferer and this is how it's been explained to me. Migraines are different, in that they aren't headaches, they are neurological conditions with symptoms that manifest as headaches. I get the normal headache/nausea/aura kind but I also have vestibular migraine than manifests as a severe ear infection-like pain plus vertigo/nausea/confusion. It seems like (and I'm being vague because migraines aren't super well understood) the migraine is your brain screwing up and attacking/misfiring various nerves. So it's not the brain hurting, it's the brain getting its signals very crossed and causing other parts of you to suffer. There are also ocular migraines and abdominal migraines.",
"The brain is surrounded by a tough, fibrous capsule called Dura Mater. Think of an orange, the skin/rind is like the skull and hair bearing scalp; but, there’a always that thin, whitish fiber-like layer that’s tough but never comes off in one piece. That is chock full of nerve endings and irritation of this can lead to the splitting headache sensation. Source: MD (not Facebook memes).",
"When you are dehydrated your brain shrinks from the lack of water. This causes the membrane that surrounds the brain (meninges) to pull away from the inner skull. While the brain has no pain receptors, the meninges and scalp do. The more dehydrated you get, the more your meninges pulls away from your skull causing your headache pain.",
"I had a .5kg brain tumour removed. The brain doesn’t hurt. Everything else they do hurts as expected. The brain swelling provides plenty of emotional and vulnerability pain.",
"A doctor explained to my husband that during a migraine blood vessels constrict and that it's kind of like having a mini-seizure.",
"Fun fact , I’m part of the small percentage of the population that doesn’t receive headaches. 31 years old and I’ve still never had one- but I definitely sympathize for those who do."
],
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11,
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3
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[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.healthline.com/health/pain-relief/referred-pain#:~:text=Referred%20pain%20is%20when%20the,triggering%20pain%20in%20your%20jaw"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld02ec
|
How do helicopters descend in altitude while still remaining in the air?
|
Like, I don't get it. How do they lower their altitude without dropping to the ground altogether?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3171l",
"gm30rno"
],
"text": [
"Say a helicopter weighs 1000 units. To ascend it creates 1100 units of lift or more. To descend it creates 900 units of lift or less. To dead fall it generates 0 units of lift.",
"They can change the amount of lift the blades supply by changing the angle of the blade as it rotates. Airfoils like helicopter blades are curved on the top and flat on the bottom to create lift but if they're angled downward enough it will start to create 'lift' on the bottom and reduce the lift on top."
],
"score": [
17,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld03c2
|
Why does milk taste so satisfying after something like cookies or cake?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm31jho"
],
"text": [
"Milk contains fat and water, which is a great solvent for the sweet items to dissolve into. It's great for blunting the richness of a cookie or slice of cake, which makes the experience more pleasant overall."
],
"score": [
98
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld0hkw
|
How does Google Maps get its traffic data?
|
As a kid, I always assumed there were sensors or something but in hindsight that makes no sense
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm33a8n",
"gm33aes",
"gm336w5"
],
"text": [
"From users phones. If you detect tons of phone in the same spot on the highway, not moving, you can assume there's traffic. A guy redirected traffic last year using that technique: URL_0",
"Google Maps tracks you in the background of your phone. They can estimate traffic based on how quickly or slowly a large group of users is moving.",
"It was explained to me that they use cell phone info. Not sure if that means the tracking of all phones per area or if that means data usage per area though I believe the same method is used for google to track pedestrian traffic in stores, like when you see the bar graph showing how busy Walmart is by the hour"
],
"score": [
8,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-maps-hack-trick-berlin-street-shut-down-video-traffic-a9315426.html%3famp"
],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld13gr
|
Why do whales die on beaches even though they need atmospheric oxygen to survive?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm374az",
"gm36vsq",
"gm3b698"
],
"text": [
"Whales are adapted to have their body weight supported by water. Without water to hold them up, their bodies are too heavy to breathe effectively.",
"It's partly because of strength problems. The vast majority of whales will sink to the ocean floor, but those who are drifted toward the shore won't have the strength to fight the tide and get back to the deeper sea/ocean, nor will they have the strength to power them back there once they realise they're washed up on the shore.",
"Often the whales that beach themselves have some kind of issue (illness or infection) already. So they're not healthy. But they don't die from suffocation (lack of air), the normally overheat and die from dehydration and heat stroke. That's why rescue organisations say to keep cooling them down with water until skilled help arrives."
],
"score": [
23,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld1a7w
|
" If i take pain killers, why does it still hurt if someone punches me?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm37zgp"
],
"text": [
"This depends on the painkiller in question, because not all painkillers work the same way. For example advil and excedrin work by inhibiting the body's production of pain causing chemicals. Narcotics work by just activating the body's feel good pathways to distract from pain and cause euphoria. With enough narcotics a person would basically be incapable of feeling pain from lets say a punch. However there's no dose of advil that would prevent that punch from causing pain because inhibiting the body's pain causing chemicals is a long term process that wouldn't work fast enough to prevent the sudden onset of a punch."
],
"score": [
13
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld1u8k
|
How do historians differentiate between what were just settlements and what are civilizations?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3de8f"
],
"text": [
"A settlement is a place where people lived semi-permanently. A civilisation is a population (or at least a ruling class) with a shared history and culture, often but not necessarily linked to a specific geographic area or region. It can range from as vague as the \"Indus Valley Civilisation\"; a very loose term to describe settlements in that region with a (presumably) shared language and ancestry; to \"Hellenic Greece\"; a much more specific catalogue of architectural style, language, religion, writings, and history; depending on how much we actually know about it. The terms describe different things; a settlement is a physical thing whereas a civilisation is something more abstract that has to be defined, and neither is necessarily predicated on the other. When a settlement is newly discovered by archeologists establishing that it is indeed an ancient settlement can be easy; there may be signs of walls, tools, fireplaces, produced items like pottery, etc. Establishing what civilisation it was part of takes longer because you have to cross reference everything you find with existing catalogues to figure out which civilisation it most closely matches within that time period and region. Sometimes you find things that don't quite match anything, which can be evidence for a newly discovered civilisation or regional sub-populace, or of the kind of cultural mixing you'd see in a trade or border settlement."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld27i1
|
Suppose your house caught on fire and all your forms of ID (passport, drivers license etc. ) and your bank cards get burned with it. How do you go to the bank to withdraw money without any form of ID?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3e3ox"
],
"text": [
"You'd probably have to start out getting a birth certificate, then with that you should be able to get a social security card, then with those two you should be able to get your drivers license replaced, then with those three you should be able to get your passport replaced."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld28n6
|
Why do ground wires work, if electricity only flows through conductors and to conductors and the earth isn't one?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3dgtc",
"gm4plee"
],
"text": [
"The earth is a great absorber of electricity, even the ocean is. If not lightening wouldn't work like it does. That's why ground wires work.",
"Ok some wrong info posted in comments here. Hopefully this will help. It ASSUMES US grid. The electricity from the pole passes through a transformer (at the/a pole) to get to the correct voltage (typically several times higher voltage at the pole than the house). That transformer has a \"center tap\" wire to earth ground. See: URL_0 )%22%20as%20you%20suggest. & text=The%20role%20of%20the%20MGN,back%20to%20the%20substation%20transformer for details So a single phase current passing through an alternate path (like you) to ground, can and will, have a path to return to the pole. Older panels used to have ground and neutral wires share a bus bar, newer panels use a separate bus bar for each of them. In either case the wire at the pole transformer provides a path back."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/how-is-a-pole-mounted-transformer-wired.604429/#:~:text=So%20yes%2C%20all%20the%20pole,MGN"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld2bmc
|
Why is it that whenever we are doing something alone we often do it flawlessly, but when someone is there we make a ton of mistakes?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3epho",
"gm3h5t3",
"gm3dz9d",
"gm3fphi",
"gm3hlel",
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],
"text": [
"I think of it like, on our own the only person we have to impress, or even consider, is ourselves. Whereas as soon as someone is there you start considering their perception in the equation. Super simple personal example, when I go hiking with my husband at one particular place I always get tired and say we should turn around after 40ish minutes. A few weeks ago, I went by myself. I did the whole loop in 2 hours and enjoyed it. I realized with him I kept trying to keep up when he was going fast and then worrying that later I'll go slow or what if I get tired further into the hike etc and so it was easier to admit defeat and just go home. On my own...only I would even know if I got super tired and had to take a long break or slow down. So all I had to focus on was one foot in front of the other, and enjoying the scenery.",
"This is called the Audience Effect. The full finding of psychologists is that if we are well practiced and skillful at something, we do better with an audience (social facilitation). If we are not well practiced or skillful at something, we do worse with an audience (social inhibition.) It is related to the Yerkes–Dodson law which found that how well we perform a task is related to our level of arousal. We do better the more aroused we are... Up to a point. Past that point, more arousal becomes more and more detrimental to performance. So, with a well practiced task, alone, we are not aroused. The audience arouses us and makes us perform the task better. With a not well practiced task, alone, we are aroused already, fearing we will fail. Adding an audience only arouses us further and pushes us past the tipping point of peak performance from arousal and into decreasing performance. Sorry for not ELI5 ing that well... I am super tired. But, I hope they leads you in the right direction.",
"I had the same question a while ago. I’ve found, at least within myself, that when we have people around us we may be subliminally preoccupied by their presence and when alone we have solitude maybe less pressure.",
"Stress, distraction, perhaps just a coincidence. Its always a bit distracting and stressful having someone standing over your shoulder watching you do something. Especially when there's a risk of messing up involved it always seems to go wrong when someone is watching. I've heard people in construction trades like plumbing joke about how they charge double the price if the customer is gonna stand around staring at them.",
"Read *The Inner Game of Tennis*—the author, a sports psychologist, explains in detail a phenomenon he observed with his students. As they played, he would give them advice on how to improve their play, simple things like, “turn your racket over more on your forehand swing,” and his student would do it to much or not at all, but almost always hit the ball worse while he was actively giving them feedback. There are two minds acting inside you when you’re doing a kinesthetic activity. One mind is a natural, does the task like it was made to do it; the other mind is analytical, curious, experimenting with how to do the task better. The latter is tuned into social hierarchy and wants to win to demonstrate self-worth. The former is tuned into the task, doesn’t have a desire to do better or worse than anyone, just to get the task done. When you’re alone, that second mind isn’t distracted by how it looks to other people or thinking about how it ranks in competition, and it’s able to cooperate better with that first mind, who’s more of a natural, intuitive in doing the thing, and it can offer dispassionate, useful feedback. When someone else is there, that second mind may get distracted, egotistical, caught up in fear over position in the hierarchy relative to the other person in the room. “Am I doing this right? Would they do it differently? Are they better at this than I am? Are they getting bored? Why can’t I fucking do this with them there?” All the chatter of that second mind overrides the ability for that first mind, the natural, to succeed in doing the task. The thing is, with awareness and training over how these two parts of self interact with the outside world, it’s possible to be really good at that thing you’re really good at when you’re alone when you’re around other people, too.",
"It has a scientific term: social facilitation. When we do a simple task in the presence of others, we want to impress them and be part of the group. But when we do a difficult/complex task, those same persons will make us do a lot of mistakes. We are distracted by them: we want to impress them (thus we are giving them attention) but at the same time, the task needs our full attention as well. If you want to learn more about it, you can search for the scientific term. There is a lot more theory behind it, but this it the gist of it."
],
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19,
7,
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4,
3
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld2svl
|
Is it possible to harness energy from cold weather?
|
I was on a rabbit hole on vertical farming and found myself wondering about renewable energy sources, and wondered if anyone has ever successfully tried using the cold to gather energy.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3ge12"
],
"text": [
"Cold is the relative absence of energy, so that's not going to work 😋 From a certain perspective, we do use cold to generate energy, in that things like heat pumps couldn't work without both a hot and a cold side; but the actual energy is always extracted from the heat."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld3hur
|
how can light heat up things? How do photons travel with energy without having mass? AaaaAAaa
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3k718"
],
"text": [
"Because photon has energy. Just because it doesn't have mass doesn't mean it can't hit atoms like a billiard ball jiggling them around which is them \"heating\". Because photons have no mass their ONLY option is to travel speed of light because there is nothing to slow them down (Higgs field)."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld42nr
|
Why do we have technology to heat things up really quickly but we don’t have technology to cool things down that quickly?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3mkkn",
"gm3mz3g"
],
"text": [
"Having a hard time posting it but this tech already exists. They're called flash freezers and they do what you're looking for, though they aren't as efficient freezing as a microwave is heating.",
"It's much easier to turn energy into heat. It happens even we don't want to. We could freeze things very rapidly if we would had something like liquid nitrogen at hand. But storing that could be dangerous and very inconvenient at home."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld4hd9
|
If we were able to see electromagnetic waves, what would they look like?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3oiyz",
"gm3p5lr",
"gm3piim"
],
"text": [
"We can see them (or at least some of them) they are called visible light, or basically normal vision.",
"As /u/MJMurcott says, we can see some kind of EM wave, namely light. All EM wave is basically the same apart from frequency. [This]( URL_1 ) video apparently shows light at an insane amount of FPS, which is what very low frequency EM waves would look life if our eyes were \"tuned\" to that frequency range. I know it sounds unbelievable that we have a video of actual light, but it's apparently [backed by Caltech]( URL_0 ).",
"You do see electromagnetic waves. To be really technical, they are the only thing that you see. The light that you see is a certain range of electromagnetic waves. Humans can only see a certain range of electromagnetic waves in the same way that we can only hear a certain range of sound. There are sounds that dogs can hear but are too high pitched for humans to hear. There are other sounds that are too low pitched for humans to hear but that whales can hear. We can't really say what they would sound like to us because the sound they make is just our interpretation of that sound wave. Since our brains can't interpret them, they don't sound like anything. If our brains could, then it would sound like whatever our brain interpreted them as. Vision and electromagnetic waves are the exact same way. Basically, if we were to start seeing more of the spectrum, our brains would have to come up with new things to see. It is basically impossible to imagine a new color, so ultimately we really can't say."
