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[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How did television in North-America evolve to a situation where people are paying 50 dollars a month to watch little 15 minutes segments interrupted by ads."
] | That's why cable is dying. They used to have monopolies, more or less, but that changed with the internet. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If botox is the most lethal substance known to man, how and why do we use it for cosmetic surgery?"
] | its all about controlled dosage. understanding how long it remains active in the system. Spacing injections both by time and location to stay within safe margins. The concentration of Botox injected in patients is around 0.75 ng per 100 units, or roughly 1/5 of the estimated lethal dose in humans. Typical injection of 4 units. 20-30 units per session. 360 units per 36 month period is the recommended limit. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does Winamp generate its visualisations?"
] | With the raw audio data, you will only get the loudness of the audio at a specific point in time (or for a range) If you analyze/convert the raw data using [Fourier Transform](_URL_0_), you can calculate which frequencies are used and how strong (power) those frequencies are. This can be done in real-time using a method known as Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). You then use this data to build your visuals, for example low frequencies can be darker colours as opposed to mid to higher frequencies. I wrote a [web demo](_URL_1_) a while back. Unfortunately, it requires Microsoft Silverlight to work (I was experimenting with Silverlight audio) |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why a doctor would prescribe the name brand for a drug over the generic."
] | Perhaps the doctor is more familiar with the brand name. But the pharmacist will be familiar with both names, and you can save some money (sometimes, a *lot* of money) by asking the pharmacist to fill the prescription with the generic. Pharmacies in the US will typically have a sign posted that reads as follows: "THIS PHARMACY MAY BE ABLE TO SUBSTITUTE A LESS EXPENSIVE DRUG PRODUCT WHICH IS THERAPEUTICALLY EQUIVALENT TO THE ONE PRESCRIBED BY YOUR DOCTOR UNLESS YOU DO NOT APPROVE." |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does Data capping effect Gamers?"
] | The data required to play video games is quite small compared to the amount of data needed to stream video. The bigger issue that data download caps have on gamers is for downloading the digital versions of games and the resulting patches. Games nowadays are approaching the limits of Bluray disks (50 GB). Star Citizen supposedly will have a [100 GB client](_URL_1_). Even if you do not download the digital version of games, video game patches are getting quite large as well. [The Witcher 3's 1.1 patch came in at 15 GB](_URL_0_). If you have a library of many games, just downloading the patches over the span of a month will push you towards your download cap. Lastly, in terms of live-streams, you are generally uploading data rather than downloading. I'm not sure if it counts against the download cap but it should be at roughly the same data rate as someone viewing the stream. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why, after a certain point of being tired, do we switch and get energized instead?"
] | The longer you stay awake the more stressed your body gets. Now to counter the effects of sleep deprevation your body is flooded with adrennaline to keep you awake. At some point you are practically so flooded with adrennaline that you can't sleep. Thats also why you sometimes can have a racing heartbeat while trying to sleep. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are Uber and Lyft fighting regulations they put in place (i.e. fingerprinting in Houston and Austin)?"
] | Because all these regulations being proposed increase costs and make it more of a hassle to get drivers and passengers. Uber and Lyft are mostly successful due to lack of regulation on services like theirs... once regulation starts to catch up they'll be no better off than Taxis and they lose their competitive pricing edge. So they're going to want to fight any regulations people try to put on them |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come unknown amateur rappers get charged and convicted over \"crime\" lyrics, but rich famous rappers like 50 Cent, the Game, lil' Wayne and Snoop Dogg don't?"
] | lol well the mainstream artists you named generally don't really get themselves into trouble. accepted as fiction. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we dress the way we dress?"
] | Culturally relative aesthetics combined with personal preference. People tend to dress in a way that they feel makes them look good or attractive or simply dress for physical comfort. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"bone marrow transplants"
] | You kill all of the bone marrow that someone has with a combination of drugs and/or drugs and radiation. You can in some cases be your own donor, and in other cases a family member or lucky match can donate. In either case after the original marrow has totally died (leaving you very vulnerable to infection, so you're kept isolated) it's replaced, and grows to function as your bone marrow. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't people withdraw their money from a bank that goes bankrupt? Specifically those regular savings accounts? That supposedly have no such risk as it's a saving, not an investment."
] | Any money you put into a bank they use to lend to others. If they go bankrupt then they have absolutely nothing left and your money is gone |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we only start to see fog yards away from where we are standing and not at our feet?"
] | If fog is very very thick, you can see it at your feet. The nature of fog is that you can see through some of it but not all of it (that is, some but not all light passes through). So, when you don't see it at your feet, it's because you're seeing *through* the stuff that is at your feet. You *can* see it farther away because you've looked through enough of it to notice the effect. Basically, fog scatters light. If it's not super thick, you must look through a few yards of it to notice that the light is being scattered. Either that or it's made of spirits who can't stand to be in contact with living beings so they stay away from you. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"if two different phones/tablets/computers are running the exact same OS, how is it possible that one device can experience a bug/glitch but not the other device when performing the exact same task?"
