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mtycla | Why do our eyes become bloodshot when we are tired? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you are tired, that's your body signaling to you that you should rest. If you don't, then the body needs to produce more energy in order to keep itself active in the form of oxygen, thus your blood vessels dilate. The redness is the result of dilated blood vessels pumping more bleed that way, resulting in it taking a red color."
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mtzc20 | How does the body decide where to add or take away fat when gaining/losing weight? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't 'decide' per-se. Fat is distributed in a rough order that varies with your sex. Males for example are more likely to store fat in their upper-body and abdomen (hence the Beer Belly phenomenon) whereas Females are more prone to store it around their hips and thighs. This is what largely contributes to the 'pear' shape we associate with women. Males are also more likely to store 'visceral' (around the organs) fat which is what results in the skinny-fat phenomenon where people can be overweight, but not look it. Females are more likely to store fat subcutaneously (under the skin) where it's more noticeable. This combined with our bodies preference for storing fat in certain places is what contributes to the difference of appearance as a result of our weight. Places like your face, neck and arms are lower down the list. Which is why when someone gains/loses a lot of weight this is where you notice it. It's one of the last places for fat to get stored, but when you start losing weight that means it's one of the first places to go. When you lose weight, it comes off in the reverse order that it went on. So if you've noticed that you've recently started accumulating mass in a certain place, then with improved diet and exercise that is the exact place it'll start coming off first. Edit: The order I've given is more of a broad trend rather than something you can usefully apply to individuals, various generic and environmental factors will affect the order from person-to-person. Your personal order may be different, but regardless of the order it's a last-on/first-off system. Edit2: There's some back and forth in medical journals about whether there is *any* consistency to the order or if it's purely an individual/genetic thing. I'm not qualified to really judge that and deep dive into them so please take that particular claim with a few pinches of salt. But while the notion of a consistent order seems contentious, there is nevertheless an order for you. TL;DR - Fat goes on in a particular order on different parts of your body that varies between people, and it comes off in the reverse order that it went on. Areas like our belly/hips are often the first place it goes on (but not for everyone!), so it's the last place it comes off and you have to do everything else first.",
"It is mostly genetic and changes with body types. You can't burn fat from spesific places either. You can't burn only tummy fat for example. You can however add some muscle mass for a neater look.",
"While most of the responses itt are accurate as far as our current medical understanding is concerned, [biochemists are making a lot of progress in understanding the signaling pathways that regulate lipolysis,]( URL_1 ) and several proteins have been identified that are associated with fat burning. [There was an investigational peptide that appeared in a paper a few years ago]( URL_0 ) but very little follow-up was done and the project was abandoned. You can find fraudulent knockoffs of the drug on sketchy dieting aid sites.",
"Something that is not already discussed, the body temperature raises and burns both fat AND muscle. Different types of diets and exercise also burn calories differently. For instance, High Intensity Interval Training works the heart extremely well, and more fat is burned than muscle. Extreme long distance cardio, by the end, can burn near equal amounts of muscle and fat. Any exercise (and I do mean any, as long as it's not a smartass response) is good for visceral fat control, which is the biggest indicator for long term health issues, when it comes to fat that is. The problem is, it requires tests (blood draws) to determine where an individual is. Diets, well those are very tricky. The field of study is fraught with profit engineering, name recognition, and questionable statistical conclusions. Almost every study is countered with another, and all have the potential of being correct or incorrect. In the end, regularly see your doctor about your health. Edit: correction from subcutaneous to visceral. I mixed them up.",
"Your hormones, estrogen and testosterone levels will dictate where your body decides to store and therefore burn fat first. Which is why food quality is important not just macro nutrients. Poor quality foods and lack of sleep tend to have a negative effect on hormone balance. Among other environmental factors.",
"You have a set number of fat cells in your body. Depending on your genetics there may be more or less of them in certain parts of your body. If you gain more body fat, you're not gaining cells, they're just getting bigger. The same with losing body fat, those cells get smaller. They more or less all grow and shrink at the same rate.",
"It's like letting air out of a balloon. But, not every balloon has the same shape. Some parts deflate faster than others and it depends on the particular balloons shape.",
"Which places depends on physiology and genetics. You don't have much control over that. How much depends on exercise. Basically proportional to muscle mass and endurance capacity. For synergistic results, you need to do both: strength training + cardio. Marathoners will have very low body fat because they've trained their bodies to use fat efficiently as a source of nutrition during exercise. Vigorous exercise can also stimulate body to deposit excess energy in muscle glycogen as opposed to fat. This is why if you're in great shape, it's easier to stay in shape; you've already altered your metabolic profile to something kind of favorable. You can usually reshape your metabolism, if it is out of whack, but this requires *work*. A mile run a few times a week or arm curls aren't going to cut it. Unless you're basically 20. You don't have to run marathons or kill yourself at the gym to have low body fat (reshape your metabolism). Combining strength and cardio training about 1 hour every other day will lead to substantial fat burning. Make sure to target all large muscle groups for the most benefits. If you want the benefits but don't want to spend much time, you can do high-intensity interval training instead. Those workouts tend to be 30 minutes or less. However, they are much more challenging and more people would probably prefer the longer workouts, I think. EDIT: Since most people in this thread don't seem to know much about exercise, and since it is getting to be that time of year again, I just want to throw out there -- if you're out of shape and looking to start getting in shape -- especially with the warmer weather -- I highly recommend you DO NOT start by running. Running has probably one of the highest injury rates in sports -- about 33 to 75% of people are injured annually. If you're large (fat or tall) your risk is higher. If you have history of running or you are small in size -- by all means go ahead. It's just I see a lot of people try to get started by throwing on old jogging shoes and sweat pants and plodding through the neighborhood. God bless em for trying. But honestly, even though it's popular I think it's a pretty poor place to start if you're not already kind of light and used to the impact.",
"The ELI5 answer is - it doesn't. It's like trying to empty a lake with a bucket. You don't leave a bucket shaped hole in the water; the surrounding water is redistributed to fill in the space made by removing the water.",
"It's a complicated question with a complicated answer that varies as much as your genes do. The simple answer is hormones! Hormones are chemicals in your body that tell your body what to do. There are lots and lots of hormones that all have different functions that interact with each other, you can learn more at URL_0 That said, while hormones tell your body what to do, they don't really decide where anything goes. Your genes sorta do? Your genes kinda write the code that your hormones function on, and sometimes that code gets a little twisted up. There can be mutations and disorders that make your hormones behave in odd ways, some of which might be really subtle, so subtle that no one notices unless they get their genes sequenced. Generally speaking, you can't pick and choose where your body stores fat, you can't work out your mid section to burn belly fat, for example. You can't get a six pack from doing a lot of abdomenal exercises. Without surgery you can't have a six pack while also maintaining the fat in your ass. It's a lot like ocean water levels, like it rises together everywhere, not just in specific places. It just seems like you flood in certain places only because some places are lower-lying than others. Some areas of your body are meant to have more fat in it than other places, and this can also be genetic thing Cis women and in general people with higher estrogen levels have a higher body fat percentage that is about double the norm for cis men. Subcutaneous body fat plays an important roll in hormone regulation, especially estrogen. There are a number of conditions that affect how your body places and metabolizes excess fat, often these involve hormones and have a genetic component. Lipedema is a condition that a lot of people don't know about but it's actually pretty common, it mainly affects women. Fat stores in the lower half of your body and you literally can't lose it, and it can be quite painful and get worse with time.",
"I'm learning it's about how your hormones/glands tell your body what and where to store \"fat' or excess (i.e. leftover material) from cellular processes. Not all extra weight or bulges can be considered fat - some is water or muscle (even though it doesn't feel like it). Food energy that is not considered by the stomach as waste and sent to bowels asks body what to do with that cellular level energy. Most food instructional processing begins with the liver and from there depending on the organ in need, or the gland that is triggered, it produces hormonal responce with instructions on what to do with broken down food at cellular level. Think of fat as the body's way of protecting vital organs or unhealthy organs - they need a layer of fat around them for self preservation. The body is INCREDIBLE at self preservation, and automatically does what it can to survive. So if organs are signaling the body they have signs of damage or need (this can be a false need created by what we eat) - then the brain tells hormone producing glands to send instructions too food processing organs/glands on how to process that food energy and take what it needs from it, where it needs it and then (depending on the hormone/gland) where to store the reserve for accessing later. You may think I don't have organs in my hips or butt. Your right! Their are several body shape types and each is caused by a different hormonal(s) issue. Hormonal imbalance, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, ect have sent bad info to the glands, pancreas, gallbladder, liver, ect and they act on it deciding to store fat in predetermined places for later use. I'm not a doctor (but I play one on TV)... this is just a high level overview of how the body handles processed food. I've been reading several books on the topic lately because having survived covid I want to get myself in better shape. All diets and workouts in past have failed so I'm learning how my body WORKS and understanding how it processes food. Right now I'm on my fourth medical book, currently reading 'The 7 Principles of Fat Burning' by Dr. Eric Berg. IMO if I don't find the root cause of why my body is doing what it does with the food I eat then anything else is a temporary fix for a symptom which is creating and storing fat. I've learned step one is to repair the liver and bring it back up to best operating efficiency first, doing this thru specific diet and other methods. Second is bringing my hormones back into balance so they don't incorrectly instruct me to create to much adrenaline, or too little growth hormone, or bad instructions about creating insulin, ect. If part of body is not healthy FIRST messing around with what I'm eating isn't solving anything. Hope this helps someone."
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mtzm92 | Why scientists don't use gene editing technology to get rid of mosquitoes forever ? | I remember watching a YouTube video where they said that we can make mosquitoes get extinct by using Gene editing techniques, and scientists know how they can do it. But for some reason, it didn't happen yet and probablywon'thappen. Why is that? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Despite being annoying and sometimes carrying diseases, mosquitoes are a major part of the ecosystem as many creatures eat them. If you kill off all the mosquitoes, a lot of birds, frogs and other creatures (such as dragonflies) will dwindle or go extinct, then various predators will follow and overall it would be a total disaster for almost everyone.",
"Well, it is very hard to tell what impact causing them to go extinct would do to other creatures. For example, all bugs/creatures that use mosquitos as food would no longer have that source. Would they be able to find a different meal? Would that cause them to start eating something helpful? Just because mosquitos suck (pun intended) to us humans they may still play an important part in the circle of life.",
"We've learnt our lesson about playing God with ecosystems plenty of times in the past. Mosquitoes make up substantial biomass. Not only are they a nutrition source for animals, but plants as well. They're also hugely widespread, meaning their removal would affect many different - and differently fragile - ecosystems. Read more here: URL_0",
"We are not talking about eradicating all mosquitos, only about 30 different species which carry the most diseases. This is less then 1% of the species. And we might also reintroduce them once the diseses have been eradicated. This plan is something which is currently being discussed. And scientists are actually struggleing quite a bit comming up with any reason not to do this. The biggest arugemnt against this is that there might be some unintended consequence that we have not thought about when doing this large scale eradication. In any case it would require a large global coordination effort with huge funding. It is the sort of thing that can only be done by the World Health Organization or a similar organization. And they are currently focusing their effort eradicating other diseases. So it will probably take some time until we can focus on the mosquito based diseases but when we do this plan is one of the best ones we have.",
"Other animals depend upon mosquitos for food. Eradicating mosquitos would have serious implications for ecosystems around the world and would likely result in the extinction of other organisms."
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mtzx6t | Why do we subconsciously begin standing with a better posture after lifting weights for a while? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your skeleton Is like a suspension sculpture. Its not a subconscious decision to have better posture, your muscles get stronger which pulls your posture into a better position."
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mu05rq | what are scars? | Why do scars form rather than the regular stuff that used to be there? What's the difference? Why's it do that? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So, you're made of tiny little organisms called cells. These cells are held together by a big mesh of something called collagen. When an injury happens, the cells that repair the wound must produce collagen molecules to rebuild that mesh. However, they're not super interested in making the mesh the best it can be. They just want a functional mesh and they don't mind if it's built in a worse way, as long as it does the job. To do this, they pump out way more collagen than they actually need, and the excess causes the collagen structure to become excessively dense and poorly organised. This makes the tissue weaker and prevents it forming things like hair follicles and nerve cells. Scars are therefore bunches of cells with too much collagen (which is white, making it look paler than the surrounding tissue) and no complex structures, built to fix a hole."
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mu0fm7 | How are deep sea creatures able to glow? | I need to know what causes the lights on deep water creatures/fish like angler fish to glow. How do they do it? I know its to attract prey etc but HOW?! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is bioluminescence. Basically the organism evolved to create two or more chemicals that, when they react together, produce other chemicals and briefly emit visible light. For more detail look here URL_0",
"Bioluminescence uses oxidative enzymes called luciferase to create a chemical reaction which produces light. Species can use bioluminescence to hide, lure prey or find a mate in the darkness and is so efficient that engineers are considering if there are any practical applications of the process. - URL_0"
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mu0irf | why do we sometimes can't breathe normally and HAVE TO take a deep breath before breathing normally again? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your lungs are kind of like sponges. They're not hollow meat-sacks like is sometimes thought. Rather, they're a solid lump of tissue with lots of tiny, tiny tubes in them designed to create the maximum possible surface area. Each of those tiny tubes is surrounded by tiny blood vessels, and gases are swapped across the wall of the tube into those vessels. Here is an [artistic rendition]( URL_0 ), with the lung being that big pink thing on the right. Notice how it's got a speckled appearance? Those are the holes. Now, those holes are a bit sticky, cos they're covered in a very thin layer of mucus. If the edges of a hole touch, they'll stick together and won't open up again. To prevent this, you don't actually fully breathe out when you breathe out. Try it now. You're no doubt conscious of the fact you're breathing already, so on your next outbreath, push further, until you can't push any more. That's a bunch of extra air being exhaled that normally doesn't get exhaled. That air is kind of stagnant. It has less oxygen in it than fresh air would, so if allowed to build up, you'd be getting less oxygen in your blood than you're supposed to. What a deep breath does is it refreshes the portion of air that's being used to keep the holes open, and it also re-inflates any holes that have stuck together. We take a deeper breath on average once every 3 breaths iirc, to keep the lungs open and oxygen-rich as they're supposed to be."
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mu1vo5 | Why water from the ocean is salty ? | Earth Science | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Water that is running from the land into the ocean picks up minerals along the way. This all gets deposited in the oceans when the rivers empty into them. Evaporation off the oceans takes away the water and moves it back over land to feed the rivers but leaves behind the minerals that were dissolved increasing the concentration in teh water that's still in teh ocean.",
"Rivers and streams flow across minerals and rocks. Salt is in those minerals and rocks, and dissolves in water. That slightly salty water flows to the ocean. The sun shines down on the ocean and evaporates water, but leaves salt behind. Over time the salt keeps accumulating in the ocean, but fresh water keeps evaporating off the ocean and falling on the land, bringing more salt to the ocean. Rinse and repeat (if you will pardon the pun) for a couple billion years.",
"Well short answer, because there is sodium in the ocean. More specifically, it comes from rocks that erode over time on land and the runoff carries the sodium into the water. I believe there are other reasons as well but this is the one I’m most familiar with."