],
"score": [
18,
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/ultrafast-camera-takes-1-trillion-frames-second-transparent-objects-and-phenomena",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ys_yKGNFRQ"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld4yvg
|
Why copying 1x4000MB file is much faster than copying 4000x1MB file?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3r1xc",
"gm3zila",
"gm3xnpw",
"gm5p186",
"gm5qcup",
"gm4qm2c"
],
"text": [
"Imagine you are sending out presents to a friend. Two options: 1: Make a giant box and throw everything in. Wrap it in gift paper. 2: Individually wrap each present. Option one is faster because you spend less time wrapping the gifts. The work required to wrap the gifts is called “overhead”. Back to computers. The transfer of files has the same overhead, consisting of, but not limited to: - access times on the reading and writing target - lookup of metadata to be transferred - interruptions on the transfer bus Hope this breaks it down for you 😊",
"The computer needs to write down the locations where it decides to store each file, so it can remind itself later where each one is when asked to find it again.",
"this has been answered, but i guess i throw in the analogy i use for that: if you have to drive 100 kilometres, it's faster to accelerate to 100 once and just keep going until you completed the distance, compared to accelerating to 100, then stopping, then accelerating to 100 again, then stopping again, and so on until you completed 100km.",
"Its the difference between doing a 4000 lap race in a car and doing 4000 1 lap races and getting in a different car every race. The second one is gonna take more time cuz your stopping to get a different car every race",
"File access is sloooow. Copying 4000 1MB files takes the same amount of time to copy the sum total of those files with the added overhead of 3999 file access operations.",
"This had a lot to do with the file system used too (FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc). Without going into too much detail, these systems describe where files and their contents are located on a storage device. A very simplified example would be putting away files in a filing cabinet. Think of a set of index cards describing where your various files are located. If you only have one really large file, you have a single index card that says “stored in cabinet #1, drawer #1”. Need another copy of that file? Get one additional index card and write down a new location on that card and then throw the whole file in a copy machine and put it in the new location Now, instead of having one file, you now have 100 files. You now have 100 index cards that all contain the cabinet in which each of the files are stored. Want to make a copy of that information? You now have to find and count 100 index cards. You then have to write down new locations on each of those 100 index cards, you have to then throw 100 individual files into a copy machine and then you have to put each new copy of a file in the new location. It takes a lot longer. Actually, file systems work a lot like that. They have reference tables (e.g. iNode tables) that work conceptually a lot like index cards (overly simplified of course)."
],
"score": [
140,
5,
5,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld56zf
|
Why does a ball travel farther when someone throws or kicks it to someone and they hit it back rather than when it’s just doing nothing and they hit it?
|
I was watching football (soccer) and I wondered why the ball went farther when it was kicked to someone then someone kicked it back, rather than just like at kick off, is it something to do with physics or something or is it just like the wind??
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3sm8b"
],
"text": [
"The ball is already moving at a high speed before it's being accelerated into a different direction by the second player. A part of that initial kinetic energy is transformed into potential energy (the elastic deformation of the ball) and released as kinetic energy with a different direction once again when the ball \"springs\" back into shape. That means part of the initial kinetic energy is *added* to the kinetic energy given to the ball by the second player."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld5ay7
|
Why do our legs start shacking randomly when tiptoed?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3w3th",
"gm3wica"
],
"text": [
"Muscle Spasms You are using muscles that aren't typically used and thus they are underdeveloped and straining. Same thing happens if you try to lift something really heavy and hold it for awhile. Or, lay on your back and hold your leg up in the air. It will start to shake. It's the muscle struggling to stay contracted. This can be fixed or stopped by more usage and stretching.",
"IIRC our leg muscles have a difficult time supporting our leg at specific angles. Similar to how carrying a heavy object for prolonged periods of time can lead to intense shaking on our arm."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld5tfo
|
Why were developed countries concentrated in the North and developing countries in the South?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3wasr",
"gm44drn"
],
"text": [
"This has not always been so. In medieval times the Arab countries, India and China were far more prosperous than Europe. And even in more modern times India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire primarily because it had been so prosperous just before. So your question ultimately boils down to how did Europe come to dominate the world in the colonial era, and the answer to that is a combination of military, commercial and industrial reasons which coalesced at precisely the historical era in question. This might change in the future and people will ask the same question with a different combination of cardinal directions.",
"The most straight forward reason is the distribution of land. 68% of the land is in the northern hemisphere compared to 32% in the southern hemisphere. A similar distribution occurs east vs west, with 68% of land being located in the eastern hemisphere. More simply, nothing comparable to Eurasia exists anywhere else on earth, and consequently while other continents did develop advanced civilizations such as in Egypt or the Andes, no where else had the diversity or volume of development as you saw stretching from Europe to India to China. We can zero in and get more precise if we like. For instance weather in middle latitudes tends to be far more conducive to civilization. In the tropics weather is dominated by extremes, monsoons, cyclones, and dry seasons. And the upper latitudes are dominated predominately by dryness (civilization doesn't strictly concentrate the further north you go, Siberia and upper Canada for instance). Rather it concentrates in a band around the middle latitudes, and the skewing of distribution of landmass is even more so when you compare the band of land stretching across from Spain to the Middle East and upper India to China against the comparable band in the South encompassing...really just upper Argentina, South Africa, and southern Australia. The paltry 32% of the land that is in the southern hemisphere is heavily tropical, central Africa and the Amazon in South America in particular, which is not conducive to developing civilization."
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld601s
|
Why does sugar trigger pain in sensitive teeth.
|
It makes sense that hot and cold would trigger your pain receptors because they are a sensation, but sugar? Why!?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3y4rz"
],
"text": [
"The dentin (layer under the enamel) in your teeth has small tubules filled with water. Hot and cold causes the water to expand and contract, which is what causes the pain due to a temperature shift. Sugar is hydroscopic, which means it attracts water. Sugar can cause the water in the tubules to move, similar to temperature changes. The outer layer of your teeth is enamel, which doesn’t have the same structure. Usually it protects the dentin from changes in temperature / external stimuli. When the enamel breaks down, due to a cavity (or something else), it exposes the dentin to your oral cavity. This is super oversimplified, but ELI5.... Source: I’m a dentist. If you have more specific questions just ask."
],
"score": [
15
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld6j4a
|
You know how sometimes you can't remember the name of a song or something but can't recall it so you stop thinking about it but inevitably a little later the name just pops into your head? How does it do that?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm3z5hy"
],
"text": [
"When you are thinking of something, your brain is using energy and focus to do that. And just like you and me, not the best at multitasking. And when you can’t think of a song, it kind of “sticks” in your brain because the brain does not like loose ends. Why does it suddenly pop into your head later? Because while you aren’t ACTIVELY trying to think of it, your brain is still working on that problem subconsciously. And sometimes there is an imperceptible trigger during your day and POW suddenly you shout out “Baba O’Riley! That’s the song!”"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld6l9h
|
how does water go stale?
|
if you leave water in a drink bottle, overnight it tastes weird. Why? surely nothing can get in a sealed drink bottle?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm42kq5"
],
"text": [
"If you’ve drunk that water in the evening, then over the night the bacteria from your mouth which entered the water in the bottle will multiply and feed on whatever nutrients they can find in it. Feeding produces waste, so the weird taste of that water in the morning is basically bacteria poop."
],
"score": [
13
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld70tn
|
How do taste buds change over time so some foods taste gross when you’re a kid but delicious when you become an adult?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4642t",
"gm42j97"
],
"text": [
"I believe it is an evolutionary advantage that prevents babies and small children from consuming poisonous substances. Generally, the foods that children don't like are bitter (e.g. coffee), which is the taste of many poisons such as ricin and cyanide, sour (sauerkraut, kimchi), which is the taste of many spoilt/rotten foods which contain harmful bacteria, blue cheeses (again, potentially harmful bacteria), alcohol (which in itself is poison).",
"I'm not sure if your asking about the physiology of the tastebuds, but as an ELI5 answer: Your ability to detect bitterness decreases as you age. Things that tasted bitter as a child don't taste so bad when you are older. Many vegetables, coffee, and beer are some good examples of things that kids don't generally like but adults do."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld73gm
|
How do peanuts grow to be loose inside their shell?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm42gem"
],
"text": [
"They don't grow loose, they are attached to their shell before being dried. That's also the case for your regular nut. and IIRC, they are also a bit bigger before being dried."
],
"score": [
15
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld8et9
|
How do scientists know if species are extinct when there's no way they have searched the whole planet?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4bklp",
"gm4cd8q",
"gm4dy87"
],
"text": [
"All scientific statements are always \"to the best of our knowledge\". Science is always willing to be proven wrong. When a study concludes that a species is extinct, that means that it's extinct *as far as we can tell*. If more members of that species are discovered later, then the study was just wrong and it's not extinct after all (but if only a handful are found and no more, then it's \"about to go extinct\").",
"Disregard the science-denying idiot that seems to be implying some sort of hollow earth conspiracy. Generally when a species is critically endangered, their habitat is heavily constrained geographically. This means there's no reason to search the entire world, and species that do exist all over the world are at no risk of extinction. Extinction is only declared after an exhaustive search of all known habitats, which doesn't require searching the entire world at all.",
"The truth is they don't know 100%, just that all the evidence they have points to that animal being extinct. Which is what science is based on, conclusions drawn from the available evidence. Take the Dodo for example. They were found only on Mauritius and there was loads of them. We never found any elsewhere in the world, nor have we found traces of them to indicate they lived anywhere but on this island. Since 1681 there have been no documented encounters with a Dodo, and Mauritius isn't all that big compared to other landmasses, so it would be hard to miss. The Dodo was also a flightless bird that preferred to keep to the forest, only occasionally venturing into the coast, which basically means it couldn't have gotten itself to another island. You also need to know that this is not a conclusion drawn from lack of evidence they're around. A popular saying is that \"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence\", so other clues lend credence to the Dodos unfortunate extinction. While there were no natural predators on Mauritius, the animals there were still in competition with one another, be it for food, shelter, or water. So the increase in the population of other animals mean that they had more access to those resources owing to one of its competitors no longer being around to use them up. There's a very slim possibility enough of them made it to some undiscovered corner of the world, still untouched by human hands, but in an era of global commercial travel and satellite imagery it's such a tiny chance you may as well be asking to be struck by lightning, twice, on the day you win the National Lottery Jackpot. Science, however, doesn't draw conclusions from slim possibilities."
],
"score": [
11,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld8rk5
|
Why do some tears fall when we yawn and watery eyes when some go pee?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4mys5"
],
"text": [
"I’m sorry, did you just say your eyes water when you pee?"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ld8vny
|
how does heat compress reduce/remove abscess
|
One of the recommendations when you get an abscess is to apply a heat compress 2-3x a day for 20ish minutes. How does the heat help? I've personally experienced it work, but how?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4oag8",
"gm5u9jb"
],
"text": [
"Heat increases circulation that allow your immune system to get to the site of the infection then drain away whats left over.",
"It either helps your body reabsorb the abscess by helping more white blood cells get access to the abscess and essentially eat it up, or favors the “riping” of the abscess which means it gets more concentrated and closer to the surface. That makes it easier to drain and relieve the pressure, and allows you to let it heal with a tiny wound"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld9bgn
|
Why can it be difficult to fall asleep when you’re hungry?
|
I notice even if I’m the slightest bit hungry, I’ll have trouble falling asleep. However, I don’t like to eat too close to bed time due to acid reflux in the morning. What is happening in our body that tells us “now is not the best time to sleep” when we’re hungry?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5h8ys"
],
"text": [
"Your body is deliberately keeping you awake so you can go and forage for food! Sleeplessness/insomnia is a real side effect of losing weight...your body is like \"yo, low on energy, I'd better keep you awake so you can go find some food.\" I'm sure this was a great thing for our hunter/gatherer ancestors...now that we've secured our food supply, not so great."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ld9jmn
|
why the peach fuzz on my bald head can’t grow into its flowing mane former glory.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4q8js",
"gm4zfxw"
],
"text": [
"Because the follicles died or weakened. So the cells that produce hair are either gone or few and far between and are only able to produce a bit of the hair strand before they tire out, get damaged and die.",
"The follicles on your head are sensitive to a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). When you have a lot of DHT, the follicles aren't able to absorb nutrients from your blood stream and they produce weaker and weaker stands of hair until the hair can no longer push through your skin. There are medications that can block DHT. The most common is finasteride (marketed in the US as Propecia), but dutasteride is a popular alternative in other countries. These meds will stop, or at least slow down, balding. In some cases, hair will regrow where the follicles aren't completely dead. They may begin getting the nutrients they need again to grow thicker stands of hair."
],
"score": [
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lda4la
|
How do our memory "split" information? Why do sometimes we remember the face of someone but we can't remember where we saw it? Or when we know the shape of an object but can't remember its color? Shouldn't all the proper information be stored "together"?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4o00x"
],
"text": [
"How memory works is still a topic of really active research, but what we do know is that it does \\*not\\* work like a video recorder or computer file. We don't \"record\" our sensory inputs to a storage medium to replay later. We appear to remember events by establishing links between related concepts that are already in memory (and creating new concepts when necessary). So, for example, if you see a big red dog for the first time (let's call him Clifford), you might create a new memory called \"Clifford\" and then establish connections/pointers/associations to \"big\", \"red\", and \"dog\", which are presumably already in your memory. If one of those links doesn't get setup right, or doesn't get reinforced enough to \"set\", or fades over time, you may lose \\*that portion\\* of the association but not the others. So you might remember than Clifford is a big dog but not remember what colour he was."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldanmi
|
What would happen to clothes if you stored them in a plastic bin for 100 years?
|
Would they still be wearable when you took them out? Which types of clothes would be wearable? Jeans? Cotton t shirts? I’ve heard that oxidation might yellow the clothing. How much oxidation would happen in an enclosed plastic bin? Is oxidation reversible?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4soq2",
"gm4v3dc"
],
"text": [
"I know that wool clothes, stored in a wooden chest for between 50-75 years are perfectly wearable. They smelled horrible, but cleaning took care of that. Also, the buttons all fell off, so that had to be fixed as well. Perhaps this suggests how cotton might age?",
"Any contaminants on the clothes will cause them to age faster. Dirt, grease, and acid from skin contact will make them break down faster. Regular washing doesn't remove all of this, which is why clothes or towels that have been stored for a long time have a weird smell. Cotton will break down faster than wool or silk. Plastic isn't the best storage container because carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water can actually pass through many types of plastic. If you leave a plastic bottle of soda unopened for a long time, it will eventually go flat. If you really want something to last 100 years, put it inside of a metal container."
