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lm0o25
|
Why do drones/quadcopter have a long range, even though they have a small antenna while the router at home has a short range even though they both use a 2.4 GHz frequency
|
Recently i found out that some consumer drones can fly as far as 6 km with a small antenna. how can they achieve this?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"Your router's signal is getting soaked up by floors and walls and plumbing and electrical wires and carpeting and and and... You're flying the drone outside, with less to block the signal.",
"Antenna size actually plays little factor into range. Its sized to match the size of the wave, the higher the frequency the shorter the wave and thus the shorter the antenna. A problem with shortwaves is that they are also more easily reflected by objects, Wifi signals are often blocked by walls as much of the wave is reflected back the direction it came. In a house, this results in a shorter distance the signal can go. Outdoors they can travel further because nothing is blocking their path. Additionally, the controller my have a higher powered output than a wifi router in your house may have."
],
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13,
4
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lm0q3k
|
What's more important for a car's performance in snow? people say heavier cars are better because they're heavier and others say lighter cars are better because they're lighter....
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsgvdm"
],
"text": [
"Heavier or lighter doesn't make a huge difference, but weight distribution can be important. You want more weight on your driving wheels, which can make something like a prius nightmarish to drive in the snow. Having four drive wheels works around the problem. It also helps to have some height off the ground, if you're driving in deeper snow."
],
"score": [
8
],
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[]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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|
lm0yqa
|
What is a flame consisted of?
|
I know about fire being a chemical reaction (stuff react with oxygen, heat is produced, etc) but what is that bright red/orange flame consisted of?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsip7u",
"gnsjkbt",
"gnsim7o"
],
"text": [
"Fire is just hot gas. The heat and color are a result of the wavelength of light being emitted in the reaction. Different materials can/will produce different colored flames and amounts of heat.",
"The flame is a region of extremely hot gas and particles (typically soot) that's emitting electromagnetic radiation (i.e. light). The precise color of the flame is dependent on the temperature of combustion and the precise chemicals being consumed by the actual combustion process (hence why fireworks have different colors).",
"The stuff you actually see is impurity. Some flames, like a hydrogen flame, are near-invisible due to the lack of impurities. Gas tends to have a fairly mild glow. In something like a wood fire, particles soot and carbon glow from being heated by the fire. They shed this heat incredibly fast, so their glow is determined basically directly by the temperature of the gas around them."
],
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5,
3
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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lm13ju
|
How did early humans know which vegetables are edible?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsj3li",
"gnsju4q",
"gnsk9y2"
],
"text": [
"The ones who guessed right were the ones who lived. The ones who guessed wrong got to demonstrate the consequences.",
"Poison generally taste bitter and awful. So if you taste some plants and they taste bad then it is probably not good for you. That gives you a very basic ability to know which vegetables are edible and which ones are not. But in addition to this there are very few things that are poisonous enough that it will kill you before you can do anything about it. So if you are hungry enough or are adventurous enough you can eat things that does taste bitter and horrible. If you get sick from eating it then you have learned a lesson, if not then you have found a new food source.",
"They observed what other animals ate and they also sniffed things and tried it. If they lived it was ok. After Prometheus gave them fire, they burned everything and tried eating it."
],
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3
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"url"
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[
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|
lm1z5l
|
What makes wild animals want to eat you even if you raise them from birth?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsq578",
"gnvakkx"
],
"text": [
"Wild animals operate on instinct, not logic. This holds true even if kept out of the wild for their entire lives. If they're hungry, they'll do whatever it takes to fulfill that hunger.",
"Instinct. thats just it. Animals, including humans have 2 basic instincts. Hunting instinct and sexual instinct. Humans can think so obviously they can adjust their instinct, control it. Animals cannot. Even though they are capable of empathy, love, attachment and other mostly human emotions, theri instincts take over. If hungry - it needs to eat, regardless what who where or how. So if you are in their way, good luck. If horny, it must fuck, same rules. edit : this is from wikipedia : For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without a sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated.[\\[1\\]]( URL_0 )"
],
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8,
3
],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct#cite_note-1"
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
lm2l0q
|
Technologicsl development in previous civilizations
|
Hey, I was wondering how previous civilizations have been praised to be super intelligent (ex; Greeks) but never managed to come to bigger technological advancments? Was something holding them back, what was it? How come some of the large advancements only happened during the Industrial Revolution? I know they were really far for their time, of course they made some advancements and nowadays we probably aren't at our biggest potential but we will advance much faster than back then. In summary, what held previous civilizations back from making bigger and faster technological advancements?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsv4e8",
"gnstpp1",
"gnssfix"
],
"text": [
"> what held previous civilizations back from making bigger and faster technological advancements? Simply put, time, resources, and previous knowledge. The way I think of it is, we are only where we are, because of them. We still use \"ancient\" practices and devices today. If we had to start where they started, I doubt we would be any more \"advanced\". We joined the snow ball while it was already rolling. So we may have progressed quicker in a shorter period of time, but we had 60-70 more lifetimes of knowledge to assist with that.",
"The speed of technological development is heavily correlated with the ability to share ideas. Three main inventions, and this is not an exhaustive list, that helped accelerate technological development: 1. Patents. Instead of innovative technologies being trade secrets that died with the proprietor they could be published, the inventor got a payout, and everyone else got access to the benefits of the idea and could then look at it and find new ways to improve it. 2. Printing Press. Prior to the printing press if you wanted to make copies of your research or ideas you needed to pay people to transcribe it by hand. Every single copy. So someone researching in London could only know of what another researcher in Paris had found if the Parisian researcher had had a copy of their work transcribed and then sent to London, or if the researcher from London traveled to Paris. This obviously is not a particularly efficient way to get a new idea out there and save everyone from trying to invent it multiple times. Being able to mass produce copies of manuscripts changed this dramatically. 3. Telecommunications. This is an extension of the printing press - today a researcher is able to readily find out about whatever is going on in their field and communicate with other researchers with phenomenal ease, this greatly helps innovation - the more people who are aware of an idea or invention the more people there are who might have an idea on how to improve it or apply it to a previously unconsidered application.",
"I think when we talk about an ancient civilization being “advanced” we are comparing it to other cultures around the time of that civilization. A quick google search tells me that the ancient Greeks developed geared mechanisms, bronze casting, and steam power. While these seem outdated to us, you have to keep in mind that no one had done those things before them. Geared mechanisms are ubiquitous today, but being the first to come up with, develop, and implement a new technology is really hard. Especially when put in the context of what tools and techniques were available at the time. I’d highly recommend checking out the channel Clickspring on YouTube. For the last few years he’s been slowly trying to recreate a working replica of the Antikythera Mechanism, (one of the earliest known geared calendars) and is trying to learn about how they could have made such a precise mechanism by only using handmade tools and materials that would have been available at the time. Edit: typos mostly"
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5,
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4
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[
"url"
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lm2wan
|
If a person is brain dead, but kept alive by machines, why does the brain itself not start to decompose?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnsuu19",
"gnsvbco"
],
"text": [
"The brain is still alive in the sense that the cells that make it up are still alive. The machines are providing oxygen and nutrients to the cells of the body. Brain death is a bit of a misname because the brain is still alive, but it is no longer functioning as it normally would.",
"The meat's still there, cells are still working, but the part that makes electricity flow through the meat don't work."
],
"score": [
15,
3
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|
lm2y97
|
What caused DNA mutation that separated the Great Apes and Hominidae ?
|
Are DNA mutations usually influenced by a change in species environment? Do DNA mutations occur because a spontaneous mutation became advantageous for that species and was passed down? What would of mutated the Great Apes DNA to create our pre-historic ancestors?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnswsew",
"gnsub9r"
],
"text": [
"Mutations are random, and reproduction mixes up the genes of the parents, creating new combinations. It takes many mutations to have separate species, not just one. A crucial aspect of separating species is population isolation: A certain group of the species being separated from the rest for so long that enough random changes pile up to make interbreeding impossible.",
"Mutations happen all the time. DNA is constantly being duplicated, and it's amazing that this process works as reliably as it does. However, every now and then, it goofs up. Whether it's because the molecules align just right or something external has damaged it, mutations arise. When these mutations are so beneficial that they make you less likely to die than others, then you live and your friends die and your mutation is passed on to your kids."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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lm3omc
|
How can a bank lend out more money than it possesses?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnt0fa6",
"gnt9v3u"
],
"text": [
"I am the bank. Alice comes to me and deposits $1,000. I loan out $900 to Bob. Bob buys supplies from Charlie for his business for $900 and Charlie deposits that money with me. I then loan out $810 to Dave. Dave buys supplies for his business from Eric for $810 and Eric deposits the money with me. I still only have $1000 in cash, but I've used it to loan out $1,710. My customers have $2,710 on deposit with me, but thanks to fractional reserve banking I'm not required to actually have all of that money in cash available to everyone.",
"They don't. Reddit in general doesn't understand what fractional reserve banking is. Most also don't understand basic accounting. The bank is effectively in debt to people that deposit money in the bank. But banks don't make money by shoving that money into a vault. Instead they make money by lending it out or investing it, earning the interest as income. Ultimately they still owe you that initial money. Whatever money the bank lends out or invest, will almost always inevitably come back to a bank or another financial institution as a deposit (Not necessarily the same bank). When that happens, the bank will owe whoever deposited the money with them that money and they can in turn use it to earn interest by investing/lending it out again. This can continue on pretty much forever unless you have a reserve requirement. A reserve requirement will mean a bank has to shove a % of the deposited money into a vault and will limit the number of times that money can get lent out. You can essentially claim that the banks are printing unlimited money by leaving out basically all the nuance and any concept of accounting. Which is about typical for Reddit. Now there's an exception to this, and that's the federal reserve. They are a special bank that can basically create money out of nothing. But they are a special case and their purpose isn't to make money from interest (Although they do earn interest from the other banks)."
],
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13,
4
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
lm4bo5
|
how are animals that “electrically sting/shock” people able to do so?
|
I tried looking this up and didn’t find a satisfying answer, so here I am. Do they generate electricity, or is it something else that just feels similar to getting shocked? What about the animal’s anatomy allows them to do that?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gnt6rmx",
"gntel6w"
],
"text": [
"I am not sure if this allowed: but scishow on YouTube has a great video of how it works... URL_0",
"Yes, they generate electricity. Normal animal cells have a concentration of ions - positively and negatively charged atoms - inside and outside their cells. Your cell membranes keep the positive and negative ions separated. This makes a positive side and a negative side of the membranes. When special gates in the membranes open, the ions can flow through, which creates a sudden change in the electric potential, which creates a charge. *All* animal nerve cells do this. However, they only produce a tiny tiny charge, and it's a byproduct of what the cell is trying to do. And, the cells aren't coordinated or aligned, so the charges happen randomly. Electric eels and other electric fish have a *bunch* of cells dedicated to doing nothing but holding a charge with ions this way. The cells are all lined up so that the charge will flow the same direction, like putting many batteries together in series. They are connected to nerves that set them all off at the same time. Individually the cells create a tiny charge still, but all together they create a powerful charge of many thousands of volts."
],
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4,
3
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"https://youtu.be/-53pKGwdAQs"
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[
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lm4hh0
|
Why are so many pipes bursting in Texas but not in other cold weather areas like NY?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnt3pg7"
],
"text": [
"Far less insulation both in homes or in main water lines/sewer lines than in areas that expect cold weather. Insulation and heavier duty pipes that are more resistant to extended and severe freezing temperatures are more expensive - why pay 10% more to cover you for a circumstance that may only happen once every 100 years? Problem being, climate change is and will be making these sorts of events more and more likely, so 100 year events might become 50 or 20 year events."
],
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3
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
lm4p70
|
How is there a ring of liquid under my cup when I'm positive I have not spilled?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnt4y2v",
"gnt9m79"
],
"text": [
"Cold drink? It's condensation. Water vapor from the air touches a cold surface and cools down to sub-vapor and becomes liquid water.",
"There is water in the air itself and your cold drink causes that water to fall out of the air and stick to your cup. Then it slides down and forms a ring at the bottom."
],
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9,
5
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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|
lm4r7v
|
Why are cryptocurrencies harmful to the environment?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gntk8xp",
"gntkcit",
"gnv9k1b",
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"gnu20yg",
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"text": [
"Don't know about all cryptocurrencies, but bitcoin has to be mined. Mining bitcoin takes a lot of computer power, and computers use electricity. If the electricity that computer is using is dirty (say, coming from fossil fuel), then bitcoin in itself becomes harmful for the environment.",
"Because every transaction requires a lot of computational energy. Currently the amount of 'mining' that is happening to make it function is in the order of the energy usage of some entire countries.",
"Bitcoin is the big offender here. Every batch of transactions needs to be verified to be added to the blockchain. This is the process of \"mining\" bitcoin which is in essence solving a very very computing power intensive operation. And even worse, the difficulty of solving the equations gets MORE difficult the more people try to do it. In comparison when you pay something with a bank card there are two systems that need to update their records (bank records at buyer and seller) and with fairly simple operations. With bitcoin the operation itself is very complex and there are thousands of nodes that need to be kept updated as it's a distributed system. The net effect is that a single bitcoin transaction takes approximately as much electricity to be handled as 450000 regular bank card transactions.",
"When you have a bank account, the bank keeps track of how much money you have in your account and they send you a statement once a month for you to check. Other banks don't know about your balance. With bitcoin, one bank doesn't have a copy of your statement, the responsibility is spread among many computers. When you pay someone with a cheque, that person then goes to the bank for confirmation you actually have the money before they actually get it. Bad people can write cheques without having the money. When you pay someone with Bitcoin, it's a bit like writing a cheque, you tell others computers of the transaction and those computers come back to you and tell you the transaction is valid or invalid. The problem is not so much the time taken to approve a transaction, it's that the same transaction is checked many many times and then everyone has to update their own records that you now have the money. Bitcoin figured out a way to encourage people to provide computers by giving bitcoins at random to people who check the transactions and the more transactions checked the more likely they are to get bitcoins. This checking is called \"mining\". And it can damage the environment making the computers and making the electricity to do the checking.",
"\"Mining\" for the cryptocurrency is power-hungry, involving heavy computer calculations to verify transactions. Cambridge researchers say it consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year. On top of that the \"block chain\" needs many powered on computers to track all transactions working together i.e Bitcoin have around 6200 active nodes (computers) keeping track on all transactions.",
"Any amount of computer usage uses power to some extent, using your home computer uses relatively little power in the grand scheme of things. Bitcoin mining, that is efficient and substantial Bitcoin generation, requires multitudes more power. There are legitimately people that have built greenhouses and filled them to the brim with shelves of computers that only mine Bitcoin. These computers are running at full power, 24/7/365. All that power has to come from somewhere, imagine those Earth Day PSAs that reminded you to turn off your light when you left the run except cranked up to 1 one hundred"
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[
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|
lm4z2k
|
- Why does different software drain my mobile phone battery vastly differently, even if doing the same thing?
|
Looking at the battery drain statistics on my phone. Since the start of this week, I have apparently spent 3 hours watching Disney Plus, and 4½ hours watching YouTube. I never changed my screen brightness and all of this was done through wired headphones at the same volume. But YouTube has apparently used up 25% of the battery, while Disney Plus has used 54%. Why is the drain so vastly different, despite the two apps both performing the same basic function (video streaming)?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"Different video codecs and qualities require more CPU power to process. In addition, Disney is going to be sending a stream that is protected by HDCP (basically encryption that goes all the way through to the monitor, preventing software from just copying it). This requires extra CPU power beyond just the quality/codec changes.",
"Different frameworks, design patterns , use of GUI and phone sensors and resources will greatly affect your power drain. Som apps are built with HTML and some apps are build in phones native code that could be a huge difference",
"Different video qualities or codecs requiring more/less resources to decode, different amounts of time just having the app open or a video paused versus actively playing, more or less efficient processes, the potential for additional processing from tasks like submitting information on viewing habits, bugs causing unnecessarily high CPU/GPU load... etc etc etc."
