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[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How can the same dose of a drug be OTC and RX at the same time?"
] | Bureaucracy and regulatory capture. Generic preparations of OTC drugs still have to pass FDA scrutiny. In this case Miralax, the brand name did all the work (or maybe had lunch with the right people) to get FDA approval for OTC sales before the generic manufacturer did. For a period of time the brand name manufacturer can end up being able to sell the product OTC before any generic manufacturer can. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the symbolic fear represented by dead young girls in the movies (e.g. The Ring)"
] | Because children are innocent, loved and protected while adults can be monsters. Having a young girl who we see as innocent (white dress come on...) murdering people is out of the realms of our reality and hence shit's fucked. Like when you see an young girl, you'll be like awwww. Then when her head starts to form, you're like awww shit. Where as an adult stood in front of you doing nothing, you're already on guard. Having an adult ghost is just the norm, "meh some people are more scarier than that" mentality. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why does time seem to move quicker when I'm occupied?"
] | The prevailing theory is that, when a brain is occupied with a task, then it has to spread its resources, leaving little to spend focused on the passing of time. However, if nothing in particular is occupying our conscious brain, it takes more notice of the time ticking by. The funny thing is, this slower vision is thought to be the more accurate perception of reality. It isn't about danger vs safety. It's about how much of our brain power is devoted to the passing of time, and how much to other things. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does a group like the Illuminati , who were originally a group of free thinkers from the 1700's now be accused of trying to take over the world?"
] | Humans love to see patterns. Think about constellations, it's just a bunch of stars. Now think about millions of people thinking about why the world is the way it is. In particular, why does the world seem unfair. Given enough time, people find reasons, even if they are not real. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How a company can trademark a single word and prevent the word being used in anything?"
] | Trademarks are not that broad. They can only prevent a word from being used in a similar product line close enough to the original to cause confusion. So the "Sky TV" trademark going against "No Man's Sky" videogame is not actually close enough to cause confusion so they will not win a case trying to go after them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What would happen if we were more transparent with our national security plans?"
] | If we say, "Russia can have the Ukraine and one of the little Baltic countries before we're mad enough to send over an army" that's an invitation to an adversary to commit mischief. It's like going to a negotiation and saying "I'll pay $12.32", you disclose your position without probing to find your adversary's position. What if he'd have sold it for $9.73? You left a lot of money on the table. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't animals pull their muscles when exerting themselves?"
] | IamA veterinarian. Animals over exert themselves all the time. My favorite example is the guy who came to see me for lameness in his 10yr old dog. He was a college student visiting home for the holidays and, the day before I saw him, decided to take the elderly, homebody Huskie for a 10 mile run. He's lucky she was only sore. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does an e-reader screen flicker so badly on each refresh?"
] | There are two reasons for this. The pixels of an e-reader is based on the physical movement of the pigments to the back or the front of the screen. These pigments can get stuck just like an old etch & sketch. To prevent this the e-reader will flicker the screen to get the pigments unstuck. The other reason is that to keep the cost and the power drain down it is fitted with a slow CPU and memory. Typesetting and display processing is rather expensive processes that requires some processing power to do. The slow CPU may take some time to render the next page for you. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Does your stomach stop telling you that you are hungry based on the weight of food you have eaten, the volume of it or something else?"
] | The cue to stop eating is a combination of several factors. 1) Blood sugar reaching a certain level. Your blood sugar starts going up fairly quickly when you start to eat. Once you get to some minimal levels that is one signal that you have eaten enough. 2) Volume. Your stomach knows how full it is and it will signal that you are done eating when it reaches a "full" volume. This is somewhat variable though and you can train your stomach to think different volumes are full. People with anorexia or who just eat small meals will get full faster because they have trained their stomachs to not stretch much before sending full signals. Meanwhile professional contest eaters will train their stomachs to not send full signals till they have eaten an absurd amount of food. A trick to lose weight is to drink an extra glass of water at the beginning of a meal to up stomach volume so you eat less. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we need surround sound, when we only have 2 ears? Alternatively: how do I know a sound is coming from the front or back from me?"
] | You seem to understand that the ears can localize sounds based on the slight delay it takes to get to the near ear and the far ear. In cases where there is no delay - something in front or behind you - there are other mechanisms. The shape of your ear filters out different frequencies of sound differently, and it also filters sound in front and behind differently as well. Not only that, other ambient factors - such as sound reflecting off walls, can give clues that your brain can pick up on. This is one of the reasons it's sometimes hard to localize sounds with earbuds - you've bypassed the filtering effect your outer ear has. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does the Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) work?"
] | Works in the same way as greasemonkey scripts; RES is javascript that alters the html returned from the server. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why USA cant seem to adopt the model of national health service present in every other western country?"
] | The main thing is that Americans tend to have a fundamentally different relationship with our government than most other western nations. Most other nations tend to view their governments as positive forces that are there to help take care of society. Americans tend to view government as something inherently inefficient and intrusive into our lives. Recall the old Ronald Reagan quote, ""The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" A great number of people believe that. So, the result is that while most other nations debate and argue about how the government should manage health care, Americans are debating and arguing about whether it's even the government's job to manage health care at all. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Just saw this and can't get my head around it: \"When you are moving away from a person, their perception of time's effect on you is slower.\" Anyone care to explain?"
