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5oaypf | For two people who consume the same amount of calories, how/why does the comparatively faster metabolism of one of these people keep them thinner? | What's the science behind why faster metabolisms keep you thin? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is a general myth of fast vs. slow metabolisms. Generally speaking the difference between a fast and slow metabolism might be [200-300 calories]( URL_1 ). Edit: [Actual study] ( URL_0 )"
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5ob6ge | Drinking more water makes you retain less water? | I keep reading online that the more water you drink the less water you retain in your body. For example, they say that body builders drink 6 to 8 liters of water a day and within 3 to 4 days they drop something like 10lbs of water weight. Is there any truth to this? How does it work? I tried experimenting with this myself... I drank 7 to 8 liters of water a day (evenly spread throughout the day) for 7 days. My weight shot up 3 to 4 lbs until I stopped. The day after I stopped my weight went back down. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your body adjusts how much water to retain based on how much water you're intaking. It wants to retain enough water to keep you hydrated during periods where you don't have access to water. By drinking a lot of fluids regularly, your body decreases how much fluid it wants to retain, because it knows water is plentiful. If you suddenly decrease the amount of water you're drinking, your body will still flush out water based on your previous consumption, and you'll notice fairly dramatic weight loss. Your body quickly adjusts and begins retaining the proper amount of water, though, so the weight loss is temporary. Fighters an wrestlers do this regularly to make weight, which is why it is no uncommon for MMA fighters to fight at 10-20 pounds above their weigh-in weight. Super ELI5: You're going on a hike in the woods and you only have a small backpack to carry your supplies. You bring 3 bottles of water. But on your hike you find out that there are coolers filled with water bottles all along the path. So the next time you go to do the same hike, you only bring 1 waterbottle and you grab a water bottle from a cooler whenever you need it. You do the same thing the next time you go too, but all the coolers are gone! Your backpack is 2 bottles lighter than it was the first time, and once you're done hiking it's 3 bottles lighter. At this time you go weigh your backpack in for it's Sunday night primetime fight against Connor McGreger. Then your backpack goes home and chugs 4 bottles of water, getting all of its weight and hydration back."
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5obwem | Why are most erasers pink? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because people expect them to be pink. Faber was a company that made pencils, and erasers. They used Italian pumice in rubber to make erasers. The pumice supplier ran into a vein of pink pumice, and the Faber people loved the look of it. They named their product the Pink Pearl. When the pumice isn't pink, they add dye to keep the product pink. But you can't trademark \"my product is pink\" unless it's a dye or paint, so everybody can make pink erasers. Some drafting and art companies stick with white to save on dye, but for the elementary school crowd pink is the color."
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5oc0do | Why can't people have purple, red or maybe solid blue eyes? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Eye color is a result of pigmentation, and varying types of scattering (similar to what makes the sky appear blue). Eye pigmentation is largely the same as skin pigmentation, going from light brown to black. So if you have brown eyes, that just means you have a lot of pigmentation in your iris. Other eye colors are the result of the interaction of that pigmentation with the light scattering off the fine structure of the iris. Someone with blue eyes has fairly low concentrations of pigment in their iris, so the eye color is almost completely determined by scattering effects. Someone with hazel eyes has a medium amount of pigment in their iris. Certain people with albinism have eyes that look reddish, which is due to having even less pigment in their eyes than someone with blue eyes, to the point where the red of the blood vessels is visible. So you don't see purple eyes because there doesn't seem to be a combination of pigment and scattering that would make an eye look purple. People don't have solid blue eyes because the structure of the iris is variable enough from point to point that light scatters differently (pigmentation also varies from point to point). If irises were more homogeneous the scattering effects would produce more solid looking colors. Keep in mind that no eye color looks \"solid\", even really dark eyes have variations in the color of the iris.",
"From my limited understanding of biology I believe there are multiple genes that affect say skin color, eye color, hair color. Any combination of variations can lead to a different skin, eye, or hair color. There isn't an infinite number of possible combinations so there is not an infinite number of possible eye colors. Why eye colors are not purple however I believe is because of melanin and the amount of it that exists in a persons eye which determines eye color (maybe). Sorry if this wasn't very helpful :P"
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5oc5rx | If the sum of two even numbers is an even number, and the sum of two odd numbers is also an even number, then how are there the same number of even numbers as odd numbers? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because there are another two possibilities. Say you have two numbers, X and Y. There are 4 possible odd/even combinations: * X is even, Y is even. Result is even. * X is odd, Y is odd. Result is even. * X is odd, Y is even. Result is odd. * X is even, Y is odd. Result is odd. 2/4 have an even result, 2/4 have an odd result.",
"Let's look at it this way... 3 and 5 both exist as whole numbers, yes? 3 and 5, when added together, equal 8, right? Now, does 8 exist as a whole number on its own, just like 3 and 5 do? Sure it does. Being the sum of 3 and 5 doesn't give 8 'extra existence' any more than being the sum of 2 and 3 gives 5 'extra existence.' Generalizing this specific example, every whole number can be expressed as an infinite number of combinations of other whole numbers. They all exist equally."
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5ocama | Why are almost all living things symmetrical? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Living things tend to be symmetrical if there's no reason to be asymmetrical. For example, most animals have top-bottom asymmetry (due to gravity) and front-back asymmetry (due to how creatures move), but have left-right symmetry. Plants, on the other hand, have top-bottom asymmetry, but since they're (literally) rooted in place, there's no need to distinguish between front and back or left and right.",
"The simplest explanation is say you wanted to draw a person. It's easier to draw half a person and mirror the other half than it is to draw a whole person. It's more efficient to encode the information to create an organism if it is symmetrical. If the left matches the right you don't need separate instructions for each half. In fact how symmetrical an organism appears is a good indicator of it's genetic health and is one of the reasons humans find symmetrically aligned faces to be beautiful. There isn't perfect symmetry in all creatures though. For instance if you look inside a person, our liver isn't symmetrical, and neither is the stomach or spleen. Other times an organism may develop in a symmetrical manner, but changes in hormone levels later in development can cause asymmetry such as some crab species with one claw much larger than the other."
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5occmc | What causes those very short extreme bursts of dizzyness we sometimes randomly experience? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm fairly certain that most people do not experience them at all. If you get them more than very rarely you should probably be consulting a physician. There are many possible causes of vertigo, even in short bursts. Most of those causes are not good things.",
"I get small bouts of dizzyness uf i go from sitting cross legged to standing quickly, i think this is caused by the blood rushing to your legs and causing low blood pressure temporarily in your head, other then this im never randomly dizzy"
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5ocg7f | Why is a single Venusian day longer than a Venusian year? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When an object is in a close proximity to the body it orbits, over time the gravitational pull will slow the spin of the moon or planet. It sometimes but not always ends with the moon or planet becoming tidally locked to the parent body. In the case of Venus, it's rate of rotation is so slow it only spins at about 4MPH, where as it's speed orbiting the sun is much faster than that. Venus also spins backwards relative to it's orbit. These factors lead to the unique Venutian calendar. For instance our moon is tidally locked to Earth and so presents the same face to us anywhere in it's orbit. It doesn't appear to spin, to us looking at it down on the ground. So a day on the moon is caused by it's orbit around Earth, rather than by it spinning in place. It is spinning by the way, but it's rate of spin precisely matches it's rate of orbit."
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5ociev | Why is does our sky have colour when space is pitch black? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The molecules in the air scatter the blue and purple wavelengths of light, creating a diffuse \"blueish\" hue during the day time. At night when there is no sunlight to scatter, the air is clear.",
"When sunlight hits our atmosphere, many wavelengths pass through. We see blue because that is the wavelength that is getting scattered by our atmosphere.",
"We see things when they emit light, or light bounces off them. Space does neither of these things, so we can't see it. Though, the light from the sun is free to travel \"through\" it. When that light gets to our atmosphere, it bends, just as a stick protruding from a pond may look bent at the water's surface. Though, our atmosphere is more gradual than a pond's surface. So, instead of bending all at once, different colors bend slightly differently, which is why sunsets are colorful."
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5ockea | Why do scarecrows scare crows? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They trick crows and other birds into thinking a farmer is out in their field so they avoid it. It's less about scaring them off more scaring them from landing in the first place. Their effectiveness can very though.",
"Crows are actually pretty intelligent birds. They can recognize individual humans, and recognize things that might be humans (like a scarecrow). The idea behind a scarecrow is that it looks enough like a human that the birds will avoid it and its general area because they want to avoid humans.",
"They actually don't unless you [change it up]( URL_0 ) regularly. Birds are wary, but adaptive. And crows are SAF.",
"The scarecrow looks like a human, crow scare of human so they wont land on the field. Did not really work well though."
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5oco9v | When dreaming, why do my punches seem like they're in slow motion? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Dreams lack the physical feedback you would get in the real world. Activities that involve a lot of physical interaction, like running or punching, often feel unrealistic, because while your brain is sending the command, the tactile feedback is missing."
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5octjz | Why do doctors/etc. squirt out the contents of a syringe before administering it in movies/television? | I've seen this quite a few times in various movies and TV shows, and I'm sure that people don't actually do this in real life, right? When did this trope start? What's the purpose behind it? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Actually I do this daily. You need this when you are making a measured injection of some sort of medicine like insulin. Its not so much the air in the veins which could possibly be trouble, but instead to make sure the bubbles isnt messing up your measurement. I have a dog who needs exactly 4 ml of insulin a shot. Bubbles can cause it to move down .5 ml or more. So you put more into the syringe than you need then pull back. You then tap it until the air bubbles are on top. Then you squeeze out the air til it squirts. Then you put the extra insulin back in the container and can have a accurate measure. You dont need it if the drug is premeasured though like a vaccine dose.",
"They are removing air from the syringe. You do not want a bubble of air in one of your veins or arteries.",
"In fact, medical pros do \"prime\" the injection. But if you're talking about the syringe fountain that we tend to see on screen, that's a dramatized version of what actual practitioners do.",
"You fill the needle up with more liquid than you need. There are air bubbles present in the needle, so you tap the needle to get the air bubbles to the top. You then squirt out the air and any liquid to get it exactly to the amount you want without there being any air present.",
"Pointing the needle up and tapping it forces any air bubbles to the tip of the syringe, and squirting out some liquid removes the air. This is done to prevent clots."
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5ocu21 | Why do we get goosebumps? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Goosebumps serve the purpose of making our hair stand on end. Each hair is controlled by a little muscle and when this contracts to make the hair stand up, a little bump forms. It is mostly thought to be a remnant of evolution and not needed anymore. Our ancestors had far more body hair and making hair stand on end would have been useful for keeping warm and for making oneself look bigger to scare off predators. While we lost the body hair through evolution, there was no advantage to getting rid of the muscles and so they remain even if not attached to a hair."
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5ocxgc | If heat makes car windows steam up, why does turning the heater on clear them? | title ^ | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cold air can hold less water vapor in it than hot air. A cars heater will take cold air with little moisture, and make it hot air with little moisture. When people are in the car, the hot air will make moisture on the skin evaporate and the hot air will become humid. When this hot air hits a cold pane of glass, the air will cool, and will no longer be able to hold moisture. The moisture then condenses on the glass. When you run hot dry air from the heater over the glass, it evaporates the water off the glass and makes hot, humid air again.",
"When *you* are warm, your breath has water vapor in it, which condenses on the cold glass, fogging up the windows. When you run the car's heater, which blows warm air onto the glass, the *glass* heats up and no longer attracts condensation, so it clears up.",
"Air can hold water. When it's cold, it can't hold as much. So it may leave some behind like on your cold window. Warm air can hold more water. So running warm air over your window may let it take away that water. However, if the air has too much water already, like your breath, running that warm air may just make it worse. You need slightly dryer air, like from your cars heater/air conditioner."
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5od03j | why do people like to watch pimples being popped? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I guess it's because we need \"resolution\". For instance in music, you can't leave something tensed : after tension, you need a resolution. Same with your body : when you have something that hurts a bit when you touch it and you KNOW you could juts pop it, drain the pus and it would be fine, you do it because it releases the tension. Now, because you KNOW how it works with your body, when you see it in someone else's body it creates a tension : you see that white spot that is JUST ABOUT to burst and that creates a tension that you want to release, thinking \"if it was me, I would have popped that fucker a long time ago !\". So seeing someone do it brings a resolution to a tension and it soothes the watcher."
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5od3cd | Yao's millionaires' problem: how to determine which number is bigger whitout knowing their exact sum. | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"OK I had to make some research ([here]( URL_1 ) and [here]( URL_0 )) and this is a possible solution: (note that this is a simple solution and requires trust between Alice and Bob): Alice and Bob both have an amount of money that is a whole number between 0 to 10 (including). They put 11 boxes into a room and mark each with amount of money (0 - 10). Now Alice leaves Bob alone in the room. Bob puts a piece of paper saying \"yes\" to boxes that represent amounts of money lower or equal to what he has. For example if he has 3 money, he puts \"yes\" in boxes 3, 2, 1 and 0. Now he leaves the room, Alice comes in and looks in the box that represents the amount of money she has. If there is a paper saying \"yes\", Bob has more or same money as her, otherwise he has less money. You can see that Alice could cheat for example by looking in all boxes and figuring out how much money Bob has. Possible cheating can be prevented, but it's complicated and goes beyond me right now."
