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Why did we go to Mars before Venus?
It's much easier. On Venus, everything melts in several minutes in its horrible atmosphere. There were some Soviet probes on Venus, there are some pictures even.
Are survivors of Ebola, like the recent American Doctor, now immune to it?
No one knows. No one has been stupid enough to be infected twice . Studies on monkeys show that it's possible, however extremely dependent on strain.
Why is it whenever I decide to hydrate myself and drink a lot of water does it seem like 20 minutes later I'm just peeing it all out? Is my body even using it?
When you're pee is clear stop drinking water. When it still has a yellow tint, drink more water
Why "universal basic income" as opposed to "universal basic provisions"?
Because freedom? What if I don't want x amount of clothing. What if I want x-3 amount of clothing and I want x+3 food instead? Money solves that.
ELI: Why are fax machines still a thing?
I work for an insurance company that receives documents by fax all day, every day. Sure, from a technical perspective we could accept this stuff by email, but by accepting file attachments via email we're opening up our corporate network to every electronic creepy-crawly on the entire Internet, and it puts our network at a much greater risk. TL, DR: You can't bring down our corporate network via a fax-transmitted virus.
Why do we have such high voltages in our homes?
Electrical power is amps times volts. If you halve the voltage you have to double to amps. Power loss in the wiring is proportional to the square of the amps. In other words, if you halve the voltage you have to use four times as much copper in your wiring or your house will burn down. So, higher voltages are *much* better for efficiency and economy. The final transformer down conversion is probably already pretty close to your house. You could conceivably have low voltage outlets with a transformer just behind the plate to increase safety. These would really struggle to deal with high power appliances like vacuums and kettles where you need over 1000W. Even 50V isn't always going to be safe and the flex lead will need to be very thick. And transformers in your wall, or anywhere else concealed in your house, will be a fire hazard in themselves.
How did they put cables undersea in 1854? And how would they do it now?
There's a book about how the first transatlantic cable was laid called [A Thread Across The Ocean]. There's also a very long article in Wired by Neal Stephenson called [Mother Earth Mother Board] about the laying of [FLAG], the Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe, which was at the time the longest undersea cable ever laid. In the article, he summarizes the atmosphere surrounding the laying of the very first transatlantic cable like so: > Still, telegraphy, like many other forms of engineering, retained a certain barnyard, improvised quality until the Year of Our Lord 1858, when the terrifyingly high financial stakes and shockingly formidable technical challenges of the first transatlantic submarine cable brought certain long-simmering conflicts to a rolling boil, incarnated the old and new approaches in the persons of Dr. Wildman Whitehouse and Professor William Thomson, respectively, and brought the conflict between them into the highest possible relief in the form of an inquiry and a scandal that rocked the Victorian world. Thomson came out on top, with a new title and name – Lord Kelvin. > Everything that has occurred in Silicon Valley in the last couple of decades also occurred in the 1850s. Anyone who thinks that wild-ass high tech venture capitalism is a late-20th-century California phenomenon needs to read about the maniacs who built the first transatlantic cable projects . The only things that have changed since then are that the stakes have gotten smaller, the process more bureaucratized, and the personalities less interesting.
why traditional Catholics are upset with Pope Francis.
This is a very small minority of Catholics called [Traditionalist Catholics]. This is different to a traditional Catholic which would be a much, much larger amount of Catholics. Tradionalist Catholics want to revert the Church to it's traditions from before 1965 including having Mass in Latin and lots of other confusing doctrinal points. Most Catholics would not want that and it would have been very unlikely to happen even under the last Pope. TL,DR; 'Tradionalist' Catholic are not the same as traditional Catholics and it's actually a very small number of people that think like that. Most Catholics are very pleased with the new Pope.
How do alcoholics put up with all of the stomach aches? Do you eventually just get used to how bad your stomach feels and not notice?
Functioning Alcoholic here, you get used to it, a couple shots of whiskey in the morning and a glass of OJ, clears up the ache real quick, also a bottle of water right before passing out the night before seems to work.Some of these posts make a good point though, because alcoholics drink constantly, the hangover we get tends to be mild compared to those who don't
Why is liver cancer a big problem, considering it can regenerate? Couldn't you just have the afflicted portion removed?
I need to find references for the statement I am about to make. The answer is quite nuanced, but I'll just give some simple points to research about. - Cancer, even if local, spreads. The cancer cells can begin in the liver as a tumor, but then spread throughout the body.- In the case of other liver diseases, outcomes are complex. Even liver transplant in many cases just buys the patient a few more years. This is because the liver performs so many functions, that by the time its transplanted, its poor functioning has affected so many others organs that things are beyond repair. But there are procedures which do liver 'resectioning': surgical removal of diseased part of the liver. Also, as others have mentioned, if you do not remove the issues causing liver damage, its only a matter of time before the regenerative powers of the liver get used up :)
Why people say "pardon my French" right before/after they swear
You only say pardon my french when you say fuck. The joke is that you meant the French word for seal. It's a poorly crafted joke", 'Well i am still not getting it Sorry for my ignorance Could anyone please explain with an example..I always found the phrase interesting, in that swear words in English are based off the Germanic tongue spoken by the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman conquest. It was only when the Normans took over ,and made Norman French the go to language of the educated and cultured, that the Old German words for Fuck, Shit, etc. became 'profane'.I heard this came into popularity in America after WW I. American GIs picked up some rather vulgar speech habits. Polite company, specifically women, were not supposed to know these words and so polite company had to accept they returning GIs excuse, "pardon my French" The other explanations help explain why this was readily adopted.When I was a student studying latin, our texts would often have a latin-english dictionary in the back for words contained in that text. Particularly vulgar stuff would be listed with french rather than latin translations. Our instructors said it was some sort of goofy holdover in 'respectable' copies. *shrug*", 'I think English has the highest number of possible curse words though, most languages only have a few native ones. I can imagine going to a place like Japanese arcade, getting pissed and shouting "What the fuck?! BULLSHIT!" then turning around and saying "pardon my English."', "My understanding was that certain swear words in English were phonetically similar to other, non-offensive words in French, so when they said 'Pardon my French' , they were jokingly implying they were speaking French, and not swearing in English.
If I'm trying to get the ace of spades, does picking 5 cards out of a fresh deck, have the same odds as picking 1 card 5 times - reshuffling in-between?
It might be easier to look at the complement -- not getting the ace of spades. If you pick 5 cards at once, the probability of no ace of spades is /, so the probability of getting the ace of spades is 1 minus this, or roughly .096. In the second case, the probability of no ace of spades is ^5. 1 minus this is approximately .093, which is the probability of getting 1 or more ace of spades. The probability of exactly one ace of spades in the second case is .089. Obviously you can't get more than one ace of spades in the first case.
why are all colors together considered white and absence of color considered black, and not the other way around?
You're thinking of the difference between light and pigment. Colors of light are *additive* , and colors of pigment are *subtractive* .
Why is there a gazillion of distros?