] | It's like what happens when you hear a car pass by. You know the sound that it makes, it goes a bit like "heeeeeeee-yooooooou" the "he" part being when it's coming at you, and the "you" part when it's moving away from you? The sound you hear is speeded up when it's coming at you, resulting in the "he" (higher pitched) sound. And when it's moving away from you the sound is slowed down, resulting in the (lower pitched) "you" sound. The same thing that happens here with sound, also happens with light. So when something is moving away from you, the *image* is slowed down, and when it's moving toward you, the *image* is speeded up. Because light moves a lot faster than sound, though, you'd have to go *really* fast to notice this effect on the image. *edit: I like how I'm being downvoted, yet no one has improved my answer. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't women catcall men?"
] | Women are not encouraged to express their sexuality in the same way as men in our culture. Women actually having lots of sex or otherwise finding too many men attractive is frowned upon (the term "slut shaming" is used to describe this). |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"I have O-Negative blood, I can donate to anyone in the world, but only another O-Negative can donate to me in emergency. Why?"
] | Your blood is special because it lacks any of the common markers which would make a body unused to them react with force from the immune system. The downside is that your body is accustomed to blood without any of these markers, and will identify blood with any of them as foreign and react accordingly. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do people invest in gold and silver?"
] | Personally, I do it to diversify. Gold and silver have held value throughout time, but who knows what will happen to various markets? & nbsp; I know that in the past, people flocked to it to hedge against inflation. So if inflation is at 10% that means your money is losing value every year, so you bought gold to prevent your cash from losing value. EDIT: clarifying the point |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why do new airplanes still have ashtrays in the bathroom?"
] | If someone violates the no smoking rule you want to ensure they have a good place to put out the cigarette. If they put it in the trash can and a fire starts at 38,000 feet then everyone is dead [CNN did an article about this earlier this year(warning autoplay)](_URL_0_) and it is required by law that US airplanes have ashtrays in the bathroom title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, chapter I, subchapter C, part 25, subpart D, section 25.853, paragraph g > Regardless of whether smoking is allowed in any other part of the airplane, lavatories must have self-contained, removable ashtrays located conspicuously on or near the entry side of each lavatory door Plus, smoking isn't banned on airlines in all countries, there are still airlines buying new planes on which smoking is permitted. Boeing and Airbus like to ship some standard interiors to reduce engineering costs |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is anxiety? Is there actually something going on in the brain or body during high levels of anxiety or is just some fabricated excuse for people to be wimps?"
] | > Is it actually a real thing? Yup. > Is the mind and body having something happen to it during an "anxiety attack"? If you've seen someone having a panic attack, you would notice them sweating, shaking, out of breath, and they can feel their heart beating as well as struggling to breath and choking. Psychologically, they feel fear, anxiety and even a sense of detachment from the world. In the more serious cases, too much anxiety is a medical condition and is treated with talk therapy and medication. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come solid state drives (SSDs) are mostly only available at storage spaces of 64, 128, 256gb and hard drives are available at more \"rounded\" spaces like 150, 500, 600gb, etc.?"
] | HDD and SSDs have different architectures. If they were a type of lego, HDD are build with a load of pieces of length one. You can put them together to make larger pieces of arbitrary length to the people who make them go for nice round numbers (500Gb, 1000Gb, 2Tb etc). SSDs have pieces that are cheaper and easier to make in length two. Not only that, but it's cheaper and easier to make a piece of length 4 than is is to make 2 pieces of length 2. That scales up in powers of 2 so 1 piece that's 128 long is cheaper than 2 pieces 64 long and way way cheaper than 64 pieces that are 2 long. The difference is so big that a 512Gb SSD is probably an order of magnitude cheaper than a 500Gb one because that would require the following pieces, 1x256, 1x128, 1x64,1x32,1x16 and 1x4. edit: spelling |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do smartphones that run multi-core cpus stay cool with such a compact design and zero airflow?"
] | Most smartphone CPUs are ARM based, which are designed to run cool and use a small amount of energy. Per Mhz, those ARM cpus will provide less computational than an x86 CPU of the same speed. But the power consumption and heat generation will be much lower. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Once a cyst or abcess is removed from the body, if left alone do they continue to grow?"
] | If put in the appropriate solution. Otherwise no, it doesn't have the access to energy necessary for the cells to do anything, the cells making it up will die. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does pain linger?"
] | He aching or lingering pain after an injury is due to inflammation from the damaged tissue. This gets picked up by c-fibers which only detects the aching or burning pain sensation. Source: Dental student |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"how Empire building nations historically justified what they were doing and why they were right or wrong?"