] | 1: A mechanical defect in the device. This could be something as large as a bad piece of solder on a board to as small as an actual defect in a chip, or anything in between. 2: Random cosmic ray strike. High energy particles from space can hit sensitive electronics and "flip" a bit from a 1 to a 0 or vice versa, changing the software encoded by that bit. 3: User error. Causes too numerous to enumerate. 4: Corruption of data. During the process of downloading and installing the software an error was introduced which was not detected by the error-checking schemes. Could have been caused by random transient currents in the wires, by errors or misconfigurations of devices in the network, etc. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't cellular radio waves be divided for unlimited data carrying?"
] | The narrower the channel, the less information you can send down it reliably. Using your freeway example, you could take a 3 lane highway and give yourself 24 bike lanes but nobody'd be getting anywhere very quickly. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't/shouldn't we go back to the gold standard?"
] | Gold is a luxury item. Only 10% of gold is used for manufacturing or technical purposes, the rest is used in vanity goods like jewelry or hoarded as an investment. Therefor, its value is perceived rather than practical, and as such the price is subject to whims. (See: gold rising to insane levels as people fear an economic meltdown.) By basing your currency on the stability of your government rather than a finite resource, you open up a lot more flexibility in terms of monetary policy. Also, since governments generally move slow and avoid drastic measures, the value of the currency remains relatively stable over long periods of time, which commodities like gold and oil do not. Short version: Businesses like it when the value of a dollar is stable. It's a lot harder to maintain stability if your currency is tied to a finite resource. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the Raspberry Pi? How can a computer cost 5$ while mainstream computers can cost up to 2000$?"
] | The Raspberry Pi is a very small, lower power, lower complexity computer. Because they have sold, and will continue to sell many, they can afford to get parts at bulk pricing. The RPi $5 board is also so much smaller and stripped back compared to the ones that cost a few times more than that. There's also the fact that it doesn't have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, or any of the other trappings that one conventionally associates with the word "computer". It's like you're buying a very stripped motherboard. Price a motherboard similar to the one in a $500 desktop and see how much it costs. Also, no OS is included. You also have to provide a lot more work to get the thing to even work. A $500 HP works out of the box with little setup or wiring. A $5 RPi requires you to wire a bunch of stuff to it, buy an enclosure, a microSD card, and spend time setting up an OS to work on it. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is the Tracey Morgan car accident getting a federal investigation?"
] | That National Transportation Safety Board regularly assists state authorities with highway accident investigations. This is usually in the form of technical assistance, and is very different from if an agency like the FBI got involved. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How are 300 calories in a donut different than 300 calories in a burger?"
] | There's far more qualified people than me who can break this down, but I can give you a somewhat close answer. Basically 300 calories is 300 calories. Let's assume you burn 2000 calories a day. You could eat 1500 calories worth of McDonald's and lose weight. You'd gain fat and lose muscle and have a bunch of health issues, but that number on the scale would drop. Or you could eat 1500 worth of vegetables fruits healthy fats and lean meat, you'd build muscle and lose fat, and the number on the scale would still go down. There's fine tuning people do, for exactly how much protein or carbs or healthy fats they can eat to maximize their diet. Basically you eat less than you burn, you lose weight no matter if it's fat or muscle. You eat more than you burn and you gain. *What* you eat determines if your body is going to burn that fat instead of muscle or not. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How is salt \"Kosher\"?"
] | It's not *Kosher* salt, it's Kosher*ing* salt, i.e. salt used for Koshering. The salt is used for draining the blood out of meat, and the larger grain size makes it better suitable for the job than ordinary table salt. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Will an antenna produce visible light?"
] | If you pump enough energy into that antenna, assuming its metal, it will produce red then orange then yellow visible light. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why a wheel turning at high speed appears to be turning the other way round?"
] | If you take a basic wall clock and watch the minute hand, it moves very slowly, doing one rotation every 60 minutes. However, if you take a camera, and leave it to take a picture of the clock every hour, and watch those pictures like a movie, you'll think it doesn't move at all. Now take that camera and make it take a picture every 61 minutes. Every picture it takes, the minute hand will have an extra minute to move, so will have gone slightly around the clock. Do it the other way around, and take a picture every 59 minutes. Even though it has moved forward, it looks like it has only moved back a little bit. Basically a similar thing is happening between your eye and the wheel at a significantly faster rate. Your eye is a bit trickier than just taking a photo on a regular basis, but the basic principles here are more or less the same. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Homomorphic encryption. What is it and what is it not?"
] | Basically it's an encryption scheme where you can perform operations on the encrypted data and get a result that when decrypted using the same method as decrypting the source data will result in the same output as if those operations had been performed on the original unencrypted data. This means that encrypted data can be given to an untrusted party to be processed without them being aware of what the data they're processing is. This is in contrast to conventional schemes where the party doing the processing needs to have an unencrypted copy of the data, inherently reducing the security of the whole process. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The differences between aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen"
] | aspirin: blood thinner. this is why it's effective for heart disease. ibuprofin: anti-inflammatory. that's why it's effective for swollen things. tylenol: general pain killer. that's why it's better for generic/non-specific pain. that's about as simple as i can make it. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"In jobs that have a lot of initial training investment, and then a subsequent minimum length contract (for example, most military careers), what happens if, after training, a person just isn't good enough, or doesn't put in enough effort?"