Simple economics: When you lower the barrier to entry then more people will enter the market. There are so many distros because it's easy to make a distro. All it takes is time and knowledge. So, you end up with a lot of them. Whether having so many is a good or bad thing is irrelevant when asking why they exist.
why can a 17 year old be tried as an adult if they're considered mature enough, but an 18 year old can't be tried as a child if they're immature enough?
The state assumes some parental power over juveniles . By this principle, the state can order treatments for juveniles on the basis of what the court deems to be in the juvenile's best interest. However, what this is effectually doing is waiving some of the civil rights that the juvenile would have as an adult. An adult's rights can't just be waived on the basis of immaturity. Whereas a juvenile can be mandated into treatment based on his family situation or other factors, adults have the legal right to full due process in the criminal justice system.Because the law considers you an adult at 18, regardless of your maturity level, unless you are mentally incompetent. Immaturity is subjective, and not easy to measure, and even mature people sometimes do immature thing, but remain responsible. What is clear is some actions, like a premeditated murder, require a level of maturity not typically found in a juvenile. So at some point you have to draw a line and say you are a grow up now, or else you would have 40 year olds arguing for lighter sentences on the basis of their immaturityInteresting. You are presumably talking about the US In germany its the other way round. you cant be tried as adult if you are not 18 but you can be tried as child until 21 if you are immature enoughhow can a 17 year old be considered an adult if he commits a crime.. but not if he bangs his teacher?
if fentanyl is so lethal, why are drug dealers selling it? Won't it kill off all their customers?
Fetanayl is cheaper and easier to acquire than heroin. You can sell lesser amounts for more money because it is more potent. Junkies like to buy fetanayl because it gets you super high. Dealers sell their drugs with the assumption that the users will be smart enough not to overdose. Many heroin addicts seek out fetanayl specifically, or, don't mind when they are sold fetanayl and told it's heroin. It isn't uncommon to be sold fetanayl when seeking out heroin. Also, fetanayl is acquired over the counter from pharmacies opposed to bein imported internationally. They take the gel strips, extract with an isopropyl alcohol mixture to turn into a powder, bag and sell.Source: I am a heroin addict", 'A big issue is that its actually carfentanyl being used which is many many times more potent than fentanyl and is cheaper as well.
How do ground-only animals such as deer handle sudden dramatic snowfall, like the 7 or so feet of snow that fell in this last storm in Buffalo, NY?
I'm outside of Buffalo, we have 5' of snow. This morning I looked out our upstairs window and saw a fresh deer trail through the snow in our backyard. It's the same path we usually see deer running through. I was totally amazed to realize they're still moving around in all of this snow!
How do the detectors at Walmart or other stores work?
great watch about this topic - magnetostriction _URL_0_ basically the little metal strips inside those white anti-theft tags are made to a precise size and thickness that slightly alters the magnetic 'signal' being sent out from the detectors. a lot of products nowadays that are worth a shit are actually built with those little strips on the inside like power tools and stuff like that.
Why does having your back scratched feel so damn good?
Its a homologous that comes from our hominid ancestors. When you see primates picking bugs off each others backs, they're not always picking bugs. They do it because it feels good. Its another way to build social relationships.
Why are polygraph tests carried out by police if it's not sufficient evidence in the court and are often inaccurate?
Cops can lie in interrogations. Hook someone they're pretty sure is guilty, ask them questions. The person says something, cop says the polygraph says they're lying. The person gets flustered and admits they were lying, and confesses. The polygraph isn't evidence, but the confession is. Or they admit to lying to the cops, which could be obstruction of justice.
Why don't private jets fly faster than Mach 1?
Designing supersonic aircraft is hard, and the aerospace companies have determined that there isn't enough demand to justify the investment of designing one. There are regulations regarding flying supersonic aircraft over populated areas. If someone wanted to fly from Denver to London on their supersonic jet, they would have to fly somewhere in a normal jet first then switch planes at the coast. The main advantage of going supersonic is sleep, and having to land and switch planes eliminates that advantage.
Why are mice bodies viewed as analogous to human bodies in laboratory settings?
Mice are mammals, so they have a lot of similarities to humans. And they are cheap and easy to breed and breed in large numbers, so it's quite easy to get a number of sample groups for testing. Testing on primates would give more analogous results, but they are much more difficult to raise and keep compared to simple mice. They aren't perfect, and many of the results of a mouse study may not apply to humans. But it can give some validity or reveal potential problems before testing on actual people.
Why do massages feel better when someone else is doing them to us then when we do them to our selfs.
I believe there's also some social aspect to it. You enjoy the attention and caressing of the massage-giver, which may have its roots in primal group dynamics.
What's actually happening after lifting weights that makes the muscles feel like they're trying to push their way out of the skin?
When you work out a muscle, fibres that make up that muscle tear, that's what causes muscles to hurt later. Immediately after the workout blood rushes to the area to try and fix the damaged caused, this temporarily makes the muscles feel bigger because they're expanded with blood.
Why is a 50hz TV considered bad?
Because you can't easily and cleanly divide 24 into it at least with 60hz) Your 1080p24 bluray movies have to go back and forth showing some frames twice and others three times. With 120hz TVs they just show each frame 5 times it allows for a more cinema like feel without any of the judder produced by the 2:3 inverse process. That's on top of the fact that a faster panel reduces some of the inherent drawbacks of an LCD based display and can create a much more realistic motion if the processing used is smart With 50hz I'm not sure. I seem to remember hearing that they actually speed a lot of content up from 24 to 25hz so as to more easily display it in PAL markets, which would negate the issues that 60hz has, but I'm admittedly not well versed in that area.
When some gave devs make in game trailers, how finished is the game/product used?
Well, it depends on the game engine and the video editor. Sometimes, to make the trailer look awesome game devs shut down some portions of the engine in exhange for better graphics/performance. That is why in some trailers you can see particles effects at 1080p at 60fps and more than 30 NPCs at the same time but the real game doesn't have that nowhere close. Another technique is just video editing with filters and adjustments.Not a dev but from my expierence from gaming and beta testing generally it will depend on the developer. Eg. Well known devs like Blizzard would have most of the main features in place but then its a matter of adding the remaining content like additional maps, store features ecc.. so my theory is maybe 50% of it is done in the first trailer/s. Just my 2 cents.
What's the purpose of a credit score and why do they exist?
Companies that deal with lending have to factor in your likelihood of being a good customer. Remember: only you know your situation - lenders only know what you tell them. Because these companies have this vested interest, they will tell each other about bad customers, thus cooperating between themselves to help each other. It's like guys and girls telling each other if somebody is untrustworthy or not a good catch.What is google and why does it exist?
Why did people look older at my age, in the past, compared to now?
Could be any number of things, really. Stress, diet, smoking, lack of sun block, environment. For the most part it could just be hard living. It's all about the mileage.
Why do they sometimes put glass walls in front of drummers when a band plays live.
Honestly didn't know that. Always thought it was because the drummer had a tendency to rock out so hard their sticks would go flying. Now I know
Why is it not possible to reach light speed via rotation?
The energy needed to continue to accelerate the disk would approach infinity, and realistically, you'd be having a lot of issues with centrifugal force, [which would destroy your disk]
Why can it be normal for girls to dress like boys but boys can't dress like girls?