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5,
5
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lm5lmf
|
Why does the bottom left/right of your jaw produce a shocking feeling when you start eating?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gntaodn",
"gntbkdj"
],
"text": [
"Ive never experienced this. you should probably mention this on your next visit to your doctor/dentist. The hinge area of your jaw does have a lot of nerves/muscles/tendons crossing it, so it could be that something is getting stuck/pinched/irritated.",
"Yeah, you should mention this to a doctor. In addition to [tmahfan117]( URL_0 )'s comment, there are salivary glands in that area that could potentially be plugged (or have 'stones'). Forget Dr. Reddit and Dr. Google, see a real doctor."
],
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[
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|
lm5s15
|
Why does science say that doing heavy weight and less reps builds strength but doing lighter weight and more reps defines/increases the size of your muscle?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gntd1v6"
],
"text": [
"Pretty simply, the muscle realizes that it's hitting its strength thresholds by doing heavy weights, and therefore attempts to increase its upper strength limit by adding muscle mass. While if the muscle is doing more reps of a lighter weight it will want to improve its stamina/recovery time, which is a separate attribute from max strength, more related to cardiovascular and cell recovery rates."
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3
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lm5wsg
|
Why is investing in poor urban areas good but gentrification is seen as bad.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"It is a double edged sword, investing in poorer areas can improve those communities yes. The problem is when those communities start to become new hotspots, bringing in outside people, wealthier people, who typically stayed away. You now have residents of the neighborhood competing with these newer people who are able to pay more to rent the same apartments, offices, and business spaces. Or worse, a major development happens leveling say an old block of houses and building a new apartment nicer apartment block. Typically no one who previously lived in those older, not as nice places can afford to live in the new nicer places and are forced to move. It is a double edged sword, of course everyone wants their communities improved and revitalized, but many people who live in that community live there because it is less expensive, if suddenly thing become more expensive theyre forced to move.",
"Gentrification typically sees existing residents forced out due to rising rents and property taxes, sees longtime businesses forced out by rising rents and loss of customer base. And it's almost exclusively wealthier whites displacing poorer minorities. Gentrification isn't all bad, but there are certainly touchy issues that need to be addressed to try and minimize impact on existing residents while recognizing that cities are ever changing, even evolving living entities.",
"It's all in the details. When you say \"investing in\", are you talking about making small business loans to minority-owned businesses in the area? Or buying land which you'll rent back to people in the area to open new local shops and restaurants? This kind of investing is good because it's intended to directly help the people already living in the area. Gentrification happens when the improvements in an area outpace what the people living there can afford. If you buy land to rent out for shops and restaurants but you rent at so high a price only high-end, large grocery chains can afford the rent, then you haven't helped the locals. They don't get to open businesses and they can't afford the groceries. The best benefit they can hope for is a job at the grocery which may not be any better than the opportunities they already have. And now, because there is a high-end grocery store, other expensive businesses move in nearby. Before you know it, the area is so in demand that land owners can raise the rent of the businesses that have been there for decades, forcing those businesses to close. That's when you get gentrification. That rarely benefits the people who lived there before.",
"Run-down areas have poor people living in them because no one wants to live there, so the prices are low to meet the low demand. Then you think \"we should try to improve the lives of these people by investing in the area to help raise the quality of life\". Make it cleaner, safer, and with more job opportunities. Then, by making the area more pleasant to live in it increases demand to live there, which increases the price to live there to meet the rising demand, which pushes out the people who used to live there and can't afford it any longer. They just move to a different unpleasant run-down area where they can afford the rent. So, in the end the poor never really had their lives improved. They just get forced to move away from their home into a new terrible location. It's that wrong? Is it evil? No, it's just a consequence of supply meeting demand. It's unfortunate, and we should do our best to help lift up those who were living there originally, but making the area more desirable often fails to achieve that original goal.",
"I think I can best start my explanation with an old joke, one that's almost too true to be funny: \"When you start seeing white people in your neighborhood running for no reason, it's time to start shooting your gun into the air at night to keep the rent from going up.\" If investing in poor or working-class urban areas (like mine) means that the landlords can now charge more rent, can replace poor and working class people (like me) with middle class or upper-middle-class tenants, that's great for the landlord. It's great for the new tenants. It's great for the city. It completely and utterly sucks for me, because it makes me move into an area that is *at best* no better than where I was. I say \"at best\" because I'll be competing with the existing poor/working class people in those neighborhoods, which pushes everybody's rents up, so odds are that if (when) that happens, I would (will) have to move to an even worse slum just to live indoors. Multiple cities, like New York and Oakland (just to name two off the top of my head) have tried to make it possible for existing tenants to stay in their newly gentrified neighborhood until they die or voluntarily move away through rent control. It doesn't work. Landlords cheat like mad to drive them out; tenants cheat right back to stay in; in both cases the buildings get torn up in ways that undermines the whole investment in the neighborhood. There really is no solution other than \"have less income inequality.\"",
"Investing is done with the intent of improving the lives of the poor people there (things like making public services there better), gentrifying is done with the intent of replacing the poor people there with richer ones (things like tearing down a affordable apartment building to replace it with an expensive one)."
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|
lm6478
|
Water resistant electronics
|
How do things like iPhones and new technologies that have charging ports and other parts out in the open able to resist water damage? I dropped my phone in a puddle a few weeks ago and all I did was shake the water off and there was absolutely no damage.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnteepz",
"gnu1nux"
],
"text": [
"The charging port has no open holes into the phone for moisture to get in, just contact surfaces. The main culprit for water damage is the speakers which let water in and small cracks where multiple surfaces were put together on the phone. It’s fine for water to touch these contacts because they only accept power, not output power and therefore cannot short circuit.",
"I phones, and other water resistant electronics have essentially a water tight seal around all those sensitive components. Charging ports, speakers, and headphones all have a seal that prevents water from seeping in. Do you know how you have a water bottle with a little rubber seal around the screw on cap? These phones have them too - just around the ports. No air gets in, no water gets out. Except under heavy pressure. You may notice that water resistant devices usually have a rating like \"IP67\". This describes how well protected it is against dust and water getting in. URL_0"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lm7gei
|
How do national organizations operate for countries that have different languages for different regions?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv8rtd",
"gnusygc"
],
"text": [
"Here in Belgium, it gets complicated. TV and radio are completely split, we have separate channels for Dutch and French-speaking people. Federal government: In parliament most people speak both languages. Not all however and there are translators available. When the federal government has official speeches on TV for instance they are bi-lingual, repeating everything, once in Dutch and once in French. If you watch the parliamentary debates many speakers will switch between the two languages all the time. The language of government services are dependent on which part of the country you are in. Here in my city the government services will ONLY communicate in Dutch. In Wallonia only in French. Brussels is bi-lingual so there all government communication is in your registered language. Some communities that have a sizeable amount of the minority language for the territory will send you documents in the majority language by default, you can register there to receive it in the other language and have to renew that every x years. International sports teams whichever language the majority of the team speaks best.",
"(no expert but observing as an expat in Belgium) It ends up a little bit of a mess, with complaints that certain people don't speak the other language well enough haha as you said, Belgium being the prime example, with French, Dutch and German being official languages, for a country with a tiny footprint. Often at the highest level they speak French and dutch, dependent on the outlet, with all official statements given in both languages at the federal level. Below Federal the French speaking part (Wallonia) operates almost exclusively in French, and similarly for the Flemish (dutch) speaking region. And yes, it does result in a lot of conflict/confusion between regions, and certain political parties pushing for separation. On a positive note, I've heard on the international sporting stage it has its advantages, encouraging i.e. using French to communicate when competing against Netherlands."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lm876a
|
Are all plants fermentable? Why can rye be distilled into drinkable alcohol, but a bell pepper can not?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gntqhlj",
"gnttbi2",
"gntqmb9",
"gntra8r",
"gnu7ts7",
"gnvoqzc"
],
"text": [
"Fermentation is the process of converting carbohydrates (usually simple carbs) into other substances such as ethanol (drinking alcohol) through means of a fungus (yeast) or bacteria. You absolutely can ferment a bell pepper... There's just not that much fermentable sugars in a bell pepper as compared to other carb-heavy fruits or grains (most of which usually get converted from complex to simple carbohydrates first)",
"I have an 18th century cookbook (reprint) and it has recipes to make: - Orange wine - Elder-flower wine - Birch (sap) wine - **Turnip wine** All require adding a fair amount of sugar or raisins to achieve fermentation.",
"The sugars do not release enzymes that create alcohol. Yeast eats the sugar and creates carbon dioxide and alcohol. Bell peppers have a very low sugar content, therefore not leaving much for the yeast to eat. Barley and other grains are malted so that the sugar is available for the yeast to eat. Fruit is full of simple sugar that yeast readily eat.",
"Sugars don't release enzymes that create alcohol. Sugars are broken down by yeasts and converted to alcohol as the waste product in a process that provides energy for the yeast to grow. Any sugar can theoretically produce alcohol but there are only ranges of things like acidity that yeasts can tolerate. Other microorganisms can function under different conditions like those that cause damaged fruit to rot instead of ferment.",
"Hate to break it to you but when you have a flavored highly distilled alcohol product, the flavor is infused AFTER the alcohol distillation. (Oak barrels, burnt wood, juniper and herbs for gin etc etc) What you need for fermentation is a source of carbohydrates (usually sugar). The choice is whatever is readily and cheaply available in the region. After fermenting, it goes through distillation and what you get is colorless, mostly tasteless ethanol regardless of the source of the sugar (ie there is little to no rye or potato or grape flavor in the distillate). If you want to make chili flavored liquor, buy a bottle of cheap but super high proof vodka and dump as many chillies into it as you like and let it stand for a few days/weeks. Could you make alcohol out of fermenting chillies? Possibly, but the carb content of chillies is around 10%. (as opposed to grains or potatoes which probably are in the 70-80% range) There is a bit of research that shows that capsaicin inhibits yeast growth - so fermentation might not work very well. Plus capsaicin is alcohol soluble - so you might end up with some pretty undrinkable alcohol after distillation (more akin to pepper spray?)",
"You can use anything as the flavor. Grains make beer, fruits make wine, honey makes mead. All the recipes are effectively the same. Flavor+sugar+water+yeast. Sugar is the only thing that is fermentable. If your fruit has a lot, great. If not, just add sugar. Adding sugar is where the alcohol comes from. Anything else is for the flavor. The sugar will be completely gone when fermentation is finished. If you max out the alcohol there will be some sugar left. Don't count on your drink being sweet unless you add sugar after. Yeast also has a limit. Wild yeast gets about 4% alcohol and then the alcohol is toxic to them. Just imagine drinking from and peeing into a pool. You survive for a while, but then eventually you die from drinking your pee and new pee stops being made. Alcohol is yeast pee. You can buy yeast that survives to 18% alcohol. Anything higher than that is spirit which requires you to distill a wine. I say \"survives to 18%\" with the yeast. Technically speaking the yeast is still alive at 18%. They only go into a dormant mode. They will revive if you dilute the alcohol. To stop yeast reviving you add Sorbate when you reach the alcohol level you want. With Sorbate you can add sugar and the sugar won't ferment. I'm just rambling beyond the scope of your question now."
],
"score": [
25,
8,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lm8g2u
|
Why do sloths move in slow motion? Do they ever move at what would be considered a normal speed?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gntrt88"
],
"text": [
"They conserve energy as the food they eat has little nutritional value, they move down more rapidly to take a shit, but never what is thought of as normal speed."
],
"score": [
16
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lm965u
|
Airplanes and helicopters. How do they stay in the sky?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gntxba4",
"gnu2ih0"
],
"text": [
"By generating lift with their wings or rotors. Just like a ceiling fan pushes air down, a helicopter pushes the wind the same way. Except with far greater force, enough to counteract gravity. An airplane uses thrust (either from its props or a jet engine) to push itself forward, and has wings that create lift. Pushing air down below them and creating a low pressure zone above them.",
"It's the same principle at work in both cases. An airplane's wing is an airfoil, which is shaped and angled in such away that when air moves across it creates a lifting force (the actual physics behind this effect are actually quite complicated, and there are a lot of misconceptions about it). If the lifting force is more than the weight of the airplane, it flies. The key is that air must move across the airfoil to generate lift. That's why planes must be moving quite quickly to take off, and why they can't hover in the air. In a helicopter, the \"wings\" are the blades, and are moved independently of the body of the vehicle. They can move straight up and down in the sky as long as the blades are spinning, and they move laterally by tilting the rotor disk."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lma908
|
What effect does the pressure part of a pressure cooker have on food?
|
Like why do you even need pressure to cook stuff?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnu2o0i",
"gnu4b03"
],
"text": [
"You don't need pressure to cook stuff. But you do need it to cook stuff faster. If you're cooking wet stuff (anything with appreciable amounts of water) you can't get it hotter than 212F/100C because that's when the water starts turning to steam. That transition takes a \\*huge\\* amount of energy, so the temperature will stall out at 100C until all the water turns to steam, which would render food appaulingly dry. However, the boiling point of liquids also depends on pressure...higher pressure means high boiling temperature. The pressure in the pressure cooker pushes the boiling point up, so you can get the food hotter. And the cooking time is a \\*really\\* strong function of temperature. Just going from 100C to 110C can shave hours off the cooking time. The pressure cooker provides a safe way to crank up the pressure around the food, letting you get to higher temperature than you otherwise could.",
"There's two main effects. water boils at 212 F. what this means is that if you cook something in a lot of liquid, it can't get above 212 degrees and this limits how quickly it can be cooked. But as it turns out, the boiling point of water isn't quite as simple as 212 degrees. It also depends on the pressure; raising the pressure raises the boiling point. So now the liquid in the pressure cooker isn't 212 F, it's 250F. Now whatever is in the pressure cooker can cook stuff way faster than if you put it in the oven or in a regular pot. Personally, I haven't used one, but it looks like you can cook rice in 4 minutes compared to the 15-20 required from a regular pot. Fun fact, this is also why stuff takes longer to cook at high altitudes. High altitude, low pressure, lower boiling point, longer cook time. The pressurized steam and water also help tenderize tough cuts of meat. Tough cuts of meat are often cooked for long periods of time to make them tender. Using a pressure cooker can help get them tender a lot quicker."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmaidn
|
Why are CD and DVD players not mutually compatible to play each other's audio?
|
Why can we not put a DVD into a CD player and listen to the film's soundtrack? Or put a CD into a DVD player and listen to it as if it's a film soundtrack with no video?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnu4715",
"gnucs1q"
],
"text": [
"There's two problems, one is physical and one is \"format\". DVD is a much higher density format than CD. A CD can hold about 630MB, a DVD holds about 4GB (about 7 times more). This means the pits (the physical features that encode the \"1\" and \"0\" of the digital data) are a lot closer together on a DVD than a CD. A CD player doesn't have the ability to read the DVD. The reverse is not a true, a DVD player generally can read a CD. The format issue is how the data is stored; an audio CD is just the sound files. A DVD is combined video/audio. As a result, a CD player expects to see only audio. Even if it could physically read the DVD (which it can't), the data it reads isn't what it expects to see. Again, the reverse isn't true, a DVD player generally can read a CD because most DVD players are also setup to \"understand\" CD. Edit:typo",
"CDs and DVDs may appear visually similar to the naked eye however there are hardware and software differences between the formats meaning both the way the data is stored on the disc and the way the data itself is formatted result in incompatability. CDs have a lower data density allowing them to be read with an infrared laser and the audio data is stored as raw uncompressed stereo PCM. DVDs are read with a shorter wavelength red laser, bascially allowing for a sharper focus and therefore higher data density (Blu-Ray discs take this a step further with an even shorter wavelength laser allowing for HD video). Additionally the audio data on a DVD is usually encoded as compressed multichannel audio using the DTS and/or Dolby Digital codecs (similar to MP3), some rare DVDs such as concert videos may use PCM but at a different technical specification. The result of all this is that even if CD players had the necessary red laser optics to physically read DVDs they also lack the appropriate decoding circuitry and firmware to decode the audio data on DVDs. Nearly all DVD players and drives also have an infrared laser and the necessary firmware to read CDs."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmatda
|
How do people generate static electricity?