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mu20ab | Why do our bodies react the way they do to allergies? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Allergies are an immune response. Something harmless like pollen is misidentified as a hostile foreign cell and your body sends the army in to crush the enemy. There is no enemy, but your cellular troops shoot up the place anyway just to make sure.",
"Was gonna say an immune response, like the above. Symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, watering eyes etc are the body's inflammatory response to try and get rid of the 'foreign body' or allergen."
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mu2y5n | why are weapons such as rifles and machine guns still used in war given how overpowering modern tanks, aircraft and artillery are (referring specifically to conventional war not guerrilla war)? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Boots on the ground win the war. A tank can't clear a building, an aircraft can't run positive PR with civilians, and both are a hell of a lot more expensive to buy and maintain than a SAW. This equipment all also needs infantry support and cover, a rifleman can bring their weapon to bear on someone more quickly than a tank and can protect the zone immediately around them."
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mu3u1m | Why do pregnant people have food cravings? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Short version: AFAIAA The female body is growing another person inside them which requires an awful lot of nutrients. Cravings are the bodies way of telling the brain it requires something in the item being craved in order to grow said person."
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mu4hr6 | ; How do scientists invent equations? | I was just wondering how a physicist or other would even begin to figure out an equation. For instance, how did Einstein come up with E=mc^2?? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Usually it's \"derived\"...you take existing equations that you know (or stipulate) are true, apply them to a new situation (which usually involves some new contstraints, expressed as extra equations), and see what falls out. Without going too deep in the weeds, Einstein basically took the existing equations for kinetic energy (KE = 1/2 m v\\^2) and \"time\" for a particular kind of clock (t = d v) and said, \"what happens if we assume that v (speed) = c (speed of light) for every observer regardless of how fast the 'clock' is going?\". He also had to throw in, basically, \"let's assume there's some kind of equivalence between mass and energy\"...given all that, E=mc2 falls out from algebra.",
"Scientist here who works with loads of math: There are multiple ways, first you can get new equations by rearranging old equations. Then you can find patterns in natural things and find a mathematical equation that describes what you see for example you can find that the distance that electricity jumps through air is linearly dependant on voltage, but more complicatedly depending on air humidity. The E=mc² is the first case. Einstein made some assumptions about the nature of light and time, shuffled around some equations and ended up finding a connection between mass and energy. I personally work with differential equation systems. To get one you simply need to ask yourself wich things can change a variable. So for a water heater you can see that temperature rises by burning gas, cools down because of the enviroment, and cools because cold water flows through the boiler. So change of temperature dT is proportional to heating power, difference to outside temperature, and flow times how much colder the fresh water is. From all this information you assemble your equations.",
"> how did Einstein come up with E=mc2?? Fun Fact, Einstein didn't came up with E=mc² Poincaré did. Basically people were tweaking around with Maxwell equations. That's how Lorentz came with the so-called *Lorentz transform* then based on that Poincaré came up with E=mc² However, at this time people where playing around with equation in a kind of *what if game*. What Einstein did was to take all these equation together and show that not only it works with electromagnetism but describes the physical reality"
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mu58yd | How does food become dental plaque? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Dental plaque is actually a film of micro-organisms (mostly bacteria, but maybe some fungus as well) that builds up on your teeth over time. Food doesn't directly turn into plaque, but the bacteria in the plaque does feed on the food in your mouth--in doing so they excrete acidic compounds which are a major contributor to tooth decay, hence the advice to keep your teeth clean to keep the plaque levels down.",
"So you have bacteria in your mouth no matter how much listerine you gargle. When food particles settle on your teeth, the bacteria feed and reproduce, coating the surface of your teeth with a biofilm. This is called dental plaque. Within this biofilm, minerals from the food and from saliva start to precipitate. Eventually, chemical reactions cause these mineral rich film layers to harden and form what’s called a calculus, or more commonly, tartar. The tartar encourages further accumulation of minerals and eventually this can impact both the teeth and the health of the gums. While you can try to break it off yourself, it’s important to not let it get to that level and a dental cleaning tool will actually do it a lot faster and better. Your teeth will hurt after a lot of calculus removal because the growth was covering the enamel and now it’s exposed."
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mu7n6h | How do scientists identify new elements and isolate them? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They mostly try to make them in particle smashers, slam two particles together and try to get them to stick. Then you track the resulting particle in the particle beam until it decays into smaller things. While there is a theoretical \"island of stability\" containing stable supermassive elements, no actual stable superheavies have been made.",
"The only new elements are the heaviest ones. We’ve already counted up from one to 118 I think. You get heavier elements by taking an already heavy element and smashing it with another atom. Sometimes they stick together for a bit, and a new element is born. The heavier they go, the less stable they tend to be so they don’t last very long, but sometimes long enough to be measured. Fractions of a second can still be enough. Then you get to write a paper for a scientific journal about it, and if you’re really lucky give it a name."
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mu8ese | What causes the sudden feeling of falling or vertigo experienced when laying down on a bed and falling asleep? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As I understand it, part of falling asleep is to \"shut down\" muscles. Sometimes the brain misinterprets this and actually thinks that the body is dying. As a result it spikes the adrenalin production and this induces the feeling of falling and a sudden wakeup.",
"The physiological explanation I know of is that it’s simply because the muscles transition into a deeper mode of relaxation. There is a threshold between «conscious» relaxation an «subconscious» when your body falls asleep. Sometimes this transition is more rapid, especially when your body is particularly tired after excertion. Afaik, there is no agreed scientific explanation for it, so we don’t really know for sure."
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mu8zgv | Where do drugs go after they are seized? | I've always wondered when the Navy or any other security body siezes huge amounts of drugs, where are they discarded? Are they discarded? What happens? Please enlighten. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally they’re incinerated. Once it’s done being stored as evidence. There’s lots of industrial incinerators everywhere, they’re great at turning nonmetallic stuff into its base elements or simple molecules."
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mu91gq | How is it possible to control machines from Earth on other planets? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Radio. Just like you can control a remote car with a radio antenna, so you can control a satellite in orbit, or a rover on Mars. The distance will determine the lag (even radio waves have a speed limit, that of light).",
"It is 99% pre-programmed content, with a little bit of sending goals for that pre-programmed content to accomplish. For instance, while you might normally start a helicopter with a large checklist manually, you can just program that entire process into a drone on Mars. While you could figure out a flight path and then send it, you could instead give it software that can figure out a flight path if you just give it a relative destination. Because of the distance between the planets, you obviously can't do anything real time, so you just need to give your drone a goal and let the software you pre-loaded on it accomplish that goal."
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mu9tqf | Why do some restaurants leave the shells on shrimp when serving it in pasta? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One of two possibilities: Cooked in-shell, the flavor is WAY richer Or They are doing such high volume that it's too hard to peel. Buffets do that a lot.",
"The shells of shellfish like shrimp actually do have a lot of flavor and if they're cooked long enough, or especially if they're simmered in a sauce or stock, will impart a lot of tasty shrimp flavor into a dish, whether into the sauce or into the actual shrimp meat itself. That being said, in a pasta dish like shrimp scampi, they aren't being cooked for that long, so they probably aren't doing much for the flavor, but it might be adding a little extra oomph. At the end of the day, it's a presentation thing. The tails protect the shrimp if they're being stirred into the dish, so that they don't break up. And they look nice for presentation if they're added on top of the dish. Tail-off shrimp that get cooked can end up looking a little more mushy and unappealing, and since everyone wants a nice, big, juicy shrimp, the tail also makes it look a little bigger and more appetizing. It's partly an expectation thing - people expect shrimp to come with tails, so they're usually served with them on. Personally, if it's mixed into a pasta dish that's meant to be mixed up and forked, I prefer the tail off anyways, for the same reason that any other protein should be chopped up into nice fork-sized chunks unless it's something easy to break up like a meatball. If I'm ordering something more solid, like grilled prawns with some tasty sides, then I don't mind the tails, because they're a nice little handle."
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mu9y1j | Why can we predict huge things (like where a galaxy will be in the next 500 million years) but not where a particle will be in the next second? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Same reason we can't predict where each little ball will be but we can predict the shape of the whole thing in that game. — > URL_0",
"Because huge things are much less susceptible to disturbances than small things. If a bowling ball rolls over a fly it will just smash the fly but continue in the same general direction. If a table tennis ball rolls over a fly it will go on a totally different direction.",
"Predicting large-scale objects moving through space is easy. If something is going *that way* at whatever speed, then that's what it will continue to do. \"Objects in motion stay in motion\", remember? Space is almost completely empty, so there's almost nothing that's gonna alter an object's course (and we can see if there will be). If you go all the way down to a small scale - like, \"quantum mechanics\" type of small - then things get *really weird* and don't follow the same really easy rules that large-scale objects do."
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mua7qc | why are there so many antibiotics but not many antivirals? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because viruses aren't alive. Bacteria are single celled organisms and you can attack different parts of those cells that they need in order to live. Viruses on the other hand use our own cells' machinery to reproduce. But, of course, it's very difficult to target our own cells' machinery without potentially damaging them in the process.",
"Bacteria are alive and their cells have a lot of different machinery than a human cell that we can target to kill the bacteria, or at least stop it from replicating enough for our own immune system to finish the job. Viruses are tricky little robots that exploit our own cells to reproduce, make proteins and spread. Therefore we have to target an interaction between the virus and the human cells without killing the host organism (us!) [This video]( URL_0 ) does a pretty nice job summarizing this topic and immunity as a whole in a simplistic way.",
"Because viruses are much simpler than bacteria, there are many more ways in which we can attack a bacteria. We can go after the cell membrane, disrupting the mitosis process, and several other ways. We cannot do that with a virus, because if you were to say, disrupt the mitosis process for a viral host cell, you would be killing your patient. Because bacteria have all their own equipment for dividing and thriving, we can just target that. We do have antivirals though. They mostly aim to disable different proteins in the virus that are completely different from proteins that we use, which reduces effect on us, but are incredibly specific to the certain type of virus.",
"Antibiotics kill bacteria by disrupting biological process that bacteria have and that we don't (some types do target processes that we have, but that aren't as vital for us). So for example, penicillin works by disrupting the ability to make more cell walls. Our own cells have no cell walls, only a cell membrane, which is why this kills bacteria that do have cell walls. Viruses have no biological processes, so this method doesn't work for them. Viruses reproduce by using the host's own cells and processes."
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muav0o | Why were old battles fought with soldiers lined up across from one another? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's going to depend not the era, but many ancient armies were built to fight in one direction. This could be the Greek phalanxes with their long spears and pikes all pointing in a direction, or the Romans with their shields interlocked for protection, but basically having the army pointing in one direction and focusing their strength in that direction was considered a good idea. The wider your line is the more of your soldiers can attack all at the same time, and the more likely you are to be able to flank (move around and attack the undefended sides) the enemy. But if you don't have enough depth then your line is susceptible to breaking, because if there is a hole (because of death or injury, or lack of cohesion) and there isn't someone to plug it, then the enemy can break through your lines and start to attack the unit from the back. So most armies tried to keep a certain depth that they generally trained for (such as 16 deep in Alexander's phalanxes) and as wide as you have forces to deploy. This was often accompanies with less strictly shaped forces such as cavalry or skirmishers on the flanks or forward of the main line. Since both sides tend to deploy the same way, they would generally want to line up so that their strong sides both face each other (you don't want your enemy's strong side pointing to your side or rear), and you end up with the two large lines facing off.",
"Because it was the most efficient way to fight with the technology of the time. Battle throughout history are almost never won by killing the enemies, but by breaking their morale. If the enemy break you can run him over with cavalry, break through his line with tank to encircle him, or you can take an important objective, etc. Tight formation are easier to maintain. You have a friendly face to your right and left, and one behind you. The enemy can only be in face of you and that keep the formation as a whole less likely to break away and flee. The first one to break the enemy formation in ancient or medieval time was usually the one that win the battle and the era of musket wasn't different. Musket and Artillery at the time was highly inaccurate. Battlefield was quickly filled with so much smoke that you were even more lucky to hit anything. So a lose formation of soldier would simply never be able to shoot down a Calvary charge. The cavalry would hunt them down until you had so soldier left. But group your infantry together and you could shoot enough bullet at the enemy that by statistical chance alone you would hit enough of them to make them stop their attack on you. Add a bayonet and your musketeer could act like a field of pike to stop a cavalry charge that would reach them. Massing your infantry on a line also maximize your concentration of firepower. If you have 10 guys spread out over 50 meters, well over that 50 meters you will be able to shoot 10 bullets. But if the guy in front of your line up 100 guys side by side in that 50 meters, then he can shoot back at you 100 bullets. 10 bullets vs 100 bullets, you can see who would win. So the tactic was to spread your men to maximize your firepower over your enemy. Of course the line have some weakness, and good general were able to use the line in the right moment at the right place on the battlefield. This remain true until the invention of the minié ball and better artillery. Both had much higher accuracy, making it far more dangerous to line up your guys. Too dangerous to compensate for the higher firepower you had by doing so. Now machine gun and artillery was what provided you with your firepower, while your infantry was better off spread-out and behind cover.",
"I'm assuming you're referring to the era when muskets were used. The rifles at the time weren't rifled, that is, there were no spiral grooves cut into the inside of the barrel to make the bullet spin. Without spin stabilization, the ball (bullet) was relatively inaccurate; basically, it wouldn't shoot exactly where you pointed it... it might go a little left for one shot and a little right for the next shot. If you line up all your soldiers and have them all fire at once, called a volley, even if some of the balls fired didn't aim true, you still had a \"wall\" of bullets heading for the enemy and the chances of making several hits is improved."