It's because women and girls have organised and fought for the right to wear men's clothes. They have protested, they have tried to educate, they have disobeyed social conventions, school/workplace rules and laws to not crossdress. The battle is still ongoing, it is not 'perfectly fine' to be a tomboy in any country. Men and boys need to organise and fight for the right to wear women's clothes if they want to. So far they haven't. This is probably because men's clothes are often more practical than women's clothes so women have felt more of a need to crossdress than men have.
How are banned cartoons that are never seen found and uploaded?
Why do you say > It was released on Laserdisc in 1991, but that doesn't help. I have a Laserdisc player. I can digitize the TV signal it puts out and upload the result to YouTube with an A to D converter. OK, I didn't do it, but there are lots of folks who could. They sold over 15M Laserdisc players.
What is smartness/braininess/IQ? Is how smart a person is genetic?
going to try and actually eli5 by equating practical intelligence to a race with no finish line. In this race you simply are born, you run, and stop running the race when you die. The goal is to get as far as possible in that period of time. Now since this race takes a lifetime, you aren't always running all out, 100% of the time. You have some moments when you are putting in tons of effort and some moments where you are not focused on progressing in the race . On average the amount of time you spend putting in effort will have substantial effect on how far you progress in the race in your lifetime. Everyone alive is running this race, but some people are given advantages. Some people have nicer shoes, while you are in old duck-taped together converse. Their water stations are spaced every .5 miles while yours are every 3 miles. They are also taller and have a longer stride than you which means that they expel less energy per step than you so that it takes you longer to travel the same distance. If the two of you lived the same amount of time and expelled similar effort at the end of your lifetime the person with the advantages will be further along the race than you will. With similar effort, it is impossible for you to overtake them. With that said, there is nothing stoping you from running hard for an extra hour after the other person stops for the day and decides to walk it. If every single day you work harder and make sure you are pushing past them them, then you can still ensure that your position in the race will be further than theirs. Things like genetics, IQ, and upbringing are these advantages in the intelligence race. They help, but cannot replace tenacity and effort.
How would deflating a NFL football (ala The Patriots) give you an advantage?
I doubt there is any tangible weight difference.. it would make the ball easier to grip however, as the ball will deform more freely, and so you'd be able to get better purchase on it", 'Someone should ELI5 how the pats blew the colts out with a deflated ballWhat more people should look into is this _URL_0_Umm pullquotes from the NFL rulebook The Referee shall be the sole judge as to whether all balls offered for play comply with these specifications In the event a home team ball does not conform to specifications, or its supply is exhausted, the Referee shall secure a proper ball from the visitors and, failing that, use the best available ball. Any such circumstances must be reported to the Commissioner not to pass the blame, but the rule book implies A. It's a referee problem B. It's not that big of a deal if "the best suitable ball" is acceptable', "If the Patriots were practicing with a deflated ball and the Colts weren't, the Patriots would be at an advantage.
If I drank exactly to my body's requirements would I stop needing to pee?
No. Many people are dehydrated without ever really knowing it. Which is to say they are below the body's required fluid intake, but still have to unrinate. Urination is the body's way of flushing out toxins and waste, so even if you are taking in less fluid than you should be your body will still want to flush that waste out. If you cut fluid intake so dramatically that you stop urinating, you would be playing a dangerous game, that could result in death.Nope. You body uses water for a lot of things, one of them been the dilution of waste products so they can be safely eliminated when you pee. You are always producing waste products, so you will always need to pee eventuallyNope. Urea, a major component of urine, comes from the breaking down of proteins. No matter what you eat/drank, your body would need to break down proteins. Urea is how you get rid of the excess nitrogen.
Why are Africans (specifically Kenyans & Ethiopians) so much faster than everyone else?
For some of them it's their training. Right over the boarder of kenya is Mt. kilimanjaro. It's a popular place for them to train. Go to the high altitudes and then run a marathon every couple of days for a few months. Your body compensates for lower oxygen by making more red blood cells. They then go strait from there to somewhere like boston, sea level, and their blood can just carry more oxygen. That burn you feel from running is lactic acid building up in your muscles. Lactic acid forms from glucose not being fully broken down because of lack of oxygen in the muscle. So more oxygen = less lactic acid = less burning and discomfort while running. I'm not saying this is their only advantage but it sure does help.There's not much that's natural about it - training for long-distance running is an extremely popular sport in Kenya and Ethiopia, and participation rates are high. They have good trainers, a good national program, and good incentives to win prize money to take home. Compare their performance [to ultra-marathon runners], and africans pretty much vanish from the rankings. All the top competitors in those are from places like Greece, Russia, the UK, and Japan, yet we don't go on about how those groups are "faster than everyone else"It should be noted that Africa has the highest genetic diversity of humans on the planet. This is a result of humans first emerging from African grasslandsI Googled "why are kenyans such good runners" and the first page has many entries that explain this in great detail.There's a Radiolab podcast about this. They have a high endurance for pain. Also, height.This is why. _URL_4_ Really interesting TED talk overall.
Why can't Helicopters deposit large oxygen bottles strategically on Mt. Everest or pick up people in trouble by harness?
Seriously though, why don't they end this madness and build an escalator to the top already?", 'They cannot fly that high. The air is too thin to support the helicopter. There are some ultralights that can go that high, but not one capable of carrying an airtank yet alone picking up passengers.Who exactly is going to pay for that? The Nepalese government? People climb Mt. Everest knowing the risk. And who's going to rescue the helicopter pilots after the inevitable crash?
How are expiration/use by dates on food calculated
best by", etc. dates on products, with the exception of infant formula, which is pretty strictly regulated. So now, how do companies choose those dates? Well, they want to maintain a standard of quality of course, so that customers are happy with them, and they follow the loose principle that foods must be [wholesome and fit for consumption]. So companies determine that date for themselves. I 've seen examples where they actually let the product sit and see what happens, like in the case of a ready-to-eat sandwiche available at a deli. This is why it could very well be that a product is past it's "best by" date, and yet is pretty acceptable except for some wilty-looking lettuce. The company has determined at what point the product is below their standards. Companies may be able to extend a product's shelf life by further pasteurization/processing, but it may change the texture or flavor, and so decide on the shorter shelf life in favor of quality. There is another point to be made here, which is that expiration dates for some products actually do signal a point at which they may become unsafe or "go bad". There are good places to find "general rules" for this, like [WebMD].
What would happen if a container was opened and closed in space... then brought back to Earth? What would be inside?
So you'd get back to earth and there would be a cat inside the box. The cat would be alive. And also dead.On earth, although we cannot see the air, it is in fact made up of an inconceivable amount of atoms. Atoms like oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, etc Everything is made of different types of atoms densely packed together. The human body, for example, is made up of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphoru atoms squished together. Space is not densely packed with atoms. Outer space has the equivalent of just a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on average. Considering atoms are tiny tiny tiny, there is physically nothing that exists in space.
Could the events of Red Dawn actually happen?