] | They cut their losses usually and kick your ass to the curb. Or in some cases you may leave one training and be moved to a lower job or a different job and trained for that job instead. Obviously its not uncommon for people to perform poorly at a specific job and be moved to a different one, in any industry or job. It's not also uncommon for people to fail to meet standards and be fired. Your contract (probably) has a variety of clauses about meeting minimum requirements of the position, if you fail to do that, they can get rid of you or move you |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does a fly keep buzzing around my head when I'm traveling at 30 knots in a boat?"
] | The air around you is also travelling at 30 knots. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the purpose behind the common \"crescent\" shaped ice cube?"
] | Crescent-shaped ice cubes are easy for a machine to remove from the tray. After they're done freezing, a mechanical arm swings in a circle and pushes them out of the tray. Cube-shaped trays are a bit harder to automatically remove the ice from them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Are current microwaves ovens much different than the ones from the 80s?"
] | A little more robust and elegant in their electrical design, but they work the same way. A lot of components in things like microwaves get switched out over time as we become more and more capable of doing things digitally and don't have to rely on analog. This results in better performance, more even heating in this case, and more energy efficiency, but essentially, no. It's the same thing. edit: phrasing |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If you have a tattoo and the layer off skin came off where it was, would the tatoo be removed?"
] | if the wound is deep enough yes. [There was a time when tattoos were removed by implanting an inflatable bag under the skin next to the tattoo and gradually filling it with saline over a period of weeks expanding the tissue](_URL_0_). When there was sufficient tissue the implant would be removed and the tattoo excised then the [extra tissue](_URL_1_) would be moved over and sutured in the place of the tattoo. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why dont companies like Sony/Microsoft add backwards compatibility for their consoles?"
] | It's not just a matter of adding the code. It's either adding essential parts of the previous generation's chipset (Original PS3 had this,) or creating a program that emulates said chipset in a virtual environment (which often ends up being buggy.) And it's a waste of their resources. They want to move their tech forward, and the amount of people who wish for backwards compatibility are outnumbered by those who don't care. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we have 10 fingers and not 8?"
] | Because we evolved from fish that had 5 bones in their fins. All vertebrates follow the same pattern - 1 bone, 2 bones, lots of bones. As to why the fish had 5 fin-bones, it was probably simply how it evolved - the optimal number of fin-bones to maintain the fin structure. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is Rick Perry being indicted for?"
] | You know how a school bully might threaten to beat you up if you don't give him your lunch money? Governor Perry is accused of doing sort of the same thing by threatening to not give a woman's department money if she didn't resign from office. Since it was the governor doing it, he should know better. This would be the same as your school principal demanding that you give him your lunch money or he'll make sure you fail all your classes. School districts don't like it when principals do that, and grand juries don't like it when governors do that. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do ships stay afloat even when carrying thousands of tons of cargo?"
] | By displacing more tons of water than the ship+cargo weighs. That's why they have to be so strong, to keep enough water out. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"popular apps terms and conditions"
] | This website is great at breaking down what you need to know _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why have bones evolved to heal so slowly, or why do they heal at all? Wouldn't any animal with a broken bone likely die in the wild of something before the bone was healed?"
] | Evolution is still limited by physics and chemistry, and each feature is a balancing act with a million other advantages and disadvantages. This is sort of like asking: Why has skin evolved to be so soft and easy to cut, resulting in blood leaking out of the body? Wouldn't any animal with cut skin likely bleed to death and die in the wild? |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"how is it that (according to my plant bio textbook) glucose and fructose have identical molecular formulas? Isn't the purpose if molecular formulas to be unique identifiers?"
] | Just like you can assemble Legos into any number of shapes, molecules can also be put together differently. So while both glucose and fructose have the same number of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, the molecules are assembled differently and thus they are different chemicals. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"why are organizations trying to send people to live on mars and not on closer places like the moon?"
] | Mars has atmosphere and accessible (but frozen) water and soil that could be conditioned to grow crops with a lot of work and is a place a person could live with some work. the moon has vacuum and radiation and micrometeorites and horrible staticy sandpaper for ground. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are people preoccupied with order and detail called \"anal\" or \"anal retentive\"."
] | Because he hypothesized that issues during this developmental stage (when a child is learning to control toilet functions, such as bowel movements) would carry over into adulthood, manifested as an obsession over detail and exerting inordinate control over ones environment. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What happens when you melt a magnet."
] | LI5: The magnet will stop behaving magnetically once it hits a certain temperature (sort of). Then it'll simply behave like a piece of metal and melt LI20: Let me know if there is interests, not typing an explanation for the hell of it, though it's not extremely complicated. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How people learn to hack."