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5od8k4 | If movement is based on electrical impulses, why can't we create electrical impulses to treat paralysis? | Perhaps, it has already been attempted. Any information would be great. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Electrical impulses already run throughout your body through ur nerves . When one of these nerves is severed paralysis occurs ! There are breakthroughs in the states at the moment, where severed nerves in the leg and back are being bridged with new technologies that allow feeling in the paralysed limb, or allowing use in the legs from a severed spinal column, although this is still at the test phase Their are pioneers who are working on these techniques for mainstream use, it may take a while though"
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5oddo9 | Why is staring ("spacing out") so soothing? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Spacing out is basically meditation. You are allowing your conscious mind to rest. It also acts as a reset, since your mind may be stuck in a loop of thoughts. Like, maybe you're anxious/stressed that you have an exam. You want to study, but your place is dirty. You want to clean, but can't because you need to be studying. You know you're running out of time, because you have an exam. Repeat. There's a lot of information out there about the benefits of meditation. The benefits of meditation in relieving stress and improving concentration are well documented. [Here's Mayo's article, but there's a lot out there]( URL_0 )",
"William James explained the difference between voluntary and involuntary attention. Voluntary attention requires effort - an example is concentrating on a demanding task like driving in traffic. But anything effortful can make you tired. Cognitive psychologists don't have a good idea exactly what inside of you is \"getting tired\" but we use a term called \"cognitive resources\" as a metaphor for the whole thing. The idea is that this kind of effortful attention drains those resources. In contrast, involuntary attention requires no effort. In voluntary attention you have to decide what to attend to and how to respond. In involuntary attention, something just grabs your attention and holds it. No decision making is required. It has been compared to a state of fascination. Many have used these ideas to explain why taking a walk in the woods feels restorative, because you can stop using those \"resources\" and just let yourself explore. Spacing out could easily be seen in the same light. You are not doing anything in particular, so you are resting and restoring those so-called \"resources\".",
"Because it's one of the rare times when you're conscious that your brain is just allowed to rest. Thinking is healthy, but imagine if you walked or jogged endlessly. Oddly, we typically try to \"rest\" our brains from shifting it from one brain demanding activity to another (e.g. stop working to read an article, watch a video, talk to someone, etc.). \"Spacing out\" is necessary for healthy brain function and increasingly people have formalized/incorporated this in the form of some sort of regular mediation practice.",
"I'm no expert, but will venture a guess. Spacing out is as close to meditation as most people get.",
"Related: why do I always subconsciously stare creepily in someone's direction when I space out, only realizing it after they notice.",
"I've always had trouble initiating the same feeling of \"spacing out\" when I've tried to meditate. As a bonafide hypermanic, any attempt at forcing \"spacing out\" just creates an vacuum for anxious thoughts to rush in. Most times \"spacing out\" just kinda sneaks up on me. How to get it to come around more often?",
"Spacing out is a mild form of dissociation. It happens when you feel the need to check out, whether from trauma or just a stressful situation. I would say that meditation (which is not supposed to be mindful, it's supposed to be the complete absence of thought which is why so many people can't do it) is deliberate dissociation while spacing out and dissociating are the body's natural way of shutting down temporarily to protect itself from stress. Dissociation is thought to be the body's natural defense mechanism to protect itself from psychological trauma, which is why its so prevalent in people with PTSD.",
"I actually think that \"spacing out\" is a form of dissociation. You are dissociating from your present place, and feel disconnected from your body. This is why it looks as though you are staring through people, because your eyes lose focus during dissociation. Dissociation is highly associated with trauma, because it gives your mind a way to escape the intense pain/experience, etc. So while I would not call being bored traumatic, it is something that your body just isn't interested in. I don't think it is related to meditation at all, because the point of meditation is to be mindful and present in your body. If you are dissociating, you are not grounded in your body.",
"For me it feels like I am stretching my eye lens muscles by focusing on a point which my eyes don't normally focus to. Similar to how it feels good to stretch your legs if you've be sitting all day.",
"It is a form of dissociation that allows you to distance yourself from emotions by distancing your mind from your body, or perhaps your intelligent mind from your emotional mind.",
"When I space out it's called a seizure. I suffer from absence seizures and they are often mistaken for day dreaming or spacing out.",
"It's not like that for everyone. Spacing out and staring isn't soothing to me at all. It's just... Nothing. Boring, I guess, but not relaxing.",
"Staring reduces brain activity by continually firing the same neural pathways involved in image recognition by reducing changes to the visual field. The only time you get less visual stimulation is by closing your eyes, usually during sleep. Similarly, you are stationary when staring, meaning most of the rest of your body is likewise experiencing a diminished deluge of signals to process, again to a similar degree as you would find during sleep. Essentially what you are doing is resting (not sleeping), and resting activates reward pathways in the brain. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions regarding the evolutionary advantage of this. Just don't stare too long, you've got stuff to do eventually!"
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5odgdr | Why does our eyesight get weaker as we grow older? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For the same reason our arms, heart, bones, and immune systems weaken as we age. Every time your body makes new cells, it essentially copies the older cells. But the copies aren't perfect. They might be close, but they're not perfect. And the copies of those cells are even further away from what the originals were. And their copies are even worse. And so on. Your eye cells might start off great. But over time, they worsen. And as your cells worsen, your eyesight can weaken."
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5odwe1 | Why does the tv sound louder in the morning? | Set at the same volume as the night before when i wake up it sounds much louder | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You have grown accustom to the acoustic level around you. Same premise for light exposure. Dark rooms seem much darker when you come from a brighter area. Once you get used to the dark and your eyes are used to it, it seems a lot less dark."
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5odxhc | Why can bugs/small animals move so fast but we can't? | I've always wondered that. Bugs move at lightning speed, we move at normal speeds, and BIG animals such as elephants move relatively slow (unless charging). I'd think muscle would be proportionate to size (in most cases).. so why can't we move as fast? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I've always assumed it has something with relative size. To us, ants seem to move fast and we move at normal speed. However to an elephant, I would bet that it thinks we are moving fast, too.",
"It is much easier to move a small thing than a large thing. The bug with its smaller muscles can get them moving faster than we can with our larger ones, and our smaller muscles let us move faster than larger things like elephants. The same thing happens with machines too.",
"If an organism is doubled in length, the cross-sectional area of its muscle fibers is quadrupled, but its mass increases by a factor of 8. (Or, replace 2/4/8 with n/n^2/n^3 respectively.) It just so happens that the force exerted by a muscle is directly (approx.) to its cross-sectional area. So we have growth faster than our muscles can compensate."
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5ody2x | What long term damage does weed have on your body? (Assuming that you smoke 5-6 times per week) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"While many drugs have symptoms that appear rapidly weed has a longer span of time needed to produce effects. Some people can smoke weed for their entire life and have no issue similar to some people being able to handle other drugs. Only recently have scientists found results that weed (THC) has ill effects. The main reactions that happen are symptoms of withdrawal e.g. mood swings, that do tend to clear up over time. THC has been linked to mental health issues by worsening the effects of depression or interfering with medication. Now here comes the less supported parts. Many people in the business environment feel that people who smoke weed are less ambitious as time goes on. Since it is hard to measure ambition it is just stated and hard to support. It has been found that 1 in 10 users become addicted to weed. From what I have looked into I am unsure as to if this is an effect of THC or the act of smoking but those who smoke weed over time also have a higher risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular issues. Edit: THC, the compound responsible for the \"high\" of weed affects people differently. It is also hard to separate the difference between THC's and smoking's effects. If you want to read some of the sources I have found there is a mixture of government, organizations, and educational pages. I encourage you to read them but there will be bias as many government sources are against the use of weed. URL_3 URL_0 URL_1 URL_4 The most helpful one I found was a Peer-Reviewed paper on the effects on the brain of weed but is not always easy to follow. URL_2 Also some sources have suggested that the medicinal use of \"Cannabis\" has damaged the liver and kidneys less than medical drugs treating similar problems. URL_5",
"Inhalation of any particulate matter (smoke, dust, air pollution, etc) is bad for your lungs, with potential results such as obstructive lung diseases like COPD.",
"There is evidence that pot may increases the risk of psychosis *if* you are already vulnerable (i.e. you have a close family member with schizophrenia). There is also evidence that using earlier and using more often correlates with psychosis that starts earlier and is harder to treat than expected. However, it's also possible that people who smoke a lot more often are self-medicating for symptoms that are actually the prodrome of psychosis or another mental illness. (So of course then people who use more, more often would be more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis or a psychotic disorder.) [Here is one review.] ( URL_0 )",
"You wouldnt think it but unlike most smoke THC smoke is a bronchodilator. It was an active ingredient used in the early 1900's in asthma cigarettes (like [Grimault]( URL_1 )'s) laying some doubt on the idea that it causes an increase in COPD related illnesses. One of the [few studies done on it in the 70s]( URL_2 ) showed it was comparable to medicine prescribed for asthma patients (namely isoproterenol which wouldnt be prescribed for it today) and using it in an inhaler it could stop a full blown attack in its tracks. People might downvote me for the over used comparison with Tobacco Smoke, but there is a big misconception that all smoke is equal. [It isnt]( URL_3 ). Yes there are carcinogens in the smoke and people are generally getting more tar since there aren't really any comparable filters for weed as there are for tobacco cigarettes. But two things that happen with Tobacco smoke are increased [Angiogenesis]( URL_4 ) which is the bodies ability to create new blood vessels, in this case specifically for cancer tumors. As well as being anti-[apoptotic]( URL_0 ) which is the process our cells go through when they reach their end of life, meaning they don't die properly, or in other words mutate and increase chances of cancer. These aren't seen happening with Cannabis smoke.",
"If you're smoking it (versus eating or vaporizing it), you increase your risk of lung cancer (though not nearly to the degree that cigarettes do) and you may develop coughing/wheezing as well. There's very little science to back this up, it's mostly something that is corroborated by doctors. Not really much of a leap to accept that breathing hot smokey air is going to irritate your throat and lungs. You may also become more forgetful or less focused (using any method; smoking, vaping, eating), but studies show that any negative effect from smoking marijuana can be completely reversed by just stopping, including a very rare condition known as cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. It's pretty much completely harmless unless you have certain psychological disorders or are under 25 years old.",
"Have been smoking weed pretty much daily for nearly 26 years now, easily 10+ a day. I can honestly say that I have not noticed any negative effects it has had on me. As mentioned in various other comments and linked studies, if anything my smoking has helped with ongoing issues with back pain and stress, as well as helping to calm down my asthma and relax my breathing. Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor and my evidence is purely anecdotal.",
"I smoked pot for 13 years 3-4 joins a day, everyday. I recently stopped to prove to myself and others that I can. I have been clean for 2 going on 3months. I had some withdrawals like couldn't sleep till late at night (2-3 am wake up at 7:30am) for the first 2 weeks now I have very vivid dreams. I do not smoke cigarettes and drink maybe 1-2 beers every 2-3 weeks. Still want to Smoke every once and a while mainly for social reasons But I don't give in. Ps I have just been distracting myself with work and working out here and there. P.S. I am pretty normal health wise. No heart problems never been paranoid while under the effects of pot. Mainly just wanted to hang and chill with my lady and friends. But like I said this is just me and some people like cigarettes I preferred pot. I suggest if u are going to try it. Don't make any plans of going out and being in a very public place. Don't do it around children and mainly don't have any responsibilities for a couple of hours and just find a good friend or life partner.",
"So far it seem that weed have very limited negative effect on your body after 25 years old. Before that, it can affect your brain.",
"We don't really know yet. Due to its legal status it has been difficult to study. Most studies prior to the past decade or so are questionable due to poor sampling and control (relying on mostly self reporting) and possible agenda bias. More recent studies are getting better as legal access to the drug increases and the stigma of use decreases. However the reported results from study to study are mixed as to the long term effects. As the legal hurdles begin to come down we will see more research and hopefully some consensus on the results. Unfortunately we are probably a decade or so from that right now.",
"From someone who used to have GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) weed definitely can be a trigger of anxiety for me in which is why I don't do it. Weed sometimes fucks with my head & will leave me with a paranoid mindset that can last for weeks if I don't meditate.",
"Here is a recent study just released January 12, 2017. Go to the \"Chapter Highlights PDF\" URL_0 On a side note my father has smoked cannabis-only for 40 years, he seems to have no health issues at 58 years old, we shall see how he does. Edit: click on PDF in link"
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5odyjc | Why we have a dominant hand/foot? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Overall, usually not. The hard wiring for the superior motor control your dominant hand enjoys isn't free. It takes up real estate in the brain, real estate that otherwise could be used to make you smart or improve visual processing. There are very few tasks crucial to survival that require that level of dexterity in both hands, especially since your brain can only do one thing at a time well. That means it is more advantageous to spend that brain power on just one dominant hand, and you what's left over on something else."