],
"score": [
9,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldbc4y
|
If the sun emits pure white light, why does the sun seem yellowish (as opposed to, say, bluish)?
|
Is it because it’s a main sequence star and not a gas giant or dwarf star?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm4u9ja",
"gm4tmt6",
"gm5tfyj"
],
"text": [
"The gases in the atmosphere scatter some blue light, leaving a slightly yellowed spectrum behind. This gets more pronounced the lower the sun is in the sky, putting more air in the way. As for why the sun is “white” - your eyes have evolved to perfectly color-correct the sun’s spectrum. You perceive sunlight as colorless, but it actually peaks in the green. On pure spectrum analysis from some alien robot, the sun is green.",
"Because the sky is blue. Seriously, when the white sunlight hits our atmosphere, some of it gets scattered and spread out by the air (specifically nitrogen) in our atmosphere, specifically the blue wavelengths. So the light that actually does make it to the ground is tinted slightly yellow because some of the blue is missing and scattered in the sky. If this scattering didn’t happen, the sky would be black like it is on the moon.",
"There's two elements to this question: (1) Why does the sun appear yellow?, and (2) What do we mean when we say the sun is white? The sun appears yellow from the ground because the short wavelengths of light are scattered by the atmosphere. If you have white light—that is, all the colors mixed together—and you separate out the shorter wavelengths, the blues, indigos, violets (which our eyes are not very sensitive to), you're left with a combination of the wavelengths that remain, which is what we perceive the sun to be, yellowish. So this would mean that the more atmosphere the light passes through, the more scattering, and the more intense the effect, which is why the sun appears more yellow as it gets lower in the sky, until it transitions into the oranges and orange-red at sunset. This doesn't *necessarily* mean that we perceive the sky as blue, though. When the sun is low and most shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, that's when the sky is *least* blue, right? Blue sky is associated not with sunset, but with other times of day. What's going on? Actually, the sky *is* blue at sunset, it's just that around the sun the blue frequencies are overwhelmed by other colors that are being refracted, not scattered. If you look at other parts of the sky during a sunset, you'll see that it is very blue…it's just not the most interesting part of the sky since we see blue all day, and even though it's the most intensely blue at sunset, the other colors are also very intense so it doesn't seem so to us. What do we mean when we say the sun is white, though? If you go into space above the atmosphere, the sun does indeed appear white…but is it? No, actually, the sun does not emit a flat range of frequencies through the visible spectrum, it peaks in the blue-greens. If there's more blue-green light coming through, then, when we view the sun from space why doesn't it appear blue-green? The answer is [more to do with our eyes than the sun]( URL_3 ). Hang on…doesn't the answer to this second question **refute** the answer to the first? We just got done explaining how the sun isn't a flat combination of colors, that it peaks in the blue-greens—doesn't that mean if you take scatter away the blues what's left would appear green, not yellow? Yes it does! But notice in the video that [our eyes are more sensitive to red than green]( URL_2 ), and what happens when you mix red and green? [Yellow]( URL_0 ). But even this is just one factor, and this is really more relevant as the sun dips in the sky and there's more of that blue scattering going on. There's another factor at work. When you judge the color of the sun when it's high in the sky, your impression is that it's yellow…but is it? If you do that experiment we use to view a solar eclipse and poke a hole and project the sun onto a bright white sheet of paper, if the sun were yellow, the image of it projected on the paper would appear yellow…does it? No, not really. It appears white. So, when it's high in the sky and going through the least atmosphere, the scattering effect isn't strong enough to color (literally) our perception. Yet, we still think of the sun as yellow. Some people will still say once you take the experiment away and just look around, it's yellow How can it be white *and* yellow? The answer goes back to the blue sky. In this case, we are seeing a kind of optical illusion. If you take a small white object and surround it by a field of blue, that affects the color we perceive the white object to be. Specifically, we tend to notice *the difference* in color. This is not a physical perception of our eyes, but rather an interpretation that happens in the brain. This isn't limited just our eyes, either—see [my previous post]( URL_1 ) on this."
],
"score": [
12,
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ed0f013a964ff0ef4506b63b2333607e",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/atcf5o/eli5_how_can_the_color_spectrum_be_wrapped_into_a/eh0l4sh",
"https://youtu.be/m8GXpk8PZ-o?t=119",
"https://youtu.be/m8GXpk8PZ-o"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldcvq9
|
What is Critical Race Theory and why do a lot of people call it "racist"
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm53w5n"
],
"text": [
"It's basically the theory that our society's laws and legal institutions are inherently based on white supremacy, as is our concept of race, and that to make a better, more equal society would require major alterations to our society from the ground up. Some people find the idea of saying \"All of our laws are based on white supremacy\" to be racist, accusing all white people of being bad. Others feel that our society's approach to race is baked into the laws we have and that true equality can't happen until we change those laws."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lddr60
|
How does wax evaporate with such a small amount of heat in a candle, and how is breathing in wax not unhealthy?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm585dq",
"gm58h9i",
"gm58ny6"
],
"text": [
"The vaporized wax *is* what's burning - you're not releasing wax into the air. The only thing released (other than smoke) is some CO2.",
"The flame has a temperature of a few hundred degrees C, enough to vaporize wax that's close to it. When do you breathe in was vapour? It's burnt up to make the flame. All that left is carbon dioxide, water vapour and some soot from incomplete combustion, that last is what's glowing in the heat of the flame to make the candlelight.",
"When wax is vaporized from the candle flame, carbon dioxide and water are released into the air, not wax. If you have an unsteady flickering flame, which results in cooler candle temperatures, you’ll see soot released in the form of black smoke. Don’t inhale that. You’d need to be right over it to inhale it though, more likely it will just rise with the heat of the candle and stain your ceiling or the wall if one is nearby. In short, you’re not breathing in wax."
],
"score": [
7,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lde7xg
|
Is Australia the continent, or is Oceania? What's the difference?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5b421",
"gm5jnt0",
"gm5bfda"
],
"text": [
"Australia and Oceania are different places. It is confusing, because Australia the country lies in Australia the continent. Oceania is a place full of islands, made up of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. There are islands that are part of the country of Australia, just like there are islands that are part of the United States (aka Hawaii), in Oceania.",
"Australia is the continent and the country. Oceania is the region that includes New Zealand and the other islands. Australia is the chicken in the chicken and rice dinner. Oceania is the plate that has the chicken and the rice.",
"Australia is a continent. Oceania is the area around Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia to the north and east of them."
],
"score": [
17,
9,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldex7l
|
how does fecal transplant surgery work? And what does it do for the patient?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5oyt7",
"gm6dq8k"
],
"text": [
"First off, fecal transplant is not a surgery since there's no cutting involved. Your body is home to about 100 trillion bacteria living in your digestive system. The types of bacteria living there depend on environmental exposure, your diet, your health, and your genetics. Certain bacteria are beneficial by extracting nutrients from food your digestive system can't process. Others protect against harmful diseases. However, this mixture is always changing. It's possible for more harmful bacteria to take over can cause issues and your body may start fighting back. This can cause disorders like irritable bowel syndrome. Fecal transplants take a sample of gut bacteria from someone healthy and add them to a patient's gut to hopefully re-stabilize their gut bacteria to a healthier one. This means you take poop from a healthy person and either convert it to a pill to swallow or insert it from the other end. It seems odd and gross but the effectiveness has been good compared to other treatment methods for certain gut diseases.",
"\"Yeah, facial transplant is a pretty amazing thing, how d.... wait, why are we talking about poop?\""
],
"score": [
20,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldf2fk
|
what is so bad about high fructose corn syrup? Is it worse than cane sugar (for example)?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5nqbl",
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],
"text": [
"HFCS is one aspect of the overall problem, but it's generally singled out due to its artificial, highly processed nature when compared to \"natural\" sweeteners like cane sugar. HFCS (and other similar sweeteners) are bad because they can lead to dangerous overconsumption of foods containing them, leading to obesity and other illnesses. It provides almost no nutritional value, but since the body is hardwired to crave sweet things it's very addictive. When consumed, simple sugars like HFCS are rapidly broken down, leading to huge spikes of blood sugar and corresponding insulin release that fade quickly, which leads to a cycle of hunger and further consumption of those foods. Over time, this can cause a number of obesity related diseases. But on its own, HFCS has no scientifically demonstrated danger or negative health effect it doesn't share with other similar sweeteners that aren't as highly processed.",
"Economically speaking, corn production is heavily subsidized in the US. This encourages production beyond what would normally occur and for prices to be cheaper than they otherwise would. So lots of something at a low price encourages their use. Foods that have a lot of sugar are relatively cheap to make and many people tend to like sweet stuff - things like super sweet soda, biscuits, processed food etc become the standard in the market. This leads to unbalanced diets (high sugar foods are cheap relative to healthier alternatives) and obesity, heart diseases etc etc. I can't say with any certainty that corn syrup is better or worse than cane sugar biologically although, off the top of my head, I'd say they're pretty much the same since cane sugar is also high in fructose.",
"Our bodies preferred sugar is glucose, and there are numerous control systems that are regulated by glucose levels specifically. So, if you switch to fructose, some of those systems are sidestepped, which can cause issues - more triglycerides (fat) in your blood after eating, less \"you're full, stop eating\" signals etc. But the issue with HFCS is primarily how much of it is in all kinds of foods. If you eat an apple, it's mostly fructose. Grapes are about 50-50 glucose-fructose. But there's a lot of other stuff that helps you feel full. Not so with HFCS, so, because it's in *everything* you're getting much more sugar, and fructose at that."
],
"score": [
11,
10,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldfgau
|
- when you gain weight without exercise, do you gain any muscle along with the fat?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5it1z"
],
"text": [
"Generally no. Muscles grow when they're used. That said, the heavier your body, the more your muscles have to work to hold it up - especially the legs and back. These muscles may become stronger, but you won't necessarily feel any stronger. The gains are just compensating for having a body that's harder to move."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldfl3e
|
If hot air rises, why does only the top of the lake freeze, and not the bottom?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5jbrx",
"gm5kz2f"
],
"text": [
"Water is weird in that its solid crystalline form takes up more volume than the liquid, meaning ice floats in water. As cold air cools the top layer of water it does circulate in convection, but once the top freezes it no longer sinks and instead acts as insulation for the rest of the water mass.",
"Anomalous expansion of water When an object is heated, its volume increases and density decreases. When it is cooled, the volume decreases and density increases. Water is different. When water is heated, it first contracts and becomes denser, peaking at 4°C, and then starts expanding. As a lake cools down, the water reaches 4°C and the dense water goes to the bottom, and the less dense water closer to 0°C rises to to top and freezes. This is also the reason ice floats in water."
],
"score": [
18,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldfmga
|
- What is "the chicken enchilada standard"?
|
Stouffers Chicken Enchiladas Family Size has a label on the front - 2 times the chicken\* \*Required by the chicken enchilada standard.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5lxeu"
],
"text": [
"USDA standard says that in order for an enchilada to be called that, it has to be at least 15% of the total weight in meat, cheese or poultry."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldg6yj
|
What are arc seconds, what do they mean, why are arc seconds used to describe field of view
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5n7z8"
],
"text": [
"An arcminute is 1/60th of a degree. An arcsecond is 1/60th of an arcminute, or 1/3600th of a degree. It's a (very small) measure of angles. Field of view is described by how wide an angle you can see, so it's naturally measured in angle-measure units like degrees or arcseconds."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldgloi
|
How does the U.S. treasury/federal reserve know how much money to print each year?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6n005"
],
"text": [
"Not sure if the question is about actual paper money in circulation or about Liquidity in the economy but I'll do my best to answer both. Paper money: They print about 38 million notes a day, worth about $500 million and replace the existing supply at a 95% rate. So old dollars actually get recycled into new dollars. Liquidity: They do their best to measure the economy by several factors in an effort to keep as many people employed as possible while striving to have the price of everything increase by 2 cents on the dollar every year. Sometimes prices increase by 3 cents, and this is when they raise interest rates, to collect more money from people. Sometimes a lot of people lose their job, and then they would lower interest rates to put more money into the economy. The issue with both of those actions is they don't directly effect the situations they are trying to change and there is a delay of when they do them to when they work so this is really a lot like taking a best guess. Hope this helps!"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldguq2
|
How can you have a fire inside an igloo and it not melt?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm5rlex",
"gm5rt07",
"gm5qdhx",
"gm6qiem",
"gm5quuc",
"gm8hcvi"
],
"text": [
"URL_0 . To avoid melting the ice, the Eskimos must keep the ice below its melting temperature. That means that they can’t add heat to ice indefinitely. But while a central fire will always deliver some heat to the ice of the igloo, the ice of the igloo will also tend to lose heat to colder air outside. As long as the ice loses heat at least as fast as the fire delivers heat to it, the ice won’t become any warmer and it won’t melt.",
"Intense cold. The fire is always in the center of the igloo, as far from all the walls as it can be. While the air around the fire is warm, it's cooled by the temperature outside faster than it can melt the ice all the way, so igloos are actually are in a constant state of melting from the fire but being refrozen by the external cold rapidly enough that the igloo remains intact. Igloos aren't ever WARM, but can be about 40 degrees warmer than the weather they're constructed in. So while it's not a good long term living situation, it can help a person survive for a couple days.",
"I'm probably a terrible resource to answer this, but iirc they do melt a little and that's partially why they have fires in there (other than to prevent, you know, freezing to death). I think the inside of the igloo melts just a little and then an ice layer forms. I could be totally making this up but I seem to remember this.",
"Is anybody else wondering what they are burning for heat in the high Arctic? Certainly not wood. Is it peat?",
"The fire is small and kept away from the walls. The warmth inside an igloo creates an ice layer which insulates the snow against the warmth.",
"I would like to add some point: * Water has a lot of latent heat. This means that it requires a lot of energy to transform water from ice to liquid, even though the temperature stays at 0°C. * Furthermore, water has a high specific heat capacity, which means it takes a lot of energy to change the temperature at all. * And finally, even though the air inside is maybe ~10°C, the outside might be waaay below 0°C, and might might be windy, causing the equilibrium temperature of the ice to be well below 0."