] | Spainish-spreading the glory of god British: ["White Man's Burden"](_URL_0_)- the civilized peoples of the world are responsible for bringing *civilization* to the rest of the world. Ottoman: They were the heir apparent to take on the Muslim cause in the longstanding Islam Vs. Christendom feud. Solidifying Arab and other now Muslim lands under their control would keep them under Islamic rule. 2nd Reich: Uniting all German speaking peoples 3rd Reich: Purging Europe of the lesser races, installing a new world order |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What caused the switch from doctors doing home visits to the modern doctors office?"
] | If you keep the doctor in one place, he can spend more of his valuable time actually seeing patients rather than driving between potentially distant patient houses. Having patients drive to the doctor means the doctor gets to see more patients. Some countries (like France) still do paid doctor housecalls, but that isn't what most of their citizens do. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why won't YouTube fix the issue of saving the video quality even though it's the number one complaint they get?"
] | You mean when you start a new video? It's becomes HD every time I enter full screen. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Polynesian people look very different from East Asian people, yet are hypothesized to have expanded out of East Asia only a few thousand years ago. How have the come to look so strikingly different, so quickly?"
] | Polynesians are thought to be descended from Taiwanese aborigines or Formosan people of Taiwan, which are a different ethnic group from the Han Chinese which mostly populate Taiwan today. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Is there a limit to the largest nuclear bomb mankind can create? If so, why?"
] | The only limits we know of are cost and that a bomb will blow itself up before all the nuclear material can be used. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why sometimes when I lie on my bed and breathe in I feel sharp pain at my left lung preventing me from breathing in fully?"
] | That is a very good question. I have the same problem |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do (online) scalpers get their tickets before everyone else, when everyone else seems to be struggling?"
] | There are computer programs that will automatically buy the tickets quicker than any human can. The scalpers use these. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What can high-profile law firms do to win cases that smaller law firms can't?"
] | I once cleaned the offices of a local law firm, fairly successful, but quite small. In one room was their records. Apparently they had a case against Coca Cola. There were well over 100 3" binders FULL of paperwork dedicated to this ONE case. I am talking bookshelves FULL of binders labeled "X versus Coca Cola". I can only imagine what would happen if a large company with more staff dedicated an equal percentage of effort to a case. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do mutual fund fees work?"
] | Your broker might charge you a fee to put money in or take it out of the fund, although a lot of the major brokers that offer their own funds (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard) offer many free funds. Then the fund has an "expense ratio"--you pay this percentage of your total investment every year. Think of it as going straight off the profit or loss for that year: if the fund's value went up 6%, but your expense ratio is 1%, your net gain is 5%. If the value went down 6%, you still have to pay the fee, so your loss is 7%. This means that expense ratios can make a big difference to your returns, and many people recommend finding mutual funds with low fees. Some mutual funds have artificially low expense ratios because some of its expenses are subsidized by the parent company. They should disclose this. As an investor, that usually doesn't concern you. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why would IS want to blow up Mecca's Grand Mosque?"
] | From discussions with friends and reading random things about the situation, what I gather is that they are intending to bring about the apocalypse. Basically, and this is from my limited understanding of the situation, there are prophecies that say that the temple will fall before the end of days and a new one built in its place. This is one event in a chain of things that are supposed to happen when the world ends. I hope my assumptions and facts aren't too off base. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Does the body absorb every calorie? If I overeat like crazy will some of it just 'flow through' me or will it all be stored?"
] | Some calories remain in partially digested food that exits your body in stool. But not enough to counterbalance the energy equation. If you overeat a lot, *most* of it will be stored in adipose tissue. The human body is very good at banking up energy reserves for a rainy day. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do I feel bad after masturbating?"
] | It's a lot of different things adding up. A lot of cultures have stigmatized self-pleasure (or sometimes any kind of pleasure at all) to be considered shaming. In addition, you may have some level of body shame/self-esteem issue. Finally, if you climax, there is a release of hormones afterwards that can cause you to have mood swings. So a mood swing on top of cultural pressure to feel shame = "you feel bad." |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Can someone explain what FEMA camps are, and why people are so afraid of them?"
] | Many people are afraid that FEMA may eventually lock up people just for disagreeing with the government, ala political prisoners or dissidents. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What's the whole issue with Hobby Lobby?"
] | The Justices held that under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that certain for-profit corporations were able to hold religious beliefs and could apply to be exempt from providing select contraceptive coverage mandated in the ACA (Obamacare). The Democrats/Left have built a narrative around the decision that it is another example of the right-wing's "war on women" and that the decision is essentially allowing bosses to impose their personal beliefs on their workers. People seem to be responding to that narrative and its obviously upsetting some people. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is gambling illegal? (in america)"
] | The reason its not legal in most states is the assumption that it attracts crime and other undesirable elements to the area. While casinos and other forms of gambling are very profitable for those running it, and the state that taxes it, all that money is coming out of the pockets of average people, increasing the possibility that people will gamble themselves into debt and turn to loan sharks and the like, some of which have ties to criminal organizations. The feeling of most lawmakers and voters tends to be that its just not worth it, since there are other ways increase revenue that don't come with these potential side effects. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How is masochism possible when pain isn't supposed to be pleasing, but warning us?"