|
If someone is dehydrated, does that make them more susceptible to static? Or less? Or does it depend on how you drag your feet when you walk? What happens to cause all that build up in there?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnuv6o9"
],
"text": [
"Static electricity is caused by different materials rubbing against each other. Put simply, different materials \"like\" electrons more than others do, so when you rub them together, some electrons come loose and are grabbed by the material that likes electrons more. Everything starts neutral (not charged), but this transfer results in one material ending up with extra electrons (negative charge) and the other with too few (positive charge). There's two ways this can resolve. 1. The excess charges can slowly dissipate into the air. The excess electrons (repelled by each other since they're all negative) physically fly off the negative-charged object into the air. Other electrons from the air land on the positively charged object (attracted to it since it's positive and they're negative), until everything is neutral again. Air is not very conductive to electrons so this takes a while. 2. If a positive object and negative object are brought close enough together, electrons jump from the more negative side to the more positive side all at once - a spark of \"static\" electricity. Wet/humid air is more conductive, so option 1 happens faster. That's why you get shocked more in the winter. The air is much drier so the charges build up and accumulate more and longer, leaving you prone to an eventual shock. It absolutely depends on dragging your feet, as well as what material your foot covering and the flooring are made of. Rubbing sock feet on a carpet floor is particularly good at building up a charge if you *want* to shock stuff. I am speculating here but I imagine your internal hydration level has little or no effect on any of this. This is all about surfaces rubbing. If you're so dehydrated that your skin conductivity changes, you have bigger issues. Maybe if you're currently sweating so your skin is damp then you'd be less susceptible, but that's active sweating not \"being hydrated\"."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmbs9x
|
What's going on in the body when people get so angry they start to cry?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvgqd9"
],
"text": [
"Actually, it’s all roughly the same thing. During moments of intense emotion, your brain releases a TON of hormones into itself. Thanks to the chemical buildup, your brain backfires, and all of those hormones are suddenly released into the body at once, causing you to feel “pain” in the throat, nose, and eyes, as well as clench up, shake, and increase breathing rapidly. This, in turn, leads to tears forming and mucus being excreted in your mouth and nose, which we call crying. Once the hormones have been “bled out” through your tears and boogers, and the rest of the body has metabolized (aka digested) the rest of the hormones in your body, your body relaxes again and you’re able to revert back to normal. All of the stress hormones have basically been squeezed out of you, all at ounce, like a sponge full of soapy water. This is also why you feel much better after a good cry, as you’re able to relax again without the chemicals coasting through your veins."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmcqxn
|
How does oxygen get from your blood into your cells? Your blood is in veins and arteries, which must be a closed system otherwise it would leak out, so how does the oxygen get out of this closed system to its final destination?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnuw0fr",
"gnuiki3"
],
"text": [
"> must be a closed system Only kinda. It is sealed in that blood cells can't pass through the walls of your blood vessels. But the walls are quite permeable to oxygen (a tiny gas molecule) as well as a bunch of other things, like CO2. Because of that, the oxygen leaves your blood vessels into the body cells passively by diffusion. Diffusion is things naturally moving from high to low concentration. For example if you put a drop of food colouring in a glass of water, it will spread on its own until the whole glass is an even, pale colour. Concentration differences always even out if they can. So if the blood has a higher level of dissolved oxygen than the surrounding body cells, some oxygen diffuses out of the blood vessels into surrounding tissue.",
"Diffusion. When oxygen concentration in the plasma drops, like it does in capillaries (because the cells are absorbing oxygen), the hemoglobin gives up it's oxygen into the plasma. This keeps the oxygen level in the plasma up where it can diffuse through the capillary walls into the cells (CO2 goes back the other way)."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmdcuo
|
why are echidnas and platypuses still considered mammals if they lay eggs?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnum9aj",
"gnuo24x",
"gnump9v"
],
"text": [
"Because they are warm blooded and have mammary glands, which their infants feed from. These are more substantial (or at least defining) biological features than whether or not the placenta / egg structure is intact at birth or not.",
"Because mammals are not defined by whether or not they lay eggs, they're classified by whether or not they have mammary glands, hence the name. As it happens monotremes (the egg-laying mammals) diverged from the rest of the mammals (the marsupials and the placentals) very early, which is why they are so different from other mammals. But they do share a common ancestor with the placentals and marsupials, and that common ancestor was itself a mammal, so all of its descendants are mammals too.",
"Because they have hair, are endothermic, have a single jaw bone, three bones in the ear and make milk. They dont have nipples though. There are 3 groups of mammals; placental, marsupial and monotreme."
],
"score": [
16,
12,
11
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmdr53
|
Why are pipes bursting in Texas but not so much in colder climates?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnuoduu",
"gnuo6yr"
],
"text": [
"Texas doesn't bury its underground pipes as deep, because digging deeper is expensive, they also don't insulate the piping that needs to be above ground properly because again, expensive. Usually they get away with doing it like that because warm southern climate, but once or twice a decade it bights them in their big Texas Ass",
"I'd assume because Texas doesn't get cold weather, like, at all, so their pipes aren't made for cold climate like in Canada. I'm probably way wrong"
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmei36
|
Why do people expect the federal government to forgive tens of thousands of student loan debt? They signed the paperwork and knew exactly how much debt they would be getting into at the inception of their education.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnuskcx"
],
"text": [
"They signed that paperwork at 17 or 18, under the pretense that getting that degree would mean they would get a job that meant they would be able to pay it off, a pretense which turned out to be wrong. The cost of that education has gone up far beyond the rate of inflation, so it cost even more than they were told it would. Student loan debt is also pretty much the only kind of debt that bankruptcy can't clear, so even if you lose everything, destroy your credit, and have all your assets stripped by bankruptcy, you're still stuck with it."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmgj0h
|
Why are water molecules still able to add another H+ ion during dissociation of acids? Don’t they already have a full outer shell?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv67rb",
"gnv2q1y"
],
"text": [
"> Don’t they already have a full outer shell? Yes ...kinda. Talking about molecules having shells is kind of dodgy. That language is more useful when talking about shells of electrons on a single atom, not atoms adding to molecules. Regardless, H2O is neutral and \"satisfied\" to begin with. When adding the H+, the resulting species is H3O+. The \"+\" reflects that it is no longer satisfied/neutral. H+ has no electrons. The H2O shares one of its electrons in the bond with the incoming H, and so from the H2O's perspective it's now short an electron, hence now being H3O+ overall.",
"Water molecules are V shaped, the angle of V is 104.5 degree being oxygen in the center and hydrogen on both sides. This causes a polarity, although the molecule itself is charge neutral. This causes the V with negative charge flocking in center and positive on hydrogen sides. This negative attract H+ ions from surrounding area."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmgkvm
|
Why did the US experience a Winter Storm/ Cold Snap thing? What is it and why does it happen?
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv2nv4",
"gnv4cx0"
],
"text": [
"The polar vortex is a circular upper-air weather around the North Pole. It's a natural pattern that tends to keep the coldest air bottled up near the North Pole. Sometimes the vortex can break off or move south, bringing extremely cold weather down into the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Climate change destabilize that polar vortex, which allows more chances for frigid Arctic air to spread south. So while the vortex is a natural phenomenon, and polar vortex breakdowns happen naturally, there is also an element of climate change at work. Like you can get a one on a natural die throw, but climate change is loading the dice in your disfavor.",
"[Here is an article I read a few weeks/month ago explaining that this was about to happen]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
18,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/winter-weather-pattern-forecast-january-2021-usa-europe-fa/"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmh2bw
|
When massaging someone’s back or shoulders, people will often describe a “ropey” feeling. What are these “ropes” felt in people’s backs?
|
Title. Also same question about people describing “knots” in people’s back/muscles
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv75x2",
"gnv51zz"
],
"text": [
"Former massage therapist for a brief time. Those knots are the muscles and fascia getting bunched up due to stress like overuse. Massage warms up and stretches the muscles and fascia back to their relaxed state. However, the tendon between your spine and shoulder blade (scapula) feels like a rope and is often sore because it's worked out with many upper body movements. Massaging the tendon often feels good and people may mistake that for a knot.",
"The texture of your muscle fibers. My guess is it's caused due to stiffness. Your muscles are made up of thousands of fleshy \"strings\" called fibers. I've been told to think of them with the same physical properties as chewed gum, sort of. The more you stretch and manipulate it the more it heats up and becomes more stretchy and flexible. But if left stagnant it will grow cold, stiff, and hard to move. If you don't move or stretch a lot your muscles can develop the same texture as rope. Source: a random factoid I heard from a physical trainer like 15 years ago and sort of knowing what muscles look like."
],
"score": [
34,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmhaif
|
Should I use the phone while charging?
|
Is it better to use the phone while charging than using the battery to 20%, charging to 100% and using again?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnva2a7"
],
"text": [
"It depends on what you're doing. Purely conceptually, using the phone while it's charging shouldn't affect the battery life. It'll just make it take a little longer to charge since it's draining a little while being charged. Practically speaking, however, using the phone while it's charging can make your phone heat up. Heat is one of the factors that causes battery degradation. So if your phone gets noticeably warm if you use it while it's charging (or it might just get warm while charging, period), best to leave it alone to avoid shortening the battery lifespan."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmhhop
|
Why do we eat much less or much more when we are stresses?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv6mzd"
],
"text": [
"Well, when we are stressed, food may serve as a comfort. Eating food (especially fatty, salty, and sweet) releases hormones in to your body to make you feel good, which obviously is good when you are stressed as it can calm you down a bit and make you feel a bit better. Stress can also make people feel sick though, which makes people not want to eat. It really just depends how the stress is making you feel. Both aren't particularly healthy, and it's always better to address the source of a stress rather than to over eat/starve."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmhqlj
|
What causes mood swings?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnv9k86"
],
"text": [
"An imbalance in brain chemicals. In your brain are little DNA-looking structures that open and close to produce thoughts and feelings. When you're happy those pathways open and flood your brain with \"happy\" chemicals. When you're out of balance you can produce those chemicals too much on your own or by an external source like drugs. You run out of these happy chemicals before your brain is able to produce more which leads to depression symptoms. A healthy brain regulates these chemicals fine on its own but others, who may have mental issues like bipolar disorder or manic depression, need medicine to help correct it. Or you must stop doing the thing that's artificially depleting your brain if happy juice."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmjhhc
|
Why is tomato-sauce so good at coloring plastic red in your dishwasher, unlike raspberries or strawberries for example?
|
We like tomato sauce, but one must be careful with what to put into the dishwasher, to not have plastic bowls, storage boxes or other things dyed red...Why is tomato sauce this potent in coloring plastic. It's like it's in the fabric of the plastic itself after it comes out of the dishwasher...why not the same effect with strawberries or raspberries? And is there a way to prevent this? Edit: Wow, this got some momentum...I see a lot of people like tomato sauces. Thanks for the awards as well!
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"The colour in tomatoes that makes them red, and it is very concentrated in tomato sauce, is lycopene. Lycopene loves plastic, it sticks to it and doesn’t want to let go. Similar to the yellow pigment in Tumeric (that spice in curry that turns everything a funny yellow colour). When a pigment sticks to a surface that well, it’s essentially dyed that colour. Because the pigment has bonded with the surface. You can’t just “wash it off”. That red molecule isn’t in raspberries or strawberries. It’s different pigments that cause that and it’s not as adherent (sticky) to plastics. Prevention - most simply, use glass or ceramics instead of plastic. It’s better anyway, will go in the oven, will go in the microwave, easy to clean, no roughness on the surface that germs can get stuck in, don’t get scratched by knives, generally amazing stuff. If you absolutely cannot live without plastic in your kitchen, you can try putting a thin layer of oil on the plastic, to keep the pigment from contacting the container. You can try to do some research on the molecule lycopene, and work out if there is an easy way to get it to release the plastic. See if washing it in vinegar gets it to let go, or whatever.",
"As other folks have already mentioned, the pigments are different. In fact, there are three types of red pigment you'll commonly see in plant foods: anthocyanins (most common), carotenoids (tomatoes, peppers, turmeric), and betalains (mostly in beets). If you cook a dish with red cabbage, say, you will see the color stays in the water based part of the food, and avoids any oil drops you see. Also, the color will shift to bluish (even greenish!) unless you add a lot of acid, which will shift it back to red. Both of these behaviours are characteristic of anthocyanins, though the color range depends on which variation you have. If, on the other hand, you have a tomato sauce, then the oil droplets will turn red or orange, because the underlying pigment is more waxy/oily. Similarly, some plastics (especially polyethylene and polypropylene) are basically solid waxes/oils, so the pigment happily dissolves in them. Many carotenoids will shift between pale, yellow, and red depending on conditions but blue shades not so much. Finally, beets! The red stuff in beets is different yet again. It also has a strong preference for water, so won't stain plastic. They don't color shift as dramatically as anthocyanins. Also your body doesn't metabolize them as aggressively, so they turn your pee and poop red if you eat a lot. Betalains are only common in one order of plants, I think. So beets/poke/amaranth and maybe cactus.",
"**The standard answer:** The stain is from a hydrophobic (repels water) solid substance called lycopene, which is responsible for the red in tomatoes. As it turns out. plastic is also a \"hydrophobic solid\". When two hydroponic things get wet, they stick to each other, thus the stain. **The standard fix:** Lycopene is however soluble in oil. So spray on some oil and wipe of the red before getting it wet. **But I am confused by your situation:** I am not sure I understand what you mean by \"tomato sauce\". In Australia tomato sauce is similar to \"ketchup\" but it tastes better. Both these sauces have significantly less lycopene than raw tomatoes and should not stain anything a tomato can't. Typical tomato stains are from a puree (eg: \"tomato paste\") which has up to 20 times as much lycopene than a raw tomato.",
"The red stuff in tomatoes is called lycopene, and wants to dissolve in oil and in things like oil, rather than in water and things like water. Plastic is more like oil than like water, so the red color from the tomatoes goes into the plastic, and doesn't come out into the water you try to wash it with. The red stuff in strawberries and raspberries is a mix of different anthocyanins, all of which would rather dissolve in water than in oil. So when you wash a plastic cutting board with water, the red color from the berries comes off into the water, and the plastic gets clean. You can probably get more lycopene out of plastic stained with tomatoes by using a lot of soap and leaving the plastic touching it for a while, because soap acts in between how oil and water act.",
"Fat and acid. Typically tomato sauce has fat in it and the fat sticks the sauce to the plastic. If you wash out the container prior to the dishwasher run (and make sure it had no red on it) it will wash clean."
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[
"url"
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[
"url"
] |
lml92n
|
how does a 'soap free' hand wash clean hands?
|
just got a new hand wash that says soap free. now isn't soap required to actually clean skin?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvmtk9"
],
"text": [
"Soap is technically a specific kind of chemical, made from fat and lye. It is quite harsh, so instead manufacturers use foaming agents."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmm2nx
|
Why the news does not have to blur your face?
|
ELI5 If you watch a show that interviews people in a public place the show blurrs people's face who did not consent to have their face shown on TV but when you watch the news they don't have to do the same blurring. Why does the news not have to blur faces of people that don't consent to being shown?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvqkl2",
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],
"text": [
"Disclaimer: IANAL, and this isn't necessarily true everywhere in the world. By going into a public space, you make your face visible to everyone else. If you have a reason not to want your face to be seen in public, you either cover it or you don't go outdoors. By going into a public space with your face visible, you also implicitly consent to your image being picked up by any CCTV cameras that may be around. If you don't want to be on camera, you can ask the crew to blur you out or exclude you from their footage. Sometimes the crew will put up a sign stating this, in the same way that some buildings have a sign on the outside informing you that they use CCTV. In an interview, they may ask the participants what they want to do, but this is not practical in a public space with thousands of people around. In short, the default position is that your consent is automatic, and you need to withdraw it if you object.",
"This reminds me of my question as to why mugshots are published and public without convictions of a crime",
"Reality TV producer here - plz keep in mind, I am not an entertainment lawyer whatsoever but this is my experience. When it comes to filming in public (USA) we need to secure an appearance release. If it's a minor, we need to have a parent sign the release. If it's a really busy place where it's not reasonable to get everyone to sign a release, we will post what is called a \"wide area release,\" at the entrance of the location or post them all over the place to ensure everyone has a reasonable chance of seeing it. We have to document where we posted the wide area release with photographs and video proof timestamped with the time of filming. Even with the wide area release, if we feature someone prominently on camera (ie. interview), we will still secure a normal appearance release. If you don't get a release, post production will have to hunt the person down to get one, or they will blur the person as a last resort. A lot of \"reality\" shows will circumvent the wildcard of randos in public by renting the space out and hiring extras actors to fill the space. Now when it comes to news media, the rules are a lot different because they are protected by a lot of freedom of the press privileges. If you're in a public place, they have the right to feature you under the blanket of newsgathering. Although I know a lot of dilligent journalists will still secure releases and permits to ensure there aren't any issues down the road. Overall, releases are a huge pain in the ass to manage in the field, and the actual verbage on the release is designed to protect the production, the producers, and the greater production company/network at large. While the consequences of appearing on screen are typically not malicious, you should always think twice before stepping in front of a camera. TV is entertainment, not reality and I have dealt with a lot of individuals who were none to pleased with the way they were portrayed after some crafty editing. Anyway, hope that clears some things up. I'm happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability!"