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5oe04i | How did we discover planets that are so far away? | Did we just go like "Hey, let's send a rover at immense speeds into space and hope we run into some cool planets"? If mars is so far away from us, how did we know it was even there in the first place? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First, let's look at the planets in our own solar system. We started discovering and naming them thousands of years ago. The closest few, like Mars or Mercury, can be seen with the naked eye, and stand out to us because they move relative to the stars. Then we invented telescopes, partially so early astronomers could look at these planets and try to see what they look like. Then people, using those telescopes, discovered other planets, like Neptune, which can be seen from a telescope. In the hundreds of years since the invention of the telescope, we've gotten really good at building better and better telescopes to see further and further into space. We've built telescopes in space, like the Hubble. We've built massive arrays of radio telescopes that all work together. We've built scopes that can see in X-ray or ultraviolet. Then we started looking at stars outside of our solar system. As we get more and more data, we can now look for things that pass in front of another Star, or we can detect the wobble of a star as a planet passes in front of it. We can study the light coming from planets in other star systems to analyze their composition and atmosphere. Our capabilities grow every year. We would never waste millions or billions of dollars on random shots into space. Building and launching a probe is incredibly expensive, so each one has a very specific target and mission that it is purpose built for. We've also never gotten a probe outside of our solar system. The pioneer probes, which we launched in the 70's, are only just now leaving the solar system, and you and I will be long dead before they could reach even the closest of stars, assuming they're aimed correctly. (They were never built to study things outside of our solar system, they just haven't died yet.) Edit: Jupiter and Saturn can be seen with the naked eye."
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5oe65b | Is it true that modern human existence on earth is equivalent to an 80 year old man having had a cold for only one day? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you are equating the earth to an 80 year old man: The earth is 4.54 billion years old (give or take 50 million years, assuming you're not sourcing your data from [the state of Kansas]( URL_0 )). The definition of modern humans may be sketchy. It's sometimes referred to as Anatomically Modern Humans, which are about 200,000 years ago. This means modern humans have been around for 0.004% of the earth's existence. To an 80 year old man, 0.004% of his lifetime is about 28 hours.",
"I don't get the \"having had a cold\" part. What do you mean?",
"Assuming humans have been around for 200,000 years and Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old and taking a year as 365.25 days it's roughly equivalent to a 62 year old man having a cold for 24 hours",
"the Earth is 4,543,000,000 years old. give or take few million years. homo sapiens are about 200,000 years old. if the age of the Earth was a full 24 hour day, modern humans didn't come into existence until 11:59:56.2 PM taking analogy further. if the age of the Universe was a full 365 day year, modern humans didn't come into existence until Dec 31st 11:52:24.4 PM"
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5oe7kv | Why does sweat leave a yellow stain in white material? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The color of sweat and urine is largely from a waste product called Urobilin. It has a strong yellowish-brown color. This compound is a product of the breakdown of hemoglobin and other related proteins, by the spleen and liver. This enters the blood and then is filtered out through the kidneys, and to a lesser extent the sweat glands.",
"Sweat is not clear water, in fact is \"similar\" to the urine, as it includes residues from the body. Therefore its color once dryed up is yellow, and not transparent as it may look.",
"I want to piggyback on this one. How can I dissolve that hard, tacky residue on t-shirts that appears after using antiperspirants. I mean - chemically, what can I do to dissolve it. It appears when Aluminium chlorohydrate reacts with swat and sticks to the fabric. Are there any household chemicals that can dissolve this?"
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5oe8lw | What are the benefits and drawbacks of having an overvalued or undervalued currency? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Overvalued- It's easier to buy imported stuff cos they're cheaper than your domestic stuff. Even though your currency is worth more, theirs is worth the same, so their prices will decrease from your perspective. On the downside, your domestic market suffers, and so do your country's exports, because they are costly relative to the world market. Undervalued- Pretty much the opposite. Imports become costlier, and your domestic market thrives. Your exports also thrive because they become cheaper to other countries. On the downside, other countries don't take kindly to you dumping your cheap exports (like China does) and you could face embargos and stuff. Obviously this isn't a comprehensive overview, but it goes through the essentials.",
"Overvalued currency can also lead to trade deficits where we import more then export. At the same time, there maybe capital inflow. Some economists see this as demand stimulus for the foreign country. Undervalued can lead to trade surpluses where we export more and import less. China uses this model because it tends to create jobs. Some criticize this policy because it distorts domestic prices and investment decisions."
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5oebls | Why are the flags on the moon only faded from the sun, and not entirely destroyed? | I'm under the assumption that all the acting forces that happen on the moon (solar winds, asteroids, debris, etc.) would eventually cause the flag to become weathered like it does on Earth, but that doesn't seem to be the case. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The molecules that make up dyes tend to be pretty fragile, and slowly break down when exposed to sunlight, especially with no atmosphere to filter it down. The molecules that make up a flag itself are made of sterner stuff, and stand up to the sun and the vacuum of space. > would eventually cause the flag to become weathered It is hard to get weathered without weather. Flags on earth are subject to wind, particles in the wind, water, and biological agents. On the moon they'd get a touch more solar wind, but in general would remain relatively unmolested compared to earth.",
"Given a long enough time, they would be. Wind throws debris around and whips flags here on Earth. But without an atmosphere, you have to wait until some space debris just happens to crash into the moon right where the flag is. However, the Earth is much more massive and sucks in most debris. And being tidally locked, the side of the moon with the flags faces Earth, so debris that hits the moon is more likely to hit the far side instead. So the flags will likely stand for some time before enough debris comes through to destroy them."
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5oebrg | How do computers go from physical parts to computing languages? | Confusing title, I know, but what I'm asking is what is the link between the physical aspects of computers, such as soldering a circuit board to typing in programs like java? What are the levels in between physical components and digital programming? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"[Here]( URL_0 ) is my answer to a similar question, if it helps you.",
"* transistors/vacuum tubes/relays - electronic switches that can be opened or closed electronically, and used to control other switches * logic circuits - a handful of transistors can build a logic circuit, usually with two inputs on one output...an AND circuit's output only has current if both inputs do, an OR circuit outputs current if either inputs do * a handful of logic circuits can make a digital circuit...a flip-flop is a simple memory circuit that can store one bit, an adder can add multibit values together * those simple digital circuits can build more complex digital circuits, full fledged memories and mathematical and logical components * you can build a CPU out of complex digital circuits, a memory that contains a list of instructions, and a control unit that activates the right component based on that instruction, the essence of machine language * once you have machine language, you can use it to create higher level, more human accessible programming languages"
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5oeiz7 | Why is it easier to fall asleep when you're cold as opposed to it being harder when you're hot? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Cells are more excited and move more when heated, when cooled they slow down. Sort of like when you microwave popcorn, if it's heated it'll pop and jump all around full of energy :) When there is an absence of heat (aka, cold) it is restful and unmoving. Your brain can rest easier when it isn't popping :)",
"The body naturally cools down when it wants to sleep or is sleeping. A low power state, if you will. The body is better at regulating temperature when it's cooler and under blankets that when it's sweating and under blankets. Just a guess."
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5oeoca | Is there land under the arctic ice, if so, will we see it in our lifetime? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Under the arctic ice? No. The arctic is over the ocean. Antarctica however is over a continent.",
"Well, there can be adjoining land that is covered by ice and snow, but the arctic ice pack itself rests primarily on top of the arctic ocean."
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5oessc | Do companies round calorie content up or down on the food label? | For example, the nutrition label of a chocolate chip Clif Bar says that it contains 250 calories, with a macronutrient lineup of 5F/45C/10P. I know that fats contain 9 calories per gram, carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, and proteins contain 4 calories per gram as well. Now, when you add up the calories from the macronutrients of the Clif Bar, the calories actually come out to 265. This isn't a big jump in calories, but if all food companies are able to round down like this, 15 calories can add up pretty quick if a lot of foods you're eating on any given day have also been rounded down. So, my question is, is this allowed, or am I missing something here? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Calorie rounding is allowed with these rules: servings with less than 5 can say 0. servings with less than 50 calories can round to the nearest 5 calorie increment servings over 50 calories can round to the nearest 10 calorie increment. So that 250 could have as much as 255 calories in it for a US food label. You may want to check that the carb number you provided didn't include fiber. You don't have to report the calories from fiber as we can't digest it."
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5oexio | What exactly do artist do in video game design with the programmers to make the game complete? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Artists make everything you see on your screen. Animators make all the things you see on your screen move the way you see them move on your screen. Programmers write code that tells your computer when to play what animation when you press a specific button.",
"Artists provide the 3d renders and models that respond to the programmed code. A programmer writes a code \"if W is pressed: model A does X action\" the artists create the model and animate the action that occurs; as well as they create the landscape that the model walks on."
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5oeysk | Why does the spiciness from salsa intensify after I stop eating it. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Your VR1 receptors (the neuron in your mouth that deceased temperature) binds to capsaicin molecules, which give the sensation of being \"hot\" As you eat, your mouth salivates, breaking down that capsaicin. When you stop eating, you stop salivating, and the capsaicin that remains in your mouth settles down and bonds with your neurons fully."
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5of00b | How would UBI (universal basic income) be good for a capitalistic society? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Some jobs are valuable to employers because they can make a profit by charging more for a product than their costs. However, there are other jobs, like kindergarten teacher, where it's very difficult for employers to turn a profit. As a result, it's very difficult for an employer to financially motivate someone to be a kindergarten teacher. But wait, what if there are people that **want** to do that job because it's personally satisfying to them? Well, there isn't a good system to make sure they earn enough that they don't have to live on food stamps. Many reasonable people do a job they like less that pays a living wage. What if we could take wages off the table? UBI would pay everyone a living wage, and then employers would be free to pay more if they wanted to. Thus someone who likes teaching kindergarten could work in one, even though the operator could not afford to pay them very much, rather than work in a grocery store for a little more money doing a job they hate. Once everyone has enough to live on, other factors of the work are relatively more important. People with high-paying jobs are paid less by their employer, probably a UBI less, because somebody has to pay lots of taxes to make UBI work. But, they get to live in a world where there is a lot less crime because folks in precarious positions often make poor choices.",
"Given a capitalistic society, it isn't \"good\". If a UBI is necessary, it means capitalism's time for wages system has broken down and labor is no longer valuable.",
"A UBI would certainly be contrary to an anarcho-libertarian concept of capitalism, where there is effectively no government involvement whatsoever in the economy, aside from enforcing private contracts. However, in more real-world systems, where government exists and plays a role in providing certain goods or services, the benefits of UBI (according to its advocates) are two-fold: 1.) **It minimally distorts the market** - UBI is a transfer of money from a big pool to everyone in the society. There are no special subsidies, no government run hospitals, and a minimum of costly bureaucracies to portion out the UBI funds. As a result, unlike Social Security or tax cuts or health subsidies, the departure from the market system is as small as can be. 2.) **It \"greases the wheels\" of capitalism** - Supporters also tout UBI as a way to make it easier to have capitalism that is less regulated in other ways. If everyone is guaranteed a certain basic level of income, then people will be freer to buy things they want, will have more power as consumers and as sellers of the labor, and have more money to spend on goods or to invest in businesses. There will be less of a need for costly, non-market solutions when a factory closes or a business does something that would warrant a lawsuit if people could only afford it, and more toleration of risk in a way that benefits business. The idea is that this will make the system overall run better. Of course, your mileage may vary."
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5of2kh | Why are fish kept on ice vs being put in a fridge | Basically wondering why fist markets use the ice approach vs putting them in the refrigerator. Is it just to show that they are fresh? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Ice is cheap, and fish are fine with the concept of getting their outsides wet. You can't sell steaks on ice, because the outside of a steak is the insides of a cow and it's not supposed to get soaked in water. Fish live in water, so they are pre-made with water-friendly outsides. Refrigerators need doors, or lots of cooling (think the dairy case). Fish can be colder sitting on a nice bed of ice, so they last better."
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5of6vd | How does cold air reach body temp in your lungs so fast? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There are small sacs in your lungs that bring the incoming air in close contact with your circulatory system. This quickly brings the air close to body temperature , as well as enabling the transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide.",
"Lots and lots of surface area. You're not warming up a .5 L balloon of air each breath, your warming up millions of separate microscopic balloons of air (alveolar sacs), each with its own personal warmer completely surrounding it (capillaries). Also the layer of insulation between the body temp blood and outside temp air is literally a couple cells thick, so heat transfer is minimally impeded. Edit: forgot to mention the ever splitting airway that comes into contact with more and more of the air as it splits.",
"Not a full explanation but your nose and the way air flows through it plays a large part in this. When you inhale that cold air runs in through your nose and through it's various structures. There are \"folds\" further inside that the air runs through on the way in. As the air swirls through them it picks up both warmth and humidity. The hairs in your nose filter out pollen, dust, etc."
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5of8zy | why is it that we are much more horny after hooking up, having sex, fooling around etc. as opposed to just masturbating? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Sex activates hormones that masturbation does not. Having sex more often actually increases libido for that reason."