] | Hi there. To put it simply, we cant control pain itself but we *can* control how we respond to it. Thats a physical reason. Psychologically, you cant really make many broad generalizations about masochists, or anyone really. Some masochists endure because it reminds them they are alive and helps them to focus on being content with being alive, some genuinely enjoy pain itself and actively force themselves to regard it as pleasure through small incremental steps, some enjoy the state of numbness one can achieve when so much pain is inflicted that the area just doesnt get stimulated by anything afterwards. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do pathologists tolerate the odor of decomposition?"
] | People can get used to pretty much anything. I'm a medic and smell decomposition frequently. It stinks, but I'll take that over C.diff any day. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are people allowed to be racist towards their own race?"
] | Most people are not self-hating, so when you say something about your own race, it's much more likely to be construed either as a joke, or as a constructive criticism. Saying something about another race will sound much less like constructive criticism. "We Chinese have a bad reputation for being boorish tourists, and we need to examine our own behavior in order to treat foreign destinations with the proper respect they deserve." "Those Chinese have a bad reputation for being boorish tourists, and they need to examine their behavior in order to treat our tourist destinations with the proper respect they deserve." See how each sentence sounds? |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we sweat, even when not being physically active, at 30ºC?"
] | your body temp is 37° because it's permanently cooled down. you're burning sugar in your cells continuously, increasing your body temperature. unfortunately your organs are very sensitive to overheating, so your body must make sure that your temp doesn't raise (except for fever). imagine a running engine in a standing car. it produces heat all the time, and if you don't cool the engine actively it will overheat very fast. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What happens when the US government proves a monopoly or oligopoly exists? How is the law enforced?"
] | Contrary to popular belief, monopolies and oligopolies are not illegal. What is illegal is using monopoly powers in specifically described ways to stifle competition. For example, selling goods at less than cost to drive a competitor out of business is illegal, as is colluding with other companies to fix prices or territory. If a company is caught doing one of those things, it can face legal action. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Like most people, I do not suffer from OCD. So why do I experience compulsions?"
] | To be diagnosed with a mental disorder symptoms have to reach a certain degree that they interfere with everyday life. So you can have OCD traits without having OCD. Making sure the volume is on "5" isn't enough to get diagnosed, while washing your hands 100 times a day is, even if they're just a matter of degrees. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What are the historical reasons for which english cuisine is usually regarded as \"bad\" whereas french cuisine is usually regarded as \"good\"? (at least i think this is how we see it in the US..."
] | They were culturally different. Also under Napoleonic rule, France controlled almost all of continental Europe (but obviously not Britain) which allowed French chefs to experiment with ingredients from all around the continent. The short answer is simply that French chefs had the ingredients available and the cultural passion to elevate cuisine to higher levels than Britain had. It's not about skill it's about generations of tradition and availability of ingredients and culture. Brits love their curry though! Can find much better curry and Asian food in general in Britain than in France. Unrelated side note: Was in London last summer. Went past a noodle bar called "Phat Phuc" |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are humans \"human-sized\"?"
] | Evolution isn't conscious, intelligent design. It doesn't strive to make the perfect organism that just the right height and size - whatever species manage to have viable offspring is an evolutionary success, and some end up better than others, thrive in their enviroment and breed more. The average human is the size of the average human because those are the genes that have been passed along for hundreds of thousands of years. We've grown taller and taller as of late due to a vast improvement of diet - more people can eat their fill and thus reach their maximum potential height, whereas malnourishment previously stunted many people's growth. So, why the 5-6 foot range then? It's a good enough size, really. Small enough to stay energy efficient in times in hunger, big enough to chase after prey and kill them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does the word for 'mum/mother' sound so similar across nearly all languages?"
] | Äiti, haha, nënë, walida, unitsi, pia, hooyo... Your premise ("nearly all languages") is obviously false. Related languages, however, are likely to share some words - especially words that would be very old. English is related to a *lot* of languages through the Proto-Indo-European root language, from which *mother* derives, and from which Latin, Germanic, and Slavic languages get the word (and those three families cover the vast majority of modern Europe). |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do fruit flies \"magically\" appear?"
] | Fun fact: "Back in the day" people used to think that animals "magically appeared"; this concept was known as [spontaneous generation](_URL_0_). It was commonly thought that if a pile of dirty clothes was left laying around for too long it would spawn rats. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"what are the silica gels they put in new clothes and why are they telling me not to put it in my mouth?"
] | It dries stuff out. It is apparently an irritant but I don't see anything super dangerous in the [Material Safety Data Sheet](_URL_0_). It will not be pleasant though. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come the third rail on subway systems doesn't short circuit when it gets wet?"
] | 1. Water on the rail itself doesn't short circuit, as the rail is more conductive than the water. 2. The water doesn't bridge between the third rail and a suitable ground. It might drip off, but it won't form a continuous path like a wire very easily. 3. Water is an awful conductor, so outside of very high voltages such as lightning strikes, it doesn't tend to carry a charge very far. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How exactly does a transformator transform energy to a lower voltage?"