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|
[
"url"
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[
"url"
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lmmht3
|
why can’t someone on house arrest cover their ankle monitor in foil then leave
|
No don’t worry I’m not a criminal / on house arrest I’m just curious because I’ve heard aluminium foil can block micro waves and radio waves . If that’s the case then why can’t wrapping an ankle monitor in foil allow them to trick it ?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvrmkd",
"gnvrq9y",
"gnvxhox",
"gnvrlsc",
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"text": [
"\"Yeah if you drop off the radar\" they will go to your last know coordinates and start looking. Now you're evading police, tampering with government property, and breaking lawful orders, plus all your other charges that got you out on house arrest now puts you in prison. Bail revoked... I mean really it's up to you if you wanna have a moment of \"freedom\"",
"Monitor is not the actual monitor. It's a transmitter sending message to actual monitor that is located somewhere in or near the house. If the actual monitor doesn't receive it's signal periodically, it will think that the ankle transmitter have left the premise and will alert the authority. If you cover your ankle with foil (that wouldn't actually work you would have to put faraday cage around it), police will be alerted even if you don't leave because the actual monitor will think you did.",
"You are thinking it works on proximity to a receiver, it doesn't, not anymore. It is a GPS on your ankle, the address you are doing your house arrest under is put into a system, that system sets up a fence around the address. Your new jewelry pings the system randomly to see if you are still inside that invisible fence and if you venture outside of the fence it will ping as well. It equally is checking to make sure you are inside the fence as much as it's checking to see if you are outside of it.",
"If the foil indeed blocks the signal from transmitting than that means u will be shown as offline in the system, nd they must have a system that alerts them when someone goes offline abruptly. One will be caught in either case.",
"You're thinking about the key backwards. That's a little bit like saying, if I'm trying to hack into someone's email account, instead of typing in the wrong password, why can't I just hit enter without typing a password and get access? Your notion is that the monitor sits there silently until it's in the wrong spot, and then sends out a distress call. That isn't how they work. They send out constant signals that the person is in the right place. If you covered it with foil, even if you then stayed home, it would stop getting the signals that it's in the right spot, and alert the authorities."
],
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21,
16,
8,
3
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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lmmswm
|
Why does a lake of ice cracking sound like laser beams shooting "Pew Pews"??
|
Earth Science
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
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"gnvteur",
"gnvxn4j",
"gnw3p4q",
"gnvwdbl",
"gnvy1ed",
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"text": [
"The way something sounds is determined by the way it vibrates. and when you have big chunks of ice like that, they don't have much room to vibrate so they vibrate in high frequencies that sound a little bit like stereotypical laser sounds.",
"Because we decided that in sci-fi movies, shooting lasers sounds like that. Not the other way around. A laser beam does not make any noise, most certainly not the pew-pew kind.",
"It is because high frequency sound travels faster in a medium like ice than the lower frequencies. The overall effect is that you hear the highest frequencies first and the lowest last. That ends up being a sweep from high to low making the pew-pew sound we all associate with lasers guns now!",
"Well the reason the ice cracks is to relieve the pressure under the ice. The laser sounds come from the long cracks in the ice causing a certain vibration to continue carrying on through the un-cracked ice around it. If the ice doesn’t do these small cracks throughout the day, the pressure builds up and eventually causes an ice heave which is a massive crack that can cause like 7 foot mountains of ice across the lake",
"It's entirely possible that back in the '60s when sound designers were looking for something to record to use as a laser beam sound, they ended up recording the sound of some ice cracking. I read an interview a while back with the sound designer on the movie *Miles Ahead* (okay movie; great sound design) where he talked about the difficulties that arise when you try to make things sound \"authentic\". He looked for some old '70s tape decks to record sound effects for scenes with Miles in the studio, but when he found them they sounded so much like a sci-fi battle scene (\"probably because the sounds in Battlestar Galactica *were* tape decks\") that using them in the movie would have ruined the atmosphere.",
"High frequencies travel faster than low frequencies. This is more noticeable in a solid like ice or metal as opposed to air. So when it cracks, the high frequencies reach your ear first, then the mids, then the lows. It happens smoothly and quickly, hence the \"pew pew\" laser sound"
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmniw2
|
Does anyone *own* the internet? i.e. did the people who invented it get royalties?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvxuhx",
"gnvz3uv"
],
"text": [
"The original technology on which the Internet was based was a product of the US Government/military, and US Government works are not eligible for copyright protection. The part of the Internet that many people commonly think of as \\*being\\* the Internet is the World Wide Web. This was developed in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee, and he purposefully made the tech freely available - he is quoted as saying \"This is for everyone\". The reasoning behind this is that the Web could only achieve its potential if as many people as possible could use it.",
"No one owns the internet, but there are corporations that steward it and those corporations do get paid for stewarding. As others have said, the underlying technology was developed by the US government for military purposes. When that tech was released to the commercial sector, it was royalty-free. Some of the more modern tech is owned by people and the choice to use that tech does incur royalties, but the underlying technology is still free to use. Now, to actually _get on_ the internet, you require a few things - like an IP address. IP addresses are controlled by a company called IANA - they issue blocks of IPs to Tier 1 ISPs to be dolled out to businesses and customers. These ISPs pay a fee to IANA for the blocks they rent so that IANA can maintain the core infrastructure that keeps the internet functioning. Similarly, to register a domain name (like URL_0 ) you have to lease it from a registrar, and registrars get the rights to lease domain names from ICANN (who also charges a fee for the lease). This again is to fund the core infrastructure that allows the domain name system (DNS) to function."
],
"score": [
15,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmnjet
|
Why is diet soda and other sugar free drinks with artificial sweetener bad for you?
|
Will you actually gain weight by drinking them or are you more likely to expose yourself to cancer causing ingredients?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvyiuo",
"gnvzozv",
"gnvx8l6",
"gnw2763"
],
"text": [
"Ultimately it's not. There's a lot of bunk science out there around it, but bottom line, some people have allergic reactions, and some people are more sensitive to it like they would be any other additive, but the sweetener itself is not harmful. A lot of people who drink diet sodas fail to notice that there's still a lot of sodium in those diet sodas, which causes weight gain just as sugar would. And a lot of people who replace diet soda for regular soda do not cut back on the amount they drink, so they're consuming far more sodium. There are no studies showing that it will cause cancer. There's a lot of rumor and speculation, but no actual factual data.",
"There's a lot of uncertainty about the true effects of non-nutritive sweeteners that have become so ubiquitous in food and beverage. The scientific consensus is that there's no evidence they cause or contribute to cancer and no definitive link to weight gain. The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in general definitely has health implications, but non-sugar sweeteners don't present a unique risk.",
"One documentary I watched said it recalibrated your brain. You crave sugary stuff when you need an energy hit but the diet drinks don’t satisfy it so in the long term you crave more and more.",
"You do not directly gain weight by drinking diet soda. Calorie-wise, it's the same as drinking water. However, you do tend to eat more when you drink diet soda because you're effectively tricking your body into believing you're consuming calories when you're not. This causes an insulin crash, which results in hunger. So if you're got a carefully planned diet that you adhere to and you just add diet soda to it, there will be no change. If you're just eating when you feel hungry, diet soda will tend to cause you to gain weight because you're likely to eat more."
],
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5,
4,
3,
3
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmnjh2
|
How do film companies increase the quality of a movie 50+ years after filming?
|
I see commercials and posts all the time about movies being remastered into a high definition. I’ve always been curious how they can increase that with such old film.
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnvy6ww",
"gnvybfy"
],
"text": [
"Physical film has a very high resolution - from around 4K to 8k+ depending on the size of the film used when shooting the movie. They need it to as they’re looking for a clear image when projecting onto a 40 foot wide screen! But for a long time the distribution media for home consumption didn’t have the storage capacity and playback media didn’t have the resolution - so the quality was downgraded for home use for more economical distribution without really impacting what people could see on their TVs. When they remaster these films they go back and use the original footage and transfer it to current media at the full resolution.",
"They don't. Actual movie film is *very* high quality, much higher than 4k. If the original film still exists and is in good condition they can just rescan it into a 4k digital format. Where you hit problems is with movies where the original film is missing or damaged, or movies that were originally filmed on a digital format."
],
"score": [
21,
7
],
"text_urls": [
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[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmocon
|
if radiation can cause cancer, how can it be used to treat cancer?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnw1y49",
"gnw288d"
],
"text": [
"Ionizing radiation kills cells and can mutate DNA. So it kills cancerous cells. But you are right, and it is a dangerous and it can cause cancer to other things as well. That's why it's not generally the first type of treatment for many types of cancer unless there's no other option. Just like how antibiotics kill infectious bacteria, but also kills friendly helpful bacteria, too.",
"Radiation causes cancer by breaking apart DNA strands, especially in areas responsible for growth, replication, and self-termination. This allows cancer cells to grow out of control. Using radiation treatment, the DNA in cancer cells is further damaged, intentionally this time, until it is no longer capable of replicating."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmpa54
|
Why does society seem to be moving away from enlightenment period ideals of logic, reason, and scientific understanding?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnw7exg"
],
"text": [
"My theory is that there is just to much wrong information being presented and not enough education being taught. You can Google anything, But it don't mean you're googling the right information. There is no filter on wrong information. Or people promoting wrong information."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmpdey
|
How can our gut bacteria affect our brains, mental health etc?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnw8rf3",
"gnwkd43",
"gnw9oe4"
],
"text": [
"Your brain uses nerves to \"send orders\" and \"communicate with\" certain organs, all other organs are controlled and communicated with via hormones. Hormones are substances that cause cells to react. In nature, bacteria and other cells \"react\" chemically to their environment, multiplying more if there's food, multiplying less if there isn't, and so on. In your body, the \"environment\" is the blood and plasma that are being circulated to and from all the cells. So in addition to getting food and oxygen etc. from the blood, various organs in your body also dump hormones into the blood, and all organs in your body (including the brain) react to the levels of food, oxygen, blood pressure, hormones, etc. that are in the blood. Because all your organs are made of cells, and the cells react.",
"We are just starting to figure out what is going on with gut bacteria and the brain. So I would be hesitant to say definitely that we know how everything works. I am also very hesitant to any products that are claiming that they can boost health this way.",
"A correct communication between the gut bacteria and the brain is important in order to have adequate mental health. The MGB axis (gut-microbiota-brain axis) makes this communication possible. Scientists are still trying to understand exactly how this axis works. However, it is clear that there is an association between a healthy brain and a functional MGB axis. Diet is probably the most important strategy for maintaining a healthy MGB axis. A balanced diet, including fish, vegetables, cereals, fruits, and water is important to keep both a functional MGB axis and a good mood. The food that we consume has a direct impact on our bacteria and our bodies."
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmpufj
|
How can a parrot,especially Conure scream so loud despite its small body
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnwchgv"
],
"text": [
"The initial vibration that causes sound (vocal cords, etc.) is usually amplified by the animal's or device's \"resonating chamber\" (lung or throat cavities). The dimensions of a resonating chamber determine the pitch of its sounds, not necessarily the loudness. [Look at these string instruments]( URL_0 ), they're equally loud, but from left to right you'll have bass vs higher pitched sounds coming from them. So basically the answer is that a small parrot can be loud, but is limited to high pitched sounds and will never roar with the loud bass of a lion or bear. A small sports referee whistle can be very loud too, its size determines its pitch, not necessarily its loudness."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://tegrity.columbiabasin.edu/classes/MUS115RP/String_Family_Overview_9/string%20family.jpg"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmr488
|
Why do we remember negative events in our lives more than positive experiences? Especially in childhood.
|
Or is it just me?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnwifee",
"gnwj20x",
"gnwit68"
],
"text": [
"Researchers from Boston College suggest this is likely due to evolutionary reasons. Remembering when something bad happened before is likely to result in you avoiding that circumstance in the future.",
"I think because those responses are designed by millions of years of evolution to keep you from dying. So you’re brains survival instinct is logging away anything that was a “bad feeling” because traditionally those have been things that could kill you. Forgetting a fun day is nothing but forgetting the bad feeling a spider bite gave you could kill you. Thats the message pain in general is giving you",
"For me, I mostly remember the things that physically or emotionally hurt real bad, I don’t want to do that again!"
],
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7,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmrq6j
|
Why is gravity not a force?
|
I know that special relativity determined that gravity is not a force, but an effect of mass over spacetime. I've never been able to understand how they came to that conclusion. For example, if everything on earth was made of metal and instead of the planet there was a powerful magnet, what would be different?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnx2284"
],
"text": [
"You ever notice how on an elevator (or rollercoaster), sometimes you feel heavier and sometimes you feel lighter? Well, if you imagine you're on an elevator in the middle of empty space (no gravity), you would feel weightless. If the elevator started accelerating up, you would feel \"heavier,\" and eventually it would feel just like gravity. Now imagine you're on an elevator in empty space, accelerating upwards. You throw a ball horizontally. From your perspective, the accelerating elevator acts just like gravity, and the ball follows a curved path to the floor of the elevator. From the perspective of somebody outside the elevator, the ball will move horizontally in a straight line, and the floor of the elevator will accelerate up until it hits the ball. In other words, the ball traveled in a straight line, but from a gravitational perspective, it appeared to travel along a curved path. According to Einstein's equivalence principle, we can't tell the difference between gravity and being on an accelerating elevator. In other words, when we throw a ball horizontally and it follows a curved path to the ground, another way we can look at that is the ball went in a straight line, but appeared to travel along a curved path only due to our perspective. So another way to look at gravity is that when you throw a ball, it's following a straight-line path in curved spacetime, rather than a curved path in our perspective."