],
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5ofadt | Wouldn't the cost of Donald Trump's proposed import tax be passed on to consumers by raising the price of imported goods? How are American citizens being helped by paying more for the same products? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Import tax be passed on to consumers by raising the price of imported goods? For any goods that are imported, yes (which is a lot of them, at least in part). The idea is this incentivizes people to buy domestic goods, which will create more jobs domestically. It also tends to hurt exporting businesses, because other countries will retaliate with their own tariffs. In addition, depending on what trade agreements are in effect, we can be fined. > How are American citizens being helped by paying more for the same products? The idea is that making jobs at home is worth the higher prices. It's generally accepted that isn't worth it (at least nationally. on a smaller, industry specific area it can help). Part of the problem with globalization is that certain areas tend to get hit extremely hard. In the U.S.'s case, one big example is manufacturing (because it's cheaper labor). In theory, the decrease in price makes us more than rich enough to help those people who lost their jobs out, and still be richer. In practice, we haven't done a particularly good job of having those people switch to a different job, relying on the market to sort it out (which can often be a long and painful process). tldr: Yes, it will basically just hurt us. But people are extremely upset with the status quo, and it's not obvious to the average person that it won't work. It sounds very compelling. edit: As a couple people have mentioned, i did leave out the impact of automation (for simplicity. Although, it's larger than globalization). While the above explanation still holds, technology just makes things even worse, since tariffs clearly aren't going to put the technology genie back in the bottle.",
"They're not helped by paying more for a foreign car, they're pushed to buy domestic cars instead. Hopefully, this helps create jobs domestically. It might not work that way in practice but that's the thought behind it. The fact that many \"foreign\" cars are actually produced domestically makes it all more complicated.",
"The answer is yes. Tariffs are passed on to the consumer at the shelf. Its essentially a penalty against your own citizens for buying foreign product. It says, if you buy foreign, im going to add a tax so it costs as much as buying American. He thinks it will \"create jobs\" but it will likely just starve low income walmart shoppers in the rust belt even more. It might spur some American industry but far from enough to create the change and jobs that he is falsely promising. If we all only bought American and kept all the money in our own businesses in theory companies would be able to pay more Americans, but reality is that we cant become self sufficient or reach autarky. His tactics are also bully tactics and PR stunts that do not help Americans. The \"Carrier Deal\" is a total sham and crony capitalism. The attacks on individuals and individual companies are just PR tools to support the narrative for his voters that he is making \"deals\" and \"negotiating\" and fighting the \"establishment\". In reality he and his nepotistic enterprise are probably just shorting stocks right before he bashes a company on Twitter. **Trade wars and retaliatory effects aside",
"Yes, and yes. No, American citizens are not helped by paying more for products. His import tax has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with politics. Economics generally agree that free trade and globalization is good on average. Keyword here: **average**. Free trade and globalization is the reason that your iphone, which has parts and rare earth minerals from all over the world, doesn't cost $1500. When the entire world assigns different people to make different products in the most efficient way, and then sell to each other, instead of having one country struggle to make everything by itself, everybody wins. That's the upside of globalization. However, the downside of free trade and globalization is lower skilled people in developed countries lose their jobs en masse to poorer countries with lower cost. **On average**, free trade is good for the US. However, the benefits and downsides are not symmetrical. The upside of free trade is that everybody gets cheaper Iphones, cheaper fruits, cheaper T-shirts, cheaper TV shows, cheaper everything, improving the standard of living. However, these are subtle changes that affect everyone, and people generally just take it for granted, and rarely base their political decisions on it. On the other hand, the downside of free trade is much more visible, much more striking, and affects a smaller number of people, but in much deeper ways. When a factory or a plant is shut down, the entire town might lose its job, and spiral into disrepair, drugs, and population loss. And the people who lost jobs definitely think about it as they enter the voting booth. That's why it's much easier politically to be against free trade than for it. **By placing his chips against free trade, Donald Trump is betting that the people he is trying to court (disaffected Rust Belt working class voters) will notice and credit him as they vote, while the people that he will hurt (everyone else) either won't notice or will forget the rising prices in storefronts by election day.**",
"Foreign cars will cost more, Domestic cars will be cheaper, in theory. In practice the price of domestic cars will rise so the sellers will earn more money. Quality will be sacrificed in the long run and prices over all will increase. Edit: a word",
"In economics there is a concept of substitute goods. For example, you go to the grocery store with the intention of buying a frozen pizza. But today frozen burritos are on sale. So you buy frozen burritos instead. Both fill a similar role, filling you up. Price can change people's behavior, a 10c fee to use a paper bag might encourage you to bring a reusable bag from home. So an import tax might raise the price enough that a domestically similar item is the same price as the import which was made by cheap labor in a country with few regulations. Or maybe it might raise the price that the value you fee the import has, is no longer worth it. For example pretend a Ford Taurus is mostly made in the USA and a Toyota Camry is mostly made in Japan. A nicely equipped Taurus is $33,000 and a similar Camry is $37,000. As a buyer, you might be willing to pay $4000 extra because you feel that a Camry is a better built car. If the tax on an imported car was $2000, are you willing to pay $6000 for a Camry or is that price difference too much, and you'll buy the US made Taurus instead?",
"Many of his proposals are threats designed to prevent a certain outcome. They're to serve as an incentive not to do whatever will lead to the unpleasant consequences. If companies keep their manufacturing plants here in the US they won't be hit with a tariff. The goal isn't to charge them money but to keep them from leaving in the first place.",
"It's called \"Protectionism\" free trade is generally \"Globalism\". Protectionism imposes import tariffs in order to protect domestic businesses from being undercut on price by cheaper foreign goods. This also makes it less attractive to move manufacturing overseas. Countries usually retaliate by imposing similar taxes in reverse. This isn't such a concern for the US because we import much more than we export and our exports are mainly specialties that are either not available or difficult to locally manufacture. That having been said there are huge diplomatic and economic implications of rampant protectionism. Alliances are often based on free trade. Also the cost of moving manufacturing back home may have big impacts on corporate stock prices and possibly a net negative impact on jobs as companies lay off white collar domestic workers to pay higher wage blue collar jobs. The cost will also be passed on to the consumer, but only as much as the market will handle, actually companies try to cut corners elsewhere before raising prices too much for fear of cheaper competition. Also none of the above may be true or evident because of factors beyond anticipation. TLDR: It's complicated. Much more so than I've explained here in fact.",
"Tariffs are like nukes. I throw one out, you throw one out, suddenly everyone's paying too much for shit. Nobody wins. So if the other person can also do it to you, you should refrain.",
"There is one huge complication with the theory that this will bring back American can jobs by forcing people to buy domestic: before companies reinvest capital in America they need confidence the tariffs will remain in place. Simply put, we like to think of markets as immediately responsive, but in reality there is a huge lag between when a market gives a signal, and when the response finally comes. If I'm looking to build a billion dollar factory, I need time to see the impact of the new tariffs. Make sure my new factory makes economic sense at new higher prices. Have confidence a new government regime won't wipe out these new price forcast. Then I can get around to actually starting the multi-year construction of my new facility. In the meantime all of America loses with higher prices and no job creation (and more broadly IN general America loses long term as well). This is just one issue on top of the many others that make import tariffs a bad idea.",
"I'm not sure if it's been mentioned that we already know what will happen, because we tried it in the 1980s with Japanese auto imports. Domestic car makers raised prices an average of $1,000. Turns out that there's not much price elasticity in highly segmented markets like the auto industry. I do believe, however (somebody will correct me) that the Japanese import tariffs are what spurred the Japanese automakers to build factories in the US. Either way, Trump is playing chicken with the auto makers. He hopes that the threats will stop auto makers from building or expanding plants in Mexico. If they ignore him (as it appears BMW will), it's bad news for consumers.",
"He is betting on a system where the government controls the means of production and sets prices by policy. Instead of private property and a free market the government redistributes money to whoever they see fit by increasing taxes selectively to manipulate the markets. It's like socialism but differs in that it is not for the benefit of the people.",
"Yes, and everyone wants to instantly use \"cars\" as the example. But he can't just tax one or two industries. That's absolutely unconstitutional. All companies selling goods will have to follow these rules - and that means any company producing goods in another country will be subject to these penalties. In other words, your iPhone is about to cost $2000."
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5ofcad | Why is ice slippery but glass isn't? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Most things get smaller when they get colder- it's a principle called \"thermal contraction.\" Most things get bigger when they get hotter- \"thermal expansion.\" Solids are denser than liquids. Water is weird in that it doesn't work this way. When water becomes ice, it actually because slightly larger because of its molecular structure. Ice forms in a \"lattice\" of water molecules. When you step on ice, it physically breaks some of this lattice, compressing it down into water. The water that you just made sort of lubricates the surface of the ice.",
"Glass is slippery as hell, when it's wet. Water is different from most fluids in that under pressure, at constant temperature, it goes from a solid to a liquid phase. This creates a thin layer of water right on the underlying solid surface. It's self-slippifying. Glass, along with 99% of other materials, obviously doesn't do this.",
"A thin film of ice melts between an object's points of contact with the ice and the ice itself and it is the water that has very low friction and is slippery."
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5off5j | Why do trees grow through things such as chain-link fences? | Why do trees grow through things such as chain-link fences, and also, how do they know to retain the shape of a tree trunk instead of the segments that were "cut" growing to different sizes? Thanks. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For the same reason seeds can sprout through concrete I imagine. Plants seek light, they'll grow around whatever they need to to get to it easier."
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5offi8 | Is there any correlation between eating less and sleeping more? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Both of those things—poor appetite and extra sleeping—are also signs of depression. It's something to at least be aware of. I know that for myself, when I find myself in that position it is usually a sign that I am drifting down into a depression. What's more, not eating well and not sleeping \"right\" both tend to aggravate depression, causing a pretty vicious cycle. If you think this could be the case, look into different avenues of help. Depression is no joke. Be well.",
"Bad diets can definitely have an effect on your sleep schedule. I was in the same position as you in November, I didn't understand why I was sleeping all the time or why, after a full night's sleep, I was waking up exhausted. As I worked irregular hours I would never eat proper meals or eat well at all. The lack of healthy food in my diet was essentially starving my body of iron, leading to constant fatigue. The best thing you can do is try to eat more red meat (I.e. Steak) or get more dark, leafy greens in your diet (ideal would be kale, but spinach is also great!). Try to get more protein in your diet as well, so maybe take a bag of mixed nuts as a snack if you're on the go. It's difficult changing your diet, especially if you're busy, but you'll start to feel much better for it pretty much immediately, and it can help get your sleep schedule back on track too!",
"maybe your body is not receiving enough nutrients, which are required to do both physical and mental activities. so, if this is correct, you may be sleeping more because you are not consuming enough food to keep your body energized. just a guess. try eating smaller, healthy snacks throughout the day. this will allow you to consume nutrients conveniently.",
"I would suggest ... - Hydrate, straight water. 2L is enough - 4 grams of sodium / potassium ( try lo salt or regular salt in water will help) - daily multivitamin * optional - magnesium gylcinate in powder form ( way cheaper ) and have that mixed in water when you wake up and before bed. Sleep is important but even more important is quality deep REM sleep. This will get your electrolytes taken care help your sleeping be deeper so you will naturally wake up 6-8 hours once your body fully recharges. It is also best to eat once big meal rather than snack, look up intermittent fasting.",
"Sounds like me in College. I excercised minimum 30 minutes of cardio every other day and I started sleeping less and having more energy. I still have my ups and downs but for the most part I can get it down to 6-10 hours a night... I had the same problem you had about sleeping 14 hours a day and my sleep schedule consuming me, making it difficult to get to class on time. Get several alarm clocks. Not several on your phone, but like, one on each side of the room, one that turns a light on, one that plays a song you hate (etc etc).",
"Well actually there is, but in the reverse. If you sleep well you will eat less. The reason for this is that a well rested night will give you a lot more energy the next day. With more energy, you body doesnt call for quick top ups, usually of sugar or other processed crap.",
"I've had this problem with my depression compounded with my practically clinical pickyness and poor food options. Instead of hunger/appetite I'll feel weak and faint and just sleep it off. Once, most likely due to some menstrual related anemia, I just hibernated for 3 days straight. It is most definitely a thing and very strong in the winter.",
"Bad diets can definitely have an effect on your sleep schedule. I was in the same position as you in November, I didn't understand why I was sleeping all the time or why, after a full night's sleep, I was waking up exhausted. As I worked irregular hours I would never eat proper meals or eat well at all. The lack of healthy food in my diet was essentially starving my body of iron, leading to constant fatigue. The best thing you can do is try to eat more red meat (I.e. Steak) or get more dark, leafy greens in your diet (ideal would be kale, but spinach is also great!). Try to get more protein in your diet as well, so maybe take a bag of mixed nuts as a snack if you're on the go. It's difficult changing your diet, especially if you're busy, but you'll start to feel much better for it pretty much immediately, and it can help get your sleep schedule back on track too!"