],
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"text_urls": [
[
"https://howeverythingworks.org/1997/01/10/question-730/#:~:text=But%20while%20a%20central%20fire,and%20it%20won't%20melt"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldi48w
|
is there any particular benefit to massaging in a circular motion?
|
I have lots of topical products—scalp oils, pomades, cleansers, face gels. The directions on these products almost always instruct users to “apply and massage in a circular motion.” I usually do just follow the directions, but I’m extremely curious about the reasoning behind this. Is there a benefit to massaging the product into my skin/scalp in the circular motion (opposed to just rubbing back and forth gently until product is absorbed)?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6bkf8",
"gm6ikao"
],
"text": [
"Well this hasn't gained an answer in a minute so I'll try with what I understand/assume. when rubbing back and forth, the middle area between the rub will be rubbed the most and the edges the least. In addition, depending on the force applied the product would then pool. in a circular motion, it's harder to make the product pool and there is more even distribution as there are no areas receiving disproportionately more attention than another. Typically with skin the objective is to not allow product to pool as it increases the possibility of skin irritation and buildup.",
"Imagine you have a circular bump on your skin. If you only rub one way, the oil/cleanser/whatever is going to mostly get on the side of the bump you hit first, while the latter part of the bump might have a spot that got missed. But if you rub in a circle and move that circle around, then over the course of the massage, you will eventually hit that bump from all directions. so if you happen to be dealing with rough skin, a circular motion will help you get the whatever gel into all of the little nooks and crannies. Obviously, this is less of a problem for people with smooth skin, but there's no downside to them using a circular motion too."
],
"score": [
16,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldiypf
|
How does the sodium-potassium pump work?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm65wnt"
],
"text": [
"**Short version:** Sodium ions are enticed to stick to the pump by ATP sticking to the pump. Sodium ions becoming stuck causes ATP to become ADP, and the pump protein to change shape. This then kicks the sodium ions out of the pump. Potassium is enticed into the pump by the altered form of the protein, which causes another chemical change, which causes a second change of the protein's shape. When the second shape change happens, forcing the potassium into the cell. Potassium no longer wants to be stuck, and leaves the pump. **Long Version:** Proteins, including transport proteins (e.g. Sodium-potassium pumps) have specialised conformations and electrical changes. It is possible for proteins to have different electrical charges in different parts of the protein. Two quick terms to be familiar with: Conformational change means a change in the shape of the protein. Association (in this context) means how closely and how strongly \"stuck\" something is to the protein. In an Sodium-Potassium (Na-K) pump, an energy-storing molecule called Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binds to the pump. Then, three sodium ions bind to a negatively charged locations on the intracellular side of the pump (I.e. the protein inside the cell). This binding causes hydrolysis of the ATP, removing one phosphate from the ATP and converting it to ADP. This causes a release of energy, which causes a conformational change in the pump. This change pushes the binding locations where the sodium ions to be revealed to the extracellular space, where they will leave the pump (The phosphorylated pump has reduced electrical energy keeping the sodium proteins stuck to the pump). The altered form of the pump attracts two potassium ions to become associated with the pump. When two potassium become associated, this causes de-phosphorylation, or the removal of a phosphate from the pump. This removal of the phosphate allows the pump to relax back into its normal state, in the process pulling in the two potassium ions. When the change in shape ends, the potassium ions can leave the pump and wander around the cell."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldj1fb
|
Why does everyone have a unique gait when biologically most of us are all pretty similar? I've read that it's on par with a person's iris in terms of uniqueness.
|
Thanks for the silver kind stranger!
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Your gait is super-heavily influenced by the size, shape, and mass distribution of your entire body. You are basically a stack of pendulums on top of another, upside-down pendulum, and since every part of you is connected to every other part, your organs' momentum pulls on everything. Something off about your shoulder might change how you move your arms, which changes how you move your feet in order to compensate. Even subtle differences exponentially compound just because of how complex people are.",
"I took a class from this lab:[Ohio State Movement Lab]( URL_2 ) Basically, you always unconsciously walk while spending minimum energy (minimum potential energy) to do so. When they want to model someone's gait, they model the dynamics their body and calculate the most energy efficient way to travel from point a to b. This will give super close results. Even when you have an injury, you will still take the minimum energy path within limits of your injured joints. Since everyone's body (and dynamics) is a little different, your minimum energy path (gait) will be a little different. URL_0 URL_1",
"A series of simple actions forms a very complex whole action. Walking seems simple, but when you add up all the tiny little movements, it is a fairly complex whole movement. More pieces = more possibilities = more differences.",
"We're pretty similar, but not exactly similar - just like fingerprints are pretty similar, but still different enough to be unique. Your balance, muscle development, bone structure, etc. will be a little bit different even from other people that kinda sorta look like you, causing you to have a different walk than them.",
"But how much of that is learned or observed behavior? When my nephew was still a little boy, I noticed how was starting to walk *exactly* like his dad: the same leaned-forward, shoulders down, poopy-pants gait. It can’t be a coincidence.",
"Disclosure: I am the CEO of a company that offers [gait-based authentication]( URL_1 ) based on motion sensor data from your phone. We've been working on this problem for the last five years and have tons of data. We've tested across lots of wacky cases: identical twins, monitoring gait across injury and recovery, actors trying to mimic other's gait, etc. We have data from over 34 million devices, and we've found the accuracy to be similar to that of a small-sensor fingerprint reader (like the ones you see on modern smartphones). The best way to think about this is gait is a combination of physiology and muscle memory. You may think of human gait as a simple process, but it actually involves a very complicated, cooperative, and coordinated set of actions. The human bipedal gait is broken up into eight temporal phases per \"gait cycle\" (two-step sequence). Every person has their own slight variations in each of these phases. It is similar to forensic handwriting analysis. Human hands have the same general structure, but different people's handwriting can look very different, and in many cases even a layperson can obviously tell the difference between different people's handwriting. The other amazing thing about gait is how much it can tell you about a person. People who identify as female typically take shorter steps and have a faster cadence (number of steps per minute), independent of \"biological\" sex. You can identify a person's height and build based on their gait. You can even tell where they spent their formative years, as there are strong cultural influences to a person's gait. There is also the possibility for early diagnosis of disease based on gait analysis (e.g. the family of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular health, etc.) (If anyone is interested to geek out more about gait analysis, feel free to reach out to me or check out some of our [videos]( URL_2 ) or [publications]( URL_0 ). I could go on about this topic for hours :-).)",
"We take walking for granted, but it's an incredibly complex topic that people don't really take time to consider. It seems sort of simple. You start falling forward and put a foot forward to catch yourself, and repeat that process, with the other foot. One after the other until you toddle across the room. There are basic mechanics, but the \"basic\" movements we do think of are a lot more involved than we're typically aware of. There is possibly a near infinite number of variations in how they can be executed and their order of operations. Just try watching yourself as you walk. When you take a first step, to start that falling and catching yourself, what do *you* do to start? Do you lean your shoulders forward and off-balance yourself, and then move your foot/leg ahead to catch yourself? Or maybe you lift a leg and move that forward to alter your balance? How *much* do you alter that balance? Are you cautious or daring? Perhaps you kept yourself centred while placing one foot in front and *pulled* your centre of gravity forward through the step? Whichever method you used, how exactly did that movement start? Did you slightly lean the centre of your chest forward like a jogger or runner? Did you start with contrary body movement (see below), moving your arm and shoulder forward so that the contrary foot also had to come forward? Or was it in your core that you started moving to shift that balance? Or was it lifting your toes in preparation for raising your foot? Or did you leave the foot as it was and start lifting your leg from the hip? When you put that foot down, did you do so by firmly placing the heel first? Or more towards the mid-sole? Did your heel-to-toe movement go along the outside edge of your foot, along the inner arch, or straight through the centre of the foot? Or... did you move directly onto the ball of the foot like a boxer or ballroom dancer wearing heels/pumps? There are many possible reasons that people will perform all those simple actions with enough differences to create a great degree of uniqueness. The greater majority of people are never taught how to walk, so they just made it up as they went. Learning the process of constantly falling and catching themselves until they do so with enough fluidity that we call it \"walking.\" Some people are naturally more coordinated, or graceful. And some are... less so. Some people learn best by observing and had better role models than others. There are also large and minute physical differences that can effect one's gait. A person might have a leg 1mm longer than the other, or a foot that is 1cm longer\\larger. Sometimes much more. Some people have high arches, and others flat feet. Perhaps they suffered a permanent injury and favour a limb or joint. Perhaps it wasn't permanent, but they never received physiotherapy and continued favouring it out of habit. Because of such variances, if we're given enough space and no visual cues for guidance, *most* people would eventually walk in ever diminishing circles. Some people have hypermobility and other people might have a more limited range of motion. This can effect balance, stability, or the length of a step or stride. An inner ear problem could effect the way one walks. Alternatively there could be an issue with a hip, or a shoulder, or posture that effects their \"Contrary Body Movement\" (CBM), i.e. where the opposite side of the upper body turns in the same direction as the moving foot. (Left foot and right arm forward, then left arm and right foot forward.) Just walk and watch how they move to (counter)balance each other. For fun, try moving the same and leg forward as you walk. It should really screw with your balance and fluidity of movement. In the army, no one ever mentioned CBM, but we called the people who couldn't do it *bear-walkers*. The made parade drills rather difficult. Sometimes there's a fashion or (sub)cultural aspect involved that makes one affect a swagger, or a pimp/thug/gangster walk.... Then CBM might become limited, or even take on a lateral motion. There are people who were made self-conscious of their walk by peers or parents. Maybe their walk wasn't gender conforming enough, or \"proper\" enough. Oddly, criticism without advice can create even stranger results than whatever was being criticised. While most people aren't taught the finer points of movement, there are those who do receive instruction, to varying degrees. Like dancers, soldiers, martial artists, and athletes where they are taught how to move in specific ways (or how *not* move, as the case may be), and may be taught to be attentive to their own movements and the movement of others. There are people who have been trained to move in synchronised/coordinated groups with proper spacings and formations. Some move in ways that maintain stable centres of balance. Watch as some martial artists (judoka, aikidoka) and dancers never extend their feet beyond a circle the diameter of the width of their shoulders. Watch their knees, do they ever fully extend or lock the joint in movement or stillness, or are they always ready to resond and change direction? Some are taught to move and give clear cues to a dance partner, or to read those same cues. Others are taught to move without telegraphing that movement. Watch a fencer move up and down a piste without visible CBM, and without their head changing elevation. And then try watching heads around a very tall person in a busy crowd as heads bob up and down as they galumph along. Look at how tap dancers place their centres so that they can seemingly ignore gravity as their feet move percussively and nearly independently of the rest of the body that they're supposed to be supporting -- it's like they take an imaginary seat in the air (I'd really like to know what tappers call that, BTW). There's so much difference between individual tap dancers and their personal styles and postures that it can be tricky to see what they're all doing *the same*. There are people who's sport or vocation requires short bursts of quick walking/running, and others accustomed to enduring long runs or even longer marches. Running with a heavy rucksack is done a little differently than sprinting on a track. For some people like some martial artists, that movement is mindfully adopted into everything they do. Others, like dancers and athletes who train/practice so much or intensely that it's (like) a full time job, spend so much time moving that way that it's closer to first nature than second nature. Then there are people who are really passionate about the activity or job. They live and breathe it, even when they're not doing it, and it permeates everything they do. Then there are people like the athletes and dancers who *don't* apply their trained skills, focus, or discipline to their everyday \"normal\" movements and maybe have loose gaits, or walk pigeon-toed, or duck-footed, or almost bow-legged, or something else... These ones fascinate me, that they have such perfect movement when focused, yet seem oddly graceless when they move without that mindful discipline. There are also people's basic attitudes and intentions that inform their gaits and movements. The professionally-minded person who strides with purpose. The dignified people who look purposeful, but never hurried. Or the ones who always seem aimless in their movements. And the odd ducks who take mincing steps just to remind you that *mince* is also a verb outside of the kitchen.",
"Physical therapist here. I study gait as a profession. Normal human gait is actually incredibly similar. Joint angles, muscle actions, and timing are all very similar across all of humanity, excepting cultural reasons, injury, or habits. Minor differences in armswing or posture may make it look different from person to person but from a locomotion perspective it’s a pretty clear norm.",
"What’s even crazier is that it’s also influenced by your psychological attitude at the time,so even though it’s unique it’s ever changing also",
"It was interesting that when I was in the field with my Army unit we could tell each other apart my our gait/movements in the dark. This was somewhat easy among about 150 soldiers. This was at least as accurate as voice.",
"because there are many complex nuances in each persons gait and our brains have evolved to be sensitive to them. Mammals live and evolve in groups and being able to identify individual members of one's mammal group from a distance would (presumably) be an evolutionary advantage."