] | I just use[ this site.](_URL_1_) All you have to do is type in what you want to hack, and it does it for you. The more you type, the more you hack. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How music is stored on CD's and then played back"
] | like ur a pretty smart 5yo: a recording machine listens to the music as it's being played, and turns it into numbers. it records thousands of different numbers every second to represent the changing volume of the music. these numbers are written down very small on a CD, in a spiral that goes around and around and from the inside of the CD near the hole to the outside edge. your CD player reads the numbers that are written on the disk, and using a speaker it pushes air around to those places at those times. the speaker makes a similar vibration like the original sound, and the vibrating air reaches your ear and sounds like music! |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't current be defined as co-directional with the flow of electrons?"
] | Because current is the flow of charge, not electrons. The particles that allow for the flow of charge are called "charge carriers" and electrons happen to have a negative charge, so current flows in the opposite direction of electrons. Electrons aren't the only charge carriers. In semiconductors for example, you have both free electrons and places for electrons to go (called "holes") which can act as charge carriers. In your body, positively charged potassium ions act as charge carriers. Essentially electric current is defined without caring about what carries the charge, just the direction the charge moves. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can the aging process of alcoholic beverages not be artificially sped up or completely skipped?"
] | Often alcoholic beverages are aged in wooden barrels. During the aging, the beverage is infused with flavour from the wood of the barrel. While theoretically it would be possible to artificially add those flavours, it is difficult to know exactly what and how much to add since those flavours are very subtle and depend on a lot of things, including the wood used, the specific beverage and the time it is aged for. There is also little incentive to do so, as often aged beverages are enthusiast products, and enthusiasts usually aren't very appreciative of artificial flavours. The long aged products are a status symbol as well, and skipping the aging process would diminish their value and prestige as a status symbol. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does the heart send more blood to one area when needed if all the veins are one \"circle\" system?"
] | The heart pumps faster to send blood faster during these times, but the vessels dilating and contracting are what determines where the "more" blood goes (really just a higher volume to one area and lower volumes everywhere else, not actually more). This is done by nerve signals from the area that needs it to the brain telling the brain (autonomic nervous system) "hey we need more blood here stat!" Heart pumps faster, vessels dilate in the area you need the blood and contract elsewhere. Voila! More blood. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"how come an HD Youtube video can load in a reasonable amount of time but a GIF an exceptionally long time?"
] | GIF was never meant for video and people that post them don't optimize them so they are huge and slow. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can a human limb not sense its own weight?"
] | You can feel its weight. However you just get used to it after years. Think about it externally: if you never wear a watch, and then you put on a big heavy one your arm feels heavy because of that extra weight. Now let's say you wear that watch every day. You even sleep and shower in it. Eventually, wearing the watch feels normal and your arm no longer feels like it is moving weight. Now the watch breaks and you have to leave it at a repair shop for a few days. Your arm suddenly feels much lighter and naked. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How exactly does a nail keep two wooden planks together?"
] | Friction. The nail breaks the wood fivers apart causing mini sized splintery pieces around the nail that when they try to return to their original position, grip onto the nail tightly. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How did the first person with HIV/AIDS become infected?"
] | This is impossible to accurately answer because obviously nobody can be 100% certain. But the most likely vector would be from somebody coming into contact with infected monkey blood, which then entered that person's bloodstream, presumably through a pre-existing cut or abrasion. Many species of monkeys and apes are common food animals in parts of Africa, so it's highly likely that people would be regularly encountering monkey blood. Although HIV doesn't live for long once its host dies, if a freshly-slaughtered monkey bled onto a human being, that human could then become infected with the virus. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"China just lost about 3.2$ trillion in the last three weeks, where did all that money go?"
] | There is no "first law of thermodynamics" for wealth. Wealth can certainly be created and can certainly be destroyed. The value lost in the chinese equity markets isn't "found" by someone else. The value of all those companies has decreased, or rather, markets realized that they were being overvalued and responded. It is bad for all of us (except for any who may have correctly gauged when this crash was coming and gotten out of the market at a fortuitous time). |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"My popcorn is listed as 240 calories unpopped, 220 calories popped. Where do those 20 calories go?"
] | Some of the moisture, oils, and husk escape when the kernels pop. Not eating the husk or oils would reduce the calories vs the unpopped kernels since part of them is basically missing. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come many people think cilantro has no taste or tastes good, but a lot of people think cilantro has an extremely strong and disgusting taste?"
] | There's actually a genetic mutation that causes some people to taste cilantro as soapy. _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do hypodermic needles penetrate your skin without punching out a \"core\" of flesh?"
] | They are cut on a slant, so they slice a slit instead of cutting a core. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is the difference between the estimated 120,000 libraries in the US and Google making all books freely available online in their entirety?"
] | Libraries own, and allow use of, only one copy of a book at a time. They have the right to do this because they physically own one copy of the book, which is the right to use one copy of the book. Because objects. Google also owns only one copy of each book, but is making snippets available to possibly thousands of people simultaneously. The argument, in its simplest form, is that this is copying the book, which is illegal. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is creating a male contraceptive pill so challenging?"