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5ofg0s | Why do we pick scabs? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"For the same reason we might mindlessly pick at some dried glue on our hand--our subconscious mind sees it as something foreign that doesn't belong on our body. Of course, scabs are part of us (at least temporarily), and they're critical for wound healing, which is why the picking stops when our conscious mind kicks in. But it isn't entirely in our heads: The presence of histamines in scabs can make them feel itchy.",
"It looks like a foreign object stuck to us, and evolutionarily those who tended to remove foreign objects from our bodies avoided any potential threat.",
"Theres people like me that love that tiny prick of pain. But not too much, im not a weirdo or anything",
"Parr of the healing process causes itching (histamines). We want to scratch the itch because scratching feels good even when it's bad. We then go from scratching to picking. It also becomes a displacement activity like nail biting or nose picking.",
"I pick scabs because it kinda feels good... I know that's really weird though. It's probably just because it's an unusual feeling to have one, so we naturally want to pick at it"
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5ofhqt | If black soaks up heat, how do pure black birds like crows and ravens not overheat and suffer/die? | (also I'd *love* to read any papers on this if anyone has researched it more thoroughly... Google Scholar didn't turn up much.) Edit: someone posted an article that referenced "Animal coat color and radiative heat gain" - Walsberg, Campbell, & King, 1978. J. Comp. Physiol. 126B: 211-222. If anyone knows where I can read that for free I'd love it. I really want to read it, but not €43 want to read it! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hair and feathers don't transfer heat well, an example is if you're outside on a hot day and you feel your hair it's very hot but your scalp isn't.",
"There are... multiple ways to approach this question, so I'm going to throw a bit of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. * The heat doesn't totally transfer from the feathers into the bird. Imagine holding a blanket in front of your at a bonfire. The blanket might get hot, but assuming it doesn't catch on fire it actually creates a cool shadow for you. * Birds have other ways to cool down. They can change their posture and feather-position (like how hairs in your skin can raise or lower) to increase airflow that takes away their higher-than-ambient heat, and have their own kind of \"panting\". * Black doesn't necessarily \"soak up heat\". Rather, something *we* can see as black is often something that absorbs sunlight. (Which is a range of light based on us being blobby sacks of water on a wet ball of rock a certain distance from a certain star.) Being black in a dark cave won't help you very much. * What we call \"infrared\" isn't actually \"heat\" any more than the color blue is \"heat\". Rather, it's a range of light that tends to correspond stuff that \"*humans* think is hot\". If we were ice-beings of Pluto it'd be a very different story. **Edit:** Found a quick writeup: > The desert seems an unlikely choice for this all-black bird. But ravens thrive even in the arid, often hot Southwest, where common sense suggests that light-colored feathers would be a better adaptation to the scorching sun. [...] > But as it turns out, a raven's black plumage works well in the desert. Black feathers do conduct the sun’s warming rays, but they concentrate the solar heat near the surface of the plumage. All it takes is a breeze or air movement from wind, or from flying, to convect the heat away from the surface of the raven’s dark feathers. > Light-colored feathers absorb some of the sun’s rays, too. But they tend to trap heat and send it more directly to the skin, where a breeze gives less relief. So in even a slight wind, the skin of a black-feathered bird stays cooler than the skin of a white-feathered bird. URL_0",
"Have you ever worn a black shirt? You feel a little warmer, but heat still circulates off of you as air moves around and so on. It's the same with birds, their feathers let air move around."
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5ofkxm | Why does shaving against the grain cause so much more irritation than shaving with the grain? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you shave against the grain the razor tugs at the hair in addition to slicing through it, pulling it a bit farther out of the follicle. This makes it much easier to get ingrown hairs and irritation on the skin. Edit to elaborate on everyone else's experiences by adding my own: Using Mach 3s and all that newer stuff I always broke out on my neck. Switching to a safety razor(a big part of this is also finding the right blade brand for you skin, Feather was way too sharp for me and caused razor burn, I ended up going with Derby), using a badger hair brush and shaving soap and making my own lather, shaving while showering and your hair is moist and skin is warm from the steam, and rinsing with ice cold water after the shave are what I found work the best. Hard to nail down exactly what helped the most cause I switched to doing all that at the same time. [Safety Razor]( URL_7 ) [Blades]( URL_1 ) [Soap]( URL_2 ) [Fogless Shower Mirror]( URL_5 ) [Mug to make lather in]( URL_3 ) [Brush]( URL_6 ) [After Shave]( URL_0 ) [Cold Water]( URL_4 ) ;P (I honestly think rinsing with cold water for at least 15 seconds before putting on after shave is the most important part in avoiding irritation and ingrown hairs.)",
"LPT: Use a safety razor with a really nice blade. Shave with the grain, then against the grain. It's a lot better for your skin/hair and doesn't tug on your hair so bad.",
"It's mostly a problem with people of ethnic background, because our hair tends to be more curly. That's the biggest source of the problem. When you shave with the grain, you slice the hair in such a way that the end is relatively flat. Think of an unsharpened brand new pencil. When you shave against the grain, you slice an angle into the hair and make it sharp. Now, if your hair tends to be thin and straight, this isn't much of a problem. The area will inflame a bit immediately after shaving, but the hair still grows straight out of the follicle. If your hair naturally curls, though, we have an issue. There's a chance that your spear-shaped hair will get caught in the inflamed skin. If that happens, it's easy for the hair to loop around or otherwise stop growing out of the follicle. Congratulations! You've irritated your skin to produce a razor bump or graduated past that to an ingrown hair! The best method I've found, which works for all humans regardless of ethnicity, is to use a safety razor and shaving cream. Shave very lightly in the direction of the grain only. This cuts the hair off flat and flush with the skin. Immediately follow with shave balm or after shave and lotion. Hope this answers your question thoroughly. Edit: [figure to illustrate]( URL_0 )",
"I've always shaved against the grain. Have I been doing it wrong for decades? Face feels fine. Something something shaving cream.",
"Imagine your leg being impaled by a spike at a 45 degree angle. Now imagine a giant razor going against it from each angle. Which angle do you think will hurt the most?",
"Shaving against the grain grabs the hair and pulls the follicle. This alone doesn't give you razor burn type irritation. The area swells do to the now irritated follicle but you are going to make another pass aren't you. Now you've just cut off the top layer of skin. You have razor burn. Always use aftershave lotion or rubbing alcohol to prevent infection and some moisturizing lotion.",
"With vs against the grain is really dependant on what kind of facial hair you have, skin sensitivity, and also how you prepare to shave. The best shave will always be in a hot steamy shower after you've already washed everything and gotten your face/wet/steamy/hot. Softening up the hairs and just making everything easier to work with. Go to an old school barber shop and the hot towel on the face thing was done for a reason :) Shaving a few days growth? 1st pass with the grain to get the bulk, 2nd pass against the grain to get it baby smooth. I like saving money but those disposeable single use bic safety razors are shit and no matter how slow or careful, I get cut to hell with them. Currenly use a Schick Hydro 5 (little cheaper than the gillette stuff) and does an awesome job. Even tried those dorco razors (dollar shave club) and found them to be of inferior quality. Speed shaves in front of the mirror while you are running late, will never be as smooth or irritation free when you are in a rush, more irritation as well."
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5oflgs | Why commercials have a long and short version. | Many times I will see an ad for the first time and it is 30 seconds or so, then in the coming weeks that commercial will be cut to a shorter version, maybe 10 or 15 seconds. Sometimes it even has shots that weren't in the original. Anyone in advertising who could shed some light? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yep, it is a specific marketing strategy aimed at regular tv watchers. They start running a long commercial (1 minute) that hopefully does a really good job of being remember by the audience. This if often not hard because 1 minute commercials often stand out because they are so long already. They will run these for a few weeks, and then cut it down to a 30 second spot. This has the affect of you already recognizing the commercial, thus it doing its job, but costing less money as commercials are charged by run time and audience size. Sometimes they will even reduce it to a 15 second spot after that. It is just a way to maximum people remembering the commercial while minimizing the cost."
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5oflgt | When someone is really screwing up why do people sarcastically say they are "Batting a thousand."? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Sports fans, especially baseball fans, emphasize and collect player statistics. One such statistic is how many often a player hits the ball when they're up to bat, and it is calculated as (number of hits)/(number of times the player has been up at bat). Because of this, it is a number that varies between 1 (perfect, always hits the ball if he's at bat) and 0 (incompetent, never hits when he's at bat). Because of this relatively small range, it's usually calculated out to three decimal places, making the range 1.000 to 0.000. For this reason, the phrase \"batting 1000\" became popular to mean \"doing something flawlessly.\" When someone's really screwing up, someone might sarcastically compare them to a person who is doing the opposite of screwing up, similarly to how you might call someone who's being dumb \"Einstein.\""
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5ofm1h | Why are the worst positions for your joints/muscles the most comfortable? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"/u/Gonzotronic has it right. It comes down to energy and efficiency. Using our muscles takes energy and work. If we're in a position where muscles aren't working, less energy is being used. Slouching is the best example. You're essentially just relaxing the muscles of your spine and trunk until most of the weight/pressure is being held by ligaments and joints (or leaning on your arm, etc). It's also why people default to lifting with a bent back. We know the dangers to our lower back in doing this yet it's more energy efficient as it uses less muscle. The second part of the question - why are these the worst positions? When we're in one position for a long time our tissue undergoes \"creep\" in the same way silly putty would if we held it in the air and let it fall (although much more slowly). Things slowly stretch out (ligaments, joints) and can cause discomfort as well as trigger our muscles (remember they're meant to take pressure off these tissues) to reflexively tighten to protect the now compressed or stretched ligaments and joints.",
"I put a year of effort to recover from bad posture, I do agree with many of the things said but one important thing is missing and it plays a big part in why it isnt actually more comfortable, but sorta is. When you start with bad posture it suddenly becomes difficult/tiring to support yourself as the muscles have to work harder to hold shape (excaserbated by school, job / long sitting etc). This mean you naturally move towards that extreme slouch / worst positions where as others have said your joints / ligaments take the stress and muscles do less, so it feels \"easier\" and \"more comfortable\" because its no longer difficult. When you are in those positions over time your muscles loosen or tighten in places to accommodate / reach neutral positions. For example, slouching, the muscles in your chest and front of shoulders tighten up and your ones in your back loosen / stretch. If you then try to have \"correct\" posture, i.e. pull your shoulders back a bit, stand up more etc you then have to fight the bad form of the muscles, i.e. your back muscles are weak and have to work harder to expand those tight chest muscles which dont like to be stretched. This makes having \"correct\" posture hard and painful, which is then why bad posture / those extremes feel comfortable. So the real way to correct bad posture is with stretching and strengthening. I.e. stretching chest muscles every day, strengthening back muscles to tighten them up. Essentially developing good core strength / form. There are specific stretches and exercises, or things like pilates or yoga are great -- but it takes a good 6 months or a year of regular activity to make actual real good progress If you fix the muscles they will start to pull your spine etc into shape and then your skeletoncan start supporting itself. So yeah long story short, good posture should be easy if you break into a back habit it quickly becomes hard and your body adapts then to the bad posture. Something worth mentioning here is Alexander Technique. Word of caution I think there are many good lessons in it but some (bad) teachers on the extreme take it to the point of almost faith healing ailments. Frederick Alexander was a public speaker and I believe did some Shakespearean acting in the 1890's but no amplification in them days so had to project voice loudly. And basically voice started to suffer, weakened, hoarse, out of breath and along with it back pain etc. So he spoke to doctors and there was no reason they could find, i.e. his throat looked fine. So he made the assumption its his speaking / the way he was doing that was wrong. He then stood in front of a bunch of mirrors and analysed what he looked like when he was speaking, noticed he was bending his neck and slouching. With the mirrors he set out with practice to correct that, and lo and behold, his voice came back full and strong. He then studied this more and studied other people with issues, sportsmen etc and noticed more things about how posture can affect performance of the body. Basically then wrote a book about it and taught it. I think its really good as its a thorough study into posture, and more importantly, movement. A hopefully obvious example is sitting. When sitting you need to lean forward, bend kness and plant bum on seat, sounds easy, not so much... A common thing there is most people when they sit as I did seem to fix there eye line, so as you sit your head crinks backwards as your body moves forward, this puts all sorts of tension on your neck. Where its gone bad though is some people then have taken this on as a one size fit all \"cure\" for back pain/hypertension etc and its not. Take it as a detailed study into posture and movement and there are definitly things in here that can help / promote good practice and in many cases can actually help reduce / fix back pain / chronic pain. Its helped understand my posture which getting that good has helped my relieve tightness across my chest, my singing and my back/neck pain from a car accident / whiplash injury.",
"Do you mean mostly your back? If so no one has addressed the elephant in the room. Our general spine design was forged in the evolutionary fires eons ago, and that design was for supporting ourselves on four legs. It's not something that's easily changed. Despite that fact that we started our path to walking on two legs millions of years ago, our bodies have not yet evolved a way for walking upright to not totally fuck up our backs, eventually. Think of the spine as a chain, meant to be suspended between the two poles of your shoulders and hips. Most of the force of gravity---particularly as you move---would go into your limbs that way. But since we walk upright, we're taking that chain and pretending it's a solid and rigid flagpole. Every moment you spend upright is crushing it in a direction it was never meant to be crushed. Our muscles are constantly working to prevent this as much as possible, so relaxing them feels good. But the muscles being tense is what's preventing the links in your chain from collapsing.",
"Habitualization. Modern life, whether computer work or sitting at home predisposes you to bad posture. It takes effort to keep your posture correct. Effort requires work. Work is hard. Therefore, people default to bad posture. After a lifetime of bad posture, it's just easier. Not exerting effort is easier than giving effort, hence the feeling of comfort, even if harmful. Rarely are easy things worth doing. #life",
"Little off topic but personal trainer here: The fastest possible way to correct posture (in my experience, and for a HEALTHY, uninjured, non-senior individual) is to skip stretching and instead implement functional strength building moves with proper form. I am not saying stretching isn't beneficial but I myself spent 5+ months stretching to rehab an injury and avoiding what I knew would work best because the chiropractor advised stretching instead and I found that almost immediately after focusing on strength my posture returned to normal, whereas stretching and lighter physical therapy exercises provided almost no results for months. The key factor here is I am young, fit and not injured / senile. This will not work if you have injuries or are an older person but if you're healthy give it a shot. By strength building functional moves I mean compound barbell or dumbbell exercises and TRX is amazing for upper body posture as well. Some exercises that are general basics are the barbell squat, barbell deadlift, dumbbell or barbell Bench and row, and my personal favorite for upper body posture : TRX row or TRX facepull. Please google the form and make sure it's correct! Edit edit: just dropping this here, I'm not an expert so don't take my advice as such. I'm also 23, hiker, rock climber, snowboarder and been working out for a decade. I know my body extremely well in and out. I can assure you 100% without a doubt stretching didn't do jack shit for me and never will. Also consider my fitness level, I'm not against stretching I'm just saying for fit athletic individuals such as myself who may have postural issues I have found quicker and more efficient success from strength training than I have stretching. Stretching has numerous benefits and I'm not knocking this at all I'm just saying personally for me (and those of similar athletic builds) that stretching was far inferior and far slower than straight up weights and strength building!",
"I used to have lower back pain. Tried every medication and exercise. Nothing worked, Then I developed my own solutions:- 1. If you wish to ease your lower back pain, practice to sleep with a thin pillow between your legs. Also take a near foetal position, not a hard one, but whatever degree of curling makes you comfortable. 2. Another hack. You can also try to lie on the floor on your back and then set your lower legs on a chair seat ( horizontal) which will make your thighs ( vertical). Adjust yourselves into the most comfortable position. This will take the strain off your back muscles and backbone. You can sleep in this position throughout the night. You may have to spend a little time and money in finding a chair with the exact height to suit your leg length.",
"They aren't. If you learn to stand and move with functional alignment you'll see the difference. Adapting to wearing shoes all the time results in necessary compensation patterns (heel weighting, leaning back, slouching forward), but these are high effort positions relying on dynamic tension among stabilizing muscles. In proper alignment of skeleton and fascia one is in relationship with the ground such that force is transferred directly to the bottom of the feet (instead of tangent to joints) and verticality can be obtained relaxedly and effortlessly. This takes years (literally) of unlearning poor movement mechanics, but boy oh boy is it worth it.",
"So I have quite a similar issue when gaming, can someone explain this to me why I can't focus on the game while sitting in a comfortable position. I play games for hours on end with my leg folded between the seat and my thighs which results in severe numbness and also my lower back is not supported by the seat which has resulted in severe back pain.",
"I was actually laying in bed last night thinking about this. Why is it better for you back if you sleep on the ground, even though it's so uncomfortable",
"What really helped me to improve my posture was practicing yoga. I've always been into fitness and working out, but it wasn't until I really started getting into yoga that I noticed a huge difference in my posture. Now, it doesn't feel like work to keep my back straight or anything, it actually feels good because my muscles are strong and stable enough to support my natural alignment."