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muayr3 | Why is riding a bike uphill harder than walking | Riding a bike generally uses less energy than walking, because there is more efficient energy transfer. Why is this no longer true when you're riding uphill? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because bikes can roll backwards. Your feet can’t glide backwards (unless your on ice). When you walk uphill, the friction between your feet and the ground is enough to keep you from sliding backwards and losing progress. But a bike, a bike can roll backwards. Yknow how easy it is to bike downhill? And how much speed you can build up due to gravity pulling you down? Well when biking uphill, you have to fight against that, and if at any point you stop the bike is going to start rolling backwards. When you’re walking, if you stop you can just stand there and rest, biking you have to keep yourself from losing progress.",
"When cycling on flat terrain the two main opposing forces are rolling resistance (energy loss between wheels and surface) and air resistance. Once you are pedaling uphill, gravity becomes the main resistance. It also has to do with biomechanics and body efficiency. As flat ground turns into hilly terrain, you will automatically take faster steps. Also, you change which part of your foot makes contact with the ground. Both of these changes result in increased activation of your calf, butt, hamstrings, and hip muscles. However, the changes in posture generally make cycling less efficient. Cyclists have to adjust weight forward to keep the front wheel on the ground while stabilizing the body from sliding around in the saddle. ;tldr Gravity works more against you on a bike going uphill and your muscles are more efficient when you’re walking up hill compared to on a bike.",
"In addition to the previous comments, a bike is not weightless. You're carrying that weight up the hill as well as your own.",
"If it's harder to pedal uphill, you're not using the right gear. Use the smallest front gear and the largest rear gear; you will slow down, but it should be quite easy to pedal uphill.",
"A bike is more efficient when you move on the flat, not because of efficient energy transfer but because the required energy usage is lower. When you walk you move your legs to get support in the position. Moving your legs requires energy. If you walk on the flat ground most of the energy is to move your legs not to overcome air resistance. On a bike you have wheels that rolls so not a requirement to move your legs. You will move you legs around but you are never exactly lifing them because one leg moves down and the other up at the same time so you use the energy that you spend to lift your leg. The number of leg move per unit of distance is also lower You need to overcome the roll resistance and it is lower than the energy to move your legs. The bike has air resistance too and it is higher if you move faster. When you go uphill you also have to lift your body up to the new elevation. So you move up a gravitational field and it requires energy. The energy that is required depends on the difference in elevation and mass. If you walk you need to lift your body but on a bike, you need to lift the bike too. But lest assume the bit is massless and say the same amount of energy is needed. When you ride a bike you tend to move faster than walking speed so the time getting up a hill will be shorter. Energy= time\\* power. So if you move faster you need to lift your body up during a shorter time so the required power is higher. If there is multiple paths up a hill. Let's one be stairs and the other a relatively low incline but a long long path. If the time to walk up the stairs is the same as riding a bike up the long path the power of your legs will be the same in both cases. There is another problem and that is the gearing. If you tried to bike slowly the pedals will move slowly and you need to press them down harder for the same power because power=force\\*distance. So when the required for is higher than you let can manage you can no longer ride up the hill even if you do it slowly. There is a solution and that is gearing. So if you have gears so you can move the pedals at the same speed but the bike moves slower then you can ride it up a hill with the same power output as if you walk. A problem with bikes is that it is hard to balance at low speed so this can be problematic too."
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mube2n | Everyone is mad about a football thing that just happened and I dont know what it is, can someone explain? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"12 of the richest football clubs in Europe (6 of them from England) want to set up an elite league which they control who else gets to join. The current midweek competition, the Champions League is in theory open to all as qualification is based on a team's league position. By having a closed European Super League, they don't have to worry about not qualifying for it each year and therefore missing out on millions. It's a classic case of the rich wanting to get richer and screw everyone else."
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mud2d8 | Sunscreen killing the Coral Reef? | Why is reef safe/ mineral sunscreen such a hot topic? Yes I understand that sunscreen is harmful to some organisms but is it any more harmful than any other pollution or chemical? Are enough people wearing that much sunscreen that the amount in the ocean is killing reef? I know all water goes to the ocean but is it a horribly big deal if I'm in a land locked area? Is it harmful to other things, why is coral the main concern? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While it's environmentally responsible to use a biodegradable non-toxic sunscreen in all situations, it's really only a concern for reef divers in close proximity to reefs. But even then, even when considering the sum of all reef tourists in the world, it's unlikely that the concentration of oxybenzone and other chemicals is great enough to actually threaten the reefs. What we do know is that these chemicals can kill coral and so it's incumbent upon us to err on the side of caution. Whether the chemicals are causing problems isn't the relevant point. We don't want to be the cause of any problems that *might* occur. I would recommend a reef safe sunscreen for all swimmers land locked or ocean going. It's just a smarter choice.",
"> Are enough people wearing that much sunscreen that the amount in the ocean is killing reef? Yes, but not from all people all over the world. It's primarily a concern among tourists visiting reefs and free diving or snorkeling among the corals. The chemicals slough off into the water immediately around the corals, causing some damage. Beaches near the reefs can also accumulate these chemicals from the many thousands of tourists and wash into the ocean, as well as outdoor showers and untreated waste water that drains into the ocean. You wearing those sunscreens at Virginia Beach isn't really contributing to the decline of various corals (although it may have a detrimental effect on marine life there). However, buying reef-safe sunscreen helps promote their sale everywhere due to the economy of scale. That is, manufacturing many different kinds of sunscreen and devoting shelf-space to them is costly. You buying reef-safe sunscreen at Virginia Beach helps pay for that company to keep making it available elsewhere.",
"The main reason that Coral is the major concern is because Coral is a primary producer. So while the chemicals are diryptive to a lot of processes the effects it has on Coral propegate out towards the rest of the food web. It affects a lot of different wildlife Coral is just the most obvious and easily observable one."
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mudcel | Why aren't bigger animals (like elephants and giraffes) always dying of cancer? | Since they have such a high number of cells, wouldn't they also have a high chance of developing cancer? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Short answer: Turbocancer/hypertumors They aren't immune to cancer, in fact the opposite. Youre right in that with so many cells they're extremely prone to cancer, but those cancer cells end up developing a secondary tumor that drains the first killing it, with its host dead the secondary tumor dies off Its a cancer eat cancer world out there folks Edit: the phenomena is called peto's paradox and kurzgesagt did a great video on it [here]( URL_0 ) Edit 2: its not actually Turbocancer, they're called hypertumors",
"My lab worked on this problem. Check out the paper “why don’t whales get cancer?” (It’s not for 5yo but still!) hyper tumors are one hypothesis - basically different tumor cells compete with each other within a single tumor. If enough of them are cheating and not contributing to getting blood and nutrients to the tumor it will die. We don’t see this effect in humans because most tumors are less than 1kg and that is not enough of a population(of cancer cells) for this phenomenon to take effect. That’s the idea anyways. Unfortunately there aren’t many whale oncologists.",
"This is called Peto's Paradox if you're looking to read more and nobody has really figured it out yet - part of the reason that's so hard is that body size is actually a pretty bad estimate of number of cells. Elephants are 50-100 times the mass of a human which might lead you to believe they have 50-100 times as many cells but their cells are generally larger than ours (their blood cells for instance are about 4x as big) so their actual cell count is hard to determine. That in mind there are two current explanations for why they don't seem to get cancer as often as we'd expect, both of which probably play a role to some degree. First is that many large animals express high levels of genes known to play a role in tumor suppression. Second is that many large animals have larger cells which run their metabolism more slowly than ours and divide relatively infrequently which would also help protect them from cancer."
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mudcl1 | Why does some thunder crack through the sky doing a csshhhkrr sound and other ones produce a deep bass-boosted BOOOM? | Yes, we've had a thunderstorm recently and I love them, but can't get my head round this. | Earth Science | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It largely depends on how close you are to it. The closer you are, the better the sound. It should resemble a loud crackle. But as you move away from the thunder, the sound wave starts to disperse and the sound gets less clear. So you ear a *boom* type of sound. Picture the sound wave as a bunch of people pushing each other in evry direction. After a while there's less of a reason to push people so the *fuzz* in that crowed gets less obvious, less clear.",
"Deep sounds travel further. The low rumble or deep boom are further away than the higher-pitched crack of thunder. Same reason you can usually hear the bass in a passing car but not the treble."
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mue5ex | Why do graphics card (GPU) producers keep their prices steady instead of fluctuating with market demand? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Every company every where (unless otherwise regulated to do so) is constantly evaluating the marketplace for the price they can sell the most profitable number of units. Too high and people will not buy, too low and demand will outstrip supply and they've left money on the table. The GPU companies are selling their equipment for what they think the market will bear. They don't necessarily give a shit WHO buys it, so long as they sell every unit. The existence of scalpers suggests they MIGHT be under pricing, but they are looking at a broader marketplace than just the high end gaming market. Their biggest buyers are people like Dell and HP, as well as smaller companies like iBuyPower. You better believe those people are much less tolerant of a price increase. Individuals are only a part of their business."
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muftq0 | Why was Krakatoa's eruption so much louder than other volcanic eruptions? | There have been numerous other volcanic explosions in Earth's history, and some which were hundreds of times more powerful than Krakatoa (Ex: The Toba Super-Eruption). Yet, Krakatoa's Eruption is considered one of the loudest events in Earth's history. Why is this? | Earth Science | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One of the leading theories is because of Krakatoa proximity to water. Krakatoa has been erupting for a while before it’s massive explosion, leading to the theory that would of the eruptions had actually plugged the caldera down to the magma chamber, allowing pressure to build. The next step in the theory is that some part of the eruption/building pressure allowed a lot of sea water to rush into the magma chamber. This sea water instantly boiled when hitting the hot magma, creating gas, and a significant amount of pressure. Like how pouring water into a pot of oil will send the oil everywhere (because the water sinks, hits the bottom of the pan, and instantly turns to gas bubbles sending the oil above it everywhere). It’s theorized that this is what gave Krakatoa so much extra energy, several times more than say Mt St Helens’ eruption. Because of this flash boiling effect."
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mufxk9 | Why can the body not exactly ignore pain? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because pain is not meant to be ignored. Pain is one of the bodies too warning systems that Something Is Wrong. Pain is an adaptation that draws your attention to injuries or damage that need to be handled/cared for. Even though today something like a small cut might just seem annoying and you wish the pain would go away. For most of human history hygiene and medicine was nowhere near what it is today, and that small cut could be life threatening if infected. So pain is the way of making sure a potentially dangerous thing isn’t forgotten/ignored. There are conditions some people are born with where they cannot feel pain. And it is extremely dangerous, and a lot of these kids die young because they get injuries or illnesses that go unnoticed and end up killing them. Pain is like a smoke alarm in your house, where your house is your body. The smoke alarm is meant to be annoying, that is entirely the point, because even though it over reacts sometimes and you wish it would shut up, the risk of completely missing a fire, or injury, is way worse.",
"So you feel pain because of an irritation of some sort to your nerves. Thankfully your nerves connect to pretty much everywhere in your body. They should anyway. So then you have your brain right? And it controls your body through sending electricity through your nerves to your body. Well your nerves also send signals back, letting the brain know what's going on. Its how you have your senses of smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste. Well when the nerves are irritated, they tell the brain, and since it's less like a telephone that rings so much as it is a hollow pipe being shouted through, the nerve is hard for the brain to ignore."
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mug73j | How is autonomous driving programmed to handle unexpected road hazards? | I drive full time for a living, and I've observed a wide variety of hazards and inclement conditions that lead me to wonder how self driving resolves such hazards. Just half an hour ago (I'm pulled over now in a safe place writing this post) I was on a narrow 2-lane road, 50 mph speed limit, with no sidewalk and nowhere to walk safely except the ditch. There were two pedestrians walking right on the road surface, in the dark, with no lights and dark clothing. I had just enough space to avoid them with incoming traffic. I get that radar can already recognize and avoid them (I'm frankly surprised my brand new car didn't even beep at me or have the ability to move itself over), but how does self driving differentiate between hazards? For example, whether it's possible to safely move out of the lane to avoid a hazard, if there's time to stop for it, or if it cannot at all be avoided while maintaining control. Or if it's a small object or small dead animal that can be driven over, between the tires. Can autonomous driving measure that accurately at speed? Also, is it possible for the AI to know that a flashlight or reflective clothing means a person or cyclist is on the shoulder? Is it able to tell between inanimate objects, pedestrians, and animals? This is morbid, but might it be programmed to avoid people at all costs and mow down animals, even if there's ample time and space to avoid them safely? Next, what about ice and snow? Can current self driving tech correct a slide properly, and in the future, may it become more capable at extreme driving than a human rally driver? How does it "see" water and tell between a minor puddle and deep flooding that's to be avoided? In an emergency, can it have an override to go through deep water? What about off-road driving and dirt roads with ruts and bumps, can autonomous driving handle that use without getting high centered or stuck in mud? Lastly, can it recognize a flat tire or vehicle issues and pull over safely? Thanks! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Frankly, they can't do most of these things, and fully autonomous driving with no human input is still in the unforeseeable future.",
"I thought of a few more questions. Regarding hazards, can the AI system tell what's safe to hit and what is not? IE, clothing or plywood on the road vs a tire or moving dolly. How does AI handle inaccurate mapping? I frequently take passengers to the airport, which is under construction. There are detours to temporary pickup and dropoff zones, a ton of merging traffic and pedestrians everywhere, and cones and construction barricades to weave through. On busy days an officer directs cars where to park. How does current self driving handle a location like that? In the event of a power outage, does it know which intersections have stoplights so it can stop at them? Trailers, is there any foreseeable way to program the exact dimensions, height, and kind of cargo so it can be driven and backed accordingly?"
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mugi29 | How does light have "frequency"? What is changing through time and how? | Is it vibrating? It makes sense with sound. But light has me confused because it's already moving at the fastest speed. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Light is a travelling disturbance in the electromagnetic field. One 'wave cycle' corresponds to one swing back and forth between positive and negative electric field charge, and back and forth between the north and south magnetic field poles."
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muguya | Why is not charging a laptop to it's full capacity if you run it on power often better for it's battery than charging to 100%? | I have these [battery settings in MSI Dragon Center]( URL_0 ). I mainly want to know why this is the case. Followup, is this true for phones? Yes, I'm a programmer. Yes I see the irony in the fact that I do not know this already. The laughter is assumed and understandable. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lithium batteries don't like to be charged to 100%. What's happening is the positive and negative sides of the battery are separated by a thin insulator to keep it from short-circuiting. But the higher the voltage, the more electrons want to jump across the insulator -- there is leakage. The higher the voltage, the worse the leakage is, and this damages the battery over time. Anecdotal evidence: I got a Samsung Galaxy S9 and it was my first phone to support wireless charging. So, I got some charging stands and left it on them all day at work and all night when I was sleeping. Result: My S9 has *terrible* battery life now, because it's spent so much of its life at 100%. :( BTW, lithium batteries also don't like to be over-discharged, it causes the chemicals to degrade. So if you run your device down below 20% frequently, you're destroying the lifetime of the battery. It varies by chemistry (Li-ion, LiPo, LiFePO, etc) but generally they're happiest at 20 to 80%."
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muh0ip | Why do sharks not bite divers who are right next to them? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1. Not all sharks are super aggressive and people-eating like the movies say. They’re animals not hunters, they hunt for food, not for fun (usually) 2. Not hungry or you’re not appealing food 3. Already ate your dive partner and are no longer hungry 4. Some sharks only fully grow to a few inches or less though I assume you mean large sharks like great whites 5. They’re probably just checking you out to see if you’re a threat to them or not. If they don’t then they might just chill Think of it like “why do humans not bite cows that are right next to them” You COULD, and it would be food, but it wouldn’t be worth it effort wise, it might fight back, and there’s plenty of easier food around you could catch. I am by no means a shark expert and do not go hugging sharks because of this post",
"Sharks aren't mindless killers like in Jaws. Sharks won't attack something for no reason. Humans aren't familiar to sharks and are not part of their diets, so sharks are rarely interested in humans in the same way you probably wouldn't east some mystery meal unless you were very hungry. Sharks also won't expend energy unless they need to, so if the shark isn't hungry, it won't attack. Again, this is true of most predators. If you just ate dinner, would you go out of your way to find another meal? The vast majority of shark attacks happen when the shark mistakes a person for their normal prey or when the shark is provoked by the person and becomes aggravated and defensive. Otherwise, sharks are almost always more afraid of us than we are of them. I've seen numerous sharks while diving and they almost always swim away or maintain a safe distance where they can keep an eye on us out of curiosity.",
"Like most predators, sharks will only attack if they're hungry. Attacking something takes precious energy. If the sharks not hungry, and the diver isn't a threat, there's no good reason to waste energy attacking them.",
"Sharks bite things for a few reasons. 1. They want to eat it. They don't want to eat us. We're not part of their natural environment. 2. They're defending themselves. 3. They're curious about something in their environment and want to see what it's like (sharks don't have hands so they see what something is like by biting it and seeing what they taste and smell). Almost all shark attacks are number 3 which is why most shark attacks are just a little nibble and then the shark swims away. So a shark that sees divers from time to time probably isn't curious about this non food thing that is swimming around them."