] | Do you mean a transformer? The EMF induced in the secondary coil is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through the coil. More loops means a higher magnetic field (and therefore flux) inside the secondary coil. Less coils means less flux and therefore less induced EMF. So in a step-down transformer, the primary coil has more loops than the secondary coil. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it legal for a police officer to lie to me about the law ?"
] | An example would be a police officer telling a person that filming them is illegal. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Seriously, how do cell phones work?!"
] | Sound energy becomes electricity and then the Tesla fairy takes it across the sky. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it sometimes a popular connotation to assume that attractive people are less intelligent than others?"
] | 2 Primary reasons: Anecdotal evidence, people thinking instances of it and generalizing. Compensation thinking... people seem to have an unfounded belief that strengths come with weaknesses. If someone's attractive, they must be stupid...or the opposite, if someone is smart they must be socially inept. The idea that some people are good without major drawbacks is uncomfortable to some people, it makes them feel better to assume the rich guy is unhappy or cruel or the pretty girl is an idiot. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why, if at all, is Putin a bad guy?"
] | Vladimir Putin has made Russia less democratic--he and his party intimidate political opponents and are suspected of several assassinations, and he has skirted around the term limits set by the Russian constitution by exchanging positions with Medvedev. On the international scene, he has behaved very aggressively, using military force to conquer parts of Georgia and Ukraine. These actions have not been good for Russia, which is reeling from the international sanctions that have been imposed on the country. So he's not even very good at being an autocrat. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Should ELI5 temporarily hide comment scores? We want your feedback."
] | I would be in favour of not implementing this. For the most part, I see posts upvoted when they are correct and give interesting additional information, and downvoted when they are spam or wrong. There are a few cases where this doesn't happen, but I would say that it is more advantageous for a poster to be able to look at the sole answer on their question, see that it is at -1 and conclude that it is likely wrong or not fully answering their question. I don't know the figures on how long the majority of threads stay active, but the ones that I normally answer are on the new page and don't stay alive after dropping of that first screen. An hour delay on seeing comment voting would be too long for this in my opinion. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"the Ohm rating on guitar amplifiers and why it's important..."
] | Imagine two bicycles, side by side. The first bike has the brakes stuck on. You can pedal it and move it, but it takes a lot of effort to do so. Then you hop onto the second bike. You expect it to be the same as the first bike, so you put a lot of power into pedalling. However, because this bike's resistance is so much lower, you get startled at how fast you zoom off, and lose control of the bike. Ohms are a unit for measuring electrical resistance, kind of like friction in the physical world. The first bike had a lot of resistance, so I could analogously say it had a high Ohm value. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why do some people's abs appear bloated or rounded?"
] | Growth hormone. Bodybuilders take them to get bigger but it doesn't just make muscles bigger. Organs grow too so their guts is basically pushing outwards behind the abs. Some will eventually need surgery because their insides tries to come out from their belly button. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How traffic lights work?"
] | In most cases they use a metal sensor in the ground that's under your car when you stop at a red light, that is connected to the streetlights to let them know there is a car there. At four way intersections as soon as you get on top of this sensor it tells the light that your way of traffic is the next to receive a green light. In this way it prioritizes the directions that have heavy traffic flow. Other types of traffic lights can be ones that are just set on a timer and switches at a set interval regardless of traffic flow. Edit: Im fairly certain i messed the uses of "there" in my response. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why we sometimes yell or make obnoxious noises when we stretch"
] | Everyone else in this thread is being mean, the reason we do it I would imagine is the same reason people moan during sex. That stretch feels fucking awesome |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does the pump at the gas station know when to turn off when your gas tank is full?"
] | If you look down the nozzle of a gas pump, you'd find there is a smaller tube, about the size of a straw, within the main tube. Gasoline goes through the main tube, the smaller one allows air to escape from the tank as it's displaced by the gasoline being pumped in. When liquid reaches this tube, it triggers the shut-off, as the level of gasoline must have reached the nozzle, which sticks a safe amount into the fuel filler tube. In certain conditions, similar to when you swallow and choke because it "went down the wrong tube", this may falsely trigger the shutoff even when the tank isn't full. Better to false stop than overfill, so no big deal. If it shuts off, and you keep pumping the handle to try and get a few more drops in, all you're doing is pumping gas back into that return tube. You're returning the gas to them and paying for it. Stop doing that. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If boiling water kills all the bacteria, where do the dead bacteria go?"
] | Nowhere. They stay in the water. The only difference is that if they're dead they pass right through you, whereas if they're alive, they're more inclined to infect you with whatever. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is the history of math so separated from math itself in education? Wouldn't it be more interesting if this weren't the case?"
] | Because it doesn't teach you math. Flip it around. Imagine you are studying literature but before you can get to the actual writing you have to spend 20 percent of the class on linguistics. Imagine you are studying medicine but spend part of the class learning the mechancs about how an mri works. Imagine taking a mechanics class and learning about the life and times of Henry ford. It's not relevant. It might inspire you but it doesn't teach you. But if it interests you, the Internet is available. _URL_0_ Edit: OP originally was talking about differential equations (college/university math). My answer would be different in the context of elementary or pre-calculus high school math. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does smoking a cigarette feel so much better after sex or a big meal than it does normally?"