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5ofnb0 | how is it possible to be able read text and think about a completely different subject simultaneously. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This legitimately was always my problem with trying to get into books. I would be reading the words but thinking about something completely different haha. Good question. I'd like to hear an explanation as well."
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5ofpce | How does an animal's fur "know" when to change from one seasonal coat to the next? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the species. Horses fur gets fluffy in the winter because its body responds to the decrease in daylight hours (which is why show horses are kept in barns with lights on year round). But dog bodies respond to temperature to shed and fluff up. So all in all it depends! Hope that helps :)"
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5ofq3o | Why is it that you never notice a person (mostly kids) aging when you see them regularly, but when you look back at old photos/videos, you only then realize how much they've grown? | I'll give my cousin as an example. He's in his "puberty" years, so a lot of bodily changes happen then. To me, he's always looked the same as he did a few years ago. I only really noticed a small change in his voice, but nothing major. Then I look back on old home videos, and saw how truly young he looked before "puberty hit him". I never noticed the change until then. Could someone explain why this happens? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Day to day things are stored in short term memory. The mundane gets replace a lot. Long term memory is stored elsewhere in the brain. Looking at an old photograph will bring those memories to the short term part of the brain where then the shock process occurs. Other forms of this happen when you get older, move a lot, or just are away for a long while. Example, say you live on the east coast of the US and you move to the west coast. You lived on the east for 20 years. While you go about your daily life on the west coast you will see people that look just like people you know from the east coast. If you could put them side by side you would see they usually don't look alike. It is just your brain trying to comprehend the radical changes that took place with the move, and loss of familiarity. When old people get senile the brain will do the same thing. Trying to place old memories to what it can't comprehend in the short term. Grandma might start calling you by a late relative's name for example.",
"It's called \"just noticeable differences\" in science. It has to do with the ability of our senses to detect minute changes. Example, if I increase the temperature in the room by 0.1 degrees, human senses are not precise enough to notice it. However, if I increase the temperature by 10 degrees, you will notice it. So, from day to day, we are all aging. However, the changes are so minute, we do not recognize them. Additionally, short term memories are stronger than long term in terms of personal recognition. Example, when you think of someone, you imagine them as you last saw them, not 20 years ago. So, from each interaction you were not able to detect any noticeable change. When you look back at old pictures, enough time has passed that those minute daily changes have since added up enough to be detected."
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5ofq8r | Why do we find viscous liquids so satisfying? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Honestly I dont think this is an actual thing that has an explanation. Its more of a preference. I dont think humans have an innate love with viscus liquids like we do with.... idk cant think of a good example, but its not programmed in like our love for pheromones or something."
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5ofqep | Does Chicken Soup actually soothe our ailments when we have the cold or is it in our heads? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The heat helps to get the mucous flowing and you can clear out your pipes, giving you a temporary relief. If you've got a stomach ailment it's mostly liquid so it's easier on the stomach too, but you're still getting nutrients and food so you feel better after starving for awhile. It's a good food overall, but has added benefits",
"I can chime in a bit here, I recently saw a TV program that talked about it called food fact or fiction. They said the chicken in the soup releases fats that help you feel good and, since the root vegetables are cooked down, they are easier to eat. Which all helps in restoring nutrients and the steam helps loosen mucus, like others have said. Also liquids need to be restored which is easier to do if it taste good instead of plain water. Source: TV show. Food fact or fiction.",
"Most of the answers here are too simplistic and generalized which is fine for an eli5 but most are somewhat inaccurate. It's hard to say what specific component of the soup makes us feel better. But there was a study released in 2000 that looked into potential mechanisms of how chicken noodle soup makes you feel better. Summary: URL_0 Paper: URL_1 So generally, the symptoms you feel when you catch a cold aren't directly the result of the bug that caused the infection, but rather, a result of your immune system targeting the affected areas (ex. Throat, nose, lungs etc). For example, you know how your nose gets all runny and you cough up phlegm? That's a result of your immune system reacting to the threat (typically a virus) and does so by kicking mucous production into overdrive. This traps the bug and makes it harder for it to get to its target tissue. A sore throat? That's a result of all the killed throat cells releasing chemicals (called cytokines) that make your throat swollen and tender. These cytokines are super important in directing an immune system response to the infected tissue. It directs the immune cells that are circulating in your blood stream to the site of infection. It also helps to fight the infection, and as a result makes you feel shitty (one such cytokine, TNF-alpha, is why your body aches when you have the flu. What the researchers I mentioned found was that certain components of chicken noodle soup inhibit the ability of a specific type of immune cell (neutrophils) to find its way to the site of infection. Neutrophils will kill infected cells, and also make the area a hostile environment (by releasing cytokines) which all ends up making you feel shitty. By stopping the neutrophils from migrating to the area of infection, it makes you temporarily feel less shitty. This is all shown In the lab, so it needs further studies to show a real effect in live humans.",
"The salt in the soup and its warmth can soothe a sore throat. A 2000 study claimed to have shown that it also has anti-inflammatory properties, which can relieve congestion too, although this is still uncertain. Eating chicken soup when you have a cold helps because you're breathing steam, which loosens up congestion. In some cases, store bought chicken soup was actually more effective in \"curing you\" than homemade chicken soup.",
"It's easy to die from dehydration. WHO did an extensive study about how to re-hydrate children orally because you just can't start an IV on every sick kid in Africa. It turns out that pure water is HARDER to absorb than water with some salt and carbohydrate in it. So, the [ideal re-hydration solution]( URL_0 ) is water with a little salt and sugar added. Add a small amount of protein and fat for calories and you basically have a recipe for chicken soup. I find it easy to believe that the \"old wives\" figured this out by trial and error :( long before WHO did their science.",
"Chicken broth is saturated with fats and oils which cause the brain to release the happy chemicals which make you feel good.",
"Yes. When you simmer chicken bones for broth (or 'bone broth' as it's being called more and more these days), you are pulling out marrow, nutrients, fat and flavor. All of which are generally easy on your stomach to digest and give you much needed nourishment and energy. Chicken soup (generally without noodles, only containing vegetables, meat and broth) is considered to be anti-inflammatory, giving your gut a better chance to heal. It's easy going down if a sore throat is in the picture and also helps loosen mucus. People tend to simmer their stock with a lot of whole garlic as well, which has many health benefits. Overall, hot chicken broth is good for your body's recovery and morale. Drink it often, even if you're not sick!",
"It's light but good food and it's really, really liquidy -- it has lots of water. It helps keep you fueled and hydrated at a point your body is in overdrive fighting sickness, and you likely are eating and drinking less because you don't feel well. The heat may help soothe sinuses for a short period, too.",
"Some antimicrobial benefits come from the saltiness--as a hypertonic solution it helps make your throat and mouth a less hospitable place for bacteria to thrive.",
"I'll try to answer this to the best of my ability. You said 'ailments' which refers to actual illnesses such as the cold (viral infection). One of the better defenses for the argument that is cures ailments is the following: Basic chicken soup which contains chicken (there might artificial broth), is a good source of an amino acid (protein building block) called Cysteine. Cysteine is very similar in chemical composition to Acetylcysteine, a medication usually prescribed by medical doctors to treat paracetamol (acetaminophen) overdose and loosen the mucus in conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis. Cysteine is also known to \"enhance the humoral immune response associated with antibody production\" (Kurihara et. al.). However while I am unfamiliar with the chemical similarity between the cysteine and acetyl cysteine regarding pharmacological usage, the results of a fairly recent [scientific study]( URL_0 ) tested how cysteine affected the incidence and duration of colds in humans, indicating that cysteine did not significantly affect cold duration in humans. This would mean that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe that cysteine actually helps \"treat\" the common cold. The results however did indicate that the compound may help in cold prevention as incidence of cold were lower in the group that took L-cysteine tablets. Therefore, in its simplest form, chicken soup does not have any real medicinal treatment properties for the common cold. However, if we are speaking about symptoms, chicken soup might help in many ways. Generally served hot or warm, this can aid in opening the nasal passage ways and relieve congestion. In addition, it could just be an example of the placebo affect and or conditioning. For example, one might think it helps relieve symptoms and therefore *feels* better. After a while their brain may associate chicken soup with recovery/ feeling better. I have a feeling that I may be reaching/ have misunderstood the psychology so if this is the case, let me know. In other words, it can relieve certain symptoms in the short term such as nasal congestion. Hope it helps. TL;DR: Chicken soup *doesn't treat* the viral infection of the common cold. It however, *can* help alleviate certain symptoms such as nasal congestion. In addition, cysteine an amino acid derived/found was found to help in common cold *prevention*."
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5ofqmd | Why is it when I'm upside down, the blood is "rushing to my head", but when I'm standing it's not "rushing to my feet"? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because the blood vessels in your feet are used to having the gravitational pressure of blood pooling down there. The vessel walls are thicker as a result, so they don't apply pressure to the nerves in your feet. Alternatively, your head is filled with much more delicate blood vessels, not only because it's not conditioned to have to fight gravity, but also so that the barrier between your brain and your blood is much thinner to allow for faster extraction of oxygen and nutrients from your blood. The sensation of \"blood rushing to your head\" is because your vessels are experiencing higher than normal pressure in your head while upside down and it's expanding the vessels, and in turn, applying pressure to your nerves. Likewise, your brain is in a bone cage and has no where to expand. The more blood in your brain, the more pressure builds in your skull, and you feel it.",
"Most other replies are correct, but there is another reason. The muscles your legs are pushing the blood back up. My father has ALS and has lost the ability to use the muscles in his legs. His feet were often swollen due to the blood pooling in them. He has to wear compression socks to stop this happening.",
"The heart pushes blood through the arteries in One Direction and the veins and muscles try to return it in the other. In addition the veins have little things like stopper valves on them which open in one direction and try and prevent the blood from flowing backwards",
"It all has to do with veins having valves that prevent back flow. Overtime these valves breakdown. If you look at an older person's legs you'll see these valves that have broke down. The condition is known as varicose veins."
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5ofteo | Can you predict the time it will take for water to change to a certain temperature, based on the temperature around it? | If I have a gallon of water in a glass jar that is 100ºf and I leave in in a room that is 70ºf, is there a mathematical formula that can tell me how much time it would take for that water to reach a specific temperature? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yes, you would use [Newton's law of cooling]( URL_0 ), set it equal to the temperature you want, then solve for the value of t. The constant *k* is something you would either need to look up, or solve for yourself by taking two temperature readings at two different times."
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5oftv0 | Why do so many shows make their seasons only ten episodes long these days? | It seems as though up until recently, most seasons were around 20 episodes. This is true across many different genres and networks. Frankly, it's hard to get excited about new episodes of great shows these days when there's only around 200 mins of content per year from them. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There might also be something around the quality of actors being used. Recently, we have seen top quality actors shift from movies to television. More A list actors are getting into television. These actors are also still making the occasional movie. So they have large time commitments outside of the tv show. I would guess that the tv networks have to agree to shorter filming times in order to land these very busy actors, hence shorter seasons."