Setting aside the top comment which is a bomb ass one. Let's remember that there's about 100-150 million gun owners in the U.S. Most of them in the west, south and south-west. Most of these gun owners have very similar hardware to our military in their collection. Let's pretend that our 2 million service members can't handle the situation. You have 100 million people who own some type of firearm who just heard the news that some foreigners are trying to invade their country. What do you think most of those 100 million people are going to do? If there's one thing everyone should know about us Americans is that we are really, and I mean **REALLY** into stroking our dicks and egos. When it comes down to it, American pride is basically 10% of our GDP. So given all that, I sincerely doubt that short of a nuclear war any one country or even group of countries could even fart in our general direction without some serious opposition.
Why is seawater so hard to convert into drinkable water?
It's really not. It takes power to do it on a large scale, but you could just float some solar stills and get enough for one or two people that way.
Is artificial intelligence really ever possible?
> From my understanding, at the moment, a computer can only make decisions based on what it's already been programmed to do, they're completely incapable of making any real decisions. [Here] is Alan Turing seminal 1950 paper on the subject. Skip ahead to section 6, he discusses and dismantles all the common objections to machine intelligence. The short version is there is no object that cannot also be applied to humans. Humans are born with genetic programming, and also can only do what they are programmed to do. Does this mean they are also incapable of real decisions?
When, if ever, I should use the parking brake on a car that has an automatic transmission.
There is a conclusion you can draw from your google search: using the parking break when parking is never a bad idea. If you want to reduce the wear to an absolute minimum you could follow Big_Daddy_PDX' advise. The sensible and practical approach would be to make sure that when the car is parked, it is in park and the parking break engaged.
How does a 100% satisfaction guarantee work?
The specific details will depend on the individual business, but when I have worked in grocery stores with such a guarantee, I'd do whatever I could to make sure the customer was satisfied. If you bought, I dunno, a box of cake mix and ended up not caring for it, I'd give you another box of the same cake mix, a box of a different brand or flavor of cake mix, or simply refund the cash into your hand. A receipt would be nice to see, but for $2.79 or whatever, I didn't care that much. The official word from the top was that we would never get in trouble for doing something in the customer's favor, and I gave refunds that way and never heard a peep from management about it. Other places may not be so lenient. Check your receipt or the company's stores for details, or just ask when you buy the product. If you're polite and follow their protocol, they will probably replace the product or refund the price.
Why when I sleep in I don't get hungry for a couple hours after waking up, but when I wake up early for work I'm starving when I wake up?
I have the opposite effect. When I wake up early I'm so UN hungry that it borders on nausea. I can eat right away if I sleep in though.Without scientific mumbo-jumbo, I think the easiest way to think about it is this: if you go long enough without eating, you lose your appetite. If you sleep through your hunger, you wake up with no appetite. That simple. Sure, there are hormones involved, but I think this is the easiest way to look at it.
Sometimes there are 0 seeds for a torrent, yet it still downloads, usually at very low speed. Where does this data come from?
There are websites that track the number of seeders/leechers and your client gets the data from them. Quite often the websites don't update very often or miss seeders completely.
why do websites care how secure my password is?
The main reason is because it's extremely bad publicity. If you have two website that provide the same service, one gets hacked a lot, and the other doesn't, which site will you use?
Could we really build Star Wars sized space ships?
If built in space. Our rocket tech wouldn't be able to accelerate fast enough to put strain on anything, I don't think.
how did the pokemon rescue team team games on the gameboy work with the rescue feature and no internet?
Can't say for sure, never played the games. But there was the link cable, as well as a built in Ir sensor for multiplayer capabilities
Ahmed Mohamed. Why does reddit hate him to death now? What information changed about the clock incident?
He was a fraud, but he probably didn't have malicious intent. I think he was the product of wanting to please his family, mainly his dad, by getting all this political publicity and therefore helping his dad's political cause. I mean, the dad ran for president of Sudan, twice. Sudan is a dictatorship! The whole thing is just weird. Watch some clips of his dad and you'll begin to see why the whole thing seems suspicious on top of all the other evidence. Oh and they moved to Qatar. And no one seems to be questioning this?
Why is cryopreservation thought to be unethical?
Mostly because it gives false hope to people and dupes them out of their or their relative's money. The $40-50k per person which go toward cryopreservation can be spend on a lot myriad of other things which are within the scientific realm including preventing and curing diseases.
Why do our noses clog up with snot/bogies when they are an essential airway?
It's our immune response. Our nose is also a big open hole for outside things to get in. So when there's something dangerous perceived by the immune system, the body makes more snot to trap the bad things before they can get inside and kill you
Why can a nicotine (and possibly other substances) addicted brain sleep without having to get a 'fix'? During the day it's a lot harder to 'stay clean' for 10 hours.
All that has been commented is true, it alters your sleeping patterns but your body also starts to crave for nicotine during sleep, that's why the time between the user waking up and his first cigarrette is so important in determining the severity of his dependence to nicotine. Source: _URL_0_
This Common Core 2nd grade math problem
I'm mathematics teacher, and I have no idea why that answer is not correct. I feel genuinely sorry for your daughter for having such a teacher. As a general rule, your questions should be self-standing. If student answers your question properly as it stands, that answer is right. If the answer was not the one you were looking for, it was your mistake in designing that question. From what I understand, this might have something to do with Common Core being stupid. I'm not familiar with US education that much. In that case, I'm sorry for your students in general. Any questions that are about making students not answer questions but guess what might be teachers motivation and intended answer are not going to contribute to understanding.
Why were there so many recorded serial killers in the 60s, 70s and 80s as opposed to the present day?
It probably has to do with the overall decline in violent crime since the 90s, but I can't say with 100% certainty.
I left a cup of water and plants out for a few days, when I came back it had tiny fish in it. How did that happen?
I have to second the notion that it's highly likely they weren't fish; instead, they were probably larvae or tadpoles . more likely mosquito larvae.Similarly, if you leave a sack of grain in a dark cellar, it will spawn rats.
Why are there no comedic conservative pundits?
There's some, but there is a much smaller audience for it. Fox has tried the late night comedy stuff, but never caught on and wasn't particularly funny. The target Demographic for that sort of thing is young male which tends to be overwhelmingly liberal. If you look on the internet there's some conservative comedy like Steven Crowder, but it's still not as popular. It's kind of like saying why isn't there women's basketball on TV? Because the demographic of people who watch basketball prefer male basketball.
How do people running for presidential office keep up with their current political office while spending a seemingly full-time job campaigning?
They don't. Which is one of the criticisms of letting campaign seasons get longer and longer. Rubio got hit hard by this when he got called out on not voting on anything.
If bending with my knees is supposedly more healthy for my bones, why is bending with my back so much easier and natural?