] | Troll answer: You are 5. You shouldn't be smoking. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are some foods like eggs or pancakes considered breakfast foods in the US?"
] | You can feed your family whatever you want whenever you want. When I was a kid we did "breakfast for dinner" about once a week. Usually bacon, eggs, and biscuits. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are nerdiness and eyeglasses synonymous with one another? Is there a tangible link between intelligence and bad eyesight?"
] | The connection is the other way around, glasses, especially very thick framed one, tend to make you the target of bullying, as they are an easy target to ridicule and you are very helpless without them, making them ideal to steal and mock you with. (They also symbolise a flaw in your, your non-perfect eyesight, which is exploited in the same vein) Being ridiculed can make for a recluse and that can make people turn towards things that doesn't involve other people, like learning or video games. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How did the moon get there?"
] | The favored explanation for the formation of the moon is the "giant impact hypothesis", which posits that during the early formation of the solar system (about 4-4.5 billion years ago), a Mars-sized object called Theia formed at earth's L4/L5 lagrange points (same distance as Earth from the sun, but located 60 degrees in front of and behind the earth, in the same orbital plane). Gravitational tugs from Venus/Jupiter eventually sent Theia crashing into the young Earth at an oblique angle (a head-on glance would have destroyed earth), ejecting a huge amount of material into space that relatively quickly (less than a century) coalesced into the moon. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What does a virus or bacteria gain from making its host sick?"
] | Bacteria and viruses don't necessarily want their host sick, or even dead. Complications happen when the virus is in an organism it's not supposed to be in, and that organism isn't equipped to handle the virus. Rats carried the plague and were doing just fine, but when they jumped shipped and infected humans, they wiped out millions in the 14th century. It's the same with the influenza virus, and other viruses. Their goal is to multiply within their host for a while and then spread. Sometimes though, killing your host and exposing its fluids to other organisms is the best way to migrate. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Nearly every time you're going to download something, you're told your download will start in a few seconds, or alternately you can click a link to start it instantly. What's the purpose of this?"
] | It is convenient to have one computer drive the website, and another be just for downloading files, so it isn't unusual for the web server to hand off control to the file server. However, a lot of older browsers, and browsers with certain security settings are unable to execute the handoff properly, so a link is provided as a backup. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How is it safe and/or Legal for cops to drive while using the laptop in their patrol car but texting and driving is illegal?"
] | Few laws are absolute & many of them have specific exemptions. On duty police officers are allowed to ignore many traffic laws in the line of duty - speeding, running red lights, etc. - this is just another one. It's assumed that police are professional drivers & have received proper training as to when it's safe & appropriate to use electronic devices. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"NAT and Port Forwarding"
] | They are two different things, but they are related. When you use NAT, all devices behind the NAT device will appear as a single IP address. The outside world sees it as one thing. So, for someone outside trying to communicate with something behind the NAT device, it has no way of communicating specifically with that device. All it knows is that one public IP address. To fix this, you have port forwarding. What port forwarding does is tells the NAT device that all inbound communication on a specific port is meant for a specific device behind the NAT. So when it sees an inbound communication on that port, it will automatically forward that traffic to the private IP address you specified. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does my brain start paying attention to someone moments *before* they say something unusual?"
] | you have sorta short term memory for words, have you ever ran into situation where somebody asks HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING! and you werent, yet can say what they said. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does a hot shower make my skin dry?"
] | Moisture evaporates very readily from the skin, but a certain amount of moisture is retained by skin oils (technically called sebum) and a hot shower can wash away these oils. Skin moisturizer can replace them. I personally use Vaseline skin lotion, but only for the palms of my hands, the rest of my skin does OK on its own. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is \"bury\" pronounced as if theres an \"a\" in in it? Like \"berry\"."
] | Regional dialects. In my region the U is pronounced and we say "Burr-ee" I've also heard "Be-urr-ee" |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is the sound of someone snoring so annoying when we're trying to sleep?"
] | I imagine it's at least partly because the sound is irregular. Traffic, air conditioners, and rain are very rhythmic. Predictable sensory input is input that our brain ignores, which is why you only smell things for a short period of time. Snoring is jerky and hard to predict so you never adjust. I could also be wrong. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"G20 Hamburg summit, what it is, and why are people protesting it?"
] | The G20 is an organization of the 20 most powerful world leaders. They get together to talk about the issues that face the globe, touching on things from trade, to military action, to global climate change. Protestors are protesting for various reasons. - Some are angry that the US backed out of the Paris Climate Accord. - Some are angry that the world leaders aren't doing enough to tackle climate change. - Some are angry about specific trade policies. - Some are angry about capitalism in general. - Some are protesting human rights violations by certain G20 leaders. I could probably list 1,000 more reasons why people are protesting, but I think you get the point. The reasons for protesting span nearly all areas of the political climate, and there isn't necessarily a specific reason. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it that some parents children look extremley alike, and other parents children don't even look related?"