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muh5qq | How does a photon or an elementary particle "know" it is being observed during experiments versus when it is not observed? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's the million dollar question. We don't know how quantum phenomenon seem to \"know\" they are being observed. We just know from rigorous testing that when we are able to figure out what state/position they must be in or had been in, they 'pick a lane'. While when their state/position is unknown, they appear to pick all of the possible states at once. At first it is tempting to say that our method of measuring is what's at fault for changing the state of the observed particles. We're talking about the very smallest of small things. Anything we use to check up on them involves having at minimum an equally small thing interacting with the particle. As one scientist put it. \"It's like checking the position of an invisible bar stool by throwing a visible basketball at it and observing how the basketball bounces off of it. Maybe you can tell where the bar stool was when the basketball bounced off of it, but you can no longer say where it is now.\" The thing is, scientists had come up with indirect ways to observe elementary particles that shouldn't interact with them, *yet they still react differently* than when we don't indirectly observe them at all. For instance in [the famous double slit experiment]( URL_0 ), if we put an observer on one slit, fire an electron that could pass through either of the slits, and don't see it pass through the observed slit, we can confidently say any electron that hits the far end must have passed through the unobserved slit. No basketballs hit any bar stools. So it shouldn't behave any differently right? Well no, it collapses from a wave pattern into a single impact, which is different from us not observing any slit at all. [Scientist have come up with very creative ways to try and prevent elementary particles from \"knowing\" it is being observed]( URL_1 ), yet what remains constant is the very act of being able to tell anything about their state seems to be the determining factor if the elementary particles behave in a super position or not. If anyone here could actually answer why, they'd easily win a Nobel Prize.",
"Think about bug zappers and bug clouds. You might know a cloud of bugs is about because you cAn hear them but the *exact* location of any one of them is basically impossible to pin down at any given time, except for the instant it hits the zapper. At that exact instant you might be able to tell the relative size of whatever touched the zapper (moth vs. mosquito, or whatever), but in a subtle way you also impacted the composition of the cloud in a subtle way. Now, you can just *watch* that happen (time of year and local ecosystem, notwithstanding). At subatomic scales, you can't 'see' anything. Literally. There aren't microphotons that would let you image a photon itself. The only way to 'observe' anything then is by bug zapper, so to speak. All observation is really *interaction*, and only by quantifying how the system is changed by minute stimulation can stuff at those scales be 'observed'.",
"A particle doesn't know, it's just for us \"observing\" means either shooting energy (photons) at the particles, or having them interact with the atoms of a material (glass lens, whatever). It's very similar to turning on a flashlight, and you see the flashlight bulb being bright, and the light spot on the wall being bright, but you don't see anything in the space between the flashlight and the wall (unless the air is full of smoke)."
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muheci | Why couldn't you add protons and electrons to an element to change it? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You can! It just requires a particle accelerator and massive amounts of energy! That’s actually the kind of experiments they do at CERN. More often they are breaking atoms apart, but when we make man-made elements, we are literally smashing 2 atoms together to make another one of combined mass",
"Actually, you can! Adding protons through nuclear fusion is how stars create helium (and energy)! Adding electrons, on the other hand, does not change the element, but rather ionises the element. This is called static electricity.",
"You \\*can\\* add more protons to an element to make a heavier element. That's exactly what nuclear fusion is. It's just not like baking a cake where you mix ingredients in a bowl. You can't just place a single proton next to hydrogen atom and have it turn into helium. Fusing atoms together to make new, heavier atoms takes a tremendous amount of energy which you pretty much can only find in the cores of stars, particle accelerators, or thermonuclear bombs. Electrons are irrelevant because only the number of protons in the nucleus determines the element. Changing the number of electrons just turns an atom into an ion, and that's very easy to do."
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muhehb | Explanation of class A and class B shares | Before anyone starts on me, I am having the documents read and reviewed by a lawyer. I just want to see if I can arm myself with more knowledge before I do so. Okay so... I am buying into the business I currently work for as a chef. I will be buying 20% of the business. There will be a total of 3 partners. The split will be 40/40/20. The first document I’ve been sent says that one partner (40% owner) will be a class A shareholder. I’ve read online but I just want someone to explain it to me like I am 5... | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is different in every company. Listen to your lawyer. The specifics of your situation might be different! Usually when there are multiple classes, each class has the same profit per share, but different votes per share. (Again, this is the most common way things are set up, *but your company might be different*!) Let's say your two partners are Joe and Fred. With no classes, everybody gets 1 vote per share. So on any shareholder vote issue, Joe gets 40 votes, Fred gets 40 votes, and you get 20 votes. Meaning that with no classes, you and Fred can vote together to override Joe's decisions. But if Joe has Class A shares, and Class A shares have say 10 votes, then Joe gets 400 votes. Since you and Fred own Class B shares, Fred still gets 40 votes and you get 20 votes. So Joe will be calling all the shots as far as running the company goes. When it comes to profits, though, for every $100 the company distributes to its owners, Joe gets $40, Fred gets $40 and you get $20. Joe can't violate the law, and he can't be unfair to minority shareholders. Some more basic advice for someone contemplating becoming a first-time business owner: - Look at the company's financial statements. Be sure you understand the business's assets, liabilities, sales, costs, profit margins, etc. - Know Joe and Fred. Trust them to be fair and honest with you. - Be sure they're experienced and competent at running the business. - Understand the business plan. Are you going to simply run your current location(s)? Does the business plan to expand or franchise? If the business is currently profitable, how much profits does it distribute vs reinvesting into the business? If the business is currently unprofitable, how are they planning to fix it?",
"On top of the points made by u/white_nerdy , also consider the mentality of the potential business partners and keep in mind that situations change over time. For a relatively closely owned company (ie few owners) to come up with a class A and class B share scheme indicates that the party demanding higher voting rights (almost certainly the reason for classifying shares) already signals their desire to maintain pretty much 100% control of the company. Whether you think this is justified (maybe their the most expert or put in the most work) or a non-issue (they're a \"good\" person) this matter becomes a big one if this company becomes really successful. The person that has unilateral control of the company:- a) Can give themselves as much salary and bonuses as they want - they can drain the company of cash and assets. b) Can hire whoever they want and pay them whatever they want. (family, friends etc) c) Decide on the dividends or any returns given back to the other owners. d) Decide on the investment, strategy and operation of the company e) Decide if, when and how a company is sold, merged or dissolved. f) Might have complete freedom to bring in new investors into the business. For a relatively small company this ability might amount to perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the worst case. But if the company grows and starts to be worth millions or tens of millions of dollars - this can (and unfortunately usually does) become a big problem. Situations change. The controlling owner might get sick, have an accident, maybe get married/divorced/have kids etc. A friendly and honorable arrangement can (and usually does) turn nasty and hostile if there are inheritance, unexpected monetary needs, alimonies and other outside factors suddenly entering the situation. Since you're approaching a lawyer, I'd suggest you ask him questions relating to the points I raised above. Get their opinion, think carefully. Even if there were no separate classification of shares, the points above are still valid to consider."
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muhrxh | How do scientists know how long ago the dinosaurs lived and died? Is it possible that they are wrong? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"it's called C-14 method. C14 radioactive carbon occurs in the higher layers of our atmosphere and living beings absorb this radioactive isotope that's why the amount of C14 in a living beeing is constant. While fossils are deep under the earth it doesn't reach them, over the half-life and the concentration of C14 in these fossils you can calculate how old this bones might be. (sorry english isn't my native language, I did my very best sorry if it's not enough :p) EDIT: typos"
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mui0uh | About Private Military Contractors... | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Private Military Contractors are functionally mercenaries by another name, in that they are both soldiers of fortune. They are militaries that work directly for money rather than for a specific government. The primary difference between the two is that while mercenaries have no specific allegiance, PMCs are private companies that are usually tied to a specific power. But this is a blurry line, their are plenty of mercenary contractors that could argue the same thing. Whether or not that makes them legal is a grey area, but it's important to note that the treaty against mercenaries hasn't been signed by the US, Russia and the UK, specifically because of their active use of PMCs. The other problem is who is going to stop the worlds largest militaries from using PMCs?"
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muidw1 | Why do colors seem desaturated when it's cloudy or raining? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Nothing really has a “color” per se. We only perceive color when light hits an object. The less light there is, the less vivid colors are.",
"Less light is coming through so you're not getting intense colors bounced from the sun to the object to your eyes. More light equals more vivid colors."
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muimh1 | Why various prehistoric animals (Mammoth, Smilodon, Giant Sloth) are so different from their modern counterparts, but humans have not changed that considerably. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Right off the bat, you're confused. Modern elephants didn't descend from Wooly Mammoths. They're two different groups that existed at the same time. One died out, the other group didn't. The same goes for the other two animals you list as examples. So, essentially, what you've got is a handful of prehistoric creatures that died out for various reasons, while their modern versions didn't. The same goes for Neanderthal humans and Cro-Magnons. One group died out and the other group survived.",
"Ah! If they had lived they wouldn't have changed much. Modern day elephants, tigers, and sloths are merely their relatives, not descendants. You might ask,\"where did they go?\" We killed them all. Every single one. Kept killing em until there were none left."
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muj549 | how do dolphins echolocate when there are other dolphins also doing it? (ie. Making noises that would interfere with the echos) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As far as I know they all have unique frequencies, so they can tell when it's their own sound returning vs someone else's sound. Much like their communication sound it can be pitched and modulated, so by guess is they hear the others and modulate the sound till it comes back clean for them.",
"The destinct echo \"clicks\" are super short, and the sound comes back basically immediately, so unless they \"talk\" exactly at the same time, there is no problem. Similarly to how you would be able to hear your own hands clap during an applause with 50 people - it's not that hard to filter out.",
"Interesting posit. The speed of sound is about 1500 meters per second under seawater. Dolphins would have to be very close to have any interference. We are talking hugging each other for a while until it gets really weird. Weirder than dolphins hugging.",
"I imagine, in much the same way that a hundred people can simultaneously have conversations in the same room. Each voice has a main frequency and harmonic frequencies that help identify it. Beyond that, there's cadence of voice and the specific words or sounds that we choose to make. All of this helps us differentiate the speech of one person from another and, I would imagine, allows dolphins the ability to differentiate the sounds of one dolphin from another."
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mujpam | How does adhd medication work on people that actually have adhd ? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"People with ADHD have hungry hippos for dopamine reuptake receptors (your brain produces and uses it) and most ADHD medication prevents the hippos from eating too soon.",
"Adhd happens when there aren’t enough of certain exciting chemicals in the brain, dragging it down and making it feel bored and sluggish most of the time. When you’re bored you probably feel like doing something else and this is how people with adhd feel a lot of the time. The adhd meds stimulate the brain to keep it from being sluggish and bored so someone with adhd doesn’t get distracted.",
"Adhd is, at its core, a deficit in dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical your brain makes that is responsible for a rewarding feeling after you do something that’s good for you like eating or completing a task. An ADHD brain does make dopamine, but it’s reabsorbed as soon as it’s made, too quick for it to do it’s job. The result is that nothing feels rewarding enough, so your brain starts looking for alternative sources of dopamine. It finds that in any “new” thing, or a highly varied environment. You can see why people with ADHD have trouble focusing in bland environments and repetitive tasks: there is not enough variation to give that sweet dopamine nectar to their brains, so they look around for other distractions, fidget, twitch, talk fast etc. ADHD medication (the most commonly used like adderall) block the reabsorption of dopamine to allow it to do its job. It means they can focus better and don’t need to constantly look for a source of stimulus.",
"Our brains cells communicate by letting out certain chemicals into an area called a synapse. These chemicals connect to the next cell and cause things to happen. Our entire brain works this way. These chemicals are then vacuumed up, it's called \"re-uptake.\" Problems happen if they are left out too long or if they are never let out. In ADHD, certain parts of the brain have too many vacuum cleaners. This causes problems. Teachers, coaches, and parents will yell at them to \"try harder\" or \"focus\" but those magic words don't really effect the amount or type of chemicals in the synapse. ADHD meds are either (usually both) re-uptake inhibitors (they shut off some of the excessive vacuum cleaners) or they are \"releasers\" meaning they put more chemicals in the synapse so the excessive vacuum cleaners don't cause as many problems. When a person with ADHD takes their meds, their brains will communicate much more like \"normal\" brains."
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mujy2o | Why do those deep sea animals dont feel extreme water pressure when they are swimming in very deep region? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The pressure itself actually isn't that problematic. I'm going to use a human diver to illustrate the problem. When you dive down from the surface, the deeper you go, the more water is pressing down on top of you. As you can imagine, putting weight on top of something will compress it, if possible. But, organisms are mostly made up of water. And the water inside you doesn't compress any more than the water around you. That's why you can scuba dive quite deep without being crushed like an empty can. If you go deep enough, the cavities in your body eventually will get crushed like that empty can. But you actually have to go really, really deep before that happens. Long before that happens, you do run into other problems though. For instance, if you want to inhale with all that pressure pushing down on you, your chest is going to have to move all that water aside. You're not strong enough to do that, that's why divers used pressurized air. On the surface, you inhale by moving your chest so air gets sucked in. Underwater, the pressure from your air tank inflates your chest like a balloon when you inhale. And while fluids (like your blood or the fluid in each of your cells) don't compress any more than the surrounding water, but gases are very easily compressed. Your body has cavities that contain gas, like your lungs and your sinuses. Your body also has dissolved gas in your tissues, like the oxygen and nitrogen in your tissues. As you go deeper, that gas compresses. And because that gas compresses, more of that gas can fit into your body. For example, at the surface, your lungs can contain about 6 litres of air. At just 10 metres depth, the pressure has increased by 1 atmosphere and your lungs can now contain 12 litres of gas. The deeper you go, the more gas gets compressed. Your lungs contain more gas but your tissues also absorb more gas. Now imagine what happens when you quickly swim to the surface. The pressure reduces and all of that gas starts to expand. If you held your breath, your lungs now contain 12 litres of gas in a set of lungs that can only fit 6 litres at surface pressure. And the same thing is happening to all that gas that is dissolved in your tissue. I'm sure you can imagine that's some bad news. So how does that relate to deep-sea animals? Well, as we discussed, it's not so much the pressure that's a problem but pressure changes. Most deep-sea animals share common adaptations. Their bodies contain very few hollow spaces. Fish that live in shallow water often have gas-filled swim bladders that help them change depth while swimming. Deep-sea fish don't have swim bladders and they try to have as few hollow spaces as possible. Their stomachs are often kind of collapsed sacks for instance that just stretch around things they eat. Deep-sea fish also tend to have very slow metabolisms that require much less oxygen than surface animals. This is good because it means there's less gas in their bodies and slow metabolisms need less food. This is convenient because deep-sea water is low oxygen to begin with and food is scarce. Animals that switch between the deep sea and the surface often have adaptations that help them deal with changing pressure. Sperm whales, for instance, have very flexible skeletons with lots of cartilage between bones. That helps their bodies move and settle as pressure tries to compress them. But while the depth doesn't bother deep-sea creatures. Sudden depth changes will affect them the same way they do us. If the gas in their bodies expands faster than they can expel it from their bodies, they'll die from decompression.",
"For the same reason you don't feel the extreme air pressure of a whole planetary atmosphere. Their bodies are pressurized roughly at the same level.",
"If you were to swap places with it, you'd both have a negative experience. You're adapted for here. They're adapted for there. Why don't fish survive out of water? Why can't you stay in the air if you flap your arms? Etc..."