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"https://jeb.biologists.org/content/213/19/iii.full",
"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26330249_Optimal_speeds_for_walking_and_running_and_walking_on_a_moving_walkway",
"https://movement.osu.edu/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://unify.id/resources/labs/",
"https://developer.unify.id/products/gaitauth/",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCzDkpT6dI"
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[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldj2mt
|
California’s financial situation and how they got there.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"Man, this is totally going to get mostly unbiased and not politically distorted answers. To the OP, you might want to give more context to your question since there are lots of budgets and financial situations going on within California, and many different ways in which the state got there. For example, Prop 13 caps the rate at which property taxes can increase on property when owned by the same person. So, my wife and I pay half as much for our property taxes as our neighbor who just bought their house because we've been living here for a decade, and property values have risen much faster than taxes on established owners are allowed to. This typically shifts the taxpaying burden to younger/newer homeowners, and encourages people to stay in their home as long as possible, even after they have outgrown or could use a much smaller property. To give numbers, we pay approximately $5800/yr in property taxes. I have neighbors who pay less than $600/yr and neighbors who pay over $10k/yr. All on similar houses with similar assessed values. The only difference is when we bought. When we moved in, all of our neighbors (5 houses) had people living there over 30 years. Their tax rates were below $1k each. So, on our own, we were paying more in property taxes every year than the five houses around us."
],
"score": [
5
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldj7o8
|
Why do we feel tired and groggy if we stay awake at night and sleep during the day, even if we get the required 7-9 hours sleep needed for normal function?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm655lu"
],
"text": [
"Your body maintains an internal schedule of when it expects to sleep and be awake, and there are multiple factors that feed into it. Two of the biggest factors are habit and external light sources. So if you usually go to be at 11:30pm and wake up at 8:30am, but then wind up going to sleep at 6:30am and sleeping until 3:30pm, you might have gotten the same amount of sleep as usual, but your body is going to be confused as hell because that’s not when it’s used to sleeping. Your body also notices the changing light and dark cycle in your environment and tries to set its clock by that. So if you’re now going to sleep when it’s light out and staying awake when it’s dark out, that’s also going to be difficult for your body to handle. It’s also part of why avoiding screens shortly before bed can help with falling asleep (not staring at bright light sources) and why it can feel harder to get up on cloudy, rainy days when it’s still dark out even if you sleep in, instead of having the morning sun come through your window."
],
"score": [
4
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldjblc
|
Why is it harder to push things down under water the deeper you go?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"The buoyant force. When under gravity, denser materials want to occupy lower postitions because the space they take up is occupied by more mass, aka has more of a gravitational attraction than less dense materials. This is why a hollow rubber ducky sits on top of bathwater. Essentially, as you push an object of consistant mass down into the water, the force it requires to do so may start to increase because you are displacing a volume which has more mass. The less-dense object naturally wants to rise as compared with the denser water. As water depth increases, the density of water does as well. Although it's not very much, as liquid water is poorly compressible, it still has a small effect on this.",
"Nobody has properly explained buoyancy, so I'll give it a go. Hydrostatic pressure is the force exerted on an underwater object because of the weight of all the water above it. It gets stronger the deeper you go and is exerted on every side of the object. The bottom of the object is deeper than the top, so the force exerted on the bottom is stronger than the top. That means there's a net force upwards on the object. Since the hydrostatic force increases constantly as you go deeper, it doesnt matter how deep the object is, the difference in force between the bottom and top will be the same, so the buoyancy is the same",
"It doesn't. If it is something a beach ball that can compress, it will actually reduce in volume and be easier to push further down. This is a problem when scuba diving. The air in your jacket that is keeping you neutrally buoyant compresses when you go deeper, which makes it easier to go deeper, which compresses the air... It is an easy way to get in trouble scuba diving if you don't compensate."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
ldjdcl
|
How can authentication services make sure that your password is correct without having your password saved in plain text?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"I take your password. I scramble it in, in a particular way. I will always scramble it up the same way. The way I scramble it up is very hard to \"unscramble\". (For an example of why it's hard, think of a number... now multiply by 743874283419234. Now take only the last two digits, swap them round, and divide by 7. You'll get a number. That number is the \"scrambled\" version of the number you thought of. But it's also the \"scrambled\" version of a lot of other numbers too. Which one was it? Who knows without trying them all?! And if I do this enough, and complicate it enough, and make it so that it could have been any number of things in the first place, then eventually it becomes secure). If I scramble your password up the same way, every time, but it's difficult to unscramble than we can have what's called a \"hash\". So you sign up to my website and you \"set\" your password. I don't ever store your password, I just scramble it up by following a set of instructions like the above. That gives me a hash - a scrambled version. That hash is made FROM your password, but it is NOT your password and we can't GET your password out of it easily. So all I need do now is store that hash. Next time you come to log in, you put in your name, and your password. I scramble that password you put in, and I scramble it in EXACTLY the same way as I scrambled it previously. If that scrambled password is the same as the \"hash\" that I stored when you first made the account... then I know that was you. And yet I don't know your password. The chances of two different passwords scrambling to the exact same hash is incredibly minute. Technically possible, but literally one of those \"once in the lifetime of the universe\" kind of things. So I don't need your password. I just need to scramble whatever you type in when you first \"set\" your password and put that somewhere. When you later try to log back in, I scramble what you typed in the same way again, and then see if the result is exactly the same as we did first of all. And I never need to store your password anywhere, just the scrambled version. Done properly, with clever maths, and appropriate methods used, it's incredibly secure. To the point that if a whole list of everyone's username and their scrambled password leaks out, nobody would ever be able to use that information anyway. This happened to the Steam gaming service, for example - but they had done it properly, so to this day, none of those passwords has ever been discovered. And, no, you can't just type the scrambled version into the password box. All that would happen if you did that would be that I would scramble it AGAIN, and it would end up different, and wouldn't match what I had stored, or what you typed in. You can implement this system poorly, however. And then people can sometimes \"unscramble\" those passwords, but that's still an incredibly difficult thing to do. And even that is so much more secure than what happens if you were just storing a big list of passwords in plain-text. Done properly, hashing is very simple in operation, very secure in practice, and very quick to do, while being very difficult to \"undo\". And if I ever want to \"reset\" your password because you've forgotten it and need to get back in? Then I can just take, say, \"password\"... scramble that up... and put the result into the database in place of your stored hash. Now you can login with \"password\", the scramble of that will match the hash I have stored now, and it will let you in so you can do whatever you need to do. But I still don't know what your password USED to be!",
"The authentication service doesn’t store the password itself. It stores a piece of data that’s *derived* from the original password. When a user enters a password later, the authentication service runs the same function on the *user-entered* password as was run on the *original* password. If the two results match, the passwords match. It’s tremendously important that it be very, *very* difficult to deduce the password from the saved piece of data. The idea is to make it so difficult that it’s easier to bribe or bully someone into giving up the password.",
"In simple terms, imagine that my password is password. Now the website takes the password and shifts each letter forward one place in the alphabet to get “qbttxpse” and then save that. They don’t have my password saved, but if I type “password” into the login box, they can run the same algorithm on what I typed, compare the result to what they have saved, and see that they are the same. In reality, the stuff they do to your password is *much* more complicated than this example and much harder to reverse engineer, but that’s the basic principle."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
ldk59g
|
How do trippy videos “boost” a high?
|
Any ideas?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gm6f0yd"
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"text": [
"I mean I’m no expert but I would assume since visual and auditory impulses have a great impact on a persons emotions and feelings even when sober, when you’re high on whatever drug the already impactful experience of watching a trippy video is amplified just like everything in your state of mind is. The content itself can also maybe bring up new thoughts or ideas if you’re watching philosophical stuff and when you’re high you simply think a lot more intense about stuff like that. Or if you’re just watching trippy visuals I guess it works kinda the same as when the lights of a club or festival show are just really mesmerizing you."
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3
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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ldka3e
|
to be muscular humans have to play sports, but animals are already at their full potential effortlessly, why not us?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Industrialized farming meant that most people can just walk to the store once a week and buy the food they need to eat and then sit sedentary for the rest of the week.",
"Diet and exercise. Unless you're a fat house cat, you will be moving around and eating food low in fat and high in fiber and protein, and in the wild, avoiding predators/using energy and muscles to catch prey will keep you fit.",
"Do you play a game of life and death every day for your meal? No. Through farming and agriculture, we have given ourselves food that's calorie cheap to obtain and relatively risk free. Humans would have been \"at full potential\" half a million years ago when you were foraging for food each day and traveling long distances on foot to do so.",
"Vet here: Adult and mature animals we see in zoos, or wild life documentaries are at their full potential. However, baby animals are not. The main difference is animals are born straight into an environment where they will have to keep up, adapt, and grow up in order to secure their survival, this means that by the time they are on their own, they have reached their full physical potential. Humans were able to do this too under similar conditions, specially way back when we used to have to hunt, and move around to survive, thus reaching something very close to full potential. But do remember that musculature is not always a bi-product of physical potential.",
"Animals are not already at their full potential effortlessly. When they have competitions involving animals, like horse and dog racing, those animals go through a lot of training to improve their abilities.",
"Animals are not at their full potential effortlessly. Many animals in the wild are malnourished, sick or injured. The ones that are healthy spend a lot of time being highly active because they have to in order to obtain food and avoid being killed. That takes quite a lot of effort. You spend all day on the couch. If you get a physical job where you spend all day being active, you’ll be fit without having to go to the gym. For everybody else, you need to make up for the lack of physical activity by intentionally being active for the sake of fitness. Animals, in general, don’t have to do that because not being active constantly isn’t an option for them."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
ldkbvr
|
why is it believed by some economists that national debt can be beneficial for a country’s economy?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"Government debt is much more like Corporate debt than personal debt. As individuals we're taught that debt is bad and we should do everything we can to get out of it. While Companies and Nations borrow money all the time and it's a perfect sane and reasonable thing to do so long as you don't go too far. One economic theory goes that the government should borrow money during a recession. By putting money into the economy, creating projects and jobs, the government is helping the economy get running again. The government makes it's money through taxes so it's said that for every dollar the government spends it gets 60-70 cents back in taxes. The stronger the economy, the more money the government brings in. So in the short term it's better for everyone if the government borrows money to help get the economy rolling. Where-as if the government doesn't borrow money it instead needs to perform austerity measures, which means cutting back programs to save money. This in turn cuts back on jobs and programs that people need to survive, which makes the crisis worse and makes it last longer. Another factor is much of the savings industry is built on Government debt. Pension plans, 401k's, life savings, etc are heavily invested in Government Bonds because it's a very safe investment. So even though the government is borrowing money from Joe Taxpayer, Joe does get something out of it. Both in the very programs that are being paid for by that debt, and by the interest he makes on his savings.",
"The idea is that you can borrow money to generate economic value now by doing things like building roads or infrastructure that will stimulate the economy and generate enough tax revenue that the benefit is more than the interest you pay on the money you borrowed. For instance you might borrow money at 5% interest and build a new business district with the money that attracts new businesses. The businesses then pay you taxes and you use the taxes to pay off the interest and pay down the loan. The flaw in the system comes when you allow members of society to not pay enough taxes to pay down your loans.",
"Going into debt when times are tough allows the government to pay workers and continue to fund health programs, etc. The idea is that when you have times of plenty you pay off some of that debt....😳",
"Government debt is also really important from a geopolitical standpoint. Government debt is often held by other governments, which ends up tying everyone together by shared interests. You're much less likely to go to war with another country if doing so would mean they default on the billions of dollars they owe you."
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|
ldkemn
|
Why do WiFi routers make a noise when loading something on a phone?
|
I noticed this morning that as I was swiping through posts, every time I swiped there would be a very quiet whirring sound coming from my router. If it was loading a video it would last slightly longer than a pic/text post. Additional question, why does my router make noise when loading something, but when I
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"text": [
"They cheaped the hell out on the router and the power supply circuit inside gets coil whine when the router actually has to do work. Well made units don't really do that.",
"It sounds like you are describing coil whine. Electronics have components that may vibrate/resonate with power draw. This vibration produces a whining sound (it might almost sound like chirping). For your router it may be that wireless transmission coincides with power usage and a coil whine. There’s a lot of videos/recordings of coil whine (mostly for computers/graphics cards). Check them out and see if it matches what you hear."
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11,
3
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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ldkkr6
|
Why are our brains so good at remembering each and every word to a countless number of songs, yet we can't remember the simplest, smallest things like telephone numbers or passwords?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"Memory works by forming connections between things. Song lyrics get extra connections because there is a basic underlying structure to the song. Thus if you can remember the basic pattern of the song, it acts as a memory jog for the specific lyrics. Instead of the hands of a clock, I tell time by the crow of my _____ You’ve never heard that before, because I just made it up, but based on assumptions about rhythm and rhyme scheme, it’s very easy to fill in the blank with the correct word. Technically, there’d be nothing wrong with “rooster” as an answer, but that’s not the word you filled it in with. Songs work the same way. If you forget a word, the surrounding structure of the song creates a specifically shaped hole that limits the possibilities of what could fit in it, and that makes it easy to remember the right word. A phone number is a semi-arbitrary string of numbers. If you forget the last digit, nothing in the preceding digits is going to give you any clue as to what that last number could possibly be.",
"Actually, people used to remember phone numbers, tons of them, and it was usually remembered in some rhythmic pattern, similar to a song. The reason we don't remember numbers now is because we have a device that stores them for us so you don't have to remember them now.",
"The melody of the song helps you to remember the words. If you were to take a random number like 8675309 and set that to a catchy tune I bet you’d say “I got it!” It’s actually a great way to commit stuff to memory is to make a rhyme or song out of it.",
"8675309.. Jenny. Music acceses different nueral connections. Make your passwords and numbers into songs and you'll probably remember them differently/better.",
"Its either repetition or making something sound memorable that works for passwords. Its impossible to remember 376475hfyeeuehfkr But its easy as pie to remember OneDayIWill5eatMyselfAtTheTableOfGODS. All you have to remember is the capitals. The phrase you made up is as memorable as can be."