It feels natural because you sit in chairs most of the day. If you look at small children That is our natural squat. In most countries that is a normal way to squat down. Read this if you have some time. I am doing this to restore my squat. I can't do anything near that but am working on it. _URL_0_", 'Bending your knees stretches your trousers who wants to do that.most instances of heavy lifting involve large objects. furniture, crates, etc. your upper body can easily be placed over it to lift, while using you legs involves moving them into position while being almost on top of the thing you're lifting. in many cases, lifting something heavy cant be done the right way as a function of geometry, rather than physical strength. also, it's not your bones you need be concerned with, a cubic inch of bone can hold up something like 8 metric tons. it's your soft tissues. sinews, disks, muscle, etc. that are at risk. the way you're positioned when you lift with your back gives the weight your trying to move enormous amounts of leverage, and your back muscles just can't take it.
I have recently been able to smell what I ate in my urine. Is there something wrong with me or did I gain a superpower?
Rum - If I've had a night of it, all the next day, my whizz just smells like rum smells quite pleasant actually.If you reeeeally want a sure fire experiment, have some lucky charmsI love beer. My piss smells like soggy wheat flake cerealIf you are smelling what you eat when you are urinating, you probably are smelling your sweaty member, not your urine. Kidneys are a highly efficient active filtering system. When you eat coco pops or whatever, they are digested. the absorbable nutrients get into your blood stream, where your liver will try and regulate what is what. Some excess B vitamins, Iron and other minerals may be excreted later. Much less fussy are your sweat glands. lots of aromatic chemicals can be excreted via this route. eg Curry. Beer. etcFood with a particularly strong scent can make your urine have distinct traces of that smell. For example onions and garlic.
The religion of the flying spaghetti monster
It's meant to ridicule/criticize mainstream religion. Basically, pastafarians are taking the piss out of other religions by being an absurd, over-the-top caricature of other religions, and yet still acting at least some of the time as though they're taking it seriously. It's sort of like how when you want to mock someone for having a dumb idea and you talk them up and call them brilliant in as sincerely as you can manage, while winking and nudging to your friends.It's a satire religion that atheists use to poke fun of other religions "how do you know God isn't a flying spaghetti monster in the sky?"In January 2005, Kansas school board permits teaching creationism, this causes Bobby Henderson to write an open letter to the board proposing that we were all ruled by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. The FSM found its way onto the Internet and became a parody of religion. It has pressed for religious rights and secularism, for example, in some parts of the world a colander is classed as religious headwear and can be worn in passport photos etcEssentially that's all an argument saying replace the word "god" which has such a strong connotation, with the word spaghetti monster"The spaghetti monster loves youSpaghetti monster loves us all"
why do old pictures not have people with acne in them as opposed to today where it seems a lot of people have acne?
I spent my teenage in a country where junk and processed food is rare to get or I would say more expensive. I hardly saw acne on anyone's face during my high school years. As soon as I came to U.S. I started getting zits in myself few month afterwards. I highly suspect the food and diet that we consume here is a major factor.
Why are so many non-Catholics going crazy over Pope Francis when John Paul II was literally a saint?
Pope Francis speaks more to liberals than he does to actual Catholics, and Reddit is a pretty liberal place. John Paul and Benedict probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much positive attention, and you probably would have heard more about how the US is hosting a pedophile ring leader.
Why isn't our sun and solar system slowly being sucked in to the black hole at the center of the Milky Way?
Let's imagine that the sun's total mass was suddenly converted into a black hole. So, the entire solar system, all the planets and asteroids, are going to be sucked in to our black hole correct? No, all the planets and asteroids are going to keep the same orbits as before. The mass of this black hole is the same as the sun, just concentrated in a FAR smaller area. For distant objects, the gravitational force is the same. It's only once objects get too close to the black hole will it feel the heavier gravitational force. The same is true for the giant blackhole in the center of our galaxy. Our sun is on a stable orbit around it. Infact, all galaxies appear to be built around these super massive Black Holes.The effect is basically the same as putting something into orbit around the earth, or any other celestial body. Orbit is basically moving too fast to fall into the gravity well, but too slow to escape it. If you attach a string to a ball and don't swing it fast enough, it will not travel in an "orbit" around you. If you are able to swing it fast enough that it breaks the string, the ball will leave the "orbit" around you. Swing it at the right speed and it will trace a measurable path, which is what we do around the sun, and the solar system does around the galactic center. In very simple terms.for the same reason that when you go around a turn in a car you get pushed towards the outside of the turn. Our solar system is going around a big curve, so it wants to fly off into intergalactic space but the black hole is pulling it back either way, much like the earth/sun or moon/earth relationship, the two tend to balance out and we end up orbiting in a nice elipse
What exactly causes a plane to stall when it's climbing?
There's two kinds of stall, although to a pilot it doesn't really matter because the effect and solution are the same. The first type is generally when the airspeed drops too low, and the aircraft falls because it can no longer produce it's weight in lift. This is because the lift generated by a wing increases as speed goes up, and decreases as it goes down. If the lift force is less than the force of gravity, you fall. The second type of stall occurs when the wing reaches too high of an angle of attack, for example, because your speed is too low, you're falling, and you attempt to remedy the situation by pulling up on the stick and pointing the aircraft's nose into the sky. What happens now is essentially explained in [this little infographic]. You can see in the third picture that the angle over the top of the wing is too steep and consequently, the airflow cannot follow the shape of the wing and tumbles over it; this causes the wing to produce less lift, which again, causes you to fall.
If hot things have lots of energy...
In nature, the hot transfers to the cold naturally, the opposite is impossible. You have to understand how a fridge works to understand what i am talking about. Like i said, hot goes to the cold, cold never goes to the hot. So, how you make things colder? Well, it's pretty simple. You have to create a temperature difference between what you want to make cold and the environment. You need a thing colder than the fridge, so the energy in the fridge can transfer to it, and as this happens it gets colder because it's transferring energy. That's why they use a refrigerant gas on fridges, with negative temperatures. So what basically happens, you got a space surrounded by tubes in negative temperatures, so the hot inside the fridge will transfer to the tubes where this gas flows, wich will warm up and end up transferred to the environment. The fridge needs so much electric because what makes the Gas runs through the tubes is a compressor who needs to pump the Gas. If you never open the fridge there is a point where the temperature will stabilize and you are not spending too much energy, but when u open the door sometimes for a long time, you can hear the compressor starting to work harder in a way to regulate the temperature difference you are creating.Heat automatically flows from the hot surroundings into the cold fridge . Like anything that happens automatically , to reverse it you need to spend energy.
Is there any evidence that suggests covering your webcam is anything other than an act of paranoia? Can a webcam transmit video without the indicator light being on?
For what it's worth, it was recently pointed out that [Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his webcam and mic jack]. So, the man that runs one of the biggest tech businesses in the world is a little paranoid about this. If I were an internet billionaire, I guess I'd be more concerned about spying too.The webcam indicator light is turned on through software, so it can also be turned off through software. It is definitely possible for malware to record without the light on.One of my friends was being watched for a week by a some random person. He get's messaged one day from a girl he didn't know on Facebook, but he accepted her friend request because she was hot. When she started talking to him she started naming off shit in his room and what he was wearing. He freaked out and searched his house and outside but no one was there. Then she sent a bunch of screenshots from throughout the week of him. He deleted her, covered his camera and nothing ever came of it. Probably just some kids fucking around or something but from that point on I put a post it note over mine.