] | I literally heard about this on the radio yesterday so i may be able to help. A male one is in development currently in Australia (I think) and has had effective trials on mice in labs showing that it is able to be effective with no major (maybe any) side effects. The difficulty is that a male pill has to stop every single sperm, which males produce millions of, from entering the female's egg, if one gets through, the pill can be redundant, however, a female contraceptive needs to simply stop one egg. So its much easier to stop one egg then millions of sperm through a pill, which is why the female pill has been around since the 60s while the male one is still being developed. Additionally, there is a lot of negative feedback from consumers on it currently. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"NASA's new EM Drive, why is it significant, and does it break the laws of physics?"
] | Basically it is a container that bounces around electromagnetic waves, which generates movement. This requires no fuel, and seemingly doesn't make sense. Normally when you have an engine/drive, you will have some sort of waste product or emission. Think of a rocket engine, you have flames shooting out of the back. The stuff being blown out is what makes it move. Remember that any force has an equal and opposite reaction, which is why the rocket moves. The key thing about the EM drive there is no measurable stuff coming out of it. Does it break the laws of physics? No. If it broke the laws of physics it wouldn't work. This just proves that our current understanding of either the EM drive or our understanding of physics is wrong. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do crickets get quiet around humans, considering we aren't one of their predators?"
] | When a lumbering monstrosity twenty thousand times your size clomps past, you may want to hush for a second and let the beast pass without trouble. Sure a human is unlikely to stoop down and eat a cricket these days, but that's not true for all animals. Laying low while unfathomably bigger animals pass is a good survival strategy that most flightless insects have adopted. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't humans go into heat?"
] | Most animals have evolved this behavior so that their young one's growth coincides with the seasonal availability of food/resources. This also creates a cycle of birth and deaths that overlap so that the young can grow. This seasonal cycle is what we call being in heat. Humans don't have to because we are smart and make use of what we can to survive. So sex is more recreational than utilitarian. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How exactly does an acne cream like 'Neutrogena On the Spot' work to help heal and diminish pimples and what does it really do?"
] | There are two types of medications used in these. Benzoyl peroxide. This helps dry out junk clogging the pore so that the environment inside the pore is less awesome for bacteria because it lets in oxygen. BP also dries up everything not pore, making your face a wasteland of dead skin chunks and redness that *may for some people* make skin more prone to further infection. Go with lowest %. Salicylic acid. Breaks down the bonds that hold gunk over the pores, making the outer 'shell' of the pimple separate so oxygen can get in and make the pore less awesome for bacteria. Helps reduce fluid and swelling - so the size of the pimple may go down. A dab on the spot overnight works quite well. 2% is pretty good for a face/body wash that many like for preventing breakouts without drying out their skin. I use other stuff because these two (and Rx exfoliants) have wrecked the acid mantle of my skin in the past. The acid mantle is the true hero. Exfoliate and lubricate. Oil is not the enemy. _URL_0_ |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"When one company buys another, where does that money go?"
] | A company is either owned privatly (typically a family or group of banks) or publicly (stock holders). If its a private company, the owners get the money paid into their bank accounts which they will then use to go and buy big houses and speed boats. If its a public company, the owners of the shares get the value of their shares paid into their accounts in exchange for their share(s) - the smaller share holders will smile at making a nice profit, the bigger share holders will go and buy big houses and speed boats. Sometimes it wont be a cash only deal, often it will be cash plus stock. In which case, the guy selling gets the cash and also gets signed over a load of shares which they can do with as they please. Either way, someone somewhere will be buying big houses and speedboats. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are our brains really good at noticing bizarre circumstances while awake, but not while asleep?"
] | When you are asleep, a specific part of you brain is not used. That part of your brain(correct me if im wrong. Neocortex) is what controls things as common sense and spotting the abstract. I remember studying this in my psychology class but its been a while so i might be off. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If I practice normal motor skills with my non-dominant hand, will it ever be as good as my dominant is naturally?"
] | It depends a bit. A lot of us lefties are pretty much forced to use our right hand in various situations (ever laid eyes on a pair of seamstress scissors? They are ridiculous hard to use with the hand that doesn't properly fit the grip) and as a result we are sometimes better with some tools using our right hand. I write with my left hand, use scissors with my left hand but prefer to hold a screwdriver in my right hand. Probably because the tool pockets on my first pair of workshop pants were all on the right side and it made more sense to use the hand I already held the tool in. Ironically, I prefer I hold my Hitachi power tools in my left hand. This suggests that all it takes is to teach yourself well enough with the non-dominant hand is a lot of practice. In reality, you have a lot of use for it if you work in a mechanical field, so if you really need it often you probably already have *some* of this ability honed to usefulness. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If alcohol is supposed to impair judgement, why do politicians and businessmen drink during meetings?"