] | recessive genes my friend. My dad is 5'9", white, green eyes and brown hair, my mom is 5'5", black, hazel eyes and "burgundy" hair. I am 6'1" white blonde hair blue eyes. My D-grandma had a bunch of brothers over 6 foot and my M-grandma has blonde hair and blue eyes. Family portraits look hilarious, white guy and black lady had a porteguese boy, aryan boy, and mexican girl. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why does the site of a shot, such as flu or TDAP, hurt for hours after? It's not even a large needle."
] | The needle isn't the issue, the liquid injected into your muscle capsule is. It can be a matter of some pressure or discomfort, bruising and the like, or it can be a localized reaction to the substances being injected, sometimes an immune response. If someone stuck you with a needle and injected nothing, it would literally just be a pinprick. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How did worms get inside a mango seed if it didn't make any holes on the outside."
] | They burrow inside before the seed is fully matured. > The newly hatched larva is about 1 mm long and burrows through the pulp and into the seed where it will remain until it becomes an adult. Minimum time from hatching to seed penetration is one day. There are at least five larval instars in Hawaii. Larvae can penetrate the seed coat easier on younger fruit of all varieties, and apparently find entry impossible on mature seed of some varieties (e.g., Itamaraca). As the fruits mature, the tunnels are eliminated and it is not possible to distinguish between infested and non-infested seeds, unless they are cut open (Pertanian 2004). Assuming we're talking about mango seed weevil larvae. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why cant we just make up a number when we divide by 0 by 0"
] | You could define it to be anything you want, but such a definition isn't very useful. Suppose that you decided to define multiplication in such a way that zero has an inverse. Then for any number x you would have: x=x\*1 (multiplication by 1 has no effect) =x\*(0\*0^-1 ) (0*0^-1 =1 by assumption) =(x\*0^-1 )\*0 (multiplication is associative) =0 (anything multiplied by zero is zero) Therefore, if you allow zero to have an inverse, then either the only number in your set is zero (which is not particularly interesting), or you lose some of the other useful properties of addition and multiplication on real numbers. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do movies cost so much?"
] | Script writers, editors, cameras, special effects, equipment, labor, power, transportation, CGI takes an extremely long time to make and often takes a lot of labor, actor fees and incomes, lawyers, logistics. Have you ever counted all the people on the credits? All those people get paid to do what they contributed. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't \"superbacteria\" live outside hospitals"
] | It's not that they can't live outside of hospitals, it's just that hospitals are great places to go if you want to catch antibiotic resistant bugs. Everyone who goes there is sick, and if they have bacterial infections they are going to get dosed up, which can lead to resistant strains. Plus they are sticking needles into you, and performing surgery and all sorts of activities with a high risk of infection. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Can one neuron produce a thought?"
] | I don't think we have enough understanding to answer this question, we don't fully understand what a "thought" is so we can't specifically say what's required to create one. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is matching? (Clothing)"
] | - color theory (which colors go together well, you can research this online). - patterns (dont have different patterns together, for example, dont have plaid with stripes) - type of clothing (for example dont have alllll denim in one outfit) Im sure theres more points but i cant think of more at this moment Edit- sometimes she will like to change up her outfit, if you picked out what she wore last week she will feel as though other people will think she is lazy and wears the same outfit like a cartoon character |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"British Cricket for an American"
] | [We've done this shit 11 fucking times in the last month.](_URL_0_) [Here is the one with the most responses and information](_URL_1_) I can do the following if you so request... A) Copy and paste the responses into a Word Document and email it to you B) Screenshot the whole thread, upload to imgur as an album C) Teach you how to use the search function |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The process for connecting new construction to already existing infrastructure. (i.e sewage, internet, power)"
] | Water, sewer, drainage and cable are typically under the new roads. The developer has to find the nearest existing connection points that are sufficient to service the new homes and they connect there and construct new lines under the road. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do your eyes get puffy after crying?"
] | When you cry eye ocular muscles constrict and the salt in tears may cause fluid retention in the eye area. This is called ~~Pussy~~ Puffy eyes. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are the rules for elections for federal offices allowed to vary between different US states?"
] | The country was formed from 13 States (hence the name of the country), and the Constitution preserves a lot of autonomy on their part. For most purposes, the federal government is very loose. States establish and conduct the elections that send representatives to the federal House and Senate, and also that apportion electors to Presidential races. This was a huge problem in the century after the Civil War because the Southern states rigged their systems so that black people had no possibility of voting, and under the laws at the time, they were allowed to do so. That changed in a big way only with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that allowed the federal government to stop race-based state discrimination in election procedures. But the same forces are at it again, it seems, finding ways around those federal laws. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why is it woman and children first during natural disasters"
] | For women: Women are needed for reproduction and rebuilding of the human race. One male can impregnate a lot of females to ensure that life goes on. If there is only one female and hundreds of males, re-population isnt going anywhere fast. For children: They are the future of the human race and naturally have a longer life expectancy than older males. 10 year old will remain on earth much longer than a 50 year old on average, especially with care from all the women being saved. Basically to make sure that the human race survives. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What are the ramifications to the U.S. and the world if the United States were to stop trading with our closest allies?"