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muk4d0 | Why are latitude and longitude done in degrees, minutes, and second? Why not hours, minutes, seconds or just something different all together | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In this case “minute” and “second” have nothing to do with time but instead the [angular units]( URL_0 ). As you’re probably aware, each line of latitude or longitude is at an angle of 1° from its neighbours, for example the angle between 46° N and 45° north is exactly 1°. A degree can be split up into arcminutes and arcseconds (or minutes and seconds for short). 1 minute is 1/60 of a degree and 1 second is 1/60 of a minute (or 1/3600 of a degree).",
"So the terms are actually arcminutes and arcseconds because we're talking about dividing up a circle. We just often shorten the names to minutes and seconds. In both cases (time and angle), the names are kinda interesting. The name \"minute\" comes from the Latin \"minuta prima,\" which means the first small division. A minute/arcminute is the first small division of an hour/degree. Then, for a subdivision of that, we use the Latin phrase \"minuta secondo,\" which means the second small division. Well, we couldn't just use the \"minuta\" part again, so instead we use \"secondo\" to get the term \"second.\" So, the measure of time/angles known as a second ultimately gets its name from the position 2nd."
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mukdga | what changes happen in a lemon "battery" as it's drained? | Surely there must be some chemical changes happening as the lemon battery is drained, but how is it changed? can you eat it after, would you be able to see/taste any changes? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The metal in the copper wire corrodes from the acid. Most of that corrosion is on the wire, but some will be in the lemon as well. It usually that the wire is covered in corrosion, and that stops further reactions for the battery to continue. Copper in the wire is a heavy metal, your body needs some trace amounts, which you naturally get from foods, and rarely need suppliants. Too much is not good for the body either. So I wouldn't be a rush to use a leftover lemon battery which could have copper plus other metals from the wire dissolved in it, and possibly stuff from the plastic insulation as well."
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muku5x | Why does moaning or screaming seem to help/lessen pain compared to soundless breathing when we are in pain? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Pain isn’t a real thing, it’s just your brains reaction to a harmful stimulus telling you to cut that out. So it’s pretty easy for your brain to reward you for doing things that might help you by reducing the pain. Like, for example, calling out to your neighbor that you’re hurt could be a lifesaving action. So your brain does this so that you will call out and stuff. It doesn’t actually make the problem any better, but it reduces how much pain it decides to experience.",
"It reduces some of the emotional tension building up, it disrupts the signals carrying pain (not unlike what happens when you pinch yourself one place to divert pain from somewhere else), and on a deeper level it signals to the world around you that you are in distress. In the \"stone age man\", this meant help could be on the way, and this alone returns a sort of comfort to your system (I´now have a chance of being rescued). This last bit isn´t a proven fact AFAIK, but it is a theory. Children cry for the same basic reason.",
"Basically, pain is an illusion to show you have damage, screaming/moaning is a cry for help. Even if no one's around, screaming lets you get some of the stress from the pain out"
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mulf3k | Why do we get grey bags under our eyes when we are tired? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"When people are tired or stressed, blood circulation in the eye area tends to slow, allowing blood to pool there. Capillaries (thin blood vessels) stretch and leak, leading to puffy, dark eye circles\" In some cases dark circles under the eyes are often caused by veins around the eyes getting larger and darker if the nose is blocked. Kids often have nasal congestion if they have colds or allergies. It can also be caused by large adenoids. [Source 1]( URL_1 ) [Source 2]( URL_0 )",
"A girl I dated when I was younger had a grandfather who survived the Spanish Flu. Lost his hearing almost completely and loved collecting books to “experience hearing again” through others tales. He also owned medical books from the 1920’s or 30’s (I forget which decade but around that era). They claimed that bags under the eyes were caused by excessive masturbation. Of course that’s not true but you can see how the history of medicine has evolved and the understanding of some of these things can be wild at times."
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"https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/shows.php?shows=0_1mln6yw5",
"https://www.livescience.com/32188-why-do-we-get-baggy-eyes.html"
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muly6d | Why does the stomach react a split second before you gag? Why not gag then react? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Something to keep in mind during this answer is that you are basically a tube. You have an uninterrupted hole that runs from mouth to anus, guarded by several sphincters which act like gates. This is very important. A gag is designed to get something out of your throat. Something that’s stuck between mouth and stomach. You do also have a very fast gag reflex in the back of your throat that can prevent things from going down your throat in the first place. Your stomach has one of those “gates” and so you can start and stop a variety of functions there if you have to. When you need to gag, a split-second decision is made - do you vomit or gag? That is the feeling you are sensing in your stomach. That special gate at the top of your stomach (the pyloric sphincter) clenches shut to keep your stomach contents safely inside your stomach, and you begin to gag. If you need to, you will then vomit."
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mumd96 | Why are alcohols weak nucleophiles? | Our textbook says that alkoxides are strong nucleophiles, which makes sense given their charge, but why are alcohols poor nucleophiles? There's a large EN difference between H and O atoms as well as the O having two lone pairs. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Am I the only one who read this as \"why are alcoholics weak pedophiles?\".",
"Basically the lone pair from the O will have a negative charge in that orbital that will be reactive. That said it’s rather stable because it has to adopt a charge to react.",
"This is a very specific science question, not a request to explain a concept in everyday language, and is kind of in the wrong place. Try /r/askscience or go into Wikipedia maybe and see what it says about strong nucleophiles.",
"Depends on the size of the ‘R-‘ group. The C-O bond is strong & the electro-negativity of the oxygen & it’s lone pairs of electrons is distributed across the Carbon p-orbital(s), reducing its potency as a nucleophile, the more carbons, the less potent.",
"For the same reason as water is a weak nucleophile and hydroxide is a strong one. Unless it can get rid of the proton (i.e. become an alkoxide), a nucleophilic attack would produce a very unfavorable positive charge at the oxygen. Oxygen has lone pairs, but it likes its electrons."
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mun8we | How do video game cheat codes work, and why are games made with the possibility to use them? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sometimes they are created so testers can test out the games to check how they run without having to go back to the beginning each time etc. At other times they are created by games so they can be sold to players making the company more money for the game.",
"A lot of cheats used to be old developer code they used to test different game mechanics. Companies used to actively discourage cheating, but some devs make it openly accessible, like the open console for Skyrim on the PC.",
"To add to what others said, very old video games could not store the player's progress, so whenever the player finished a level the game would display a password, and when someone came back the next day and wanted to continue where they left off they could just enter the last password they saw and the game would skip to the last level they reached. It's possible that when this limitation went away some developers still wanted to add a few shortcuts locked behind input sequences or codes. Sometimes just for fun, like with the cheat in the original SW Battlefront that made every soldier as small as an ewok. Doesn't help the player, but also doesn't hurt anyone else in singleplayer games, and some people enjoy messing with the game itself just as much as playing it as intended.",
"Imagine you're testing a game. Do you really want to have to go through the ENTIRE game to make sure that end game weapon works? Just type in this code and spawn one instantly for testing purposes. Testing animations but you don't want to reload in the case of accidental death? God mode sounds awesome for you. Essentially, cheats were originally a way of bypassing in game mechanics for testing purposes by the developers. As others pointed out, some games also used codes as a way of saving progress like in Chip's Challenge.",
"Often the cheat codes are for developers. Need to test the story mechanics or clipping issues as the avatar navigated terrain? Encounters: Off. Damage/weapon balancing? Infinite ammo: On. How they work? Good programming comes from breaking monolithic code down to functions, methods, mappings, variables, etc. Discrete blocks of code that can be troubleshot easily, or down right given an “Off” in the variable. For example, make a variable called “track_ammo_on: on/off“. Your game sees function “fire_gun” called with a yes passed to it. “fire_gun” runs logic “if track_ammo_on = off, fire_gun (who cares if you have ammo!), else if ammo_clip != 0 (does not equal zero ammo), fire_gun shoots a bullet. Ammo_clip = ammo_clip - 1 (subtract a bullet)",
"I worked in video games for 23 years. Cheat codes come from two sources. 1) designers and programmers need short-cuts to test parts of the game. Cheat codes that make you immune to damage, let you skip levels, or similar useful things are almost always created for this purpose. Then it can get left in the game for fun. 2) near the end of a project, sometimes the artists don't have as much to do as the designers & programmers. They aren't actually slacking off, but they can take a few extra hours to create interesting new units or textures or effects. Then all they have to do is convince a designer or programmer to put it into the game, which is usually just a couple of minutes of the coder's time. This is where cheat codes such as the bobbleheads in Turok or the storm dog in Age of Empires come from. Artists with spare time.",
"The very first cheat code was programmed in by the developer because the game was too hard for him to play through in order to test. The original Contra gave you 3 lives but if you plugged in the \"contra code\" it set it to 99. The developer forgot to remove it for release and that became the origin. The very first easter egg was where a developer who was upset because he wasn't going to receive credit for his work, built a secret room to say \"Created By < his name > \". Since then there are two main paths that cheat codes and easter eggs have developed. The first is \"developer tools\" or \"dev tools\" which are tools to help the developer build and test the game. Imagine you're trying to build a maze. You would need a saw, hammer, nails, wood etc. But imagine if when you finished you accidentally left the hammer lying around. Now a creative maze runner could do things like start pulling nails from boards to create new unintended routes. The second path is \"for the fans\". Some games, like Goldeneye 64 or Halo, actually use cheat codes as rewards where you can unlock the ability to play the game in new ways. These are treats for the fans and give them ways to experience the game in different ways. Modern games have mostly done away with cheat codes per se and instead have modding communities that rip into the code itself and dig out ways to fundamentally change the game by altering the programming itself. These are \"mod menus\" that you might hear about, or cheaters or trainers. Coincidentally that is how the old Game Genies worked, by actually altering the flow of data between the game cartridge and the console so you could have things like infinite health or unlimited items etc.",
"Originally some cheat codes were never meant to be found by users and just there to allow developers and testers to test a game more efficiently. Stuff like creating a level select screen activated by a button press combination in an old video game without saves and batteries, that allows people to play test the later levels without having to go though the entire game first. Sometimes these were found by players and it added to the appeal of the game, so developers started to leave something like that in deliberately. Since there was already a market for strategy guides that showed all sorts of secret tips and tricks for games, deliberately adding cheat codes as Easter eggs to be found and revealed was just one more part of a game that would get people to buy them."
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muotkc | Why are humans so sensitive to small ambient temperature changes? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Our bodies generate heat and regulate heat as part of normal functions. It takes time days to weeks for your body to adjust (acclimate) to environmental changes like temperature, humidity, and altitude. Until you acclimate the best thing your body can do get you to go to an environment that is less harsh. Sensitivity is your body nudging your Brain put on a layer of clothing (or take one off) and limit exposure."
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muow23 | What's the thing in berry juices (specifically cranberry) that make your tongue feel dry as an aftertaste sorta effect? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Proanthocyanidin is a bitter chemical found in cranberry juice. It’s also thought to be the reason in which we use CJ as a solution for urinary tract infections. Because of its bitter and acidic taste, it was believed that it provided an acidic environment in the urine, which didn’t allow for bacterial growth. It wasn’t until recently that we know it actually causes the bacteria to lose grip on the side wall of the tract, causing them to be expelled in the urine more easily. In the end, it’s bitter because it’s filled with proanthocyanidins.",
"Tannin. The same thing that makes red wine red and bitter. Tannin and acidity in cranberries make them taste and bitter."
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mupbfm | Why did humans develop into perceiving suspense and anticipation as entertainment? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Adrenaline stimulates the release of the neurotransmitter, dopamine. After an adrenaline rush from a real life threat, we tend to feel a sense of calm and peace due to the dopamine release. Watching a suspenseful, adrenaline-provoking movie creates the “reward” of dopamine release without an actual threat."
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mupml3 | Why do bigger animals have more cells than smaller animals instead of bigger cells? | It would be so much easier to just look at a big whale cell than humans having to invent microscopes, y’know? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because cells can only grow so big before they become inefficient - it’s more efficient to transfer oxygen between cells with a specialized cell than to rely on oxygen passively diffusing through a giant cell."
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mupoqv | What happens internally when we go from normal singing voice to falsetto? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Singing with your chest voice vibrates the entire vocal chord, while singing in falsetto only vibrates the edges of the vocal chords. It’s kind of like guitar strings. Higher notes = thinner strings, lower notes = thicker strings.",
"To produce sound, your vocal folds vibrate. They're kinda like two flaps mostly blocking your airway that *almosstt* touch each other. It turns out that they can vibrate in a couple different ways, that you are more or less in control of. How that works physically is a combination of things, like how much of the mass of the folds are actually vibrating, etc. Falsetto is *mostly* just using a different \"mode\" of vibration, although a couple other things might be different as well. An important thing to consider is that a lot of our popular terminology around this stuff predates our understanding of what's actually happening inside. A lot of it is based on what some people thought it sort of \"felt like\" was happening instead, like chest voice not having much if anything to do with the chest."
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muqevh | Why does boats measure speed in knots and not mph/kmh? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Earth is measured that way (nautical miles). Each degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles. Each second is 1 nautical mile. So the earth is 360 x 60 degrees (or nautical miles). Therefore speed matches that unit for navigation purposes. Also, it becomes an important factor when choosing map projection styles (converting a globe to a 2D map)...but that is a tangent.",
"In the open ocean, its hard to judge speed when you dont have a speedometer. So sailors would drop a log into the ocean tied to a rope, rope had knots on it all set a certain length apart and the log would pull the rope off the deck as it went. after a period of time they would pull it in and count the knots that were pulled off. The more, the faster. Now, its purely tradition.",
"The term \"knots\", as mentioned refers to a old low-tech way of measuring speed by counting knots tied in a rope. The term translates to \"nautical miles per hour\" (so a knot isn't some other unit of measure). Nautical Miles are different from Land Miles because land miles can be easily measured directly (with a string or a wheel or anything really). Nautical miles aren't measured but *calculated*, a sailor would take measurements of stars at night and use those measurements and some math equations to determine where on the surface of the Earth they are. A nautical mile is defined as 1 Minute Division (1/60) of a Degree of Latitude (the horizontal lines on the globe, like a ladder). ELI15 - Land miles are easily measured in an X-Y-Z (cubic) 3D axis, this means that any point in space is defined by 3 points, one on each axis. Traveling the sea is more like walking across the surface of a ball, so rather than an X-Y-Z system, we use a spherical axis system where each point is defined by degrees around the origin, like arms on a clock, and a single distance (radius) from the origin to the point."