] | I do not know of any formal meetings where politicians imbibe. Businessmen do it for the same reason anyone else does: it makes you relaxed, and less confrontation, unless you imbibe too much. But that is kind of old school business. Yes, it does still happen, but most companies have policies against any sort or alcohol intake during company time. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is Front End and Back End Web Development?"
] | Front end - stuff the end user sees. When you go on eBay and use the search bar to find the thing you want, that's front end. Back end - how it all works. When you type something into the search bar it sends information to a server that pulls the information you need, that's all back end. When you buy a thing on eBay, and you actually pay for it there is a lot of back end going on, it has to talk to your financial institution, etc |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it acceptable for smokers to take additional breaks at work?"
] | It isnt! I found out that as a non-smoker, if you start hanging out with the smokers during their "breaks", it will cast a negative light on their excessive breaks and bring about enforcement of established times for said breaks. It should be just as acceptable for a non-smoker to take 10 minute breaks every hour as it is for a smoker. If management has a problem with you as a non-smoker taking these breaks, you have a case for discrimination. A person's habit should not make them above company or workplace policy. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why doesn't a pistol shrimp's snap boil water?"
] | Not enough energy to. It's like lighting a match in a snow storm and expecting it to melt everything. Sure, the match is hot, but theres a lot more cold than there is hot. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come a man can rent a tux from somewhere or buy a suit and use it for multiple special occasions but a woman has too buy a new dress for every event that comes up."
] | They *can*, but just generally don't *want* to. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How did people get water to drink in ancient Venice?"
] | Venice has a complex system that catches rainwater putting it into cisterns that are then accessed by various city wells and fountains. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"If two perfect singers sing the same song and can sing the same octaves and notes, how do those two singing voices still sound different?"
] | Every person, and every instrument, plays each note slightly differently. If you take A over middle C, it will always be 440 Hz no matter whether you sing it, play it on a piano, play it on a saxophone, etc. But just because the note itself is 440 Hz doesn't mean that all of those 440 Hz notes sound the same. Each instrument is playing a 440 Hz fundamental frequency, but it's also playing a bunch of other significant frequencies that are multiples or fractions of the fundamental frequency. The overall sound produced by the fundamental frequency, and all of the other frequencies, is distinct for the different instruments - and that's what we call the "timbre." |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Who funds the chocolate milk commercials on ESPN?"
] | Lobby or industry groups mostly, basiclly the MPAA of the milk or egg businesses. According to this _URL_0_ The add is paid for by The Milk Processor Education Program aka MilkPEP. According to their website MilkPEP is funded by the nation's milk processors. The egg commercials were paid for by the American Egg Board, they are what's known as a marketing board. Marketing boards are common in agricultural products, basiclly every egg producer pays a fee to the American Egg Board and in exchange the board markets all of the products of the producers. Basically the American Egg Board is responsible for encouraging americans to eat eggs. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do humans have a bellybutton?"
] | Your belly button is where the umbilical cord connects when you're in the womb. That's what provides you with food and oxygen. It has no purpose as an adult, it's just a leftover. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The ability to be vague in the \"ingredients\" list on certain foods"
] | The FDA has very specific rules on labeling, as can be found [here](_URL_0_) The rules specifically address 'spices' and indicate they can be listed very generically, as "spices" or variations thereof. As for why they did it that way, one can only conjecture. Industry lobbying, for one, because spices (as the example at hand) may be secret, or may change frequently, or are otherwise just too difficult to keep updated. They also make up a very small part of the product, not enough to affect anyone, and so there's really no point in listing them. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The difference between transsexual, transgender, and hermaphrodite, options those people have for reproduction, and what it means to \"Identify\" as fe/male."
] | A hermaphrodite is a person with a rare condition that causes them to be born with fully functional male AND female parts. Today, it is usually the case that parents will make a choice and have the other parts surgically removed. Transgender has to do with gender identity, specifically, identifying as the opposite gender from your physical sex. Transsexual is a person who has surgically become or is surgically becoming the opposite sex. As to the latter part of your question, regarding gender identity, I refer you to a [more knowledgeable source](_URL_0_), but to sum up, sex is your physical equipment, and gender is what you feel yourself to be. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are we trying to colonize Mars?"
] | Because as Heinlein said: > The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in. or as Randall Munroe observed: > The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision. There is nothing we particularly need on Mars. There is no good reason to live on Mars, but if you looked at it cold and calculating enough there is also no good reason to live on Earth. We have to ways we can go from here. Humanity can stay on earth and die with its planet at some point in the future or we can go out there and spread ourselves among the stars. Mars is the first step on the second path, we don't know were it will lead and what benefits it will bring us, but the other one is literally a dead end. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does a computer processor \"turbo-boost\"?"
] | A computer processor (CPU) has an internal clock. It "ticks" so many times per second. A CPU running at 3.2 Ghz ticks 3.2 billion times per second. This is **very** roughly how many calculations it can make per second. You can make the CPU run faster by turning up the clock so that it ticks more times per second. The downside to this is that it creates more heat. Modern CPUs very carefully monitor how much heat is being put out. If the CPU is currently fairly cool and it has a lot of work to do, it can temporarily boost the clock speed. That's the turbo boost. If it gets too hot it will slow back down so as not to damage itself. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is a college degree now required for many jobs when some of those same jobs used to be operated by people with only a high school education?"