] | Huge damage to our economy. A huge percentage of Americans are employed making things that are sold in other countries. A huge percentage of the things Americans buy are made in other countries. Quite a few of the products American companies make use components are tools from other countries. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does balding seem to occur exclusively in humans and not other mammals?"
] | Elderley animals develop thin, scruffy fur; old ladies get thin hair like that. This is the result of the overall breakdown of the body due to age. Male pattern baldness is different, it happens in healthy men; it is related to testosterone level. Male pattern baldness *evolved*, presumably for a reason. [It is probably simply a matter of signaling maturity](_URL_0_). In a traditional hunter- gatherer society, maturity is synonymous with experience and wisdom. The world didn't change much for early humans, it is only in a fast changing modern world that old people are confused by technology. If you are a fertile young cave woman, the 40 year old guy who is still strong enough to hunt is *attractive*. That young stud Ogg may be stronger, but old bald Grak brought the tribe through droughts, forest fires, and the hard winters when the mastodons never came. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"With same sex marriage federally legalized in the US, why is there a big taboo against Polygamy (even if all parties consent)?"
] | Legally, the grounds for one does not necessarily pave the way for the other. Besides changing the wording of a few forms, all the legal structure was in place for gay marriages, gay divorce, gay parental rights, etc. If jenny could marry Steve there was no legally justifiable reason for Joe not to be able to enter into the same two person contact. Polygamy would require a significant rethinking of several laws. Are a 1 vs 2 divorce handled differently than a 1 v 1 v 1 full divorce. Do employers have to provide healthcare for more than a single spouse. How do child support and visitation rights work. Not saying they are insurmountable hurdles. But it is a much less straightforward move and less a "there's no difference" situation than gay marriage. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why aren't people more accepting of nuclear power in the USA?"
] | Basically things like Chernobyl and Fukushima have given nuclear energy a bad wrap. It really only takes one worst case scenario |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do clicky pens work, and what is the mechanism called?!"
] | Here is a great animation: _URL_0_ As you can see from the animation, the inner surface of the pen is grooved. The button has a "holder", which holds the pen shaft in place and slides back and forth on the grooves. The shaft has a complementary part that fits into the holder. The holder is designed such that the shaft's part always wants to be one section over (it's hard to explain, but if you take apart one of the clicky pens you must have, you can infer from there). The shape of the holder, however, is such that the shaft has to fit in one of the spots in the holder. The spring forces the shaft into these spots. Once you push the button, however, you lift the shaft out of the spot, allowing it to go one spot over. These spots are elevated differently so that the pen has two modes: out and in. The difference in elevation is also why you have to push the button further to open the pen than to close it. As for what it's called, I have no idea. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do bridges ice before the road?"
] | I may be wrong about this, but I was always told it's because of cold air movement above/below causes it to freeze much quicker, whereas regular road is partially insulated by the ground |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Are vitamin pills beneficial for us to take, or are they a complete waste of money? Is eating healthy food the only real way to absorb nutrients?"
] | I'd say the most applicably useful vitamin supplement is Vitamin D, for night owls / shut ins / people who live in far north, especially in winter. Besides that, a normal diet should cover you just fine. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Would the Attack on Titan 3D Maneuver gear work on Earth? If not, anywhere else?"
] | No. 3DMG relies on rapid changes to momentum that would wreak havoc on a human body that weighs 150-200 lbs, especially since most of the force would be applied to one section of the body. Your second question is the more important. At 1.35 m/s^2 , there is a planetary body where the average human of the same dimensions would weigh only around 30 lbs, and furthermore large-scale monsters like the Titans could theoretically move around. Plus, it can be theoretically terraformed for human life. That location is, of course, Saturn's moon, **Titan**. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"My co-pay is $20, but without insurance it's thousands of dollars. How does the insurance company make any money?"
] | In part, because the insurance company doesn't actually pay that "uninsured rate": because they are a huge customer, they negotiate much better rates for the drugs/services. You will never see what they pay: they get an invoice for the face amount, and then get a discount off that. It's somewhat the same for car dealers. There's an "invoice" with a price, but they don't actually pay that price. The manufacturer gives them all kinds of discounts and credits based on complex rules, like if they meet an overall sales goal they get an extra 5% off. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't bugs flying inside fast moving vehicles smack against the back window?"
] | Why would they? The air in the car is moving along with them. When you're coasting on the highway at 65 if you put your hand up in the air does it get thrown back behind your head? No because your arm is already moving at 65 MPH. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"When I'm walking I'm heels, why do the \"clop\" noises my feet make always seem like they are 2 different pitches?"
] | They're coming from two different angles, and since they come from two different sources, the sound waves will bounce off two different sets of objects around you. It'll be a subtle, but noticeable difference. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Is the center of a rotating circle at rest?"
] | The very center of a CD it is rotating, but not moving in space (relative to the rest of the CD). |
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