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muqzih | Why do STD's like HIV only survive a few seconds when exposed to air? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the Disease causative agent we're talking about. Some people consider the crabs to be a STD, and they live in contact with air all their life. Now, basically, a disease causative agent can be a bacteria (syphillis), a virus (HIV), a fungi (some Urinary tract infection) or a bigger parasite (crabs). Most of the bigger parasite, some bacterias and fungi are totally able to live in the air. But for the viruses and few bacterias, being in the air is deadly because they can get oxydised, they might not have enough food/water or it might be too cold for them.",
"Typically, the reason many diseases might not survive is that they dry out when exposed to air. The air pulls moisture out of the disease very quickly, and this damages the virus/bacteria/etc. Not every microorganism will react this way, but many do."
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murkxt | What would happen to the human body if it was immobilised for a very long time? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Assuming they're still getting food and water they'd survive likely but their muscles would atrophy meaning they'd lose mass and become weaker and would have to regain that muscle mass by working out and eating until they get their strength back."
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mus6v5 | How does the human body heat itself up during an infection? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you have an infection the macrophages on the front line use signaling chemicals called pyrogens. When these pyrogens reach the hypothalamus it releases a hormone called PGE2 which signals to various bodily systems that it's time to heat up. Then things proceed the same way your body heats itself up when it's cold. It cranks up the metabolic rate of cells increasing the rate of production and consumption of ATP. It constricts blood supply to extremities making you feel cold but drawing blood and heat back into the core body. It commands muscles to involuntarily move to create heat which results in shivering. Brown adipose tissue, which has a LOT of mitochondria, can also start metabolizing triglycerides (fat) to produce more heat. This is why you paradoxically feel cold and burning up at the same time. The hypothalamus is basically saying \"too cold, increase the heat\" even when the environmental heat levels are normal. This helps fight invaders by making it more difficult for the invaders to reproduce and induce heat stress in said invaders. As well as directly fighting pathogens, your T cells are going around secreting heat shock proteins when it encounters your own cells to help them survive the higher temperature."
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musd03 | Why is it that when you are tired, you have to fight to keep your eyes open, but when you are wide awake, it seem like you have to actively keep your eyes shut when they are closed? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Basically when you're tired enough that it's hard to keep your eyes open your body REALLY needs sleep and is trying to rest/ tell you it needs to rest When you're wide awake your body doesn't need/ want rest and doesn't want to sleep so trying to sleep is almost pointless."
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musise | If atoms are 99.9% empty space, why can we see and touch objects? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We can see them because light reflects off of them. We can touch them because the atoms in our body are repelled by the atoms in other things. Think of it like how two like charged magnets repel each other."
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musyfi | Why aren't Elephants, Giraffes and Rhinos domesticated for transportation and labor (maybe milk/meat too) like Oxen, Cow and Horse were? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Animals that are huge, resource intensive, and angry are bad candidates for domestication because they have a nasty tendency to stomp on your face. Elephants and Rhinos are meat-tanks, and giraffes are massive. How do you fence them in? They're also all pretty fighty, which isn't great if you want to keep big herds, and they all need huge amounts of food which is ruinously expensive. In a world where bovines exist there's just not much incentive to deal with rhinos.",
"In Thailand and Burma elephants are domesticated. It's illegal to take wild elephants and the training process - elephant crushing - is pretty brutal. Wherever you have giraffes you can have cattle which are much easier to control so why would you train giraffes for anything but the circus or zoos? Rhino numbers have never been plentiful even before humans started hunting them for their horns and again wherever you have Rhino you can have plentiful, easy to breed, easy to control cattle. So if you had to remove all cattle, yaks, oxen, bison, horses, donkeys, ostriches, sheep, goats, camels, pigs, etc - that would still leave you with plenty of antelope, buffalo, zebra, kangaroos to start the domestication process with before you get to your really exotic species like giraffe, rhino, hippo, seals or bears - and the process of domesticating a new species takes many generations. With cattle it's been over 10,000 years - that's thousands of generations of selective breeding to weed out aggression, to improve milk production, to improve mating and calving.",
"elephants are somewhat domesticated, people historically used them for things. What would you even do with a giraffe?"
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mutsik | Why does more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not mean more difficulty for us to breathe | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because the extra amount of CO2 is very, very, very, very tiny. For example, from 2015 to 2019 the increase was 10 parts per million, from 400 to 410 parts per million."
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mutvo7 | What exactly does instantaneous means in 'instantanepus velocity', instantaneous acceleration' etc.? I dont get the concept of instantaneous velocity or acceleration etc. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It means \"right now\". It's what the spedometer on your car is showing at the moment you look. It's usually to distinguish from average velocity. For example, if I know that you went 10 km in 20 minutes, I \\*know\\* your average speed was 30 kph but I have no idea what your instantaneous speed was at any particular point of the journey. You might have gone 30 kph the whole way, you might have gone 60 kph for 9 minutes then crept like a snail at \\~5 kph for the last 11 minutes. If you're accelerating, then your velocity is constantly changing. You never have the same velocity at two successive instants, but at any particular instant you're going at \\*some\\* velocity...that's your instantaneous velocity."
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muu357 | Brands like Coca-Cola and KFC have thousands of outlets/factories around the world, how do they keep their recipe a secret? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They don't, and they don't have to. Instead what they are doing is trying to keep it \"reasonably secret\" where anyone who is given access to the recipe signs a non-disclosure agreement, etc. By doing this they establish their formula as being a \"trade secret\" so if anyone goes out and uses their formula to produce a Coke imitation then they could be sued into oblivion. Coke isn't really worried people are going to cook up their own bootleg Coke in their basement, they just don't want large officially competing companies using their recipe and their secrecy efforts achieve that. In fact there was an incident where someone stole the Coke recipe and tried to sell it to Pepsi. Of course Pepsi immediately reported them to the FBI; what would Pepsi want with the formula anyway? They certainly couldn't use it without opening themselves up to business-destroying lawsuits, as any way of acquiring it would be illegal.",
"For Coke, the World of Coca Cola museum is home of the high-tech vault that holds the original recipe. The museum is a 20-acre complex. Only a select few people have access. Now. Having said that, it's just a fun marketing ploy. They don't need to keep it a secret. Anyone can work it out and copy it and may have. Pepsi is just Coke under a different logo. There's thousands and the taste difference if any is negligible, so the answer is, they can't really keep it a secret. What they can do is sue small competitors under patent laws, or buy them, or out market the competition, or flood markets, all the normal corporate stuff. Another way to look at it is, anyone can make a better hamburger than McDonald's, but, no one can (has been able to) build a better hamburger distribution network. That is what makes McDonald's work, they're the best producers, marketers and distributors of hamburgers. That is what keeps them ahead, not a special recipe that no one can figure out.",
"Secret recipes are a marketing gimmicks, not actual secrets. If pepsi wanted to make coke their chemists would just do it. They don't need a recipe to figure out how to make a soda flavor."
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muu3hz | why do eyelashes fall out so easily from rubbing? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hair all over your body generally \"falls out easily from rubbing\". That is to say, all of your hair all over your body is constantly growing. Your hair goes through regular cycles in that once it grows enough it'll fall out naturally. The closer individual hairs get to falling out the more easily they are to pull out, which is what happens when you rub your hands over them. The same holds true with your eyelashes....the hairs that \"fall out easily\" are simply the ones that were close to falling out to begin with. Not all of your eyelashes will fall out simply by rubbing, those that are close to doing so will though."
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muugi5 | how do transparent animals (like some fish) transport oxygen in their body? | If hemoglobin is used to transport oxygen in blood, and it's red in colour, so how do transparent animals transport blood? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Those that are fully transparent but have blood aren't using haemoglobin. You can dissolve oxygen in other liquids, but not using haemoglobin or an equivalent makes blood way less efficient. Here's one example: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) Something like a jellyfish doesn't have a circulatory system at all, they get oxygen directly from the surrounding water but diffusing through their issues. This is part of why jellyfish can't move quickly for any extended period of time, they have no way to quickly move oxygen around their bodies."
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muwc7r | How do baby animals like jaguar cubs and fox pups know to wait for their mom when she goes out hunting without wandering away from the den and getting lost? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Baby animals operate with a lot of instinctive behaviors - things that are hard-coded into the structure of their brains from day one. They don’t have to be taught to not wander far from mom, they always knew because it’s in their genetics. Baby animals that didn’t have this behavior baked in were less likely to survive, and over many generations it has been strongly reinforced.",
"Some don't. Survival of the fittest in this case... Usually they depend on generations of instinct though. It probably helps that the father is usually there too."
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muwtnv | why is it that we can walk hours without getting winded but 5 minutes of light running exhausts is? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Walking is a light enough load that we can fuel it entirely by the aerobic energy cycle and therefore, we never get a lactic acid build up, and can perform it practically indefinitely. Running uses energy faster than we can supply to our muscles through the aerobic cycle, so it becomes anaerobic. This generates lactic acid as a waste product, which is what causes the warm, burn-like sensation. After a while, the concentration gets so high that we can't keep making more without first giving the body a chance to get rid of the waste. Long distance runners are at a cardiovascular fitness level so high that they can run at a decent speed while still remaining mostly in aerobic mode (because they can supply an enormous amount of oxygen to their muscles), therefore, lactic acid build up is very slow for them compared to the rest of us.",
"To add on, you’ll actually find, over equal distances, running and walking expend nearly the same amount of calories, off by maybe like, 12-15% or so, just over much different timeframes. This is part of what contributes to what the other comments are saying. You just burn way faster by running.",
"As you expend energy your body needs to keep up with the maintenance that comes with doing work. This means transporting fuel and energy to the right places, as well as removing waste products. The body can only do these things so fast. As long as the energy you are expending is below this limit, then your body can keep up just fine and things will get done on time. But if you go above this limit then your body will only allow you to continue for so long before it will force you to knock it off so it can catch back up."
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muxzui | How do animators match a character's mouth animation to a voice actor's speech? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They mostly don't, it's been basically figured out that there is some pretty simple tricks to animating mouths. Like they match a small list of sounds so those match then people basically will ignore anything else. So you just make a round mouth on like \"ooh\" sounds then a few others then the rest is basically random lip flapping and no one really cares or notices."
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muy0b2 | Have we fully figured out what the function for the appendix is? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This sort of thing has long been understood. This is one of those urban legends that seems to perpetuate with no clear reason for doing so - like that myth that we don't understand how bumblebees fly, that it should be impossible. Nonsense, borne from taking the origins of that story way out of context. The appendix is a reserve for gut flora and fauna. You have a symbiotic relationship with gut creatures who help digest your food. If your gut bacteria is wiped out, like if you suffer a bout of dysentery, then a reserve of bacteria cultures will help you recover their populations in your gut and get you back to healthy living more quickly."
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muy72e | Why do sharks have no bones but if you search “shark skeleton” there’s diagrams? | Why do sharks have no bones but if you search shark skeleton there’s diagrams? And wouldn’t shark teeth be considered bones? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sharks have skeletons made of cartelage, so not bones. And teeth aren't made of bone either."
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muyc4v | How do we imagine sound? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Synapses in the parts of your brain that process input from your auditory nerves get fired when you remember a sound. Your brain can't tell very well the difference between current reality and memory of the past."
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muz9pb | How does youtube know exactly what you want, even if you type in something that's not even close to the title, but merely describing the video? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Content uploaders can mark their videos with meta tags so I am sure those combined with algorithms get the job done.",
"Basically, the youtube ai can watch videos and detect certain things in it, it doesn't just look at the title. Then when it finds these things in the video, it tags it as having that. When you search something, it sees if your words either match the title of video or the tags it gave. If a video is popular or trending, youtube knows this and therefore has more information on it, more tags, which makes it more easier and accurate to search for it."
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muzc5o | Chickens are constantly called living dinosaurs. Why aren’t Bats, Snakes, Apes ,Turtles...mostly all animals called living dinosaurs if there were versions of that same animal walking the earth millions of years ago? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not that there were chickens walking alongside dinosaurs, it's that modern birds (including chickens) are *literally* the descendants of dinosaurs. The extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period killed *most* of the species of dinosaurs that lived at the time, but the surviving species of that extinction event were what are called the \"avian\" or bird-like dinosaurs. Those surviving dinosaurs evolved over the past 65 million years into all of the bird species that we have today. You take something like apes on the other hand (including humans!) and, sure, we had ancestors at the time of the dinosaurs - early mammals who survived the extinction event and evolved over millions of years into modern apes and humans, alongside other mammalian species. But if you trace the family tree of chickens back, their ancestors 66 million years ago didn't just live alongside dinosaurs, they were *actual* dinosaurs!",
"Because the other answers did not make this explicit, I want to point out that chickens being descended from dinosaurs also means they *literally are* dinosaurs. Dinosaurs weren't a thing that ended. They are the group of organisms which share a particular common ancestor, and chickens qualify exactly as much as ankylosaurs or utahraptors. When people say chickens are dinosaurs, they're not just being cute, they're being completely accurate. If this is at all confusing, it's the same as how we say humans are apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, eukaryotes, etc. We are all these things. They are just categories at different levels of grouping. Like how Paris is in France and Europe and on Earth all at once.",
"> Why aren’t Bats, Snakes, Apes ,Turtles Because they're not descended from dinosaurs and birds are.",
"The mighty Chicken is the closest living relative to the lowly Tyrannosaurus Rex, believe it or not",
"Easy. You can only use chicken meat to make dinosaur-shaped nuggets. Hence, dinosaur descendants.",
"Others have already pointed out most of the explanation, but let me try to add something that may have been missed. You seem to be confusing two different terms people sometimes use the term \"living fossil\" to describe types of animal that a barely seem to have changed in appearance for millions of years. Chicken are not usually considered living fossils. A completely different idea is concept of dinosaurs. The definition of dinosaurs includes all descendants of the first dinosaur. Birds are in that category. When scientist want to talk about just the dinosaurs that people normally think of as dinosaurs they say \"non-avian dinosaurs\". \"aves\" means bird, so that means \"non-bird dinosaurs\". Since chicken are birds and birds are dinosaurs and chicken are alive, chicken can be called living dinosaurs. The ancestor of modern chicken that was around when all the other dinosaurs went extinct looked enough like living fowls to be recognizable as such but not similar enough to justify calling chicken living fossils.",
"Not everything that lived during the time of dinosaurs were dinosaurs. Mammals and other types of animals did exist alongside dinosaurs.",
"Because birds are theropods, a type of dinosaur. Bats are mammals, not dinosaurs. Apes are mammals too. Turtles are anapsids. Snakes are diapsids and so are birds. However, they are separate subcategories of diapsid. Birds are just the only extant animals within the dinosaur subcategory."