] | Because there are far too many interested. Diploma is a way to reduce the people applying for a job plus the degree is a way to understand that they know something. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it so easy to notice bad acting? What are good actors doing that makes them seem more natural? Is there a scientific explanation for how we tell the difference?"
] | It's seems pretty simple really. When we watch a film or TV programme we subconsciously compare how an actor is acting to how we see people act in the real world, or even how other actors act in the same scenario. If the way they act isn't congruent to our pre-concieved notions of how they should act, then we regard the way they act as wrong, and regard the actor as a bad actor. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How does laundering money through expenses work?"
] | As a general rule, you can't. Laundering money requires that you inflate _revenues_ so that you can pretend your dirty money was earned through legitimate sources, thus "washing" it. Now, that said, you can't just inflate revenues forever. If you run a business and suddenly double revenue without _any_ increase in expenses, it is going to look very suspect to the IRS. You need to also increase expenses to make it look like you are spending the cash required to generate the revenue you are claiming. It is also possible that those fraudulent expenses are how they are getting the laundered money out of the business. If the cartel boss _owns_ the business that is getting payments for the fraudulent expenses, you are able to send him the laundered profits from the business and have it look like a legitimate business transaction. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do we often get so entertained just by sitting looking at a bonfire?"
] | Fire is a powerful tool, and is/was one of mans most prized inventions. The dancing of the flames on the wood can be quite serene. The crackling creates a background filter to help you focus. (username kind of relevant) |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"The difference between cisgender, transgender, and intersex"
] | Cisgender is when the stuff down there matches what's going on in your head. Transgender is when the stuff down there is the opposite of what you think you should be. Intersex is when you're kinda neither |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"when you exhale, why is your breath warm with your mouth open & cool when your mouth is almost closed?"
] | When your mouth is open wide you feel the air that has been warmed in your lungs. When it is barely open like blowing out a candle the air from your mouth is moving faster and pulls more of the cool surrounding air into the air stream, this combined with increased air speed makes it feel cooler. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do our feet have arches? Wouldn't it be more advantageous to have your weight distributed over the entire surface of the foot?"
] | The entire purpose of the arch is to act as a spring to help absorb the impact from walking. Walking puts a ton of stress on your bones and if you run, it's worse. Imagine driving a car without it's springs. Every bump would be slamming into the frame basically. Eventually, you'll wear things out much faster. Also, it may help store up a little energy in your step and 'spring' you forward. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Infrared remote controllers"
] | The different buttons prompt the remote to emit a different sequence of 'flashes,' which are interpreted by the receiver to the corresponding action. Think how you can communicate between two ships at sea with a single lantern and a shutter. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do pigs go through a big transformation if they're introduced into the wild?"
] | That's not how it works... Well, Kind of. Pigs become "Feral pigs" which may look similar to boar( And will breed with boar). However their mindset is different (They are dumber than boar). Your question is why; It's part of survival. Humans are no longer taking care of the pig, so it becomes untame and relies on it's instincts. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does my nose run when I eat food with cayenne or similar pepper spices?"
] | Chili peppers, used in spicy foods, contain capsaicin. Other spicy foods, such as horseradish and wasabi, contain allyl isothiocyanate. Both capsaicin and allyl isothiocyanate stimulate a reaction in your nervous system, causing your nose to run. Your nose runs when eating spicy foods because both capsaicin and allyl isothiocyanate irritate the mucous membranes in your nose, thus producing mucus in your nasal passages. This is a defense mechanism your body has to keep out unwanted particles, such as dust. Thus, the more irritated your mucous membranes become, the more your nose will continue to run. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why don't bugs adapt to not hit my windshield?"
] | By percentage, so few bugs are killed in this way that it doesn't create much evolutionary pressure. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why are the planets named after Roman Pagan gods?"
] | The planets out as far as Saturn can be seen without a telescope. The Romans had names for them, and our civilization kept using those names even after the Romans were gone. Uranus and Neptune got their names to continue the pattern. Oh, and the moons of the planets are named for minor gods and heroes associated with Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc. Jupiter's biggest moons are named for women he slept with. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does my stomach growl when I am hungry? What is going in inside and why does it make a sound?"
] | They are called borborygmi - such a wonderful word.... |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does your nose run when you east spicy things?"
] | Nasal irrigation is a way for the body to protect sensitive and vulnerable tissues in the sinuses. Spicy foods trigger a feeling of actual heat (like real fire), even though it's not actually hot. The best way to cool spicy foods (at least from chili peppers) is with milk or some other dairy product. Fats in milk bind to the oily spice and carry it away, and sugars bind too. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What is happening under the hood my car that makes it \"go\" when I press the gas pedal?"