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5oh1is | How exactly does a computer execute a program? | Okay, so I understand how computers work, the basics, bla bla bla, that they are comprised of binary, dividing complex problems into millions of simple additions/ subtractions, and I understand how a computer functions on a bunch of commands etc. What I'm struggling with is how a command is actually executed, and how memory can program the computer into a machine of that specific task. I'm sure it's just because I'm overwhelmed with the shear complexity of modern computers, so let's make this simple: Say I had a really simple, homemade even, computer. How would the computer execute a program that allowed me to input a calculation such as '73+9'? How is it that this stored binary can completely reprogram a computer to do this? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At the very basic level, I think what you're asking about is \"machine code\". Let's imagine a basic computer. It might have a few different instructions: - INPUT - read a number from the user, and store it in a \"register\" - OUTPUT - take the number in the register and show it to the user - GET - get a number from memory and store it in the register - PUT - get a number from the register and store it in memory - ADD - get a number from memory and add it to the number in the register. This is basically the way real computers work, although they have much more complex sets of instructions. But with this basic set of instructions, we can write the following program: INPUT - get a number from the user PUT 100 - store that number in memory location 100 INPUT - get another number from the user ADD 100 - get the first number, and add it to the second number OUTPUT - show the answer to the user What we've got here is \"assembly language\". To turn this into machine code, we need to know a special code that's associated with each command. Let's imagine our simple computer uses these codes: - INPUT: 0 - OUTPUT: 1 - GET: 2 - PUT: 3 - ADD: 4 With this knowledge, we can take our program, and turn it into a string of numbers: 0 - INPUT 3 100 - PUT 100 0 - INPUT 4 100 - ADD 100 2 - OUTPUT That string of numbers (0, 3, 100, 0, 4, 100, 2) makes up the machine code program. Each number is stored in a memory location, read in turn, and then used to decide what to do. If you want to play around with this idea some more, then have a look at [Little Man Computer]( URL_0 ), which is designed for teaching exactly this subject. It uses a set of instructions which is slightly bigger than the one I've used (but still much smaller than a real computer), and once you learn to use it fully, it can actually do some pretty impressive things!"
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5oh9g4 | why should you never reuse/fill water bottles? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's no real reason not to, to be honest. Plastic bottles, specifically polycarbonate bottles, which have been the subject of much scare-mongering for years are fine to refill. The big worry about \"chemical leaching\" isn't a worry unless you're the sort of person to keep reusing the same polycarbonate bottle for years. Personally, I lose one or replace it long before then. To address chemical leaching specifically, one of the names that gets thrown around is bisphenol A. A study was done in 2009 [source]( URL_0 ) that found there was an increase in BPA metabolites after a week of drinking from polycarbonate containers, up to ~2 micrograms/gram. That dosage is essentially negligible to begin with. Added to that is that most (interestingly, all except for the USA) countries' food safety agencies have classed BPA as non-harmful. The reason that this name gets thrown around with such regularity is that someone suggested BPA might be linked to obesity. There have, to date, been no studies that have found compelling evidence to support it, but it sounds scary so people like to use it. Polycarbonate plastics are pretty stable under all normal conditions anyway, so leaching won't increase from that. As far as I know you either have to heat it to ~80 degrees C or above, or expose it to concentrated UV light to start getting any noticeable breakdown. With that out of the way it comes down to being the same as anything else you eat/drink from. Wash it between refills and you're fine. tl;dr : chemical leaching isn't something you need to worry about, wash between refills and you're fine.",
"This only extend to plastic bottles. The plastic contain chemicals that are water soluble. They slowly seep into the water inside the bottle. Reusing a bottle makes this effect stronger the longer you use it because the bottle gives of more and more of those chemicals. It's not acutely dangerous, but can cause long term health issues if you keep reusing bottles. The initial liquud is usually fine. This is also the reason why thing like water have an expiration date. The bottle expires, not the water. Glass bottles don't have that problem and can be reused."
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5ohb1b | Why is nicotine addictive to some and repulsive to others? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Nicotine is an addictive chemical that is in cigarette smoke. There's other stuff in there too. People that don't like smoking, don't like the taste or feeling of smoking but, if you gave them nicotine skin patches or pills for long enough, they'd become physically addicted to the chemical, just like a smoker is."
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5ohbpm | Why are wild animals moving into cities in recent years? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the animal but, if you look at raccoons which have thoroughly invaded Japan and Europe, and how incredibly successful they've at been colonising North America, when originally they only lived around the southern states, they're a pretty good example They have easy access to a huge amount of food, by exploiting human rubbish. Lots of food gets packed neatly into rubbish bins every night and this makes a perfect food source for raccoons, which are natural foragers, also, suburbs have lots of houses, and most suburban houses all have lovely warm dry spaces in their roof. They're the perfect place for a raccoon because they're high, dry, warm and safe. They're not likely to get eaten by another wild animal while they sleep in your roof all day. They effectively have no predators. I read somewhere that the biggest killer of raccoons is cars. Cats won't usually attempt to fight a raccoon. Dogs might but, dogs can't climb. Human settlements made it possible for raccoons to colonise as far north as Alaska. Each human settlement is like a desert oasis of food and shelter for them. It means they can effectively spread across areas where normally the environment would be too hard for them to survive in or predators would wipe them out. The males aren't super social, so if they're in an area with other raccoons, they'll often want to move on and find their own patch of land. Wanting to spread out is instinctual to them The other reason is human settlements are spreading into areas where wild animals normally live. It's not as simple as building a town and expecting all the wildlife to suddenly vanish. Human towns have food and water. All animals want this. I don't know if wild animals in cities is a recent thing. All cities, everywhere in the world have had to manage wild animals for as long as there have been cities.",
"Depends what you mean by 'moving in' For some creatures urban structures make for a better habithat then what they could find in nature with a more available food source... Such as many breeds of falcon For some it's the removal of their habitat for housing and farm land forcing them to wander further and further for food But I would say for most they have always been there since humans have its just an increase of hand held cameras and social media that you here about it now, 20 years ago if a bear walked into you street it would be pure luck that anyone had a camera and then you would only show it to people you knew but now everyone carries an camera and with a click of a button can share it with 100's+",
"A mix of several things: 1. Most people don't hunt or trap. No need to with modern society so many species that had dwindled have bounced back in a big way. My grandfather is an avid hunter but deer were pretty rare in our part of the country (central Va) up until the 70s. 2. A lot of our new surburban styles are better habitats for animals. Low density sprawl connected by various greenbelts is easier to traverse for animals than high-density blocks. Moreover, a lot of land that used to be agricultural is turning back to wilderness in these areas as well. 3. Media coverage is easy to disseminate nowadays. I once saw a fox next to the Lincoln Memorial in Downtown DC but it was before I had a smart phone. Now I could take a picture and share it Facebook and it could go viral."
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5ohp61 | how can there be 3 tonnes of CO2 in every tonne of fuel? | Ok- I'm doing some analysis on shipping fleet running costs for a work project. My source data set (the IMO's 3rd Greenhouse gas survey, table 14) had the data I was particularly interested in, concerning fuel consumption across different sizes of vessel. It also has average CO2 Emissions for each size and type of vessel. I thought it'd be nifty to include a carbon 'cost' in my analysis, only to discover that each vessel puts out more CO2 tons than the fuel tons it consumes. I checked my maths and the source, and there's no error. Reading further, it seems that organisations use a multiplier (usually around x3) when estimating CO2 emissions per ton of fuel consumed. I'm sure I'm being thick, but how is this possible? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Fuel is generally a string of carbon atoms with two hydrogen atoms attached to each one. To make it into CO2 and heat you have to mix it with oxygen. So CH2 + 3O - > CO2 + H2O. Carbon weighs 12 units, hydrogen weighs about 1 unit and oxygen weighs 16 units. So from the above formula we can see that 14 units of fuel and 48 units of oxygen turns into 44 units of CO2 and 18 units of water. This is just rough estimations and the exact numbers varies on the fuel and the combustion so we round that x3.1 to an even x3 to account for the extra hydrogen and oxygen atoms we find in real fuels. So the extra weight of CO2 emissions comes from the oxygen that is being consumed in the combustion.",
"Burning things is basically binding oxygen to things. Burn a C atom and it adds 2 Oxygen atoms. Co2, get it? Three atoms are going to weigh about 3 times more than one atom (oxygen weighs more than carbon, but not a lot more so if you are doing simple math it's fine to call them even)"
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5ohszw | Why do we have fingernails? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Same reasons animals have claws, in many respects. They help us grip things, peel things, scratch, scrape...",
"To this day, humans sport broader fingertips than other primates. Whether fingernails are an adaptation that helps to support broad fingertips or a side effect from the loss of claws is unclear, Hawks said. Another reason for fingernails: They serve as a visual advertisement of a person's health, he said.",
"Fingernails provide protection for the end of the finger, and also serve to provide a counter-force when you touch something, which increases both the sensitivity and precision of the finger and finger movements. They're also handy tools. You can't pick something out of your teeth with a nail-less finger, for example.",
"I was always under the assumption that they were evolved from claws and follows a trend that involves actual protection of vital and sensitive anatomy. Sensitive nerve endings that can detect the smallest amount of stimuli reside at the hands and feet. So I think this is their current purpose... Same theory defines foreskin, rib cage, eyelids, etc."
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5ohvst | How do white blood cells know where bacteria are to chase them down? | URL_0 | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So, super simple explanation is \"Proteins!\" Essentially, bacteria have a certain type of protein surrounding them (generally speaking there are two types of bacteria which are differentiated by their outermost membrane). Your cells are made to be able to identify these proteins with receptors on the outside of them. These receptors then activate (lets call them) warning proteins. These now active proteins send out signals (signal proteins) that call several different types of immune cells including WBCs. The WBCs then react according to what signals told them was there and according to what their own receptor proteins are picking up. Hope that helped!"
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5ohwvr | Why do we have a compulsion to read or otherwise distract ourselves while sitting on the toilet? | I just thought about this because I sat down awhile ago to use the toilet and realized I'd forgotten my phone. It got me thinking back to before I had a cell phone and I'd typically read the back of a shampoo bottle or toothpaste tube. It's something that I've seen many people on the internet admit to doing.. and I just can't understand why! Thanks in advance for any and all replies! :) Cheers! | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In of itself going to the bathroom is a boring activity. Ya just sit there waiting for whatever to pass through you. It's a quiet solitary activity. And it's great. For a lot of people it's the only times of day where they can be alone and take a breather. Where they can read, look at a video etc. there's also the fact that we've be conditioned to constantly be doing something. In short. Pooping boring. Internet and reading make it less boring."
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5ohz4y | How are millions of letters every day checked for things like anthrax or other biological hazards? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Quite simply, they arent. these sort of threats dont happen often enough for the postal service to have a devoted structure in place for it. Now important positions and companies may have internal processes for it but there is no formal system used by the public mail."
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5oi2zu | why if radio waves and visible light waves are the same thing at a different frequencies, why we cant make radio dishes that beam visible light? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's more or less how a flashlight and searchlight work(think of the batsymbol). You have a parabolic dish and a sender in the centre that emits EM which bounces off of the disk and \"doubles up\" on the transmitted signal.",
"We do use visible light for communications all the time. One big example is fiber optic lines, it's a laser that pulses visible spectrum light to communicate data from one device to another. Almost all of the really big lines between datacenters and ISPs are using fiber optic lines, it's in the name of the connection type, i.e. OC-192, OC-48, OC-12(OC = Optical Connection). Also home services like Google Fiber, Verizon FiOS, and Cox GigaBlast use fiber optic cable in the visible spectrum. TOS Link(Optical), in surround sound systems, is the same technology but dedicated to audio transmission."
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5oi3ut | When people go outside to take a breath of fresh air, why does that help calm them down? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Going outside firstly removes the trigger and stimulus that's causing the stress - and so they can get out of an emotionally charged situation. Fresh air may also be a change in temperature, so they have a different physical response too, and that may help them breathe deeper, giving the stress hormones a chance to disperse",
"Deep breathing increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes a state of calmness. When stressed, the opposite happens and we tense up clench muscles, and breathe quickly/shallow this is the FIGHT OR FLIGHT response. Intentional deep breathing, especially when we are not in immediate physical danger, brings us back to calm. STRESS use to be to save our lives (and for many it still does) but a LOT of 1st worlders have self induced stress that isn't actually threatening.",
"While we grew up frolicking through fields, swinging at the park and cruising along on our bikes, as adults, many of us spend most of our time indoors. But all of those hours spent outside were actually good for more than using up our unlimited, childhood energy. As it turns out, science shows that some fresh air really will do you good. Fresh air saves lives. trees Just like you learned in elementary school, trees use photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide into the oxygen we need to breathe. In just one year, the presence of trees saved 850 lives and prevented 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms, according to new research published in the journal Environmental Pollution. Trees remove pollution from the air, making it healthier for us to take into our lungs. According to the research, the fresh air created by trees is especially beneficial to those living in urban areas, where the air is more heavily polluted. Air pollution can create some major health problems. Highly polluted air has been shown to cause a burning effect in eyes, noses and throats. Polluted air also makes it harder for those with asthma to breathe. Some toxic chemicals that can live in the air — like benzene and vinyl chloride — are highly toxic. They can even cause cancer, birth defects, long term injury to the lungs, as well as brain and nerve damage. Breathing fresh air that plants produce lowers the chances of coming into contact with these scary pollutants. It can boost your immune system. It may be time to step outside if you find yourself cooped up with tons of other people at your office, or even in your own home. Such close quarters exposes you to all sorts of germs. Plus, even a simple walk outside can raise your immune system. “Exercise leads to an increase in natural killer cells, neutrophils and monocytes, which ultimately increases immune function,” Ather Ali, ND, MPH, assistant director of Complementary/Alternative Medicine Research at the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center tells URL_0 . The smells in fresh air bust stress and increase happiness. smiling forest Science shows that you really should stop and smell the roses, as the smell of them promotes relaxation. Other flowers, like lavender and jasmine can also lower anxiety and up your mood. Research shows that the scent of pine trees decreases stress and increases relaxation. Even walking through a park or your own backyard can help you feel calmer and happier when you catch a whiff of freshly cut grass. And while rain may put a damper on your outdoor plans, we love nothing more than the scent of a downpour, according to Smithsonian magazine. The smell reminds us of the color green and may be linked with the growth of both the plants and animals that we need to eat, which could explain why it smells so good to us. Fresh oxygen energizes. Back away from the energy drink. Research shows that spending time in fresh air, surrounded by nature, increases energy in 90 percent of people. “Nature is fuel for the soul, “ Richard Ryan, researcher and professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, tells the University of Rochester. “Often when we feel depleted we reach for a cup of coffee, but research suggests a better way to get energized is to connect with nature.”"