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muzk03 | Why are spices so common in hot climates? | There aren’t many nutritional benefits to adding spices to food, and majority of countries in warm climate continents like Africa and Asia are known for their hotter spices. Why is it that areas with warm climates use hotter spices and cooler climates such as Antarctica and northern parts of Europe don’t? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Mainly to preserve foods and to cover bad tastes and smells caused by the rapid spoilage of food in hot climates. Some spices have antibacterial properties and/or have strong flavors.",
"There is a myth that spices were to mask the flavour of spoiled meat. Don’t buy into this. People who could afford spices could afford to not eat spoiled meat. Spices have been historically used for much the same purposes that we use them today: to flavour food, to preserve food, and medicinally. They were more common in foods in warmer climates because that’s where spices grow, so people could be heavier handed in their spice usage because there was more spice to go around in those places. You don’t have to be nearly so precious with your cinnamon if you have a cinnamon tree in your backyard, compared to if you have to sail for six months, peel bark off a tree in a foreign land, and sail six months back home."
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mv002l | Why does Japan keep so many of its products, e.g., cars, games, etc to itself, or is that common with other countries? If so, then why do Japan-only products get so much more hype, or am I looking in the wrong places? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because local demand is different than global one. And sometimes it doesn’t pay to meet standards of other countries, deal with import, licensing, freight etc or exporting; the local market is big enough. You’d be surprised at the number of things that can only be found in the US and not globally.",
"Supply and demand. Especially the Japanese. They are very cautious when introducing or bringing product to the West as it could be a poor investment. Also the Japanese are very proud of their reputations and what not. See Nissan/Datsun. They branded themselves as Datsun in the West initially just incase they weren't well received they wouldn't have tarnished their name.",
"In addition to the reasons already mentioned: Japan’s population is 98% Japanese. Domestic products are designed for Japanese people. Sometimes these products suit the needs/wants of people in other countries, and other times they don’t. American domestic products are designed for Americans, which is a highly diverse group."
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mv0sqb | How can a person be guilty of murder in the 2nd and 3rd degree and manslaughter if they only killed 1 person? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"One act can result in several charges. In fact, killing a person usually triggers a dozen other crimes (for example, illegal use of weapon, assault, endangerment, etc.). The standard practice in America and many other countries is to build enough record to cover all of them, and then go to trial with the most important ones (you usually don't see \"murder and jaywalking\" go to trial, because the jaywalking isn't important enough). The jury's job is to convict on ALL the crimes that are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and not worry about the duplications. Then, the judge's job is to use that stack to calculate the sentence. Sentencing laws are complicated, but generally, this is where the principle that your can't be convicted twice for the same crime kicks in. The sentence will mainly come down to the greatest of the offenses, and all the lesser crimes that came along for the ride, but weren't really independent actions, will be considered aggravating factors rather than separate crimes. P.S. I should add that one reason this is useful is that it's quite common for a jury to find that the most severe felony charge was not proven, but that the lesser charges were proven. For instance if the jury find the accused did indeed kill the victim, but the jury decides it was unintentional, then they don't get convicted of intentional homicide, but that lesser stack of guilty convictions for things like manslaughter and assault will kick in."
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mv0wb1 | Why does vibrato "sound good?" | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Here are a few things i can think of - vibrato hides some pitch problems. With a straight pitch, intonation is more obvious - it gives the music more \"texture\", so theres more to listen for - vibrato is variable (in speed, pitch distance, etc), which allows more expression without changing the notes of a piece. - this is more theoretical, but i believe that music ultimately derives from the human voice/language, so adding vibrato may sound more natural/emotional than the \"perfection\" of straight tones. Source: about to graduate with a music degree.",
"Good is subjective, it depends how you experience the music. If you listen to music for the emotion, the vibrato may help you feel what the musician wants you to feel. If you listen to music for the complexity, you may appreciate how they are making it harder for themselves. If you listen to music for fun, you may feel like the musician is more loose and not just sticking to sheet music.",
"Here's my hot take as someone completely unqualified to answer your question: Our system of 12 equal notes (12 tone equal temperament) is a smash hit in the western world and beyond. But there's nothing objectively special about these pitches. Other cultures use other pitches as notes, and often they don't follow the same principle of equal division that we do. It's our cultural upbringing that makes us enjoy our 12 notes more than other possible notes. When we use vibrato to depart from the 12 orthodox notes, we force our listener to listen to the music actively, or to cease to hear it as music. We force a choice on them: either come with me into the unknown, or stay at home while I leave you behind. Since vibrato is (hopefully) only a little bit of pitch modulation in the context of an otherwise orthodox piece of music that the listener is already enjoying, they're more likely to join you in active listening than to cease to hear the musicality in the piece. And thus it \"sounds good\"."
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mv1f9y | What happens if a jury decides that someone is guilty when there is undeniable evidence that they are innocent, or vice versa? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If the jury finds the defendant innocent, that's the end of the case, barring something like evidence that the jury was bribed. There might be another trial on different charges. A law suit for a civil-rights violation rather than criminal charges, or federal charges rather than state. If the jury finds the defendant guilty, well, that's what courts of appeal are for.",
"Guilty verdicts can be appealed if there are allegations of jury or prosecutorial misconduct or if there is new evidence. If it comes out innocent despite evidence, it is what it is."
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mv25cb | How do people browse websites on TV and in movies? | Hi, When people on TV shows and in movies do fake Google searches or go to phony websites, how does the actual browsing happen? Thanks for your help! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"TV shows and movies often have \"mocked\" software: it's usually a real phone/PC, but they hire an app developer to write a custom app that pretends to do whatever is called for in the script. The app is just displaying pre-created images, not actually browsing."
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mv2eww | Negative interest rate | What is negative interest rate ?? When a bank has to set negative interest rates?? Secondly is it good for the debters and bad for depositors?? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"[Negative Interest Rates]( URL_0 ): > ...occur when borrowers are credited interest rather than paying interest to lenders [...] With negative interest rates, central banks charge commercial banks on reserves in an effort to incentivize them to spend rather than hoard cash positions. That last bit is important. Wells Fargo will never have negative interest rates on loans to consumers. That'd be like them paying us to borrow money. This answers your last question. Directly, no, to both. But, *if*, for whatever crazy reason, negative interest rates were to impact consumers, those who borrow would pay back less than they borrowed, while those you lennd would get back less than they lent. A central bank like Federal Reserve can set negative interest rates on reserve requirements instead. The purpose of setting negative interest rates is to stimulate the economy by encouraging banks to lend excess reserves. As someone else said in another comment, some central banks in other countries have negative interest rates. Stimulating the economy is why. The reason a central bank would set a negative interest rate is because lowering the interest rate is usually how they stimulate the economy. Intuitively, 0% interest encourages spending to the max. If you spend $100 now, then it's exactly equal to spending $100 in a month, when interest rates are still at 0%. So, you might as well get what you want now instead of saving it. Sometimes, though, banks don't do that. They keep holding onto money. Consider the 2008 financial crisis. Banks got bailed out with a massive injection. They were awash in excess reserves! The interest rate had fallen to 0% pretty quickly as it does in a recession. The Federal Reserve expected them to lend the extra money ....but the banks held onto it and didn't lend until they felt comfortable with the risk. The economy recovered at a significantly slower pace because of it. If the Fed had set negative interest rates, it would have made banks *more* eager to lend. Why pay extra money for holding money when you don't have to? So, yeah. Here's a summary: 1. It's a rate to incentivize banks to lend money and for consumers to spend money 2. Negative interest rates are set when people are especially reluctant to lend and spend. 3. It's good for people that spend/borrow, and not as good for people that save/lend."
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mv2k23 | Why does an 'off' lightbulb seem to glow more when I'm not looking directly at it? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You have two kinds of vision. The retina at the back of your eyeball has to kinds of light receptors: cones that see color in bright light, and rods that see black-gray-white in dark conditions. The very center of your vision is almost entirely cones to give you very good image quality for whatever you're looking at. However, your cones only work for bright light. When it's dark, you have a sort of \"blind spot\" right in the middle of your vision because you have very few rods there. Airplane pilots are taught specifically to use \"averted vision\" at night. Whatever they want to see, they look off to the side so that they can see it with their rods. You've just discovered this technique. :)",
"You have different zones in your eye that are specialized for different things. The spot dead-center of your vision is highly optimized for fine detail, but at the expense of being able to see very faint differences in brightness. Your peripheral vision however is the opposite. It's more sensitive to changes in brightness, but quickly loses the ability to differentiate fine detail. The same principle also works for motion, and color. The very edges of your vision can perceive motion fairly well (to spot predators/prey/threats, etc) but is essentially black-and-white vision.",
"Your peripheral vision is better in low light than the vision in the centre of your eye. This is often used by stargazers to observe dim objects by looking just to the side of them (Averted Vision). Your eye has two main classes of light detecting cells, rods and cones. Cones can differentiate colour and are high resolution, rods only detect intensity of light. The spot in the eye corresponding to the centre of your vision (the fovea) is almost entirely cone cells, giving you very good colour and spatial resolution in the centre of your vision. But there aren’t many rods so it is less sensitive to low light, meanwhile the peripheral vision is mostly rod cells so doesn’t actually see colour and has very low resolution, but is much better at detecting low amounts of light.",
"It's an old astronomy trick.. you can see stars easier in your peripheral vision than looking straight on. Your peripheral vision is lower resolution, but more sensitive to light and movement,."
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mv2p4o | How could a person be guilty of three different types of causing a death? (Instead of one.) | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not specific to this trial, but a [good explanation]( URL_0 ): “One count could be killing with the intent to kill, and a separate count could be killing with the intent to do great bodily harm; there could be an attempt to commit a commit a forcible felony. The charges have to be specific, that is, you don't just say \"A murdered B\", you put together an allegation of particular acts that are covered by the first degree murder statute. If for example they only allege that the parents intended to kill their son and it is proven that they only intended to severely injure him, they would not be convicted. The prosecution has to notify the defendant of the theories of law to the effect that the accused committed murder, so this puts the defense on notice. Likewise, \"intent to kill\" is different from \"strong probability of death\", but both qualify as an element of murder. If they are found guilty on all charges, the convictions will probably be merged into a single conviction.”"
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mv3938 | How do “Stunt Horses”( I’m assuming they must be a thing) fall safely, especially with a rider? It can’t all be CGI... | I’m just really hoping it’s not as bad as it looks. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, there are trick horses, and one of the tricks you can teach them is falling down. Usually it's a trained response to a flag or a light that's not in the shot. Yes, it can be very dangerous for the human riding the horse, but they also know about the signal and push themselves off to prevent being hurt. There's a famous trainer named Rusty Hendrickson who trains a lot of them.",
"Many years ago (think famous spaghetti Westerns) they horses were tripped with wires, and often became lame and were then shot. This is not done now though!"
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mv3c6f | can you die of exposure at 37°F? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Definitely. That's some pretty cold weather there, and if not properly insulated, you'll lose body heat faster than your body can generate it. Stay like that long enough, and it will eventually lead to hypothermia and death.",
"Yes. You can die of exposure at 70°F, too. Anything that saps heat away will help that along. Rain, wind, humidity, etc.",
"Your body needs to be warm to function properly, its normal temperature is in the high 90's F. If it falls below 95 degrees F it is now losing more heat than it can create and you begin to experience hypothermia. Obviously at 37 degrees you're losing a lot more heat and your body just can't keep you warm enough to survive.",
"Yes. Exposure is a general term for any number of environmental factors that are detrimental to the body. When you die of exposure, it is saying that your death was caused by something coming into contact with you that harms you, like heat or cold, for a prolonged period of time. If you were stuck outside in 37° temperatures, that is colder than most keep their refrigerators. Your body will lose heat energy as you stay in longer. Good news, you can generate new heat energy by shivering, keeping your body temperature up longer. But it is a losing battle. Eventually, your core temperature will drop to a point where your body shuts down blood vessels in an attempt to save the more vital organs, ultimately leading to tissue damage, infection, and death. Getting wet speeds up that process, as the water more easily removes the heat from your body. So, yes, you should bundle up in weather below about 50°, remember your raincoat or umbrella, and remember to change out of your wet clothes when you get home, even if it isn't actually freezing outside."
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mv3dp6 | How does kinesio tape works? | Colorful tapes those used by any sport player. How do they work? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It doesn't work, except as a placebo. It was invented by a chiropractor and based on pseudoscience. It does not support muscle or joints, as it's just too flexible (even the \"stiffer\" versions). And it does not increase blood flow to the skin or any tissue. The closest to any sort of efficacy that kt tape has is proprioceptive feedback--you feel the tape on your skin and change your behavior because of that reminder (usually that you're injured). Wearing a soft elastic band accomplishes the same thing."
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mv3ssa | How do puzzles benefit our brains? | Like, yeah I can see how it helps keep your brain active by like ‘solving problems’, but how else does it benefit the brain? How does it improve the brain? What specifically happens? Are there other types of ‘puzzles’ we could create to better help ourselves or even overcome certain problems? Exercises memory too I guess? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Puzzles mostly help your brain get better at doing those specific kinds of puzzles. Most of the “train your brain using these puzzle games” style services or activities tend to greatly exaggerate the expected benefits. There might be some from just generally being active, and some skills that you practice or learn in the process of doing puzzles might help with working on more general problem-solving, logic or spatial reasoning, but for the most part, it’s not actually doing anything special to your brain to improve it in any particular way.",
"Most puzzles teach people how to read directions, be patient, and develop strategies. Basically, puzzles teach you how to master puzzles. Once you get really good at a particular puzzle and are just trying to improve your speed, your brain becomes so specialized to the specific puzzle that it stops employing general cognition and tends to reinforce specialized strategies."
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mv45vo | How does the spinal cord work? When a signal reaches the spinal cord, does it consist of many nerves that carry that signal to the brain (and then different nerves that carry it back to target location), or is the spine just one big nerve that gathers information from all peripheral nerves? | This question in a way stems from looking at the pictures of spinal chord that looks like a butterfly with the gray and white matter, and the efferent and afferent nerves (peripheral NS) coming from each section. I think all the afferent and efferent nerves would not be considered part of the spinal cord, only we would look at the gray and white matter, but then (and I most likely lack the proper information on the topic).... & #x200B; ....would the gray/white matter be responsible for carrying the message to the brain, rather then an actual nerve? Because I do not see on any image that there is any other nerve inside the spinal cord, but rather it just being one tube/organ that all the peripheral NS empties into (and then it empties the motor signal back to the efferent nerves) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The spinal cord is a bundle of a whole bunch of nerves, not one big nerve. There are some loop-backs within the spinal cord (this is how your fast reflexes like pulling your hand away from a hot object work), but a lot of those nerves are continuous all the way back to your brain, or have one-to-one connections (one long \"cable\" made of multiple nerves). Your spinal cord is basically the biological version of [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 )",
"Grey and white matter \\*are\\* nerves--your brain is made up of the same stuff, as is the rest of your nervous system. So, yes, the grey/white matter carries those signals back to the brain, but that doesn't make that mechanism any different from a nerve carrying a signal from your finger."