] | Basically controlled explosions. Each car had a certain amount of cylinders ( v6 v8 4 banger etc) that's what people mean when they say that. In each cylinder their is a piston connected to a shaft (crank shaft). Fuel and air are mixed into the cylinder and ignited by a spark plug. The explosion forces the piston downwards and turns the shaft. The shaft is connected to the Transmission which is connect to the wheels. Now this happens thousands of times in a few seconds. There is more too it but that is the basics... |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why does ice stick to your fingers when you're holding it?"
] | Basically, the ice is so cold that it can freeze the thin layer of moisture on your hands. As the ice warms up, then it doesn't happen anymore. Your skin has a small bit of moisture on it. Fresh ice is usually below the freezing point meaning it has some "room" to absorb more energy before it becomes water. So, the ice is freezing that thin layer of moisture on your skin causing it to stick. This is also why the ice sticks worse if you have just recently washed your hands as there is more moisture available. How much it sticks also depends on the temperature of the freezer that the ice is in. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How are Criminal Disenfranchisement Laws constitutionally legal??"
] | SCOTUS has decided that disenfranchisement laws are constitutional based on Section 2 of the 14th amendment. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How come if there is an advertisement on TV, it's called a commercial, but anywhere else, they're just called ads/advertisements?"
] | Commercials are ads too, they're just a specific type of ad that happens to have a specific name. Calling them advertisements wouldn't be incorrect. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why is it that battery powered wall clocks leave a stain after a period of time?"
] | That's where the battery case was. When batteries are in use they generate a slight amount of heat. That mark is just a very very slight 'burn' of the paint where it was pressed against the wall. It's not dangerous, because it's a very low-grade burn. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"In the cave paintings in France and Spain from 20,000 years ago, there are rinos, lions, gazelles, etc. Why did these animals go extinct in Europe but not in Africa?"
] | Climate change dealt Europe an ice age -- it just became too cold for some of these animals. Human population density limited the amount of space for these animals to live, eat, and not be hunted by humans. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"What's the difference between college, community college and university in the US in terms of the credibility of one's degree? Do all of these even end with one getting a degree?"
] | Community Colleges are 2 year colleges that offer trade certificates and Associates degrees. Sometimes, they'll cooperate with a state college or university in order to offer higher degrees in specific programs. These are run by the county (usually) or city (sometimes) and designed to offer a wide variety of education. Colleges are 4 year institutions that offer up to Bachelor's degrees, as well as trade certificates and Associates degrees. They're typically state funded or private institutions. These are smaller institutions which offer a smaller number of degrees, and are generally specialized. An art college, or a STEM college, for example. Universities are 8 year institutions that offer all the way up to Doctorate degrees. These are either funded by the state or privately. Universities have many colleges within them, and can offer a wide variety of degrees. Think about places like Harvard, that have a Law college, a Medical college, a Business college, a Divinity college, etc, etc. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Hot air rises on earth but what happens to hot air on the space station?"
] | There might be some movement due to the different densities of air creating different pressures, but it wouldn't move much compared to hot air on Earth. An interesting side effect of this is lighting a candle in zero-g. The flame itself doesn't rise into the shape we're accustomed to seeing. Instead it ends up making a dull, spherical glow. And then it extinguishes itself as the oxygen is consumed and not replaced by cool, fresh air as a flame in gravity would do. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How do the major mail deliver services (FedEx, UPS) handle people who don't pay for the faster shipping? do they literally sit on the packages?"
] | They ship it by truck, instead of by air. Much cheaper for them. If the truck's not full for a particular regional destination, then it doesn't go. So your package will sit in one hub until the truck is full enough to send to the hub near you. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why can't we just have synthetic teeth?"
] | We do, but they have to be screwed in to your jawbone with titanium screws. Natural teeth are glued in place by a layer around the base of the tooth called the periodontal ligament. It acts as a cushion and can heal itself so it doesn't wear out. Tooth implants have no shock absorber or have shock absorbers which eventually wear out. The screws can also work loose... People get implants anyway but it's a last-ditch thing and expensive. You're arguably better off living with dentures. Back when I wanted to do something with my life I was going to invent a bioengineered lab-grown periodontal ligament to solve this exact problem so people could have tooth implants with cushioning but then I went crazy and wound up working menial jobs and commenting on Reddit for the rest of my life. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do senators and representatives rarely represent the state that they are born in?"
] | Americans tend to move quite a bit. This puts us in the position of being able to choose where we want to run for office from. A politician may not have views that align exactly with their "home" state, and make a strategic determination to move to a location where they have better odds of winning. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"Why do balloons stop floating after a while, even though they still have helium?"
] | Yes, the remaining helium still provides buoyancy, but there comes a tipping point where that buoyancy isn't enough any more to carry the weight of the balloon's casing. |
[
"Provided a user question, retrieve the highest voted answers on Reddit ELI5 forum",
"How was it possible for us to view the moon landing when the astronauts hadn't returned to Earth yet? (those were the days of \"film at 11\")"
] | For Apollo 11 it was sent by radio signal back to Earth which was picked up by receivers in Australia and then broadcast worldwide. A camera was attached to the lander to film it. |
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