Why do the extremist groups in the Middle East despise America and Americans?
They are called 'extremists.' I was thinking about this before I went to sleep. It feels similar to irrational people that hated the German people during the holocaust. Not that we're currently doing anything of such proportions, but we're being lumped in with the shitty things our military and government are.Read legacy of ashes, the history of the CIA
There were more than 13 British colonies in North America at the time of the American Revolution. Why didn't Nova Scotia, Quebec and the rest of Canada join the Union?
It has not been mentioned that Canada was invited into the USA through the Articles of Confederation in 1777. The war of 1812, I'm sure, wore out the invitation.They were, but it was different. At the time of the revolution "canada" was Quebec and the Maritimes. The Maritimes were much smaller than the US colonies at the time and hence more dependent on mother Britain. Quebec was just taken over during the 7 Years War, and were at this time quite happy with the British concessions. The rest of Canada was very VERY sparsely populated. Ontario ended up being settled mostly by Loyalists fleeing the revolution as well, contributing to the pro-British policy in Canada. Hope this helps!Newfoundland joined Canada midnight, March 31, 1949 _URL_5_', "Halifax would have been hella hard to invade; It is a major port, so would have been filled with navy ships. Had and still has a huge fortification beyond almost anything else in North America and the main industry was the British Military. Many royals hung around here for years at a time. Basically Halifax would be the Green Zone for the British Army/Navy. The rest of Nova Scotia would not really be worth it and easily retaken from Halifax. But they did do things like move the Capital of New Brunswick way inland from the coast to Fredericton out of fear of an American invasion. Quebec would have been sort of the same, huge fortification so hard to invade. I don't think the French of the time had any love for the British so I am surprised that they didn't rebel; but maybe they didn't see any difference between the two groups of English types. As for the rest of Canada there wasn't any; even Ontario only got a real population when all the loyalists needed somewhere to go after they lost.
Why isn't Google Fiber expanding faster? Is it not performing? Are people not switching service as fast as they anticipated?
First of all, it's prohibitively expensive to lay down new fiber. That's why you don't see other companies jumping at the opportunity. Even for the legacy cable providers it's more cost effective to raise prices on existing infrastructure than to improve it. It takes some deep pockets and a large investment to roll out fiber and you won't see a return on that investment for several years. Secondly, they have to get approval from the local governments where they are trying to deploy fiber. They need permits to bury the lines or use the poles from a multitude of places. Sometimes they are willing to cooperate, other times not. There's not much Google can do when a local government says no, except lobby. Thirdly, they face resistance from legacy cable providers who have entrenched themselves in their areas of operation. Many times they own the poles that Google is trying to use and refuse to let them use it. Other times they bribe local governments and write bills for them to pass to prohibit competition from deploying to their area. Sounds illegal? It's lobbying! And if neither of those tactics work, they'll launch PR smear campaigns to turn the public against the competitor or try to lock customers into binding multi-year contracts with steep termination fees. Basically the most shady things you can think that aren't illegal. It's basically an uphill battle, up the side of a mountain..at a 90 degree angle.
As a shy person, how come it's easy to socialize with little kids but with people my age I feel uncomfortable and shy.
I feel this way too but with people who are older than me. Always got along better with my parents' friends rather than their kids.Socializing might be difficult for individuals due to a sense of inferiority to others, confidence is important. You have fears of regret, exposing yourself, being vulnerable by opening up puts you at risk being wrong and embarrassing yourself. With children, the risk is nearly zero. Kids are below us as adults, we are just better than they are and it's not hard to be confident in that. They might be smart even for their age, but they will never be our level until they invest a few more years learning as they should. With adults, you're vulnerable to being proven wrong or being viewed as the bad guy. We all have different fears that take priority in conversation, for you it might not be fear of being wrong but saying the wrong things, who knows. Adults are our competition, our competition , who we are compared to when judging where we are in life. As social creatures, no matter how ridiculous this all is to us on paper, some of us are just wired to care a bit more than we should. Work on your confidence and suddenly talking to a higher level of "competition" will suddenly be less overwhelming. Learn to forgive your imperfectness and to observe other's flawscould it be that their social skills are not quite fully developed yet as a full adults would be such as yourself? You therefore feel more at ease because you have more confidence in your ability to say the right things to them.Because you probably know it doesn't matter what kids think of you. You will never be good friends with them so you probably don't care for their approval.
Why do humans develop so much slower than other animals?
A bunch of people here have the basic answer correct. I just want to add on a little more detail to flesh out these good answers. Humans don't actually develop much more slowly than other animals; we're just born way too early. We have to be because of the size of our heads. Human gestation period is 21 months. Prior to 21 months, we're still at a stage of development analogous to in-utero development in other animals. Once we pass 1 year old we're at the point where most other animals are born at, and when you take this into account human development is pretty much right in line with other animals; 1 year old is when we start to be able to walk and talk, of course with individual variation.
Why do we believe that aliens are smarter than us?
It's not that *all* aliens will be smarter than us, it's that any we'd be able to detect would have to be more advanced than us. Any alien species that is able to travel to the Earth would have objectively more advanced technology than we do. Our current level of technology is barely enough to visit other planets in our solar system & that's an incredibly expensive & time-consuming task. Aliens able to fly here would be far beyond that level of technology. If all we find from them are radio signals, it's a safe bet that they're more advanced than us as well. A society able to send radio waves is going to be at least equal to our level of technology. Given the massive distances between the stars - the nearest planets are still hundreds of light years away - that means they've got a head start on us & are that much more advanced than us. There's no way to prove anything since we've never seen signs of alien life, it's just simple logic.
What's the difference between the alcohol we drink vs. the alcohol we use as mouthwash?
My SO is a chemistry major and could answer this for you quite well if she wasn't asleep but just in case no one replies I'll answer with what little I do know: Alcohol is a general term and there are several different types. The alcohol you drink is ethanol. The same ethanol is in mouthwash, but in very low quantities. I went through rehab many, many years ago with some alcoholics that would chug mouthwash off of grocery store shelves when they were really hard up. But you have to drink so much it will end up just making you sick. Also, the ethanol they use as biofuel is the same that you would drink, but they add stuff to make you sick so people won't just drink it. Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol and is actually incredibly poisonous. That stuff can straight up kill you. There's also methanol which is sometimes what gets created when people try to make moonshine. Also poison. Causes brain damage, blindness, etc. An old-school trick to check your moonshine is to burn some. Blue flame is safe yellow flame is bad . Source: alcoholic. I hope someone with better credentials chimes in and clears this all up. But if not, just remember not to drink anything you don't purchase from a proper liquor store. :) Edit: Ethanol = Ethyl Alcohol. Methanol = Methyl Alcohol.
Why are beauty pageants for little girls even legal and accepted by society?
I honestly think the only answer that would provide insight would have to come from someone who actually believes pageants are acceptable. The TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras shows how much commitment and money parents sink into those pageants so they obviously believe they're getting something beneficial out of them. They do teach the children involved some form of discipline and persistence .
How can Banksy manage to stay completely anonymous all of these years?