],
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7
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
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lmsjko
|
But why does mass/energy curve spacetime at all?
|
So, I can understand that gravity is actually less fundamental than spacetime and that it is caused by the curvature in spacetime itself. However, I still don't understand: WHY do matter and energy curve spacetime? Is spacetime somehow actually a function of energy density?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnwsotw"
],
"text": [
"> Is spacetime somehow actually a function of energy density? Depending on the question semantics, the answer could be yes or no. The objective existence of space-time is something in its own right. The \"behavior\" of space-time depends on energy density. The [stress-energy tensor]( URL_0 ) is a math representation that removes the semantics out of the description, and has an objective meaning. Summarizing the stress-energy tensor in words, I'm just adding italics to the Wikipedia article, which does a good job: \"It is an attribute of matter, radiation, and non-gravitational force fields. This *density and flux of energy and momentum* are the sources of the gravitational field in the Einstein field equations of general relativity, just as mass density is the source of such a field in Newtonian gravity. \""
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmst55
|
What makes bread soft like the cheap Walmart dollar bread?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnx8bbh"
],
"text": [
"Breadmakers often add additional gluten to the dough. This makes the dough more rubbery, tough and elastic and makes the baked bread more bouncy. Gluten is a class of proteins found in Wheat, Rye, and in lesser amounts in Barley. The highest amount of gluten is found in wheat which is why it's preferred for bread, however rye can also be used to bake bread. These proteins are soluble in fats and oils but not very water soluble. When added to water they tend to clump and form stretchy tangles. They also add various *Dough Conditioners* such as lecithins and mono- and di-gylcerides which are emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are substances which aid the mixing of oil and water and help distribute oils into tiny droplets. They're commonly used to make ice cream smoother for example. A lot of the strange sounding ingredients with long names you'll read on the back label are various emulsifiers. This distributes the gluten more evenly in the dough forming smaller bubbles. Certain minerals and nutrients for the yeast are also usually added which speeds rising/proofing by the yeast. This reduces the overall baking time. It's also common to add some malted barley flour or certain enzymes. Malting is a process where barley or other grains are soaked in water and allowed to sprout for a few days. Then they're dried again to halt the germination process. This process causes the grains to produce enzymes that break down starches stored therein into simpler carbohydrates which are more soluble in water. In beer or whiskey malting also improves the flavor. When malted flour is added to bread dough, the same enzymes originally created by the sprouting barley grains, attack starches from the wheat flour. The starches in wheat normally form long, tightly coiled chains which aren't very soluble in water. These enzymes uncoil the starches and break them into shorter lengths, allowing them to dissolve more fully in water forming a gel. This also gives the baked bread a more most, soft texture and helps it resist drying out."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmtayk
|
Why is it when you see a propeller (like from a turbine airplane) starting up it seems to switch directions as it spins faster and faster ?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnwwlff",
"gnyx91k"
],
"text": [
"You typically don't see this with your eyes, but do with a video camera. It has to do with aliasing, which means you aren't taking pictures fast enough. If your camera is doing 30 fps, it takes one picture every 1/30th of a second. If the propeller is spinning at 30 rotations per second, it will appear to be still, because it will be in the same spot every time the camera takes a picture. If it's going a little bit less than 30 rotations per second, it will actually appear to move backwards because it rotated *almost* all the way around by the time the next picture is taken.",
"This has to do with something called the nyquist criterion, which states that you can only detect frequencies less than half of your sampling frequency. To see why this is, imagine you’re watching an analog clock on the wall. The second hand goes around once every 60 seconds. Normally, you see the second hand move in small jumps, so you can be confident that it’s moving clockwise because the current position is only a bit ahead of the last one. If you hold your eyes closed and open them once every 25 seconds, you’ll see the second hand at the 12, the 5, 10, 3, etc. even though the jump between peeks is bigger, you can apply the same logic and deduce that the second hand is moving clockwise. If you peek once every 30 seconds, you’ll see the second hand alternate between 12 and 6. Even though you know the second hand moves clockwise, there’s nothing in what you’re seeing that could actually confirm one way or the other. Let’s now lower the sample rate even more, down to once every 35 seconds. You’ll see the second hand go from 12 to 7 to 2 to 9. You’ll notice these are precisely mirrored from the numbers in the 25 second case, or, you could say, it appears to be moving backwards. The same effect happens when the frequency speeds up to surpass half the sample rate, as when the sample rate slows down to less than half the frequency."
],
"score": [
44,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmtk8j
|
Why is Texas so cold? I've looked it up and every news website covering it doesn't answer the question in the article and just states how cold it is never acknowledging the question in the title. Why is it so cold in Texas?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnwxe52",
"gnwxvlz",
"gnwxn90"
],
"text": [
"Climate change has caused the jet stream to wobble, that is it moves up and down more than it used to, the jet stream keeps areas of high pressure around the Arctic which keeps the cold bottles up. When the jet stream moves or weakens the cold escapes as it did here and has flowed south through the Midwest and into Texas.",
"There is a polar vortex that naturally forms over the Arctic, and due to the jet streams around the arctic you'll get blobs of high pressure and very cold air that get cut off from the main vortex and nudged south. For reasons boiling down to geography, a lot of those vortices end up being shunted south into North America between the Rocky Mountains and Greenland. This particular situation was caused by an extremely strong polar vortex. It's an open question as to whether or not climate change is related to this, or if this is something that can (and will) normally happen once every few hundred years. Further; basically all of the Great Plains and Midwest of the US was subjected to frigid temperatures because of the cold front, but Texas is getting the news coverage because it's causing much bigger problems in Texas than elsewhere, and because Texas isn't really used to this kind of cold, whereas the rest of the Great Plains is much more familiar with it.",
"So basically, the currents that keep Arctic winter air in the Arctic started pushing it south, so the whole of the US is getting a portion of what is usually in the Arctic circle. It's pretty disruptive, and especially bad in Texas where there is little winter-proofing done at all."
],
"score": [
13,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmvrv2
|
In the case of Henrietta Lacks, how did her cells help research around the globe and how are they “immortal cells?”
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxbnbn",
"gnxzhb9",
"gnxdsqz"
],
"text": [
"HeLa cells, as they are known, are cells that were cultured from Ms Lacks when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Usually, cultured cells divide a few times and die off within a few days. Her cancer cells, however, happened to have just the right mutations to allow them to continue dividing (given the right conditions) indefinitely. This is how they are “immortal”, the cells themselves are not but the cell line shows no signs of dying off still. There are far more HeLa cells in existence than were ever in her body. As for how they help, having an infinite supply of human cells without further need for sampling is an immense aid. They have helped cancer research, vaccine research (they were used to develop the polio vaccine for instance), AIDS research, chemotherapy research and on and on.",
"The most important reason the HeLa cells help in research is that you don't just have a constant supply of cells, you have a constant supply of *genetically identical* cells. Say you want to try a cancer drug and see how effective it is. You want to do multiple trials and compare them against control groups. How can you accurately compare results if your cell cultures have different genes and might react differently? Since HeLa cells are all (mostly) identical you won't have that problem. Even better, you can continue doing trials over long periods of time because the sample will remain identical. Other cultures will die off and you'll have to collect new ones. HeLa cells have also been genetically modified to be useful for a particular kind of study, like, say, being more sensitive to one kind of drug. Since the cell line is immortal, they carry those modifications into every generation. That means you don't have to modify a new culture every time the cells eventually die off.",
"An immortalised cell line is one that can reproduce indefinitely in lab conditions without ever dying out. Normal cells can only reproduce a limited number of times, if at all, because they have properties explicitly in place to make sure they die off before they can do so. This is an evolved mechanism that protects against the growth of cancerous tumours. The HeLa cell line had spontaneously mutated to turn off all off the things that would normally cause it to kill itself, meaning it can reproduce as many times as it likes and never lose reproductive capacity. Stem cells can do this too so it's not super unique, but we use the term immortalised cell line to specify a cell line that has this quality as a result of mutation or deliberate modification (ie by scientists) rather than as a result of being a normal stem cell doing normal stem cell things. It's hard to describe just how much good the HeLa cell line has done. They're human cells that, unusually for human cells, can be grown perfectly well in lab conditions, which makes them extremely valuable for all sorts of research, particularly in the field of drug development where they can be used to test the effects of various drugs on human cells, and also the effects of anti-cancer drugs (as they are descended from cancer cells)."
],
"score": [
20,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmvuel
|
Does backhanding a fly mid air hurt it as much as it would a human?
|
Just saw this tiny fly in my way backhanded to get it out of the way, then thought, "How did I not just knock that fly out cold?" No idea what flair this subject might come under. Lol
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxb5zn",
"gnxn7rx",
"gnxekgv"
],
"text": [
"As your hand approaches the fly there's a buffer of air that builds up so you may not even hit the fly at all. Fly swatters are usually made of some mesh and let the air go by.",
"Throw a piece of paper in the air and punch it as hard as you can. You certainly aren't going to break your knuckles on it; you can only exert a tiny amount of force on it before it's moving as fast as your hand - there's only the mass of the paper and the air resistance to work against. Pick something lighter and with less air resistance - a piece of toilet paper for instance - and you will barely even feel it. Just the breeze coming off your fist will do half the work, and what's left over will be trivial. The smaller and more streamlined the object, the less you have to push against.",
"Because of the fly's light weight, it doesn't take much force to move it. (Tiny fly wings are enough for it to defeat the gravity of a whole planet, after all!) The slightest movement of your hand pushed the fly away before there was even time to knock it out. The fly didn't offer enough resistance to get knocked out. The air pressure alone was probably enough."
],
"score": [
9,
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmwvej
|
Why do people have favorite colors?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxwthj"
],
"text": [
"The same reason you have a favourite ice cream flavour. Your brain receives signals from one or more of your sensory organs (eyes, nose, tongue, ears, skin etc.) and decides whether or not it deems it pleasant. And if so, is it more pleasant than something you can compare it to from experience? We're all wired mostly the same, but differently in terms of how we process things. My partner loves cilantro for example and swears to me it tastes kinda citrusy. I think it's vile and I'd rather not have a curry or Mexican food reduced to tasting like soap."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmwvk8
|
Why aren´t shoesizes measured in a normal life measurement?
|
Why aren´t shoesizes measured in inches or centimeters, but instead in 10, 37 and so on depended on where you live? I got two kids and always when we need to buy them new shoes, we take out our measurer and check how long their feet are. And then you have to go to a site or even the manufacturers site to see which size of shoe to get them. Feels very complicated
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxoiub",
"gnyoxii"
],
"text": [
"That's because shoes sizes are using old units of normal life measurements: * In most of Europe the size is simply the length of the foot expressed in point de Paris, which is ca. 2/3 cm, so a size 40 corresponds to a ~~30~~ 26 \\[*edited: thanks for those who corrected me*\\] cm long foot. * In the UK the size is expressed in barleycorn, an old unit which is ca. 1/3 inch, and it represents the difference between the length of the foot and a minimal length (which differs for children, for whom it is 12 barleycorns, and adults, for whom it is 25 barleycorns).",
"It depends on where you live and where you're getting your shoes. Here is a picture of boots that use millimeter measurements. URL_0"
],
"score": [
140,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://imgur.com/gallery/JOMal67"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmx92x
|
How do we actually know what colours other animals can or can't see?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxlbkn",
"gnxk9r8"
],
"text": [
"The rods and cones in your eyes contain dyes, which are the chemicals that do the light sensing. A dye is just a molecule that absorbs a very specific frequency of light. This makes them a particular color, and you can literally just measure the light reflected by these dyes to see what color they absorb. These molecules also bleach as they absorb light (which is how they adapt to brighter light), so you can also see what color light you have to shine on them to make them change color.",
"Eyes have rods which tell us how light or dark something is and cones which tell us the colour. Different animals have different types and combinations of cones, so by looking at the structure of other animals' eyes we can work out what colours they can or can't see. For example dogs have only two types of cones, so can see a very limited range of colours."
],
"score": [
24,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmxkhv
|
How do phones vibrate?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxlp3k"
],
"text": [
"The same way everything vibrates - they put a motor in it, that spins an intentionally unbalanced weight. [ Like this]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2297/8953/products/24_57_8e759f19-69f0-4529-974c-33a88f4f3ca1_800x.jpg?v=1503494697"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmyahl
|
Why are only some leaves (spinach) edible?
|
Why can't we eat any leaf of any tree or shrub for survival? What makes some leaves (spinach, mint, cilantro, carrot-leaves, bak-choi etc.) edible alone? Do herbivorous animals have similar preferences too?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxq097",
"gnxvjh6"
],
"text": [
"There’s basically three groups...tasty, edible, and dangerous. We generally only eat the tasty ones...don’t hurt us, taste good. There are a lot more than don’t hurt us but don’t taste good...we generally avoid those outside survival situations. They contain chemicals we don’t like. The dangerous ones contain chemicals that can hurt us, either poisons or physical damage. Some can be made safe by processing, some can’t. Many also taste awful...our sense of taste helps protect us from poisons. Animals have similar preferences, and similar problems. There are plants that animals will eat that can poison them too.",
"Well for one thing, leaves are generally not the most nutritious part of the plant (for humans at least). Fiber is great for clearing out your digestive system because it can't (or can't efficiently) be digested - but you'll get no energy from it. So there may be some nutrition in the leaves, but we can't turn it into any kind of energy for the most part. When you eat a bowl full of iceberg lettuce for instance - the energy it provides you is only marginally better than a cup of water (while water is also required by your body, it doesn't provide any calories). Spinach was once considered a significant source of iron, but this was only because a scientist made a mistake when calculating the iron content which caused it to appear significantly higher than it actually was, and nobody questioned this for many years while the myth of its iron content spread. The purpose of leaves in plants is to harness solar radiation to turn carbon dioxide and water into glucose that it then transports to other parts of the plant that need energy for growth, reproduction, or storage. Very few plants have any appreciable storage within leaves, so as soon as the energy is produced it is transported. If you look at where the energy is being stored, you'll find a much more nutritious meal in most cases - and this is often in the fruit of the plants (with the intention that the seeds within will have a higher chance of survival if they're provided a full supply of energy to start off with. In addition to the lack of nutrition in the leaves, plants won't survive long if they're being eaten excessively. So evolutionary pressure has favored those plants that produce chemicals within their leaves (and other tissues) that would-be consumers would find unpleasant. This unpleasantness may turn out to be ineffective - capsaicin (the chemical that makes peppers hot) originally gave peppers an evolutionary advantage over other plants, but now many humans have developed a taste for their fruits. Other unpleasantness may be irritation, such as nettles or poison ivy or poison oak. It may be a foul odor, or unpalatable taste that succeeds in deterring predatory consumption. Or it may cause illness, blindness, or even death. These genetic adaptations are not easy to achieve, as they're usually the effect of random accidental errors in DNA replication. It may take many generations for some error (or more likely a collection of errors) to provide an advantage. Due to these long time scales many adaptations are based on whichever consumer is of most danger to the plant's survival. Because of this possible source of specificity, different animals may or may not be impacted by any unpleasant characteristics. For instance, a chemical in a leave that causes a bird to lose its feathers may have very little or no impact on humans that have no feathers."
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lmygsv
|
- What is a Banana Republic?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxr3dn",
"gnxqrbi",
"gnxrrgk"
],
"text": [
"It is a politically unstable country that is dependent on exporting a particular product, typically supported by stronger nations that are interested in importing said product. The name was coined from the book Cabbages and Kings, but grew in popularity due to the various regimes that were supported by the United Fruit Company for the sole purpose of securing fruit supply from those nations.",
"It's a country that is really unstable because it's usually got really noticeable separation of classes (poorer working class, wealthier upper class, etc.), and it relies on one or two really specific types of exports to keep the economy up (like... bananas! or minerals or other stuff).",
"A \"Banana Republic\" typically refers to a smaller tropical nation that is run in a despotic/non-democratic manner, who's economy/major export replies on one or few items/resources. Such as some tropical nations in central america/Caribbean that started to essentially be taken over by massive fruit corporations, like, bananas, who used bribes and corrupt officials to run the country in a favorable (profitable) manner."
],
"score": [
11,
9,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmyi72
|
what is the classifications of calling a stretch of road a "street" versus avenue, parkway, road, or way?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxrrvi"
],
"text": [
"It may very by city but a road is anything that connects two points, while streets are public ways which have buildings on either side. Avenues are like streets but run perpendicular to them, while a boulevard is essentially a wide street (or avenue), with a median through the middle. In Tucson we have a stravenue, which runs diagonally between and intersects a street and an avenue. Edit to add: A way is a side street off of a road. Ways are typically fairly short and often have dead ends. A lane is a narrow street usually lacking a median. A parkway is a major public road, usually decorated, sometimes part of a highway, has traffic lights."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmymui
|
Why do women have different heart attack symptoms than men?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny8nit",
"gnz06fc"
],
"text": [
"This is hard to make it an ELi5 since we don’t know the exact science. Women do not have different heart attack symptoms — just different descriptions of the symptoms. Some people think women have a higher pain threshold but it could be that they’re dismissing the chance of having a heart attack since men are more likely to get one. Women often describe heart attack as an ache or muscle tightness in the chest region, in the arm, or their left side. Men will say, “It hurts, it’s sharp, it pinches, etc.” But the sensation is the same, just different perceptions. It used to be thought that “because women don’t strenuously load their body with physical work, that they aren’t as familiar with differentiating muscle ache to chest pain” but that doesn’t really explain how men that don’t have physically demanding jobs or routines still say that it’s a sharp pain.",
"For anyone reading this, I'd like to point out another symptom women often have is nausea. My friend died of a heart attack in her 40s and the only thing she'd been complaining of was thinking she had food poisoning, which was likely really her main symptom. She had a family history of heart problems so was likely more aware of the typical chest pain symptoms. Perhaps it's because some women can ignore or tolerate pain until it makes them feel nauseous."