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[
"url"
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[
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|
ldkp37
|
How is illegally downloaded material detected/who does the detecting?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Mostly honey traps. When you download p2p you are connecting to a someone else, or when using bit torrent lots of people. They get your IP address, then can track that back to your isp and either ask them to tell you to stop or request your details.",
"Some other answers here do tell you how they could find you however more often than not it's you uploading a file to someone else that can get you in trouble. So for p2p if you are sharing your files they can have a lawyer on the system as well and download the file from you proving that you were sharing it illegally. The same for torrents where they will have a lawyer download the files you are sharing to prove you were sharing them. Sometimes they will send letters because you downloaded something from a honeypot (as others are saying) but more often than not it's easier for them to target the sharers rather than someone who only downloads.",
"Heya, gamedev here, I'm happy to share how we did it in our game :) We made Headliner (adventure game about manipulating the news and influencing society), and when you beat the game you get a bit unqiue combination of outcomes, summed up in 5 sentences. You have the option to share your ending with the community, and before you start the game, you see the previous player's ending in a little box right on the main menu! So how this works is, it pings our server and fetches the last player's ending, easy right? But then I figured, if we're pinging our server, we can also send some information. I didn't want to spay on users or break GDRP so the only info I send is... whether the game is authenticated with Steam. And since Steam was (at the time) the only place we distributed it, it was a way to tell who is running a legal and illegal copy. TL;DR about 52% of all players pirated the game. I actually [wrote a blog post going into details]( URL_0 ) about it if you're curious! Of course, other software and games might use different methods, but just sharing our own from an actual example!",
"If downloaded from a website, then that website likely has records of everyone who has seen the page and requested a download of the material via IP Addresses (internet address specific to a user). Then the 'detective' would only need to access those logs to determine who downloaded the file. This is provided that they have the legal right to get that information. If using a P2P system (Peer-to-Peer) where the file is shared openly amongst users, all users share their IP information with each other. This means that the 'detective' would just need to join the download before they could acquire all the IP addresses."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
ldkr8n
|
Why are most conceptions of heaven in popular culture based of Greek architecture?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gm6dptk"
],
"text": [
"A lot of Roman architecture survived into the Middle Ages. It was more impressive than the best things people could build. When the Reniassance came along everyone wanted to recreate the glory of Rome. Naturally, Heaven, the most impressive thing that could imagine, would look like the most impressive things they knew."
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[
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ldkzfm
|
I've been seeing alot of stuff about Amazon workers wanting to join a union. What does a union do?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
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"It's difficult as one person to make demands from a company because one person is replaceable, but all together, they are less replaceable and can request better pay and treatment.",
"Imagine one person says \"Ive had enough of this shit company. Change it, or im leaving\". The Company would have a job advert up for your replacement within 3 minutes of you leaving the office. Imagine if EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE said \"Ive had enough of this shit company, change it or im leaving\". There isnt enough adverts in the world that could keep the company going until they replace ALL their staff. Company HAS to buckle in order to stay alive. A Union is all the employees banding together.",
"Collective bargaining agreement. The workers instead of negotiating wages and benefits individually join a union, they all are working together, and a spokesperson for all the workers tries to negotiate better terms for all the workers. For their actions, they of course get paid from the union dues each employee pays. Some unions do well and represent their workers amd protect them from stupidity and pettiness of employers. Others do nothing but collect dues an maybe get you a quarter raise next year and and bad dental plans.",
"I worked as a union steward for five years so my position's biased for sure, bear that in mind. A Union's there to protect the workers. Not by getting those employees out of any bullshit they pull but to make sure that the agreement they crafted through negotiation with management, intended to represent all covered workers, is adhered to. In effect your Union will negotiate a Collective Bargaining Agreement that will cover pay, disciplinary procedures, scheduling methods, work hours, responsibilities, time off, so on and so forth. They're generally pretty robust documents. Our CBA was around 700 pages long. Usually your Union will necessarily have a steward who will act to represent you if something goes wrong. Say you're doing your work and something catastrophic happens, and management tries to say you're responsible. The Steward's supposed to step in and tell them to provide evidence and follow the disciplinary procedure or fuck right off. They'll usually require management prove its case through grievance procedures by providing evidence that satisfies the burden assigned them by that same CBA. If it really was your fault and management carries their burden the Union won't be able to do much to help you, but that's not the point. The point is to make sure you're getting treated fairly and to the expected standard, and that everyone else is too. Edit: And yeah they'll charge dues. Ours helped pay for my time researching and representing my Union members and negotiating contractual fuck-ups that occurred by either management or members. They also went to activities to try to draw up some Union support as often once the CBA is established members don't want to be that involved, which means the Union ends up lacking leadership and eventually crumbles.",
"Lifts wages by an average of US$8,000 compared to non-union workers. Also, better conditions and protection. Trouble is - getting there is tough, as the employer will fight to prevent organising, fire advocates and in past times kill union people.",
"If you work for a company - no-one is on your side. You have no power. If you are backed by a union, the union will act on your behalf, all the staff unite to give workers power.",
"I have 1800 colleagues who don't have to worry about being buddies with their boss to get their preferred hours/overtime. Seniority rules.",
"At their best, unions are good for collective bargaining rights and sticking up for the rights of workers who would otherwise get trampled on by the companies they work for. There are some public sector unions that have tarnished the image of unions for sure. I think of them as what happens when the pendulum swings too far the other way. But at their core, unions are employees working as a group to accomplish what they wouldn't be able to do on their own.",
"This is why Unions are failing in America. People legitimately don't know what they are. At the same time companies tell them that Unions are bad for them and don't worry about it. Unions are when the workers join together to bargain with the company as a whole. Usually every aspect of your job has been agreed upon by the union. Pay, hours, seniority, health care, pension (this is a big one!) safety issues, you name it. It makes the workers together a stronger bargaining power against the company and therefore gives everyone a better outcome collectively. It's also nearly impossible to get fired from a union job for bullshit reasons. they need a proper reason to fire you like harassments, violence, theft, etc. & #x200B; Source: UPS employee for 7 years",
"My take on unions... it’s hard because people seem to love them or hate them. (The haters still reap the benefits of the union though) When your employed by a large company if you want to negotiate any conditions of employment you don’t have much power. If you use your right to revoke your labour the other workers can pick up the slack or you can be replaced. If you are apart of a union they aim to use the bargaining power of many workers. They will negotiate conditions on your behalf and if push comes to shove they have the power of the majority of the workforce to revoke their labour. This can cripple companies and it isn’t easy to replace a whole workforce. They can even extend this across a whole industry putting a lot more pressure on employers to give better wages and conditions to employees. All the wages and conditions have come from the bargaining power of unions that we all enjoy. Employers will rarely offer to increase your wages and conditions out of the goodness of their hearts, they are negotiated and minimum standards are made from unions bargaining and negotiating these conditions.",
"The key is the contract. A non-union employee must accept whatever the employer gives him/her in terms of job conditions and compensation. An employee can negotiate, which is great if you're a professional with something to bargain with, but your average warehouse worker has no chips - Amazon would laugh in his face and fire him if he tried to negotiate his pay or hours. A union changes that. It negotiates a contract with the employer for all the workers it represents to set pay, hours, work conditions, etc. and enforces it.",
"If an employee complains and starts making tons of demands the employer doesn't feel like fulfilling, the employee can just be fired and replaced. However, if every employee agrees that if one person goes, they all go, then suddenly the company has to take them a bit more seriously. Unions operate on a similar principal. Using the fact that a union represents a lot of people, the union spokesperson is able to negotiate with companies on much more equal terms than a single employee would be able to. Naturally, if the demands were ridiculous, the company could still refuse and just deal with the consequences, so they aren't all-powerful, but they are a very useful force in making sure employees are treated fairly.",
"A stupidly over simplified way of explaining it, but, it’s like having an external source which Make sure that any injustice employees writhing the company experience is served. I.e recently I had an issue in work with holiday. Turns out we all hadn’t been given out holiday. Whilst legally, yes that has to be done, companies sometimes cut corners. A Union makes sure that if those corners are cut, and you, an employee feels it’s an injustice, it’s a place to go to make sure that said injustice is solved! :)",
"A union makes sure all people are treated equally. Meaning, if you're a great employee you are held back and have very little way to differentiate yourself. If you're a worthless employee, the union will prop you up and keep you employed. It'll take more people to pick up your slack, creating more jobs and dragging down the efficiency of the whole organization.",
"To negotiate a decent wage, conditions, or safety, power is needed on both sides. Capital/owners have financial power and the power of size/control. Unless a single person has very specific skills and experience (giving them power), most single individuals lack skills or size to have sufficient power. Unions can utilise skill, size, and more money than most individual workers. Unions have some faults, corruption, incompetence, etc.,and can be sometimes over the top. But owners, and captital suffer from these deficiencies too. Unions can help balance power to look after the individual workers.",
"Besides the collective bargaining stuff that is already mentioned, unions do things like enforce work rules and job classes. For example, if you have job classes of packer, loader, and delivery driver, it might be set up that a driver cannot be assigned to load a truck, just drive it. Similarly, a packer can't load a truck and a loader can't package boxes. This ensures that many people are employed but will be sold as 'you can't expect a box packer to safely load a truck or a loader to put the right item in a box'. If the employer wants to cross train and cross assign people, there will be rules in place about doing that and maybe even upgrading pay rates. Where I worked a Class S employee could certainly do Class F employee work but was paid less for doing only the class S jobs. If we needed a class S worker to do a Class F job, the worker got upgraded to that pay scale for the time but he could refuse to do the work and not take the small pay bump for that job. Almost no one would refuse the bump up unless the union was working to rule and trying to slow down throughput. Also, the work rules may prevent management from doing union work. So if the truck loaders get behind, a manager cannot just jump in and start loading the trucks. That is taking work from a union member and there will be penalties. I know a guy who worked at a warehouse. If a manager picked up so much as a single bottle from inventory that fell on the floor, the forklift driver who witnessed it would get manager pay for an entire day. So managers would step over spilled items and just tell guys to clean it up. I was a low level manager in a union shop. Things ran very well mostly but sometimes the union members would work the contract rules to perverse ends. A manager put a balloon on the workstation of people who were hitting above average production. One of the worse performers filled a grievance and to satisfy it everyone got a balloon. That manager had to spend the day blowing up balloons. The union member who filed the grievance got 2 hours of 'union business' and a free day of screwing around because anything less than a full day would not count against productivity measurements. That was the real point of the grievance and this member thought of it first. Unions might also enforce an overtime equalization rule. So if overtime is needed, a manager can't just ask his favorite high performers to work all the overtime. They have to ask everyone sorted by 'least overtime worked + refused and then by seniority if there is a tie'. If a manager needs 10 people for 4 hours, he asks everyone in that order. Say Joe has the least worked / refused so he is asked first. If he says 'yes or no', Joe gets +4 hours worked / refused and might change in the ordered list for next time. As a manager this rule was the worst for me because I would often end up with minimum performers and they would do little work on overtime and I had no recourse. Some rules are bad for members but necessary. Where I worked, tardiness counted a lot towards write ups and termination. But if we didn't enforce it, and let someone come in 10 minutes late with no consequences, every day after that 80 members would be standing at the entrance waiting to come inside 10 minutes late. On the other end, you did not want to stand between a union employee and the exit at quitting time because you would get run over. Although it paid very well and had excellent benefits, it was a stressful job that could drive a person crazy."
],
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606,
148,
120,
71,
13,
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6,
6,
6,
6,
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldllng
|
Why does a glass of water left out overnight have bubbles in it the next morning?
|
Is it to do with the glass? Does the H2O split (and if so, what gas is in the bubbles)? What is the cause?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6n90x",
"gm6nwca",
"gm6okr2",
"gm6pem6"
],
"text": [
"Water from the tap has some amount of gasses dissolved in it, mostly oxygen and nitrogen picked up from the air at some point between the water treatment plant and your house. Gasses have an easier time staying dissolved in cold liquids than in warm liquids, so when the water warms from the cold temperature out of the tap up to room temp, some of the gas can't stay dissolved anymore and forms those little bubbles of gas instead",
"There is air dissolved in the water. For example there is oxygen in the water that fish would breathe if they were in the water. Cold water holds on to that air better than warm water. So when the water warms up, some of that air comes out of the water and enters the gas phase, making bubbles.",
"Water coming out of your faucet is usually aerated, that's the small piece at the mouth of the faucet that has a mesh or something similar. This is done for many reasons like reducing splashing and conserving water. Anyway, this process adds air to the water in a macroscopic way. Meaning large bubbles are introduced. Of course much of this air will leave the water as it goes into the glass and has massive turbulent flow, but some will remain. Additionally, the water has some atmospheric gases dissolved in it even without aeration, that's just the gases in the air dissolving and leaving the water at the interface and reaching an equilibrium. This is a a more \"microscopic\" process. Temperature has a large effect on this, and so does atmospheric pressure. Warmer water has more kinetic energy, meaning the gas molecules have higher probability of entering gas phase, so the equilibrium shifts to less dissolved gas. Higher ambient pressure has the opposite effect. If you pour cold water from the tap, the glass will warm up to room temp overnight. This will cause the gases to leave, but the water is unagitated, so the gases will just coalesce and form small bubbles that get stuck in the imperfections of the glass. If you flick the glass, they quickly rise and leave the water owing to the density difference (because at this point its a macroscopic event). Edit: typo",
"Cold water can absorb a lot of oxygen from the air. That's what fish breathe—not water, but the oxygen absorbed in the water. Cold water can absorb much more oxygen than warm water. When cold water that's saturated with oxygen warms up, the oxygen has to escape. That's the bubbles. The water coming from your tap is usually colder than room temperature, so it can hold more air than room temperature water can. Also, your tap has a little screen in it called an \"aerator.\" It mixes air in with the water coming out. That makes it taste better, but it also means the cold water is holding all the oxygen that it can. So when it warms up, you get bubbles!"