I'm just awaiting the day when he lets himself be caught and people realize it was Nicholas Cage all along.
How could Mt. Gox lose $478 million dollars in bitcoins, almost everything they had, and not realize it?
They were founded as a Magic The Gathering Online Exchange before they decided to be a Bitcoin exchange. Which is how they got the name MtGox. Bitcoin blew up and they weren't experts in security. They had no business handling the large amounts of money they had. Easy target for hackers. _URL_1_", 'Each bitcoin transaction has an ID number. This is much like a Cheque number on a normal cheque. Its really easy to change this number for bitcoin transactions, and so you could withdraw your bitcoins, MtGox sends you a "Cheque" with no. 102. You then change this to read No.132 and cash it. The cheque is still valid, so it goes through. MtGox then notice no cheque No.102 was cashed, and so re-issue it to you. In this way you get twice as many bitcoins out as you should have. How they didn't notice this was going on for several years, however, is a mystery! Or they did notice, and panicked and didn't know what to do and kept it secret.how do we know they didn't just store away the bitcoins for themselves?
How more CPU cores improve performance
More cores can help improve performance because work can be done in parallel instead of a linear fashion that said you wont always see an increased performances for two reasons. One not all things can be worked on in a parallel nature some things just have to be done in a linear fashion and two some programs aren't designed to take advantage of multiple cores so they might not see a benfit overall. At the OS level though threads or process get spread out over cores to try and provide an even work load so it is better in general to have more cores at least up to a certain point.
Regular vs Premium vs Ultimate gasoline
**Short version: read the manual for your car. It will have a recommended grade. Use that.** Anything higher and you're wasting your money unless you have a high-performance turbocharged car that can advance spark anything lower and you're wasting your money by either wearing the car out prematurely or reducing fuel economy by having the engine computer retard spark .I think it is important to note that there is not actually such a thing as mid grade fuel. At all gas stations there is a tank of premium fuel and regular fuel . The mid grade is created by running both the premium and regular pumps at the same time. The mix happens in the lines at the gas station. Source:_URL_0_ I have also visited the manufacturing floor where gas pumps our made, it was a neat experienceWhile most posts about the octane rating are correct. I didn't notice anyone mentioning how they get there. "Regular
If a country such as North Korea were to launch a nuke at South Korea, Japan, or the US, is there anyway for it to be stopped before detonation?
Yup, basically the country detects it and sends it's own missles out to blow it up in air Isreal's doing it as we speak in the isreal/gaza conflict: _URL_1_
How is it possible to have unknown elements on the periodic table where the atomic number is known but not the actual element?
Chemistry is, essentially, complicated physics. The rules that determine the properties of the elements chemically are true regardless of the element, which makes them somewhat predictable. We know that elements with such and such full electron shells will bond in this way and elements with more atomic mass will behave that way. We know how the strong and weak nuclear forces work - more or less - so we know how stable larger atomic masses should be. And we've done it before - guessing the properties of an element before it was isolated or synthesized, and then confirmed those properties when we found the element. So we can populate the periodic table with unknown elements that we haven't yet synthesized because we know what they *should* be like. However, our guesses are not *entirely* accurate. There are still surprises. While it's not likely that a large element would be stable, exactly how unstable an element is can't be known for sure until we observe it. It might react slightly differently than we predicted. Observing where our predictions don't match reality is where we learn more about the laws of physics! Also, by international convention, an element can't be named until it's observed. Elements are given placeholder names until then, and the person that first observes the element gets to name it.
Is the electricity from the lighter in my car essentially free?
As long as you can get someone else to pay for the gas in your car, then sure, it's free.
In India, what happens if lower caste person becomes suddenly rich?
[There are plenty of stories about this.] Many younger Indians don't really believe in the caste system, but plenty of people still treat a rich dalit as a dalit despite his wealth.
Why did pirates get scurvy but Eskimos don't
Eskimo's also got so much Vitamin D from seal meat they didn't have to develop the pale skin of other other people so far north.Narwhals. Their blubber is the best source of vitamin C in the arctic. Pound for pound comparable to orangesYou only need 6-10mg a day of vitamin c to prevent scurvy. Various animals and organs in the Eskimo diet had vitamin c in itI remember seeing a documentary where Inuits were hunting narwhal; their blubber has as a high a vitamin C content as oranges apparently!', "[This guy] Says it's the fat, [gotta get the fat.]
Why do unions protect bad workers?
The main reason is that the union doesn't want management to have free rein deciding which workers are bad. Otherwise, they could fire people for not performance related reasons wrong race, wrong religion, about to vest a pension, pointed out safety issues, filed a labor grievance, or just because a manager didn't like them. Unions defending workers creates some due process that ensure people only get fired for the right reasons. Or at least in theory it does. Also, there is no real downside to protecting bad workers. The union keeps a dues paying member around, leadership looks good to the membership and gets to throw their weight around with management. A bad worker doesn't affect their bottom line.
What the hell is going on in India right now?
Someone turned the cameras onto the day-to-day travesties. It's fun to tut-tut at other people's mistakes, so these cases are making our news. The frequency of reported rape cases to the U.N. is 27/100k in the U.S. versus 2/100k in India. But people prefer news that stops at a certain level of truth, and that line is usually *observation* and stops before the realm of *analysis*. Basically, even if more bad shit is being reported in India, that's probably a better thing than not hearing about it at all. A really good thing would be if the news was talking about places having an absence of something bad, but that doesn't get pageviews. Merry Christmas. edit: and yes, I do consider this to be a succinct analysis of the situation for ELI5. I would like if the world taught children this way.
Why do we just throw away aluminum foil? It seems odd we produces massive amounts of metal and just use it in a disposable manner. How is this economical?
Aluminum in its elemental form used to be extremely rare. Hundreds of years ago aluminum would be more valuable than gold and silver. The Bayer and Hall processes were key in making it accessible to everyday life by refining it from ore. This is a very energy intensive process and it is estimated that it takes up between 10% and 20% of ALL electricity in the US. Essentially it takes a giant load of electricity to zap the raw metal out of the rock containing it found in the wild. Now in terms of recycling Al foil, there isn't a massive amount of Al present in terms of your food wrappings. If you were to consider how little there is on an entire roll of Al foil you would see that while it looks like you're throwing away a lot of Al, it is actually mostly air. Recycling Al is done quite commonly and is a very efficient process compared to making new metal but this is not done for foil. The alloy used for aluminum foil is very low in quality and isn't worth the hassle in many cases. You can see for example at your local metal processing plant that they will pay you for your old Al cans but they won't pay you for your Al foil. However, they may recycle it anyway there so it's worth bringing.It's not "massive amounts of metal". Think about how heavy metal is. Then lift an entire roll of foil. Still pretty light. It's a very small amount of metal. Also, it is recyclable. We throw away thousands of times weight-wise of plastics, etc.My mother, who went through the great depression, washes the foil , and flattens it out and reuses it at least one more time. Waste not, want not.
How severe are "Lashes" as a punishment, like the ones given out in Saudi Arabia?