],
"score": [
25,
21
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmzmob
|
Why is H2O2 called Hydrogen Peroxide rather than Dihydrogen dioxide?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnxxgbp"
],
"text": [
"It's got a specific structure (H-O-O-H), making it a \"peroxide\". It's not wrong to call it dihydrogen dioxide, it's just a little more cumbersome and less specific about the structure of the atoms in the bond."
],
"score": [
43
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lmzx0c
|
Could a future solution to garbage/waste disposal include launching it into space or the sun?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny05nb",
"gnxz5nd"
],
"text": [
"No. Even with a [space elevator]( URL_1 ) the cost to get trash into space and then launch it at the sun would be prohibitively expensive. Leaving it in space is a bad idea as it become space trash which is dangerous to equipment and people in space. Then there's the cost of transporting the trash to the space elevator. It is much easier to just recycle or burn it in existing incinerators or [plasma arc furnaces]( URL_0 ).",
"It would be absurdly expensive. Right now, it costs about $10,000 to put a pound of something into orbit. Even if that comes down, it’s still a ton of fuel to burn."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.explainthatstuff.com/plasma-arc-recycling.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator"
],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln08ih
|
what classifies something as a white noise? And why aren’t most of us not annoyed to them?
|
How come I can sleep perfectly fine with a loud fan in my room but a silent beeping noise drives me insane? Why are some constant noises not annoying?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny22fe"
],
"text": [
"So a pitch is a frequency and there is a frequency spectrum. If you have sound at every frequency at the same time that's white noise. In the same way as if you have a color at every frequency it creates white, which is why it's called white noise. When things are too quiet things that are normally not noticeable are very noticable. So a been during the day isn't that bad because everything else is on and moving and making noise. But when it's the only thing making noise it's really noticeable. So you add white noise to fill the frequency spectrum and make those little things not as noticable and you can go to sleep."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln12og
|
Why is it that people seem to marry inside their race more often? Is this a genetic predisposition, or is it more connected to history?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny5hqn",
"gny5sx9",
"gny708y"
],
"text": [
"Uh... Did you consider it is because most populations are predominantly segregated and therefore the odds of you marrying your own race are \"naturally\" higher?",
"It’s many things. Our tribal brain, our cities are often laid out along racial lines so it makes you more likely to date within your race. Plus culturally it’s more difficult to date outside your race. I’m sure there’s many more factors I’m not thinking of.",
"Little bit of both, though mainly it's a culture thing. We as humans tend to be more attracted (both romantically and aromantically) to people who we relate to. On a cultural perspective, it is easier to make friends, or even fall in love with, people of your own race, since people of the same race tend to share the same culture more often then not. Historically speaking, humans have always been culturally tribal. Even marrying someone outside your tribe, family, kingdom, palace, and that kind of shit were typically seen as taboo and disgraceful, and only really done for diplomacy sake in an arranged marriage. This mindset has thankfully faded, at least in Modern America, though many traditional families may still find their children marrying someone of a different race to be taboo. Both the scientific and historical reasonings point towards culture as a common connector, though it is by no means the only explanation. And while I am no expert on the matter, this hypothesis has some inkling of truth to it, at least in my opinion."
],
"score": [
36,
9,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln14q1
|
What is a fusions reactor and why can't we make one?
|
How would a fusion reactor work in theory? I hear every few years that fusion energy is in the near future. Though it always seems to be only in the near future. What are the issues stopping us from creating fusion energy? What can we not figure out yet?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny6wrz",
"gny6938"
],
"text": [
"A fusion reactor fuses atomic nuclei together. The 2 nuclei join to create a new element and a lot of energy is released. The energy given off by this fusion reaction can heat up water into steam which can turn a generator and produce power. Think of the sun. Extreme pressures and heat from the gravitational force fuses hydrogen together to make helium. We can and have made 1 but the energy put in to fuse the particles is still higher than the energy we get out since we need to create extremely high temperatures and pressures for the fusion reaction to happen. Once we get to the point where the energy released from the reaction is much greater than we put in AND we can sustain these reactions for a long period of time, then you will see a lot of fusion power plants popping up around the globe",
"Simply, it’s the idea of shoving two atoms together so hard that they join together, or fuse, releasing huge amounts of heat energy in the process. The problem is that this requires more force than the gravity at the core of Jupiter. It requires forces like the internal pressure of the sun, which is exactly what a star is. A star is a mass of gas with so much gravity that hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium. Recreating those forces on Earth requires huge amounts of energy. So far, it has required more energy to produce the forces than we get back from the fusion reaction. This is the problem we need to solve."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
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}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln1ep8
|
wealthy and powerful families have been known to use bribery and nepotism to get their children into elite universities. If these students don't have the academic credentials to succeed on their own merit, how do they pass their classes? Wouldn't the curriculum be too challenging for them?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny83ig",
"gny9wbn"
],
"text": [
"College classes, if you try and have resources, really aren't too difficult. The \"difficult\" thing about Ivy Leagues is getting into the school, once you're there it isn't crazy different. Say you go to Harvard and get a Bachelors in economics, from an academic accreditation perspective, that bachelors in economics is the same as any other bachelors in economics from any other school, just on your resume you get to say you got into Harvard, the more difficult part. Plus, you don't need to be an amazing student to get a degree. A student that gets all A's and a student that gets All C's and maybe even a couple D's both end up with the same degree, they just can't put the same GPA on their resume. So if you're a wealthy person, who can afford extra tutors and help (or hell maybe even cheating, considering some of those cases involved the kids exam scores being faked/cheated) it isn't that hard to get a C in a class. TL:DR, a Bachelors degree in X from one school is the same as a Bachelors degree in X from any other school from an academic accreditation perspective, its getting into the big name schools that is the difficult part.",
"Actually, having excellent teachers, engaged classmates, and lots of campus resources tends to make it easier to learn and to pass classes. Taking a history class at Harvard isn't necessarily *harder* than taking it at any other college. The expectations for your work might be a little higher, but that might be easier to manage if the instruction is really good, you have a great campus tutoring center, etc. Grade inflation is also pretty rampant at elite schools, so even if you're one of the weakest students in a class, it's pretty unusual for anyone to actually fail. Studies have shown that students who get into highly selective schools in spite of lower academic credentials (college athletes, affirmative action admits, and legacies) end up performing just as well as their classmates once on campus. Getting into schools like Harvard is obviously difficult. But once you're in, the school is pretty invested in supporting you and helping you get through."
],
"score": [
12,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln1oc7
|
Why do we feel something in our chest when we have strong emotions like sadness or joy
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gny9lc4"
],
"text": [
"Emotional stress - positive and negative - has an effect on the body as well as the mind. More specifically, your heart rate increases when you're experiencing any intense kind of emotion. It's mostly the increased heart rate that we interpret as feeling emotions in our chest."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln2tyy
|
; what even is insurance exactly?
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyfrev",
"gnyh3ln"
],
"text": [
"Insurance basically works by you paying a little bit of money at a time to a company that guarantees that it will cover a big expense that may come unexpectedly. So, for example, you pay car insurance every month so that the insurance company will replace your car if it gets wrecked or stolen. The insurance companies will generally make more money from insurance payments than they pay out (that’s the whole idea) but it’s easier to budget for a small, regular insurance payment than to save up for a big expense. With health insurance, you would pay a bit of money every month so that if you needed an expensive procedure, the cost would be covered. Most people may never need an expensive medical procedure, but they are willing to pay for insurance just in case.",
"Basically, you're betting that some financial disaster will happen to you and your family. The insurance company is betting that it won't. If you 'win' the bet -- you get really sick, your house burns down, you *die* -- you or your family get a check that will mitigate the damage. If you lose, the insurance company gets to keep your premium. The insurance company expects to make a profit on this because, like a casino, they're making the same bet with lots of other people. They'll lose a few, but win a lot. They don't have to save all *your* premium payments because they've figured the odds -- all the premiums they collect should be enough to cover what they have to pay out. Suppose you've got a spouse and a couple of minor children. Have you *already* saved enough to provide for them for the next, say, 20 years without your salary? If not, you ought to have enough life insurance to cover that."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln2y86
|
How are airlines able to justify a full plane still while most industries are required to practice social distancing?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyh2wp"
],
"text": [
"Most people don’t really care at the moment. They just want to get to where they are going. If masks were optional, a lot of the flyers wouldn’t even wear one at this point."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln4bhq
|
Why are keyboards not alphabetical?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyo8gc",
"gnynvyj"
],
"text": [
"Original typewriters used an Alphabetical ordering system, but due to the way the arms of the typewriter swung to the paper to print each letter, they would often get tangled as typists got faster. QWERTY was used since the letters were separated in such a way that it was much rarer for several keystrokes to come from the same region, so there would be no damage to the arms Certain letters appear more in language than other ones, and different keyboard layouts are designed to make typing as fast as possible using 2 hands. QWERTY is the most common layout though not the most efficient for top end typing, its just so widely used and known that most keyboards are made with that layout. In the past I converted one of my keyboards to a DVORAK layout as it is supposed to be faster, and its fairly easy to do in Windows, but a lifetime of typing in QWERTY made DVORAK super slow and I didnt have the patience to keep practicing it.",
"Keyboards are set up so that the keys you use the most often are easier to type from the \"home\" position. Keys that are used less often are farther away."
],
"score": [
11,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln4qyn
|
How do we have photos from the perseverance rover already?
|
What’s the transmission medium / technology and how does this transmit photos over that vast distance? Thanks!
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyq6no",
"gnyqi2o"
],
"text": [
"It only takes about 20 minutes to radio from Mars to Earth. The rover was taking photos during its descent and when its on the ground. About 20 minutes later, we get pictures, via radio transmission. Nothing more to it than that. Its fairly \"simple\" in that regard.",
"I believe there is two orbiting satellites around mars, the rover sends the data to them then they send the data back to earth."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln57kd
|
How was the Texas Grid seconds to minutes to complete failure for possibly months?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyxkjw",
"gnytp7t"
],
"text": [
"I don’t know how the Texas generating stations are built but we nearly lost the grid in the Pacific Northwest in the winter of 1983 IIRC. We used to joke that if we tripped the (coal fired) units they would freeze solid into giant icebergs before we could get them restarted. It would be spring before they thawed.",
"Brown outs are actually worse than black outs. Brown outs destroy equipment because they don't have enough power to function correctly. And Texas hasn't been in a situation of complete failure for months, not sure where you heard that. When the storm hit, and the demand went way up for power, and there wasn't enough production, that's when the complete failure was minutes away. That's why they had to shut down grids. It won't take months to recover either. Once they get the power production back online they will start recovering. There will be some time to get all the power lines repaired that have fallen due to trees and such. But the grid will be repaired once power production comes back up."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln6eh9
|
Why will people flying at high altitudes lose consciousness so quickly in a depressurization event when a human can normally hold their breath for much longer?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnyzozy",
"gnzb1f1",
"gnyzprh"
],
"text": [
"You won't be able to hold your breath in a rapid depressurization. Anything full of air, like your lungs, is going to try to expand due to the lack of air pressure and will severely injure you if you don't get rid of it. You have no choice but to let the air get sucked out of your lungs. You won't be able to \"store\" some to use for the next couple of minutes, like you could while holding your breath.",
"Your lungs are a bag of air, and inside that bag, there are lots of oxygen molecules bouncing around. Some molecules are bouncing randomly from the air into your blood, and some are randomly bouncing out of your blood into the air. But on average, *slightly* more are bouncing into your blood than out, because the oxygen molecules get snatched up by your red blood cells and carried off to be used. There isn't a huge, instant exodus of oxygen from your blood into the air when you hold your breath, because if a molecule bounces out of your blood, it's pretty likely another one will bounce back in and balance it out. The slight imbalance caused by oxygen being carried away and used means that slowly more and more oxygen will bounce into your blood and never come back out, and this will slowly deplete the oxygen that's bouncing around in your lungs until there's none left. But you basically get to use it all. In a near vacuum, there is just as much oxygen in your blood, but *no* oxygen in your lungs. That means that if an oxygen molecule bounces out randomly, there will be nothing to randomly bounce back in and balance it out. So all the oxygen in your blood very quickly gets \"dumped out\" in a hurry— it's like the low pressure is \"sucking\" all the oxygen straight out of your bloodstream! Basically all the blood that passes your lungs will be scrubbed of its useful oxygen, and from there it's only a few seconds of travel to your brain. Your brain expects a continuous flow of oxygen to keep functioning, so the moment that supply cuts off, it's basically an instant lights-out. This balance of oxygen bouncing in vs. out is the \"*partial pressure*\" of oxygen against your lungs. When you're holding your breath, the partial pressure is normal sea-level pressure. At high altitude, the partial pressure is very low, and it sucks all the usable oxygen out of your body.",
"When you hold your breath, there's still more oxygen in the air you're holding than at ultra-high altitudes. You can try, but there's just not enough oxygen to hold. You go into hypoxia very quickly."
],
"score": [
42,
10,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln6mk4
|
Why does 1 inch of rain equal 10 inches of snow?
|
Is this conversion even right? I found it on google with little explanation. One inch of rain seems minuscule to 10 inches of snow but maybe I have a fundamental misunderstanding of how much one inch of rain actually is. Please help.
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnz0lwy",
"gnz2j3y",
"gnz8ork"
],
"text": [
"I believe it’s density. Snow is water yes, but it’s full of air. Imagine a pool filled with water and a pool filled with snow. The pool will be full with both, but if you were check the mass of both, the water will have many more particles then the snow due to all the tiny air pockets within the snow. The air is a big reason why snow is fluffy/crunchy/squishy etc.",
"This is correct. Partially. That is Ten inches of fresh fluffy snow. It's a combination of organization of molecules and the fact that water expands when freezing. The fluffy flakes are able to stay spread out as they stack due to their shape. The molecules themselves are spread out as the freeze and crystallize. Each flake has plenty of 'free space'. And then all the space in between each snow flake. You ever play tetris and missed your mark and blocked your lowest open spot? Well snow is like that except there's more than one block falling and they are all different shapes and only the wind has any say in where or how they land. As it melts the bonds that keep them in place are broken and the molecules are allowed to flow into the open spaces. The resulting water has much less 'free space' between molecules",
"That sounds about right, assuming the snow is pretty fluffy. When the snow is fluffy, it's because the snow flakes aren't all lying perfectly flat and all squished together tightly. Some are tilted, and they have lots of air in between them. Suppose you had a coffee can or milk carton open at the top, and it got filled up (about 10\" high) by falling fluffy snow outside. If you then brought it inside, the snow would melt -- but you'd only have about 1\" of water, because the water does NOT have air mixed in with it. If you've never seen lots of fluffy snow, that might be harder to visualize. If you've never seen it, let's try a different situation. Popping popcorn. If you put a small layer of popcorn in the bottom of a pan, it's only about a quarter of an inch tall. But when you pop it, you might get 8 inches or more of popcorn. That's because the popped corn now has lots of air mixed into it and also in-between it. Or think of a piece of soft foam: you can squish it down to a lot thinner, when you squish the air out; fresh snowfall has a lot of air mixed in between the flakes."