],
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87,
12,
10,
5
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[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldlqyl
|
If you’re in the water without a boat you swim, and if you’re in a boat/ship you sail; what is the verb used to describe moving around under the water in a submarine?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6jvqi",
"gm6ju1q",
"gm6q59t"
],
"text": [
"“Sail” is a suitable word to describe a submarine’s movement on the surface or below, as it's still classed as a boat. “Cruise” is also a suitable word to use.",
"Ocean liners and cargo ships don't have sails, but we still say they \"sail\" from place to place. Googling this question turns up a lot of people asking the same thing, with no single answer. The Royal Navy uses \"sail\" as the verb for a submarine though.",
"This reminded me of a joke a heard a while ago: Why is a package on a ship called cargo, and a package in a car called a shipment?"
],
"score": [
51,
20,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldlt2s
|
What/who is buying our personal data from Big Tech and why is it so valuable?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6jbhb"
],
"text": [
"Anyone who wants to sell a product, service or idea. The more someone knows about you, the better they can tailor their pitch to sell you on whatever they are trying to sell you. That’s pretty much the answer in a nutshell."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldmbc9
|
why do we sleep faster with sounds like white noise etc.?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6p1ov",
"gm6qxqb"
],
"text": [
"When we measure sound waves we use frequency and amplitude. frequency is how fast the waves vibrate per second and amplitude is the size of the waves. Frequency is measured in hertz and amplitude is measured in decibels. The relationship between the frequency and amplitude of a sound wave is used to define different “colors” of noise, which share structural properties with corresponding light waves of the same name. White noise is produced when every frequency the human ear can hear (rhymes) is played in a random order with the same amplitude. this results in a \"shh\" or \"vvv\" sound many associate with television, radio static or the sound old AC units made (best sound to sleep to). Disruptive sounds such as a slamming door do not necessarily wake you up because they are loud. Rather, the change is sound consistency from soft to loud can be strong enough to interrupt your sleep. True white noise essentially creates a blanket of sound that masks these sudden consistency changes. And since white noise is audible, it can also be useful for people who do not like sleeping in a completely silent environment. Also it Shuts down your brain. as it keeps your brain too busy to start thinking and making imaginary arguments or bringing back that memory of a cringy thing you did when you were eleven. if you want further reading i suggest you check [this]( URL_0 ) link out. P.S: Excuse my English",
"This is my theory, although I'm not a scientist: * earlier in our evolution we had to be afraid of predators * predators hunt using their senses: sight, smell, hearing * when there is rain and wind, it is much harder for predators to find us: their hearing and smell are impaired * hence our tendency to relax when there are noises similar to rain going on"
],
"score": [
20,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/white-noise"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldn3az
|
why are penny stocks considered so dangerous?
|
I have no idea what “high risk securities with small market caps” mean
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6r5hs",
"gm6sr6w",
"gm858e4"
],
"text": [
"Because they're so cheap, people will spend a lot of money on them and can lose that money very, very quickly. Like, in a matter of days or hours. They're also very easy to manipulate by an investor with a reasonable amount of money to pump into it.",
"To put it simply, they are cheap for a reason. There is plenty of market manipulation, of course, but stocks still roughly valued within range of the companies value. If a stock is worth 0.50 a share, there is a reason for it. You also get what I like to call \"lotto fever.\" A lottery ticket is so cheap, right? Why not buy a few of them? $2 a ticket? Why not just buy 4 while you're getting gas or a pack of smokes? The cheapness of the penny stocks had the same problems. It's only $2 a share? Well I've got $50 I'm not using, give me 25 of those fuckers! You don't stop the think that the reason it's so cheap is because there is a very slim chance it will do anything.",
"When I was in high school, my econ teacher had us all use this educational website that allowed to to do fake investments. They used wall street data at a 5 minute delay, and you were given $100,000 and the goal was to make the most in a certain number of months. I discovered penny stocks. Out of a group of 120+ students, I went from #30 something to #1 place with a return of over 4,000%. I had more than $4,000,000 just a week into it. The next day? Partly thanks to shorts, I went from first place to last place. I went to -1,000%, to owing $1,000,000. I set records in both directions, and those records still stand since the econ teacher put a price minimum into the rules, so people can't just luck their way into first and last. Thanks to penny stocks, I lost $4,000,000 and owed $1,000,000 in one night. Thankfully it was virtual money. The reason penny stocks are so dangerous is because they can change so much. If you bought, say, apple stock, it's a stable stock. It's large, and doesn't change much. It's not going to suddenly change by 75% in either direction. Penny stocks, though, change a lot. When their cost is literally .01 cents, the slightest change of even just a cent can mean the stock has changed by 1000%. Then drop to .00001 cents the next minute."
],
"score": [
9,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldn8qd
|
What is motor oil actually made of and why is it called a “fossil fuel”?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6s3lh",
"gm6scht"
],
"text": [
"Motor oil, like gasoline, is made from crude oil and crude oil comes from the ground. Coal, crude oil, and natural gas are all considered fossil fuels because they were formed from the fossilized, buried remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. Because of their origins, fossil fuels have a high carbon content.",
"It's mostly made from crude oil, with some extra additives to tweak some of the properties to make it work better in your engine. It's called a \"fossil fuel\" because crude oil comes from the remains of plants that died and got buried in rock, like a fossil. Technically, a fossil is when the skeleton of a dead creature gets preserved/converted in rock, which isn't exactly the same thing, but \"fossil fuel\" is the generic term for \"really old dead plant matter that we dig up to burn\"."
],
"score": [
15,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldndi2
|
Why has the housing market inflated so much more than our income?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6w80n",
"gm6yohb",
"gm7f5xa"
],
"text": [
"Demand for land has increased. Demand for labour has decreased and supply has increased. The human work hour just isn't as valuable anymore.",
"This is a very very complex issue. Population has increased after WWII because of the baby boom expected after a war (note that the new thing about this war is that it was global as opposed to some local nations fighting). Automatization, (in part driven by the technological advances needed for the war effort) has also increased. This leads to a new issue - more people and less need of “work” in order to satisfy all the needs of society. So the thing is that you need less labour (thus decreasing its value) to satisfy all the needs of society while you also have to provide shelter to them as their number increases. In basic economics a sudden increase in demand (as in growing population) and a set amount of offer (existing and currently in process of building homes) creates a perfect recipe for growing prices.",
"There are a number of factors at play. First, you can create more land in the most desirable places. When more people want to live in popular cities, demand rises higher than supply can. That’s exacerbated by things like zoning laws that prevent building more dense housing or by wealthy buying multi-unit housing and replacing it with single family homes. Due to increased global demand over past couple decades, building materials have skyrocketed in price, which add to the cost of building new housing. And there are also low interest rates as a factor. In the early 80’s, mortgages were 15% interest! Now they are under 3%. A $300k mortgage at 15% is about $3800/mo, while same price house at 3% interest is under $1300/mo. And that’s for the life of the loan — 30 years. So a buyer with a budget of $X/mo can afford a higher priced home when interest rates are low, and more people can afford a home when interest rates are low, both factors push up home prices."
],
"score": [
6,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldno60
|
Why does adding fats like oil or butter prevent food from burning? It’s the same temp either way!
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6vyhv"
],
"text": [
"It's not the same temperature on the food. Liquid fats are much better heat conductors than air, and they can flow. The combination means they can even out the heat. If the pan is, say, 500F and the food is 35F, then you've got some spots of the food touching air (and mostly getting no heat) and some touching 500F metal. If you stick a layer of liquid fat in there it will heat up to an intermediate temperature...the liquid is 500F on one side and 35F on the other so it will end up somewhere in the middle...say 300F for the sake of argument. That liquid will in the gaps between the food and the pan and moderate any hot spots by flowing around. So the whole lower surface of the food will get a (roughly) even 300F from the fat, rather than a random mix of \"cold\" air and scorching hot metal."
],
"score": [
17
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldobcq
|
I’m not someone who thinks the moon landing was fake, but why haven’t we gone back yet?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6yojy",
"gm709fh",
"gm6yve4",
"gm6z2sh"
],
"text": [
"Going to the moon was a race between the USA and the USSR. When the USA made it to the moon, they won the race. Without the race, there is no longer a good enough reason to drop hundreds of millions of dollars to put people on a rock that they have already been to. The space agencies would rather spend the money, time, and resources on new space projects.",
"So if by \"we\" you humans, we have. China literally landed on the moon in 2020. and 2019. and 2013. If by \"we\" you mean Russia and the US. Why? Russia has landed on the moon 8 times, and the US has been there 11 times. The uUS alone has brought back hundreds of pounds of moon rock. As interesting as the moon is....its not that interesting. It is likely the most studied asteological body, while at the same time it is relatively boring compared to a lot of other targets. Since the moon is so close, we have a pretty good idea about it. So there are not likely any huge scientific discoveries left on the moon that would conpletely change the way we think about it. In contrast, places like mars or Europa that could potentially hold life or signs of life do have the potential for paradigm shifts in our thinking about humans' place in the universe. So that brings us back to why we went in the first place, and why China has recently gone. National Pride. Going to the moon is an insane feat of engineering, much more difficult than say sending an astronaut to the ISS at this point. China can score a huge amount of national pride points by putting the Chinese flag up on the moon, so the cost is worth it. For the US and russia, it has already been done, and unless there is a reason to go back (likely revolving around national politics, not science) I doubt \"we\" would.",
"We haven't gone back because of what we found when went there before. We found worthless rocks and little else. We took lots of good pictures, but today robots can do that better.",
"The short answer is because it's extremely expensive and we don't have an overwhelming reason to go back. The moon landing, while a great feat, was fundamentally a political stunt. Once America had proven its technological superiority over the Soviets the race to space became less important. In the decade following the Moon landing political priorities changed. NASA's efforts were exceptionally expensive and with the Cold War escalating the US government was shifting priorities to the War in Vietnam and other considerations. NASA's budget was slashed and the Moon program was cancelled. With the lower budget NASA changed it's plans to focus on orbital flights, space stations, and re-useable vehicles (ie the space shuttle) the idea being to make space fleet easier, cheaper, and safer. Since then we haven't developed any vehicles capable of going back to the Moon, but our technology and procedures have improved greatly. Some day we'll go back, likely as a pre-cursor to a Mars mission"
],
"score": [
8,
8,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldofw8
|
If a tree replicates all of its cells, can grow roots, obtain nutrients and water essential to its existence, and collect sunlight and CO2, how would it ever die?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm6zkbx",
"gm6zmpf"
],
"text": [
"Well , they don’t have much of an immune system, so they pretty regularly die of infections by viruses, bacteria, fungus, and animals. Also, they get eaten.",
"Also, trees can't really replicate all of their cells. They can only replicate at their meristems"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldorky
|
What's with the other side of packing tape that it doesn't have any adhesive residue when it does come in contact with the adhesive side?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm73wo0",
"gm84zrm"
],
"text": [
"You may have noticed that tape sticks better to some things than others. They just use the stuff that it doesn’t stick to as the back side.",
"[ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) explains it pretty well - glue is applied as liquid and bonds to the plastic substrate. Once it sets, it remains sticky but won't bond to more tape."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ykCVb9rKg"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldp5dt
|
don’t judge me. Ok so I get like how cells and life (single cell) formed billions of years ago, but like my brain cannot understand like how the ‘first’ things developed- like how why when would say these cells shift from one species to another. I just can’t grasp how we got here.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm74ske"
],
"text": [
"To say we definitively KNOW exactly how it happened would be a lie. Ultimately, we believe it was all by chance. Experiments have shown that some of the basic building blocks of life could have formed in the early earth. At some point things that were able to replicate eventually kept doing so, changing a little bit each time until something worked better. Some theorize that the first \"cells\" may have just been small physical places where some of these building blocks were trapped. It is important to note the timeline here. Single cell life has been around for approximately 3.5 billion years. That is an incomprehensible amount of time, but consider this: It took less than 600 million years for the first multicellular life to evolve into Huge dinosaurs and then into birds. Potentially, something like dinosaurs could evolve AGAIN and still less time would have passed than it took for single celled life to become multicellular. A LOT of just random unlikely stuff can happen in a few billion years."
],
"score": [
17
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldpckj
|
When we bleed, does our body make more blood to compensate? And if so, how does it know when to stop?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm76a1z"
],
"text": [
"Yes, if we bleed our spleen (quickly) and our bone marrow (slowly) release red blood cells. Similar for the other blood components (plasma, platelets, etc.). They'll keep doing that until our blood pressure (volume) comes back up to normal. They \"know\" when to stop when our blood pressure is back up and the concentrations of components are normal. Our spleen normally filters out old red blood cells and replaces them with new ones, so once the red blood cell count gets back up to normal it'll get back in balance and the spleen will remove them at the same rate the bone marrow is adding them."