I saw videos of amateur Saudi lashing: A well-dressed young punk struck a garbage collector who was brought to tears by it, partially I think due to pain but also frustration. On the other hand, a kid tried it on a different garbage collector and this guy fought back. A third story is some kid threw a brick and paralyzed another foreign worker and the kid's dad had to pay for medical treatment for the rest of the worker's life. Saudi Arabia sounds like a very different country.I gotta say, I think the Singapore approach to lashes is a good one. We have so many people in jail that would be better served by a swift punishment that would be meted out immediately after the crime.
Why can we not make an electric vehicle that recharges itself indefinitely as it rolls, like with alternators in each wheel?
Heat loss mainly. Friction. Gravity. BS for the bot: the energy produced by the alternator will be less than the energy that caused the wheel to turn in the first place, thus you're in a continual energy deficit. Unless the car only went downhill. But the answer is really the one-liner.
Why is it not okay for actors/actresses to portray someone of a different race, but it is okay for them to portray someone with a disability?
Who said it's not okay for an actor to portray someone of a different race? Jake Gylenhall was definitely not Persian but he still played the Prince of Persia.
Why do some plants have defense mechanisms like poison ivy and gympie gympie (called the suicide plant because it's so painful) and others don't?
Because of evolution. They don't choose what their defense system is. Random mutations happen to the plant and if the plant lives that mutation lives on. The poison ivy plant had it's mutation and it helped it live over other plants that didn't get the mutation. Grass on the other hand had mutations to reproduce quicker. This causes it to live long enough to put more grass out keeping it from becoming extinct. Many trees had a mutation to have fruit. This worked to let animals carry its seeds via poop.Many plants have chemical defense mechanisms, most geared towards insects. Poison ivy other members of the *Toxicodendron* genus happen to contain urushiol which humans are particularly sensitive to. It is less about it being potent, and more about us being allergic to it. Other animals, like deer and bear, can eat it with no problemsSome plants *try* to be eaten well, they want their fruit to be eaten at least, which helps seeds spread when animals carry and/or poop them somewhere else. In areas with lots of vegetation, it's likely that animals eating the plants isn't a big deal. Even deer eating leaves won't kill an individual plant if there are tons of others for it to eat from. Only with the right balance of: Animals that will eat "important" parts of the plant, combined with a scarcity of resources to regrow, and a scarcity of other plants to divert attention away from each plant does it become a big enough problem that plants develop needles or poison defenses like you mention.
Why Doesn't Gravity Have an Opposite, Like the Other Fundamental Forces?
Gravity is proportional to a thing's energy and the way we've defined energy is that it's not possible to be negative. The gist is that the more energy, the less space there is around the object so it seems like objects get pulled closer. Other answers tackle the nitty gritty of why it's going on pretty well. But the reason there's no antigravity, at least according to general relativity, is because the definition says so and we've no cases otherwise. And that XKCD is mostly about how we don't have a good quantum model for gravity, which makes it hard to play nice with the rest of standard model physics. It does seem to work differently from the other fundamental interactions, in that it doesn't really have nice, clean quantum bookkeeping to thank. Energy is a relatively complicated thing that arises from a bunch of sources, all of which gravity cares about. Meanwhile the other interactions have a small collection of quantum numbers to describe what's going on and for the most part don't care about one another.
Scientists claim it is more hygienic to lick the toilet seat than bite your nails. Is this true?
I'm not sure about your fact as presented, but here is the thought process. Your fingernails are next to your skin , and are a porous material, with lots of little groves and holes. Your skin is even worse. As a bonus, your fingernails are hard to wash, so unlike your hands , bacteria which get under your fingernails are going to stay there for a longer period of time. Compare to a toilet seat which are exposed and non-porous. Any bacteria there doesn't have a good place to hang out, and so they don't stay there long, are easily cleaned away. There is little moisture, too, so even if these surfaces aren't cleaned, bacteria could stay there, but not grow there. The area around the drain of your sink? Moist, with cracks where the metal parts join? Gross. The sponge that cleans the kitchen counters? Gross, even if it 'gets washed' with soap and water many times a day. Never use a sponge on your dishes. Same with a towel. Your kitchen floor is way cleaner than either of these locations. Drop a cookie on a tile floor? Probably safe - five seconds or three minutes rules apply. Drop a cookie on the carpet? Probably toast, even if picked up instantly. Drop a cookie on the bottom of the kitchen sink? Definitely toast.
How does spinning help exchange heat?
It basically just allows you to increase the surface area of the can that's exposed. So if you have a warm can and drop in an ice bath, the can will gradually warm up the water around it. Eventually that warmer layer of water creates like a layer of insulation, so the can cools slower. But if you shake it around and mix up the water, you're exposing it to more cool water, which will then start to warm up until you mix it again. So this device just overcomes that process by continually cycling it so there's always a fresh layer of ice cold water exposed.
Why can't I harm anyone in dreams?
I dunno. I've killed thousands of people in my dreams.The trick to harming people in dreams is to sleep in a bed with someone else. The other night I was fighting ninjas and, next thing I know, I'm awake in my bed and my girlfriend's all like *"You punched me in the face, asshole!"*', "Sounds to me like you've got a natural aversion to violence. No problem, really, except for when you really want to punch someone in your dreams. As for me, I've punched thousands in my dreams.
How hard would it be to purposely forget your native language?
If you're a kid who grows up in a country or family that uses a different language other that your native language, extremely easy. There is an entire generation of kids last named Sanchez and Martinez in the US who don't know a lick of Spanish.
Why people find beer delicious and refreshing.
Everyone has a different palate. I love beer, but I don't like cheese. People talk about how much they love cheese, but I just don't get it. Same goes with cilantro, I can't stand the stuff. To each their own. My advice to you would be to find a drink that you do like and enjoy it.
How come NFL has basically no following outside the US?
Your claim that nobody outside of the US is the least bit interested in the NFL just isn't true. While it's true the NFL is most popular in the US, a recent poll by the Independent suggests a non-US NFL fandom in the tens of millions. Well over 20 million Mexicans described themselves as NFL fans, with Brazil coming in second with nearly as many. NFL is huge here in Canada, rivaling and in many places exceeding the popularity of the CFL. There's also millions of NFL fans in South Korea, Spain, the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Australia. As well, a number of regular season games are regularly held outside of the US — usually Canada or England, and next season in Mexico. EDIT: typo
Why our voices go up in pitch when asking a question
As people have said, this is a culturally specific cue that signals the question without verbal markers. However I'm pretty sure it isn't just english that uses it. It's the same in Italian, therefore probably more languages as well.
whatever happened to Esperanto?
Yeah, it was never really big. It had a decent-sized following -- almost a cult-following kind of thing, but it never really took off. The thing is, it wasn't really needed. There were already languages that are immensely popular and understood in vast portions of the world. When not, there are interpreters. What's more, while Esperanto is *extremely* easy to learn for people who speak languages like Spanish and English, it does *not* offer the same ease to people who speak languages like Mandarin or Cantonese. It's basically a nice idea, but incredibly hard to implement, and not incredibly necessary.