],
"score": [
31,
12,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln6nis
|
Is flouride really bad for you
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnz1kau"
],
"text": [
"No, fluoride is an ion that has only been shown to strengthen enamel in teeth. The only side effect known is that it also stains your teeth brown. You may be thinking of fluor*ine* which is not an ion, and is quite dangerous as it reacts with basically anything."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln73zr
|
Why can't we solve the Theory of Everything (Grand Unified Theory)? What are some missing links? Do we think it can be solved?
|
I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this or if anyone has any idea, but I just watched [this video]( URL_0 ) by minutephysics and it got me curious about the missing links. I've procrastinated enough on my homework but I am curious, so if anyone has some input it would be greatly appreciated :)
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnz55d4"
],
"text": [
"We have two freakishly accurate theories: general relativity and quantum mechanics. They both make incredibly accurate predictions that have stood up to almost every experimental test we've thrown at them so far, which is an enormous achievement for any scientific theory. And they mostly don't overlap....quantum mechanics only really shows up at very small scales (the level of individual atoms & molecules) while general relativity describes gravity, which is generally so weak over quantum distances that it doesn't matter but is the major force dominating very large scale things like solar systems, galaxies, etc. The major problem is that the two theories are incompatible...they can't both be true because one contradicts the other in those spheres where they overlap. We don't have a quantum mechanical explanation for gravity and we don't have a \"general relativistic\" explanation for quantum phenomenon. In almost all practical situations this doesn't matter, because the theories only overlap in places we generally can't go, like black holes, but it drives physicists nuts because there's only one universe so there ought to be one set of physical laws, not two (or more). We have no reason to think it \\*can't\\* be solved, but we can't solve it yet because nobody has come up with a theory that explains \\*both\\* general relativity and quantum mechanics (which is a requirement for any grand unified theory) that we can also experimentally test. String theory might be it, but we've got no way (yet) to test the predictions. It might be something else entirely. So the challenge is that we need to come up with one theory that covers the phenomenal accuracy of both quantum and general relativity, but also makes predictions we can test that would allow us to tell them apart."
],
"score": [
37
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln7rbi
|
Why is it that it takes few seconds for our body to decide that it's had enough water not to be thirsty, but several minutes to recognize that no more food is needed cuz it's not hungry?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnz9w9b",
"gnzf98t",
"gnzuqa4",
"gnzq0s7",
"gnzlyqs",
"gnzi6o4",
"gnzjirh",
"go0slvp",
"gnzml20",
"gnzhgbq",
"gnzoby7",
"gnzyrpl",
"go1ywd9",
"go07ty4"
],
"text": [
"Sensors in your mouth, back of the throat and oesophagus can detect how much water has been consumed and report this information to the brain. Fairly shortly after drinking water, the bode will start to behave as if that water is already in the bloodstream, even if it is still somewhere in the digestive tract. Food is a completely different story. The brain relies on stretch receptors in the stomach, hormones produced by the process of digestion, and sometimes chemicals generated by the bacteria living in the intestines. This is a much more complicated process that takes longer, which leads to a lag between actually being full, and the feeling of fullness.",
"Feeling full is complicated and one of the reasons there’s no magic pill for weight loss. Scientists are studying a variety of ways the body signals when it feels full. For example, one is called the “Ileal Brake.” Basically, there are sensors/receptors in your ~~ileal~~ ileum (the final part of your small intestine). When food and nutrients, particularly fats, are detected here, your body reports that it “feels full.” If you think about it, it’s a nice evolutionary measure. We eat until we know fats and nutrients have not just filled our stomach, but our small intestine. Because it takes time to get from your stomach to the end of your small intestine, you can often overeat before you feel full. There are other mechanisms at play, but this is a good example of how our body detects it has eaten enough and how it can lead to delays and overeating.",
"Other people have answered it well enough but I want to throw out some notions of what 'hunger' is that may help people with weight gain problems. Youve probably heard about hunger \"being in the head\" and well, thats pretty much true. Hunger is not exactly a \"I need food\" signal, its a \"im currently not digesting food\" signal. Just because you FEEL hungry doesnt mean you HAVE to eat. You may well be perfectly fine and fed, and overeating can definitely cause inconsistencies to worsen. You can often ignore hunger and it will go away after some minutes, assuming you didnt actually need to eat. This is why its also healthier to eat less more often than the massive one off meals we normally eat, AND it helps lose weight because eating little bits keeps the hunger feeling away while potentially consuming less food overall. The receptors for hunger are all over, stomach activity, intestine activity, even just the motion of eating all provide signals for the brain to say \"im eating, or im fed\" and the hunger dissipates. Its completely separate from \"I need food im low on stuff\" But yes, as other said, with water its almost instant and is controlled mostly by the throat. And not particularly because you need water and have replenished it.",
"Ive never experienced this. I feel full and don’t overeat unless I really want to. Maybe I’m just lucky.",
"For both hunger and thirst we have multiple signals that tell us whether we have 'had enough'. For example, stomach dilation, salt or glucose levels in the bloodstream, etc. Unfortunately all of these have at least several minutes' lag (for hydration) or even a hour's lag (for glucose levels) and we often feel that we've had enough water or food before this happens. Psychologists believe therefore that the real reason we feel we've had enough is simply habit. We know roughly how much water to drink from previous experience, and how much food to eat. The reason you feel you've had enough water earlier that for food is simply that you have different drinking habits to eating habits. If you retrain yourself to stop eating after less food, you will feel full from food earlier.",
"Thirst and Hunger appear similar, but work very differently! Regulating how much water and salts you need in your body is really determined by your kidneys. Sensors in your heart and kidney measure if you have enough water in your vessels, enough pressure in your circulation and what salts need adjusting. These processes take a long time and are NOT directly coupled to your brains desire to drink. You get thirsty when your mouth is dry! In some cases it’s because you are dehydrated and aren’t producing enough saliva. Most of the time it’s breathing through your mouth or dry heated air in winter. Example 1: People who loose a lot of blood need more volume (water with salts) in their system. They do not get thirsty though. Example 2: Patients with kidney failure have too much water in their bodies, but it is immensely difficult for them to drink less. Doctors need to rigorously explain to them, what amount of drinking is acceptable if you’re on dialysis. Example 3: Palliative Care Patients who cannot swallow anymore (dysphagia) cannot drink or eat. Giving them i.v. fluids only prolongs death, it does not alleviate thirst however. That’s why these patients prefer coating their mouth with water/soda/beer because it’s delicious and stops thirst. TL;DR Saturation is largely determined by the stretching of your stomach and complicated hormones. Thirst is usually a dry mouth Edit: Spelling",
"Hormones have alot to do with hunger. Sated & starving dogs when given a blood transfusion to the opposing dog will display opposing characteristics. Starving dog will not eat, Sated dog will gorge and vomit.",
"Wait, what? If I feel \"not hungry\" after eating food just like \"not thirsty\" after drinking water.",
"How hungry you are is indicative of how soon you have to eat and not how much you have to eat",
"Just stop eating in front of TV and you’ll start discerning between being satiated and full.",
"Early humans often had access to unlimited water, but rarely had access to unlimited food. You can also consume enough water within less than a minute, whereas eating takes a lot longer (or at least took longer, until we invented high-density foods like chocolate, energy bars etc.) Thus there was an evolutionary need to quickly realize how much water to drink, but no pressure to realize the same for food. Overeating hasn't been a problem until pretty recently.",
"People who are aware of how their own bodies actually feel can normally tell when they're not hungry anymore really quickly or even when they feel they're getting full. I've never thought, \"damn I overate, I should've just stopped 5 minutes ago\"... I can normally very easily tell when I am going to be full soon. I eat because I'm hungry and because I have to, not because I want to finish a whole dish or because it tastes good.",
"It's not true. Have you never taken a bite of food and then though, \"OK that's it I'm full\"? That's it, it happens instantly. I think the confusing factor is that water isn't \"delicious\" while food can be, also water doesn't come in portions while food does, and so we can easily decide to eat more food because it's yummy or because it's on the plate, so we wind up eating more than we needed to feel full. And I think a lot of people have learned to just completely ignore their internal feeling of fullness, because their parents insisted \"finish your plate!\" or that last chicken wing just looks really good or whatever. But if you pay attention, your body tells you *exactly* when you're full, to the bite, at the moment. Just like water.",
"Biochemist here with speciality in hormones. When you are hungry your gut releases a hormone known as ghrelin which signals that it’s time to eat. When you start eating, leptin, a hormone that is produced by fat, checks your fat supply and if it is sufficient (so that you don’t die of starvation), is released from your fat cells to act on your brain to tell you to stop eating and to induce a feeling of being full. This usually takes around 20 minutes for it to enter the bloodstream and act on your brain. So I always advise people if they want to have seconds, wait 20 minutes, and if you are still hungry after then you good to go, otherwise you may just overeat. Leptin not functioning properly is linked to diseases such as type 2 diabetes etc. so it’s a pretty important hormone. Hope that helps!"
],
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|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln7t83
|
Why do we get used to warm water quicker than cold water when bathing?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzauy3"
],
"text": [
"Getting in cold water is going to put your skin in the middle of a temperature tug of war. Your insides want to heat your skin up to 98.6F, the bath wants to cool it down to its own temperature. If you get into warm water, you get heated up from the inside and the outside at the same time, so you reach the target temperature much faster."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln96mi
|
What makes fresh meat twitch?
|
What is the mechanism behind fresh cuts of meat twitching, more noticeably under salt or an acid? I’m not talking about mechanical retention like a heart beating, but specifically the flesh twitching (which I believe is not simply continued motion). Thanks!
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzej3x"
],
"text": [
"Salts and acids are both kinds of electrolytes, which means that under the right circumstances, introducing them can cause electrical currents to flow. And an electrical current can cause muscle fibers to contract, even if the owner of those muscles is deceased. Luigi Galvani was the first to demonstrate that this kind of thing could happen with a dead animal's muscle tissue. In his experiment he made a dead frog's legs twitch by touching them with different metals, and between him and Volta, they reasoned their way to a theory of \"animal electricity\", which is how we began to understand that animals' bodies (and by extension, ours) use electricity to perform their motor functions. You can read more about the phenomenon here: URL_0"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanism"
]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln9ae0
|
What is it that makes low budget movies look “raw” while high budget look all more put together?
|
Every time I start a lower budget movie, I can instantly sense it in the sounds and video that everything just seems more “raw” like it was filmed on an iPhone or something. How come big budget movies don’t generally seem like this, a ton of post processing? Why can’t low budget folks do this?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzd51r",
"gnzm0lm"
],
"text": [
"Some of the big differences that are really hard to hide are good quality lighting and sound, a 'cinema' quality camera, and post-production processes that smooth the sound and picture quality (grading and mixing). New tech is closing the gap between low and mid-range budgets as long as you have the know-how. That said, low budget productions are also inclined to lean into the lofi aesthetic, especially if they're making a genre film.",
"There are a number of reasons, some of which have already been covered by u/Blahdyblahblahisme. While the technology is certainly available to lower budget productions, the experienced personal in the field are out of the price range. If you could get award winning camera operators, editors, sound mixers, and colour technicians to work for minimum wage, you could get a professional looking production at a budget price. In fact, one of the professional digital editing packages (Davinci Resolve) is available for free. But the experience and knowledge to get the most out of it, is going to cost."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
ln9d53
|
Why are side effects to medicine always negative?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzdvyo",
"gnzdq8e",
"gnzobld",
"gnze5xs",
"gnzhzie",
"gnzqdm9",
"gnztoj6"
],
"text": [
"They aren't always negative, but they have to warn us about the negative ones so they don't get sued. Sometimes, the positive ones are how we discover medicines for other, unintended purposes on accident. Viagra was originally used as a medicine for a heart condition, but then they realized it can also ... do what we all know it does...",
"Because the things labelled as \"side effects\" are the things that the end users are likely to complain about. If a medicine whose primary purpose is to, say, fix your weak heart \\*also\\* makes you poop regular as clockwork, the end user doesn't care about that because that's not what they're taking the stuff for, so why bother telling them about it?",
"We only label the negative side effects as side effects. Positive side effects are presented as \"Can be used to treat X\" or at least, help with X. Although, sometimes negative side effects for one can mean treatment for another. For instance - spironolactone. Taken for hypertension as a diuretic, it can have the side effect of lowering testosterone level. Taken as an anti-androgen, it has the side effect of lowering blood sodium.",
"Well it's only the negative ones they need to warn you about. There are probably a lot of medications that have some slight positive side-effects, but for them to put that in the ads would probably get the FDA on their ass about trying to lure people in to taking the drug by also throwing out little token side-effects. \"Hey, this drug may cause your feet to fall off but it also may make your teeth whiter!\" - sketchy!",
"Because otherwise they wouldn't call them side effects and sell them to you as if that's exactly what is meant to happen.",
"Because if the \"side effect\" is positive, you market it as medicine *for that purpose*. It makes very little sense for example to have a 'head ache pill', that also makes you lose weight. It is a diet pill at that point.",
"Simply put if a medication is discovered to have an unintended positive effect, it will be remarketed as a medication for that effect. Pharmaceuticals involve astronomical amounts of money and are marketed in some of the most aggressive and tightly controlled ways possible. It's a constant fight of countries tightly regulating the way medications must be treated, and enormous marketing departments figuring out ways to get round that / utilise the structure most effectively. Sometimes even a \"side\" effect is then re-marketed as an intended effect. Does it treat heart problems, but also have the side effect of causing a runny stool? Guess what it's now a laxative/stool softener too."
],
"score": [
31,
14,
9,
4,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
ln9m3u
|
Why do identical twins only share looks and not much else?
|
ELI5: Why is this so? I know the fertilized egg splits, rather than there being two separate eggs, but what does the split egg mean for the embryos’ DNA? Edit: I do realize personality is not dictated strictly by genes, but I meant how close the dna was to the other embryo/s.
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzggw4",
"gnzeqk2",
"gnzw7we"
],
"text": [
"Because they are the same only in DNA, but their upbringing and environment shapes their individuality in different ways, so their character and outlook on life may differ.",
"Well, DNA really only determines rough physical attributes. So, they look similar. It doesn't determine personality, besides maybe some traits, but differences is personality quickly compound to create very different people in no time flat.",
"So your genetics is the list of everything that CAN happen in your body. All of your cells have the same DNA but they turn into liver or brain or skin or whatever else cells depending on where they are in the fetus as you develope. This is all controlled by how your DNA is packaged. Think of your DNA as 46 crazy long strings packed into your cells. Then think of how bad your headphones wires get tangled in your pocket. This would be bad and damage your DNA so it gets wrapped around these proteins called histones. This helps keep your DNA safe from damage. Now that your DNA is wrapped up places that are wrapped really tight are going to be harder to read and places that are wrapped more loosely are going to be easier to read. It is believed that the way your DNA gets wrapped up helps to determine what genes get expressed and what type of cell it will become. Now on to answer your question. Lots of different things can lead to changes in the way your DNA is packaged and this will determine how your cells react to future stimuli. So say the twins end up in different classes. One could have a really good teacher and one could have a bad teacher. The one with the bad teacher gets stressed because they aren't doing as well as their sibling. Stress can cause major changes ind DNA packaging and those changes can last for a long time even after the stress is gone. Now the siblings cells are primed to react to things differently even though their DNA is the same. This stuff is still not fully understood at the cellular level especially with how it relates to behavior and personality but it seems very likely that it is a major factor. I can throw in more detail if you have more questions but this is the quick ELI5 version of it."
],
"score": [
8,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lna9qq
|
How does our body lose so much water when we sleep?
|
Waking up feeling dehydrated or having to go to the bathroom, even after just a nap. What is our body doing that’s processing so much water?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzhx5b"
],
"text": [
"Two of the primary ways the body loses water is through breathing and sweating, both of which are options in sleep. Even a minute amount of condensation in one breath, multiplied over the span of hours, is going to add up to a decent amount of water loss."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lnadtp
|
Why do we naturally become hungry when we see images, commercials, etc. advertising food products?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzikdz"
],
"text": [
"interesting question! There's a hormone called gherlin which (amongst other situations) gets triggered when we see food. It's produced in the stomach and then gets sent in the brain through the blood. Back in the stone age days it was very helpful since humans didn't find or get food every day, so when they got the chance the increased appetite helped them with eating more. That's how I understood it, please correct me if I'm wrong :)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnali6
|
saw a video of a man who left oatmeal in a concealed plastic container for a few years. It had 100s of maggots in it. How is this possible when it’s completely sealed? It’s not like a fly could lay any eggs.