],
"score": [
15
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldq4ld
|
How do people know there are fossils inside rocks?
|
Just what the title says. I see awesome videos of people smashing rocks to find fossils inside but how do they know they will find something if there’s nothing on the outside?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7clk5",
"gm7mvut"
],
"text": [
"First off. The area where they are hunting is known as a \"Fossil Bed\". That means the odds are many of the ricks have fossils in them. Second: the presence of a fossil affects the way the rock is shaped. When you have seen a lot of them you develop an eye for it. Not all of them have a fossil but if you keep the video rolling you will get a good on on video eventually!",
"An educated guess. We know how fossils form. We know the conditions under which fossils form. And we know how to examine our current landscape to figure out if those landscapes were conducive to producing fossils in the past. On top of that, some periods and locales produced an enormous number of fossils because the hard-shelled creatures of those times were very easy to fossilize. Their shells at least were. Back in those times, the ocean floor was littered with the shells of ammonites and belemnites just like our beaches are littered with seashells. And a hard shell on a muddy ocean floor is a perfect condition for creating a fossil. When you see these people smash open seemingly random rocks, that's the kind of fossils you usually see. They go to locales that used to have that perfect combination of easy to fossilize animals in a place that was super conducive to fossilization. As a result, the area is simply littered with fossils. Especially after a big storm that erodes the top layer of the rock or sediment to reveal an older layer of rock that hasn't been picked clean of fossils yet. That means it's relatively easy to film yourself knocking open a bunch of rocks like this until you find a fossil."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldq9n4
|
What are prion diseases and why are there no cures?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7ay6e",
"gm7auy1"
],
"text": [
"Prions themselves are misfolded proteins that can then change other normal proteins to be like them. This royally messes up the brain and other neural tissue, leading to neurodegenerative disorders like CJD. The reason that there are no cures is that 1) we don’t particularly know why the proteins fold like this, never mind predict it, and 2) we don’t know how the proteins target the brain specifically.",
"Prions are an infectious disease. Most infectious diseases are typically propagated through viruses or bacteria, but these motherfuckers are neither. They’re just proteins - these little molecules - that are mis folded. It’s like a protein gone rogue. So you have this bad protein that can turn the proteins in your body (specifically your brain) rogue, which kills you. And the reason there are no cures is because they’re near impossible to destroy."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldqmni
|
Why is a low heart rate better? wouldnt faster blood production be better?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7d0hc",
"gm7d0lq"
],
"text": [
"Blood isn’t produced in the heart. Some of the blood products are made in the bones, and most of it is just water. The heart itself is a pump. So when there is a sympathetic response (fear, exercise, etc..) it increases its rate in order to provide O2 (which is delivered via hemoglobin in the blood) to the muscles and tissues. That being said, the heart is a muscle itself and can be damaged by overuse. Think about it this way, if you were doing a bicep curl, 60-100x per minute, every day for the rest of your life, how would that bicep feel?",
"In general it's not that fast or slow is particularly better than the other. Again in general a fast resting heart rate is a clinical sign of some sort of pathology (anxiety, sepsis, etc.) with the rest being filled in by the clinical providers judgement as to why this person has a fast resting heart rate. Again in general but slow resting heart rates are associated with good cardiovascular fitness, runners specifically have slow resting heart rates and even EKG abnormalities that resolve when they run because their hearts are so strong from running at rest they don't need to beat very fast or intensely to pump blood to the body. Basically this is working backwards to your question, people with lower heart rates are low because they're healthier, and people who are less healthy require faster resting heart rates to pump blood to their bodies."
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldqoru
|
Why do we have distinct uppercase and lowercase letters in English?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7dep8",
"gm7lxdb"
],
"text": [
"Does it not exist in other written languages?",
"Back in Roman times, the Latin alphabet only had upper case letters; everything was in capitals/majuscule. There is evidence of some use of lower case letters, but the main system wall all majuscule. In the 8th and 9th centuries, there was renaissance of sorts in France where scholars become infatuated with old Roman works and scribes started to make several copies. (As as side note, this where great deal of what we know of antiquity come from. The oldest extant versions of Roman texts comes from this era). Scribes had been copying and writing earlier, but oftentimes their writing was damn near impossible to read. So, Charlemagne and his leading scholar Alcuin decided to institute a set type, and this was [Carolingian minuscule.]( URL_0 ). The lower case letters were easier to write and read than the upper case. Keep in mind, this is the two minute version of a topic a person could spend their whole lives studying, but it's the basic reason why."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_minuscule"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldqw71
|
what’s that stuff we see when we rub our eyes?
|
Like when you rub your eyes and there’s that weird light or whatever, what exactly is that? Is that a bad thing to see?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7ekuk",
"gm86qur"
],
"text": [
"So the lens of your eye is connected to your retina (an inner tissue lining) using this gooey gel called the vitreous humor. When you rub your eyes, this gel can bump into your retinal wall a whole bunch because you’re pushing them together. The floaters, white flecks, or phosphenes show up as a response to that stimuli. It’s not bad unless they stay for a long while or suddenly increase in number.",
"Optometrist here. First off. The lens is not attached to the retina. It is suspended via strands called zonules to the ciliary body. The vitreous gel has nothing to do with phosphines either. No the explanation is that when you rub your eyes you cause a mechanical deflection of the wall of the eye which mechanically stimulates the neurons in the retina. So when you stimulate these neurons, you see light. Don’t rub your eyes in general. It’s associated with a disease called keratoconus of the cornea."
],
"score": [
10,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldqxrk
|
the difference between serotonin, endorphins, norepinephrine, dopamine and cortisol? Plus any others I'm forgetting.
|
Trying to understand the pamphlets about my antidepressants and they just make me more confused.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7f7op"
],
"text": [
"The straightforward answer is that we don't fully understand how some of these work. We know antidepressants do work (in general, not necessarily any specific one for any specific person) because we've done experiments to check, but we don't have a very good idea of why. ----- Very vaguely, serotonin seems to be related to a general feeling of well-being and optimistic interpretations about the world (there is such a thing as too much of this - too much serotonin can cause mania). It also has lots of non-brain functions, like keeping the stuff in your intestines moving along. Endorphins are a little more straightforward, and produce a 'high' similar to opiates (which mimic them, albeit much more strongly). Exercise, sex, and (interestingly) pain are common triggers of endorphin release. They cause a rush of euphoria and dampen the feeling of pain. Norepinephrine, like its better-known cousin adrenaline, stimulates your body for activity. It makes your blood sugar go up to make sure energy is available, makes you more alert, active, anxious, twitchy, and attentive. Like adrenaline, it's released in a burst if you're surprised or alarmed. And again very vaguely, serotonin seems to be related to the feeling of being rewarded and to the drive to do things that one thinks will be rewarding. It's related to motivation and to your ability to pursue things you think will be rewarding later. ----- The problem is that it's not so simple as just \"more serotonin equals happy\". That seems to work, sometimes, sort of, in people who are depressed, but you can't just give antidepressants to someone basically OK and make them super happy. The same goes for dopamine: it's vaguely related to reward but it's not as simple as just \"oh, you're lethargic, more dopamine\". The systems that control mood are very complicated and not well-understood, and exactly how all of this works is an active area of research."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldrlji
|
The heat death of the universe.
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7jbiv",
"gm7lqrq"
],
"text": [
"In order for things to move, or glow, or orbit, or do work, or really do anything, energy has to flow from a high potential to a low. Just like water flowing down a stream or sand falling through a hour glass. When all the energy has flowed to the lowest point like the sand in the hour glass everything in the universe will cease to exist. That is the heat death of the universe.",
"Through rigorous testing physicist have found two things to be true. 1: Energy can not be created or destroyed. 2: Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. So if I were to go to the edge of the universe and shine a flashlight outward, the energy of that light would travel out forever and there would be no real way to recover that energy. We inside the milky way are not at the edge of the universe, but all our stars are shining light out in all directions. Some of that light will hit other stars, planets, or distant galexies and be absorbed as heat, but much will just continue on forever without hitting anything. All objects vent heat as light. Unless there is some way to recover that energy, then eventually that light will shoot off into places where there is nothing to recover it. The last star will eventually run out of fuel, and everything will get very very cold. Too cold to support life as we know it. It would be the heat death of the universe. This is just one idea for how the universe might end, and there are other plausible ideas that would prevent the universe from ending this way. Maybe space curves back around on itself? If so, then light wouldn't fly out forever into the void but eventually return to the place where it started."
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldrp94
|
Why do fresh cheese curds squeek?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7kbf3"
],
"text": [
"Squeak is caused by the resistance of long strands of protein rubbing against the enamel of teeth. As the cheese ages, enzymes from the cheese cultures and coagulants will break down protein and other components of milk into smaller pieces."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldrz5d
|
Why do bruises feel ‘sore’?
|
Specifically, what is the mechanism behind it that causes the surrounding nerves to send pain signals?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7kjxe"
],
"text": [
"Bruises represent damaged tissue, because what you see as a bruise is a bunch of small broken blood vessels that released blood into the surrounding tissue. That damage also causes inflammation, which makes things sore by putting pressure on nerves."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldsn14
|
How does carbon dating actually work?
|
Like I know the concepts of half life and all but how does a scientist actually go about it? If someone could please explain it to me, I'd be really grateful :D
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7o5gt",
"gm7oio6",
"gm7qizr"
],
"text": [
"There’s carbon 12, and 14, in nature with carbon 14 being radio active. When something is alive there’s roughly equal levels of carbon 12, and 14 in their system as there is in nature. After that organism dies the carbon 12 stays while the carbon 14 radioactively decays away. By measuring the level of carbon 14 left compared to what it should be you can estimate how long ago that organism died.",
"There are different forms of carbon called isotopes. In the atmosphere and air we breath there is carbon 12 and carbon 14. Carbon 14 is special, it’s radioactive. Not enough to harm you but unstable enough to eventually decay. You breath in these two types of carbon and it is incorporated into your body. If you die, then new carbon is no longer incorporated. This means that slowly all the carbon 14 in your body will decay until all of the carbon in your now dead body is carbon 12. And conveniently we know the rate at which this happens so we can look at the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14 to see how long ago an organism died. Edit. Removed carbon 14 decaying to carbon 12.",
"Original method: Step one. Acquire carbon. How depends on material. Maybe heat it up in a vacuum. Step two. Stick a geiger counter next to it. Step 3: Math. Modern method uses an acceleration mass spectrometer. Basically you take a sample, throw it into a plasma torch to ionise it. Accelerate the ions through a magnetic field. When a particle moves through a magnetic field it curves. Things that weigh more bend less. These ions hit an array of electrodes and generate an electric sigla that can be used to determine where the ion landed and how many landed. So kindof like a prism and light isotopes with different weights can be detected. And once you know how much of each carbon isotope is in the sample, Math let's you get how old it is."
],
"score": [
16,
8,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldt1pq
|
what is oxytocin and why is it called love hormone?
|
I heard oxytocin is released during romantic love and something. So what it is really and is there any other way of releasing it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7stk1"
],
"text": [
"Oxytocin is a hormone that stimulates feelings of intense love and happiness, it is released by the brain as a sort of reward for pair bonding and mating, to encourage reproduction and staying together (which improves the odds of offspring surviving) It is easily released artificially by some drugs, particularly MDMA, aka ecstasy, and is a primary part of the drugs appeal"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldt66o
|
Question about species
|
When did animals we all know today really show up? For example:Did Silverback Gorillas exist when Short-faced Bears roamed the earth? Are orangutans a subspecies of Gigantopithecus and did they coexist? Did tigers we know today hunt Gigantopithecus? Why do smaller versions of much bigger prehistoric animals exist today? Is a deer we see today a subspecies of the giant prehistoric deer that went extinct and did both deers coexist? On Wikipedia what does the temporal range of a species mean? Like Plestiocene-recent? Does it mean these animals showed up during the plestiocene and continued to exist until today?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7qlvd"
],
"text": [
"Temporal = relating to time (Latin *tempus*), so temporal range = the range of times something has been around, yes. Different species arose at different times. Some sharks have been almost unchanged for hundreds of millions of years; other species (like humans, only a couple million years old) are very young."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ldt7lf
|
How does the “will to live” have an impact on the body in a biological/physical way? i.e fighting against cancer
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm82rud",
"gm8c5q5"
],
"text": [
"You don't fight against cancer. Your doctors and others on your treatment team fight against cancer. You basically are just there and are the battlefield. We actually have started moving away from the phrasing \"fighting against...\" whatever, because it implies that there's something the patient is supposed to be doing very hard in the effort. There's not. Show up for treatment, take care of yourself in general, that's all you're going to do that's useful.",
"It doesn't. > Cancer is not caused by a person’s negative attitude nor is it made worse by a person’s thoughts. [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) > Over time, those who scored high on emotional well-being showed no differences in cancer growth or length of life when compared with those with low scores. Based on what we know now about how cancer starts and grows, there’s no reason to believe that emotions can cause cancer or help it grow. [ URL_1 ]( URL_1 )"
],
"score": [
9,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.cancer.org/treatment/children-and-cancer/when-a-family-member-has-cancer/dealing-with-recurrence-or-progressive-illness/positive-attitude.html",
"https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/attitudes-and-cancer.html"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldtb2t
|
How do people know what rocks have fossils in them without some kind of lab test? In videos you will see people pick up a rock at the beach and crack it open to magically reveal a fossil, how do they know?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7sz3y"
],
"text": [
"They don't know. When collecting fossils, you crack a metric ton of rocks that have nothing. They just don't show that on TV. What you generally do know is where the good spots are. There's a quarry in my area that is known to be rich in Jurassic fossils, mostly fish. You can still spend a week there and find nothing. Knowing those spots is often just by chance - someone found some exposed fossil and decided to look harder."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ldtbcs
|
Do we have any idea what is happening physically and/or chemically in our brains when we lose a "train of thought" and then are able to "relocate" it?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gm7u6c8"
],
"text": [
"Nice question! German medical student here, currently working in the field of cognitive neurology and memory consolidation: While nearly everyone knows the feeling you described, it is also one of the symptoms very often experienced by parkinson patients and therefore there are several mechanisms in discussion. In general: Whenever an unexpected event occurs, it appears to clear out what you were thinking. This happens by strong neuronal activation of brain areas that are needed in order to perceive this event (It could be a sound, something you see or a new thought). This event is usually processed with stronger neuronal activation than the train of thought you had before and therefore has priority. Additionally \"the brain\" sends a stopping order (similar to the stopping of a movement) that leads to the disruption of your thought. Physically it is of course electrical activation of neurons and a chemical communication through synapses that leads to the experience of \"thinking\". All this is initiated by a structure of the brain called the \"subthalamic nucleus\". It is also involved in some particular symptoms of Parkinson's - the inability to change focus easily as well as the inability to initiate motion. Now, when you \"relocate\" your train of thought you usually use your short-term-memory. A stimulus can activate a spatial pattern of activity across neurons in a brain region. As these neurons fire they represent a certain information by \"population coding\" which functions as a memory trace. If you mentally go back in time and start to think, the same patterns are activated by similar/or the same neurons that fired before and you are able to relocate your train of thought. You may ask yourself \"why do we experience this in the first place?\", because it is kind of annoying and useless. Well, it all comes down to attention and alertness: In order to react faster to an event (like a lion jumping out of the bushes or to react in road traffic) you need to overwrite your current perception with a new focus. So i hope this was kind of comprehensible and helpful."
],
"score": [
23
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
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