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mv67bv | How do you tell apart 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree murder? and manslaughter? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"1st: You planned to kill someone in advance. This is the plot of almost all murder mystery movies. 2nd: You meant to kill them but didn’t plan it in advance, it happened “in the heat of the moment”. This is like a road rage incident. 3rd (not that common, usually called felony-murder): You didn’t mean to kill them but they died because you were committing some other crime. Example: a bank robbery goes wrong. Manslaughter: You didn’t mean to kill anyone and weren’t intentionally commiting a crime, but someone died because of what you did. Example: car accident.",
"In the US, it caries from state to state, but in general, it's like this. 1st Degree: You deliberately plan to kill and then kill a particular person. You don't like your neighbor, so you go next door with an ax and chop his head off. 2nd Degree: You deliberately kill a random person. You bring a gun and are robbing a bank when a security guard tries to stop you, so you shoot and kill him. You didn't *plan* to kill anyone in particular, yet you deliberately killed someone. 3rd Degree: You accidentally kill someone by performing a dangerous act. You get in an argument with someone and throw him over a bridge into a river. You don't expect him to die--you just thought he'd get wet--but he drowns anyway. Manslaughter: You accidentally kill someone out of negligence, but there was no malice involved. This is common when drunk drivers cause deaths. They didn't want to hurt anyone, they didn't plan to hurt anyone, but they killed someone because they were negligent by driving drunk.",
"Very few people understand the different degrees of murder and no one in this post so far has gotten it right. The reason for this is that the language used to define murder hasn't changed in 300 years while the way that normal people use the words has. The legal language used has very specific legal meanings and those meanings differ substantially from how the words are defined in a normal dictionary and even in many law dictionaries. For example, \"premeditated\" doesn't mean that you planned the murder out, it just means that you intended to kill someone. Likewise, \"negligent\" doesn't mean that you were negligent. So here is a definition of the different degrees of murder in plain English: **1st Degree Murder (sometimes called capital murder):** You intended to unlawfully seriously injure or kill the person or you killed the person while committing a serious felony. You don't need to have planned it out. If I'm sitting in a restaurant and on a whim I decide to pull out my gun and shoot the person next to me then I have committed 1st Degree Murder because I intended to unlawfully kill that person and, in fact, killed them. I didn't plan it out or even consider what I was doing before I did it. That doesn't matter. Alternatively I'm a bank robber who is fleeing from police. I crash into another car while fleeing and other driver dies. I have committed first degree murder. I didn't intend to unlawfully kill the other driver, but I did so while committing a serious felony. **3rd Degree Murder (also called Manslaughter):** You didn't intend to unlawfully seriously injure or kill the person but were doing something that was so dangerous that you should have known that someone was likely to be seriously injured or die as a result of your actions. The classic example of this is a drunk driver who kills someone in a crash. The drunk driver didn't intend to kill anyone but they were engaged in an activity that they should have known was likely to result in serious injury or death and someone did, in fact, die as a result of their actions. **2nd Degree Murder:** 2nd Degree Murder is weird. Its basically any intentional killing in which the jury believes there are mitigating circumstances such that it should not be 1st Degree Murder. Historically there were only a few things that could qualify to be 2nd Degree Murder and the stereotypical 2nd Degree Murder case was someone who kills a person that they catch their wife cheating on them with. The idea there was that a weak willed person who catches their wife cheating on them wouldn't be able to control themselves and so they have somewhat less culpability than a 1st Degree Murderer. Modernly its really up to a jury what constitutes 2nd Degree Murder. Again, its anything that is more intentional than 3rd Degree Murder but less intentional than 1st Degree Murder. It is deliberately ambiguous because juries don't like convicting people of 1st Degree Murder when there are mitigating circumstances, but often feel that \"Manslaughter\" (aka, 3rd Degree Murder) is too lenient. The big difference between 1st and 2nd Degree Murder is in the sentencing - typically 1st Degree Murder carries a mandatory minimum sentence of either 20 years or life and might result in the death penalty. 2nd Degree murder usually has no minimum sentence, or a minimum sentence of no more than 5 years, and cannot result in the death penalty.",
"In legal theory, there are 4 states of mind for the commission of crime: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent. In their simplest form: -purposeful is for an act performed with the intent of bringing about a specific outcome. -knowing is for an act that is practically certain to bring about a certain outcome, but isn't originally intended -reckless is for an act that has a substantial risk of a certain outcome, but it isn't as high as \"practically certain\". -negligent is for when the person should have known the risk of a particular outcome but didn't or disregarded the risk. The names of the statutes change from state to state but in general they follow the pattern of 1st is for purposeful murder where there is planning, 2nd is for knowing murder where the death of the person was a certainty but not intended, 3rd is for reckless murder where there was a high risk of death but it was a certain outcome, and manslaughter is for negligent death where the risk was ignored and the person died. Now let's put that all in a scenario. Let's say a guy wants to kill his ex wife. In order to do that he plans to shoot at her house with an automatic weapon while driving by her home. One night he does just that. In the hail of bullets he strikes and kills his ex wife, as well as her new bf which he had no idea was there. As he speeds off he turns a corner too fast and strikes another vehicle, killing it's occupants and being knocked unconscious. While unconscious and in the hospital the police search his belongings. In them is a dose of high heroine filled with fentanyl. The officer ends up being exposed, overdosing, and dies. For killing his ex, he'd be charged with 1st degree murder. For killing her new bf it would be 2nd degree since he had no intention to kill him nor was he even aware of his presence, but the act of firing a gun at an occupied home is an act that will near certainly kill anyone inside. Next he would be charged with 3rd degree homicide for the people in the vehicle he killed while fleeing. He had no intention of killing them or even striking them, but driving at extreme speeds is reckless and has a high risk of causing someone's death. Finally the death of the officer would be manslaughter as the there was little to no risk of someone else overdosing on his heroine, but the risk was still there and it killed someone. Now this is just a 1000ft overview of the logic behind the law, but each jurisdiction will include or exclude different acts and word their laws differently enough that an action might be deemed a degree higher in a different jurisdiction. Also some place only have murder in the 1st through 4th degree; 4th degree murder being negligent murder aka as manslaughter in a different jurisdiction. All that is to say it's worth looking at the specific language of the law in that jurisdiction. Look for the annotated criminal code, as the annotations break down precedent and other vital legal decisions."
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mv6o9o | How can somebody be be convicted of 2nd degree murder, third degree murder, AND manslaughter all for the same crime? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In these cases the sentencings overlap rather than stack. Often for serious crimes people are convicted on multiple, overlapping charges at the same time. This is so if a higher-level conviction gets overturned for any reason (i.e. the 2nd degree murder), they don't have to go on a retrial to get reconvicted for the \"correct\" charge (i.e. the 3rd degree murder or manslaughter).",
"Some states have \"lesser included offenses\" which are basically crimes that make up a greater crime. So for example if you kill someone you could be guilty of: 1. Murder in the 1st degree (w/ premeditation) 2. Murder in the 2nd degree (same crime, no premeditation element) 3. Manslaughter (Same crime, no intent to kill) If you're guilty of 1, you're guilty of all 3. Because the elements of #2 and #3 are also the included elements of #1.",
"Each charge has a different definition. According to [this article]( URL_0 ), **second-degree murder** is causing the death of a human being, without intent to cause that death, while committing or attempting to commit another felony. The other felony was assault and so Chauvin was found guilty of this definition of the crime. Also, **third-degree murder** is unintentionally causing someone’s death by committing an act that is eminently dangerous to other persons while exhibiting a depraved mind, with reckless disregard for human life. The jury deemed that this definition also fits with what Chauvin did, so the jury found him guilty of that as well. And manslaughter has a separate definition too. And the jury found Chauvin's actions fit that definition too. It's the same crime, but what he did fits the definition for each of those crimes. So he's guilty of all three. Because it's the same crime, he'll serve the sentences *concurrently* rather than *consecutively*. This means \"at the same time\" instead of \"one-after-the-other\", so ultimately the harshest crime with the longest sentence is the only one that matters. All of the \"lesser\" crimes will be swallowed up in the time it takes to serve the harshest penalty. The reason for doing it this way is to \"see which charge will stick\". For example, suppose the jury had decided what he did was not enough for second-degree murder, but was enough to fit the definition of third-degree murder. In this situation, the jury would've been able to deliver a verdict of *not guilty* on one charge and *guilty* on the other charge."
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mv6r1y | Why does SSD storage load much faster than HDD storage? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Solid state drives have no moving parts. It's pure voltage through circuits instantaneously. Hard disk drives have moving parts, data is stored in different places, and the action of the moving arm to read each individual part of the drive slows the reaction time. Kind of like trying to talk with hic-cups vs talking without hic-cups.",
"SSD is like having a filing cabinet right next to you. You open the drawer and there's the file. A hard drive is like having files all over your house. When you want a certain file you have to run to each room look at the file see that's not it then run to another room until you find the file you want.",
"Simplest answer: An SSD has no moving parts, and stores information On microchips, like a more complicated larger USB memory stick. Because of this, it can close to instantly access information and start moving it. And HDD has moving parts, it has a moving arm which must move across a spinning disk to read information off of it. This means an HDD is limited by how fast that arm can move and that disk can spin."
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mv6z9d | Why are some chemicals carcinogens and other aren’t? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The term chemical is really broad. A lot of things are chemicals. Cancer is typically caused by damage to the DNA of a cell so that when the cell divides it produces damaged copies of itself that don't function correctly, often continuing to produce many damaged cells which form a tumour. Some chemicals cause this type of damage due to how they interact with cellular DNA, due to the particular properties of that specific chemical molecule they can get into the cell and damage it in a way to cause cancer, and others don't.",
"A carcinogen is anything that's thought to increase risk of cancer, but that can happen by a lot of different mechanisms. Ultimately it's about how the chemical effects mutation rate in DNA, but it can do that by damaging DNA directly, by disabling certain mutation-correcting mechanisms, by increasing cell reproduction rate or by all sorts of other methods. A non-carcinogen is simply any chemical that *doesn't* do something like that."
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mv6zsb | Why do humans enjoy eating insanely spicy peppers (like ghost peppers)? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Bearable pain feels good. Your brain releases endorphins in response, which makes you feel good."
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mv71ze | How is it that chalk gives me more grip when I'm climbing, but gives butt cheeks less grip against each other if you have (for lack of a better term) diaper rash? (Nsfw because of butt) | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They're chemically different and serve different purposes. Butt powder is basically talc to absorb moisture while climbing chalk is magnesium carbonate and serves an entirely different purpose, including grip.",
"Like another commenter said it's to decrease moisture. With your hands it removes hand sweat so the ridges on your hands and fingers can grip like they are made for. With your cheeks, moisture makes it sticky and so they can't slide against eachother like they need to.",
"They're both ground up really small into powder, but they're comprised of different material."
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mv8m5f | What factors determine a "seller's market" vs. a "buyer's market" in real-estate? How can one take place without the other? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They are both terms that are used to describe the market situation in short terms. A Seller's Market is one that favors the Seller. That would mean that there are many people looking to buy, but relatively few people looking to sell. In that case, the Sellers can command higher prices because the people looking to buy have little chance to find other options and will frequently find themselves bidding against others. By contrast a Buyer's Market is on that favors the Buyer. That would mean that there are many people looking to Sell, and relatively few people looking to buy. Now the positions are reversed. Buyers have greater power because they can pick and chose and are less likely to find themselves bidding against another buyer, Sellers have to take what is available or wait. Now as you can imagine, this balance between Buyers and Seller is constantly shifting. New houses are being built, and people are moving in and out all the time. Certain times of year are popular for moving, particularly the summer, so there are more Sellers as people look to make a change. Other times of the year people are less inclined to move, so anyone looking to Buy is at a disadvantage.",
"These just refer to which side (buyer or seller) will get what they want. Generally: Buyer’s market means there are lots more homes for sale than potential buyers, so buyers benefit by lower prices and better offer options. Seller’s maker means there are too few homes for sale than potential buyers. That means lots of buyers bid up the prices on homes and sellers benefit from it. Right now, most of the US is in a seller’s market, meaning sellers have an easy time selling and buyers have a hard time buying."
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mv8nus | - What Genre Is This Type of Music? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Musique Concrète. It’s a type of experimental composition that started in the 40s and is basically a mix of pre-recorded sounds."
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mv93kf | What exactly is in the foods that make you constipated? And what happens to the body when you’re constipated? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's not so much what's in them but missing something that allows the stool to take water in. People talk about fiber making you \"regular\" and bulking up a stool but what it means in practicality is that the fiber absorbs water from the colon. Without the water the stools become harder, drier, but also stickier since the water the stool absorbs also lubricates it as it passes through the colon. So if you're eating foods that contain nothing that's indigestible that can also absorb water you're liable to have harder stools that move slower through the colon and then you get constipation.",
"A few different things can happen to make you constipated, and usually you have all of these things happening together in varying degrees: Your gut motility (how much the walls are moving stuff through) slows down You absorb too much water from your intestines into your blood Your faeces become compacted and hard Anything you eat that causes any of this to happen is what causes constipation. Basically, it’s anything low in fibre, high in sugar, and lacking fermentation. Fibre increases faecal bulking, which stops your stool from becoming compact and hard. It also draws water into your colon through *osmotic pressure* and encourages gut motility. Fibre also feeds the natural microflora in your gut, which promotes gut health and further prevents constipation. If your food is low in fibre, you have none of these benefits, and you are at risk of constipation. If you eat a diet that has very little fermented food (cheese, yoghurt, kombucha, beer) then you also may become constipated. These foods contain bacteria that help your intestines function. They promote gut motility by irritating your gut lining. They also help digest some of the food you eat and spit out things you need but can’t make by yourself - things like vitamins. They help the fibre bulk up your poop and draw water into your intestines."
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mv9uql | Why do photographs when emailed from a iPhone to a computer come out sideways many times? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The answer is metadata. As with all tech, companies doesnt agree on a single thing to store data. Sometimes the photos metadata arent compatible to software in a computer used to display it.",
"phones have a little thing inside that tells the phone if it’s upright, sideways, or upside down. when you take a picture with your phone, the information from that little thing gets written down inside the photo to tell other computers how to rotate the photo. sometimes, the other computers don’t read this little note and just show the photo however they want to."
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mv9uqn | What megapixel were analog cameras and how is it different to digital? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Traditional film cameras don't have pixels, they have film grain. The film is coated in a chemical mixture which is sensitive to light such that it will change when exposed to light passing through the camera lens, and then can be further chemically processed to form an image. While a digital camera has pixels as the smallest unit of image data, a film camera is limited by the size of the grains of chemical compound on the film. Those grains can be very small, smaller even than modern digital pixels.",
"The answer is none. However an exposed film can have the image printed in higher resolution today or tomorrow without loss of quality. That is because unlike cameras with digital sensor(which ia limited by the tech it was made), a film has all the information stored in it. This is why old movies filmed can be in remastered to a higher resolution than scenes filmed with digital."
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