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzjqrt"
],
"text": [
"> How is this possible when it’s completely sealed? It wasn't sealed *before* that. Most of the food arriving on your table already contains contaminants, none of it is sterile."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnapmr
|
Why are RISC processor architectures more energy efficient than CISC
|
There's starting to be a transition in the laptop space to the RISC Arm architecture from the CISC x86, and new architectures like RISC-V are projected to be even more energy efficient once it matures, but why is this? Wouldn't having more dedicated instructions be more efficient since you don't have to sequentially feed multiple instructions to the processor, and the processor can just handle all the complex multi-step processing in the background?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzmfl4"
],
"text": [
"The main problem with CISC is that it's dropping optimization potential. With RISC you basically give the responsibility to build a complex command to the layer above (the compiler), wich can then tailor it to the current needs, skipping parts of it that are currently not needed. CISC isn't \"few big instructions\", it's \"one instruction is actually a whole chain of simple instructions\". So the \"feeding multiple instructions\" part isn't improved with CISC."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lnbcjr
|
why does youtube load videos faster than other streaming platforms?
|
Technology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzp27q",
"gnzociw"
],
"text": [
"UNLIMITED POWER!!! Or something like it. First we need to understand what their service is. You chose a video, send a request for watching that video. The server then send you the first X seconds of the videos. After Y seconds of watching (Y being shorter than X), you ask the server to send you the next X seconds of videos. Y need to be shorter so that you can receive the next X seconds BEFORE you finished the X second you received previously. If everything goes correctly, The video shouldn't stutter nor stop and you should only load the necessary number of seconds and not more. Now, why does all this matter? And why is Youtube faster? It's a matter of server load. Answering a request takes time. It takes time to receive it, to process it and finally to send it back. Which lead to a quite funny conundrum. The less seconds you send each time (so the smaller X is) the more often you'll need to send things (AE, the more often you'll need to receive and process a request). The more seconds you send each time, the less often you'll need to send things, but you'll need to send more which takes more time. The question become is it better to send a lot of small bundle or a little bit of large bundle? Well user retention teach us that lot of small bundle is probably better. Because everytime you leave a video, all those unwatched seconds left (be it the credit, or just you losing interest) are wasted server load. The bigger the bundle, the more you waste. But there is a catch: The more often you request something, the more the server has to receive and treat requests. Which mean you need server that can quickly answer. They need to be fast, powerful and close by. Youtube belong to google. Nobody can match them in that regard. They have servers all over the world. They can receive and treat request faster than anyone else. The issue isn't that much sending the videos(even if it matters, it's not as much of an issue for big companies) but rather that Youtube can optimize as much as possible whereas other do not have the capacity to do so. So most other send bigger bundles and waste a lot things. This mean their server are overloaded with wastes, but if they don't do that, there is a risk that the video won't be loaded on time for the user, leading to stutter and poor user experience. Basically, Youtube is big enough that it can optimize everything. That optimization mean that they get better performance for a lower cost. Others can't achieve that kind of optimization.",
"Youtube has google’s cdn (content distribution network) which is probably superior to most streaming websites which may have only 1 or a few hosting servers. you’ll notice that other major platforms like Amazon prime video and Netflix will usually load just as fast, because they have similar advantages. More basically: Google has more servers that are closer to you than the other streaming services you use."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lncc0m
|
In the novel, 'The Martian' by Andy Weir, Is it possible to live on vitamins and potatoes for an extended period of time?
|
I'm poor but vitamins and minerals could be bought in my area for cheap. I plant sweet potatoes for sustenance. Can I live on it? (hypothetically) If for some reason, I find myself broke?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzr4wt",
"gnzsqgz"
],
"text": [
"Could you, sure, eating something is better than nothing, however remember Mark Watney, was needing high carb food because he needed to be able to do work... a super high carb, zero protein diet would not be healthy in the long run... now add beans to the diet and you have protein, and fiber, things just got a lot better",
"For the \"broke\" situation, best supplement your diet with protein-rich food like beans and lentils. Also consider adding omega-3 and 6 supplements and some olive oil. They will protect you longer than plain potatoes (carbs)."
],
"score": [
11,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lnciau
|
How does phosphorence work? How can an object capture light and use it to glow for long periods?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzs61n",
"gnzs74a"
],
"text": [
"Its not so much that the light is captured, but more the energy of the light. Basically, some atoms and molecules will have situations wherein an electron in the outer shell can, by exciting it with light, be moved into a higher orbit, if you will (Think of Bohrs nuclear model here, as thats really all you need to visualize this) Now, most of the time, youll have those electrons move right back once there is no more light to excite it. However, in some cases, like phosphorus, the electron would, in order to do so, have to pass through what is called a forbidden state, which is basically a state that takes a lot of energy to reach and isnt very stable. As the electron falls back down through this forbidden state, it releases the energy that had previously been stored in it, in the shape of visible light. However, since the odds of this happening for any individiual electron are low, this effect will keep going for quite some time. Of course, this is only one possible mechanism. For example, there are also various nuts that are phosporescent. Peanuts for instance. I dont remember the precise mechanism, but theres a polymer (Polymer here referring to a long chain of small molecules, so called monomers, that link up to form a macromolecule) in peanuts and a lot of other nuts that will, when exposed to blue or ultraviolet light, start glowing blue, as that polymer is split up into its monomers by the light, which then reform the polymer, which then proceeds to release that same light again. (This works with fresh peanut butter as well in case you have a blacklight lamp and wanna try it out) Tl;dr: In chemistry, some processes can be caused by light being absorbed by something. if that same process is reversible, reversing it causes the light to be released, as concepts like the conservation of energy demand that the energy has to go somewhere.",
"Light is an electromagnetic wave that you can percieve. It can be emitted in various ways, one of them is by breaking a molecule or having a molecule release its surplus of energy. Phosphorence is the second case: when you light a molecule, it wil absorb certain photons and get \"excited\". As soon as it is excited, it tries to get back to its \"calm\" state which means that it will have to lose energy. To do so, it will create a new photon (which is energy) and eject it with more or less energy (that will define its wavelenght). To expand a bit more on \"excited\" molecules and \"calm\" molecules, a molecule have a shape/position that is the most comfortable for it which is its \"calm\" or \"low energy\" position (so the atoms are at the most efficient distance from each other, and the molecule is at the most efficient distance from the others). When you bring energy to it, it might elongate or retract the bound between two atoms or it might increase or decrease the distance between two unbounded atoms, which don't want to be that far/close, so they will come back to their \"comfortable\" position by releasing the energy they stored."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnd7ph
|
What does it means that a stock has a lockup expiration?
|
I'm reading about the Palantir lockup expiration but I don't understand whether is a good thing for those who bought it or a good thing for the company.
|
Economics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"gnzu89y"
],
"text": [
"A lockup means certain people, usually early investors can't sell their stock for a while. This is common practice to stop early investor from selling too much stock after a company first joins the stock market. The expiration just means it's ending so they will be. Able to sell their stock as they please. Usually its not a huge deal but if anything it may cause the stock to go down a bit if a lot of people are selling."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lnenj8
|
If two identical balls are connected to the same very long rope, and one of the balls are floating in space and the other one is hanging above earth's surface. What would happen?
|
So my 7-year old asked me this and as much as I would love to be able to give him a proper answer, I couldn't. Does ball A (in space) float away, taking ball B (above earth's surface) with it? Will the balls stay somewhat fixed or will ball B force ball A down?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go008il",
"go00xfj",
"go00o9u",
"go042zu",
"go058z9"
],
"text": [
"All of these outcomes are possible, depending on the exact location and speed of the balls. It is possible to set up the balls above the equator in such a way that they’ll just stay there - the lower ball hovering near the ground and the upper ball circling in orbit around Earth. You can then go up and down the rope to get into orbit and back at a fraction of the cost compared to rockets. This is the basis behind the concept of “Space elevator”. You can look it up and tell your seven-year old they’ve come up with a great idea independently. Technically the only setback is that we don’t yet have material strong enough for the rope, but we are kinda close to it, so it’s not unrealistic to hope that we will have it eventually. Edit: somewhat expanded.",
"Assuming that \"floating\" means in orbit (otherwise, they just fall), they are \"balanced\" around the center of mass of the balls (half-way down the rope). One ball pulls \"up\", and the other \"down\", keeping the rope under tension. Congratulations - your 7 year old has intuited tides.",
"I was just trying to work it out and there are so many variables to take into account and assumptions to make that all those outcomes are possible. It all depends on how long the rope is, the height of the ball on earth, the height of the ball in space, whether they're both moving at the earth's angular speed, etc.",
"Let's make a few assumption to make this whole problem possible then lets just... Map it out? First, we'll assume that both balls have the same weight and that the rope is weightless (just to make things simpler). We'll also assume that the rope is unbreakable. Earth ball (EB) is the one on the surface and Space ball (SB) is the one in space. First thing, the earth has a gravitational pull. basically, anything that get close enough is attracted by the earth. The closer, the stronger the attraction. For now we'll ignore the other big force that will matter. We'll just focus on gravity. Gravity is applying a force on both balls. EB is taking a stronger force than SB by virtue of it being closer to the ground. As long as EB does not rest on the ground it'll try and get closer, giving part of its acceleration to SB. SB, unless really far away is also getting attracted but to a lesser degree. Since the rope is unbreakable, EB will be slowed down because it'll be giving some of its acceleration to get SB moving. EB will thus be moving slower but still moving toward the ground while SB will be moving faster by stealing some of EB's acceleration. Basically, if there is absolutely no other force at work, EB and SB are bound to both end up on earth. But there are other forces. The first one is gravity from other astral things. Stars, planets, comets, moons, etc. It's simply impossible to evaluate. So we will acknowledge their existence, but ignore them. There is though one other force that we CAN take into account somewhat reliably. Centrifugal force. The earth is spinning. Centrifugal force apply to both balls again. but this time, the further you are from the center of rotation, the more acceleration you get. So this time, SB is getting a lot of force whereas EB isn't getting much. it's actually low enough that gravity is by itself enough to hold EB from its own centrifugal force. But since SB is much further out, it's likely that SB will take a stronger centrifugal force than gravity will pull. SB will try to leave for space. In it, it'll try to drag EB. And that is the result. Basically, the further the ball, the stronger the centrifugal force pulling balls away. The closer the ball, the stronger the gravity pulling balls closer. Which mean that the real question become... How long the rope is? If the rope is long enough, centrifugal force will apply enough energy to SB that it'll drag EB away. If the rope is short enough, gravity will overpower the centrifugal force and EB will drag SB back. If the rope is just the right length, gravity and centrifugal force will simply counter each other leaving the balls somewhat where they are & #x200B; I'll assume you'll want to explain these concept to your child. You'll probably want to simply try and explain what centrifugal force is by tying a ball on a rope. Show him that the ball always fall toward the earth. That's gravity. Then start spinning the ball on a rope. That's centrifugal force. If you do it properly, the ball will rise despite gravity. Proof that it's powerful enough to counter gravity. I have no idea how to make him correlate the rope length with the gravity force since in our little test, we're willingly exaggerating the force for demonstration.",
"It depends on the rope and just where in space the ball is floating. The big problem is that if you are just as high up as the International space station, you would need a 400 km long rope to reach the ground. Any normal rope that long would rip apart under its own weight, but you could probably make one from Kevlar or something that might work. But there is another even bigger problem the ISS and the space ships flying to it may look like they are just floating in space, but they are actually moving very quickly compared to the ground beneath them. Objects that high fly sideways at speeds that would be 22 times the speed of sound here on earth. So what would happen that the drag of the weight of the rope and the lower ball and the air resistance of the lower ball and the part of the rope in atmosphere would either slow down the upper ball until it fell down from orbit or it would simply snap the rope under the strain. Even if you could keep the rope from snapping you would still have to deal with the upper ball being slowed down by the air resistance of the lower ball and the lower ball being speed up by being dragged by the one above. It is something that would be very destructive to anything around it. One way to escape that problem of one part going very fast is to simply take the upper ball and take it much much higher into an obit where it always was above the same patch of ground. This way you would have no speed difference between the ball near the ground and the one in orbit. This sort of construct is more or less what we call a space elevator and it would work the way you would want it to. You have a rope that you could climb up to get to the the ball floating in space. The problem is that instead of a few hundred kilometer long the rope would now need to be 36 thousand kilometer long. We don't really have any material that could be used to make a rope that long. Some think that some sort of fancy carbon nanotube fibers could work for this and some tricks that involve tapering one end and some other stuff. We can't build anything like that yet, but it is a serious idea that could work in theory."
],
"score": [
30,
18,
5,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
lnfbmd
|
Why does fog seem to move around me, without me ever going "into" it?
|
Physics
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go0582p",
"go02uqk",
"go1k6hz",
"go12wue"
],
"text": [
"Fog is mostly transparent. No matter where you are, there's only a little bit of fog inbetween you and something right in front of you, so you can see it just fine. If you're looking at something a hundred feet away, then you're looking at it through a hundred feet of fog - even if it's mostly transparent, lots and lots of it still adds up, so it's tougher to see the object. It's the difference between looking through a single piece of plastic wrap (which looks clear even though it's only \"mostly\" clear) vs. looking at a roll of plastic wrap (which looks opaque since it's hundreds of layers deep).",
"Fog reduces how far you can see into it, but you can still see a certain distance. From the outside of the fog looking in you don't really notice this because what you can see seems to be on the outside, but in the fog you can see that range around yourself.",
"It's the same as being in a forest.... you can see the area around you, but the farther you look the more trees get in your way until that's all you can see.",
"Fog is like a mesh courtain. Stick your face close to it and you can see just fine. Move back and it becomes more and more opaque the further away you go. When it's foggy, you can easily see in front of you because you are looking through the close \"courtains\" but it gets harder to see further away because there are more and more layers of far away courtains that stack on top of each other."
],
"score": [
20,
9,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lngye8
|
Why do paper towels and Windex make a squeaky noise when wiping a window? And how come you can change the pitch just by moving a different direction?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go0fgxp"
],
"text": [
"I believe it's called stick-slip phenomena. There's a certain amount of friction between the wetted paper towel and the class. When enough pressure is applied it suddenly slips."
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnhldi
|
How does stomach acid not affect your stomach itself, and how does it stay in your stomach?
|
Biology
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go0g0lh",
"go0frlu"
],
"text": [
"The stomach has a layer of cells that constantly produce mucous to protect the inner layers of the stomach from the acid. And the acid stays down because between the esophagus and the stomach itself there is a ring of muscles (kinda like an anus) that prevents the stomach content from flowing back up. Hope this helps :-)",
"It doesn't just stay in your stomach. Your stomach is not just some bag filled with stomach acid all the time, at least not if your body is working correctly. When you eat food, your stomach makes the acid to break down the food, then the whole mess moves on to your intestines. Then the stomach is more or less empty again until you eat again. As for how does stomach acid not affect your stomach, well, it's making the stuff, so it doesn't get affected by it. Unless you have issues, like ulcers and such. Then the acid definitely does affect your stomach."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnhuaj
|
How can a city sign a whole city up for a new power provider, fail to notice everyone and then require you to opt out individually?
|
Other
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go0gbul"
],
"text": [
"Seems like they are learning a lesson from Behavioral Economics. (See the book “Nudge” for better explanation. The ELI5 version: make the do-nothing default the option you want people to choose. Because our brains seek closure, most people take the path of least resistance if everything is “good enough” (or if change doesn’t motivate too much uncertainty). The city probably would say something along the lines of “this is the best option for people.” Legally, they’ve given everyone a choice. If you didn’t receive notice of the change timeline, then I imagine worst case, the courts would side with you for whatever you could prove was your damages."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
|
lnhxg7
|
How do you melt ice/snow when the temperature is under 5F (-15C)
|
I live in the mid-atlantic region in USA, where we get the regular change of seasons, and our winters are frequently around 30F (-1C). When it snows, we use rock salt to melt the ice on the sidewalks and roads. However, most rock salt that you would buy at Home Depot/Lowe's says it works on temperatures as low as 5F (-15C). So I must beg the question: In areas such as the Great Lakes region or Canada, where winters frequently are below this 5F (-15C) threshold, what do you use to melt the ice if rock salt doesn't work at these temperatures?
|
Chemistry
|
explainlikeimfive
|
{
"a_id": [
"go0gv42",
"go0i38j"
],
"text": [
"You use something like calcium chloride, which works down to -25F, or magnesium chloride, which works down to 0F. There are also some preventative treatments that help prevent ice from forming in the first place, instead of working to melt it after the fact.",
"In some locations you just don't, it becomes counter productive to try instead you deal with the conditions."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
}
|
[
"url"
] |
[
"url"
] |
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