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5oi452 | Are Reptile eyes better than Human eyes? | I'll try to explain what i mean. Are eyes like [this]( URL_0 ) better than Human eyes in vision? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Slit pupils are not a purely reptilian thing. There are reptiles without slit pupils, and mammals with slit pupils, for instance. They could have some advantages. For instance, circular pupils are often a quickly discerned threat feature by many animals. To the point that natural camouflage evolution in many species even goes to the point of mimicking large eyes. A slit pupil might break up this outline, making it less recognizable, allowing a predator an advantage. There is also the possibility that they help filter light in bright conditions, helping a night or dusk predator during daytime hours when the light level would be unsuited to their preferred conditions."
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5oicuy | What is the significance of the UK leaving the single market? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Single Market is essentially an agreement that we harmonise our laws and regulations so that everything is legal in all EU countries. Without this, you can have conflicting laws in different countries, meaning some products are illegal in the other country. For example, in the USA all eggs **must** be washed. In the EU, all eggs **must not** be washed. This means you cannot sell USA eggs in the EU, or EU eggs in the USA. (Washing eggs means the membrane breaks and they need to be refrigerated.) As well as the regulations being harmonised, we don't have import duty to pay between EU countries. This means my car factory in the UK can import parts from Italy and Spain, and sell cars to Germany without having to pay a lot of duty. If we were to leave the single market, I would have to pay import duty on my Italy and Spain imports, then pay import duty again selling the finished cars to Germany. This would make my business much less competitive than one inside the single market. In the short term, this could cripple a lot of businesses. While we are members of the single market, we have a voice in shaping the EU regulations. If we leave, then we'll have to obey all the regulations if we want to be able to export goods to the EU, but won't get any say in what those regulations are. In the long term, this could lead to us being forced into following regulations that aren't good for the UK, as its not economical to make a product just for the UK market. (Except for Kettles.)",
"I worry about the potential impact on the banking sector in the U.K. Love them or hate them, they are an enormous part of the economy. Not being a member of the single market could force banks to move to Frankfurt and reduce the UK's importance in world business. I'm certainly no expert, just an observation so someone may correct me! Can a uk based bank still trade on that market if the U.K. Is not a member?"
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5oidsv | Why do we sometimes see red nerves creep near our eyeballs? | Veins, not nerves. Sorry about that | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You're talking about blood vessels, and you tend to see them \"creep\" when your eyes are irritated due to some external factor or when you're lacking sleep.",
"From reading the other comments it's clear you are talking about veins. Your eyes use muscles, pulling your iris open and closed to let more light out or less light in, as well as stretching your lens to focus on objects closer or farther away and moving the eyes themselves. These muscles require oxygen just like any other muscle. When you don't sleep much it means your eyes were being used much longer and as such the muscles in your eyes require more oxygen and other nutrients delivered by blood to keep them healthy. This is the best explanation I could find on the matter."
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5oih7r | How does internet banking works? Is there real money for every digital one? How did they start adding numbers to 'the system' or how do they manage to trade it? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No there is not a \"real\" as in physical dollar for everyone you bank online. However that has little to do with the internet and stated long before we had online banking. Money existed in theory only and without any physical coins or banknotes to back it up for long before computer banking came along. This is how banks can lend more money to different people than they actually have in deposits. The system breaks down when everyone who has money in the bank on paper (or digitally) wants their physical money at the same time, because there is not enough physical money for that. In practice it is actually very hard to keep track of what \"real money\" is anyway. The US and other government keeps track of \"the money\" called the money supply in various forms of things that can be counted as money and the physical currency is only the tiniest fraction of it."
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5oil1m | Why are secret operation where the United States overthrow certain regimes common knowledge? | Isn't the point of covert operation is so that they remain secret? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The CIA is known to be ridiculously overt in their actions; back in the day, Allen Dulles would arrive into the targeted region with about as much pomp as one would expect for the President himself. The CIA method of regime change relies not on subterfuge but on throwing money at whatever political group can do the grunt work, along with hiring American servicemen to attack the resident government directly - to that end, it has at time employed entire wings of bombers. They also typically blanket the target country with propaganda, which is also very noticeably coming from CIA's forward radio stations. So, ultimately, the CIA eschews secrecy in the active phase of the operation because it gets in the way, and because the target generally understands who's out to overthrow them. The *only people* CIA has to mislead is rank-and-file Americans and citizens of allied countries; this is easily done, given CIA's considerable command of the media. For example, good luck convincing a Westerner that the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was anything but an uprising against a corrupt pawn of Putin, or convincing a Russian (you're looking at one) that it was anything but a result of billions of dollars being pumped into the country by EU, NATO and George Soros."
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5oiocg | Why do you see little rings when you rub eyes? | Just have to know | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your eyes are filled with a somewhat thick fluid. When you rub your eyes, this causes the fluid to apply pressure onto the retina. This pressure tricks the light sensing cells into thinking they are receiving light, so the cells send signals to the brain. Your brain interprets this as light and you see spots / rings or other false light sources. URL_0"
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5oiwz0 | Why does the letter "U" almost always follow the letter "Q"? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Its called a digraph. Qu makes the /kw/ sound in the English language. You can thank Latin origins and the Greeks for that. There are a lot of words that have Q without a U after it, but they are mostly in Semitic languages. Qatar, burqa, qabab.",
"According to Wikipedia, C, K and Q were all used in early Latin to represent the /k/ sound. Eventually, the convention became more standardized, and Q remained only when directly before a /w/ sound, which is represented by U/V in Latin.",
"It's a french variation for the same sound produced by the Kw cluster. We just don't see it written that way in english because the german/old norse heritage didn't have that sound. It was a latin character that sounded a bit like a K, such as in the word Plaque, but otherwise wasn't used until the french invasion. In theory, Qu could be thought of as it's own letter, since it's really only used in that one way, Kind of like the Æ (Strong I sound) that we don't use anymore.",
"For any young aspiring scrabble players cursing the Q waiting for a U to pop up, you can play QI and QAT.",
"Q is not part of any multiple-consonant combinations (like 'tr' or 'sh'), so q will appear in front of a vowel. So, when q is paired with the five vowels, we get Qa, Qe, Qi, Qo, and Qu. There are no standardized English sounds for Qa, Qe, Qi, or Qo, but if you were to try to pronounce the Q with those vowels, they'd generally sound the same as a hard C or a K. So words with those sounds are generally spelled with a C or a K, not with a Q (cable instead of qable; kept instead of qept, kick instead of qick; cost instead of qost). The only unique sound of the five is Qu, which is different from what a Ku (kudos, kudzu) or Cu (cube, cut) combination sounds like. So that unique 'kw' sound is spelled with a Qu.",
"This spelling convention originated from Latin / French (which originated from Greek), and through a series of phonological changes over time, the letter < q > only appeared before the letter < u > to represent the /k/ sound. Then, behind other vowels, the letter < u > in this digraph became silent. Now, QU as a digraph represents the /k/ sound before certain vowels in French, in particular: que, quelle, quoi (which is \"kwah\" but the \"w\" sound comes from the \"oi\" NOT the \"u\"), or quinze. When English acquired words from French and Latin which utilized this QU digraph, the unfortunate tendency was to pronounce what should have been a silent < u > . ~~Hence words like \"quadruple\" and \"quotation\" are pronounced /kwadrupəl/ and /kwoteʃən/ in English but in French they are /kadʀupəl/ and /kotasjɔ̃/.~~ EDIT: Source: I have a BA in Linguistics EDIT 2: I found by looking at wiktionary that \"quadruple\" is pronounced /kwadrupəl/ rather than /kadrupəl/ and that \"quotation\" doesn't seem to exist in French (though one would think it should), so that's a mistake on my part, but makes this even more interesting because most words with QU in french are pronounced like /k/. I'll have to investigate this! EDIT 3: There are almost no real French words that start with qua or quo, and if so they are Latin. In that case, because of phonological rules, the \"qu\" is always /kw/ after /a/ or /o/ because /a/ and /o/ are back vowels where as the \"qu\" before /e/ or /i/ is pronounced /k/ because they are front vowels. /ka/ and /ko/ are always written < ca > and < co > respectively.",
"Because rather than make \"q\" have a \"kw\" sound, English has \"qu\" make a \"kw\" sound. Latin and Greek origins are to thank. We just decided u looks cool after q so we will always use it."
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5oj06y | Why do drives on PCs start with C:\? Where are A:\ and B:\? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Back in the day, PCs didn't have hard drives. They only had [floppy disk]( URL_0 ) drives. A common configuration was to have two drives, usually one 3.5\" drive and one 5.25\" drive, so they were designated A: and B:. So when hard drives became common, they were given the next letter - C:. A lot of programs relied on having the main hard drive at C:, so it became the standard, and remained so even long after floppy disk drives became obsolete.",
"This is the first question I've seen on here that really made me feel old. Growing up at a time when computers suddenly became accessible to the public, the idea of why the drives were named as such was obvious and clear. This stuff is happening way to much lately. I'm becoming an old man. Pretty soon making jokes about a floppy drive will be like seeing pictures of little kids long ago pushing a hoop with a stick down the road. A relic from a bygone era that is regarded with dismissive amusement from those who came so much later.",
"The A and B are reserved for floppy drives. Older computers didn't have hard drives and used a floppy to hold the operating system (A:/) and another to load and save data (B:/). Once hard drives came about, they were relegated to the C:/ drive and it has been tradition since.",
"I feel old. But yeah, there used to be A: and B: drives. I think my first computer had the 3.5\" as the A: and the 5.25\" as the B: Then hard drives came out and became the C: Then CD drives became D: (which DVD and BD drives kept since they kind if replaced each other)",
"Another answer is due to the limitations of the industry standards. You could fit a maximum of 2 drives (primary, secondary) per cable. Primary/Master and Secondary/Slave were set by physical jumpers. The floppy cable could support A: and B: The primary IDE cable, which connected your hard drive and DVD drive, could support two maximum - C: and D: The primary hard drive on the PC was therefore C: Standards like SCSI could support many more drives (set by jumpers). Modern SATA cables only support one drive."
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5oj1ui | If I buy a giftcard to a big store (Walmart, Apple, Target, etc) and never use it, how does that store enter the income in their balance sheets? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Here's an excellent article on exactly how it's accounted for: URL_0 Basically the payment for the card is entered as a debit under cash, and then an credit entry for the gift card liability is entered. When you use the gift card, you have a debit against the gift card liability and a credit applied to revenue. the link above gives some more details about outstanding./unused balances and how some vendors handle it.",
"We had a major electronics retailer (Dick Smith Electronics) go belly-up last year. As the administrators moved in there was a huge backlash when it was announced that customers would not be able to redeem their gift cards as the purchase of the cards was considered a \"financial loan\" to the company, making a purchased gift card holder just another creditor who had to get in line to be reimbursed. Also want to mention that the store was founded by an exceptional and amazing Australian who sold the chain twenty plus years ago and it was a real shame to see his name tarnished by the new owners.",
"As said already, the gift cards are recorded as a liability (promise to perform) and revenue is reported when they are used. The fun part (to use made up numbers) is (a) if you can estimate that 20% of gift cards are never used, you can record 20% as profit right away and (b) you can estimate that 95% of gift cards over 5 years old are never used, and record the other 75% as revenue.",
"Late to the party, but can't resist. Without getting into debits and credits, and the intricacies of double-entry bookkeeping, the prepaid gift card balance is recorded as a liability, more specifically as an unearned (or deferred) revenue line item in the balance sheet. You owe the customer something in exchange for their cash. While you have collected the funds from the customer, you have not delivered to them whatever good or service you will sell to them (i.e. Revenue) - at least until some point in the future - so it represents potential future sales that you will (likely) make. Pretty simple, really. The complexity comes up if an individual card (or many cards) gets old and there is indication that it will never be redeemed (think about a lost card...). In this situation, the issuer of the card (seller of goods or services) will make an estimate of the amount of their unearned revenue (gift card) balance that is probable will never be redeemed (sometimes referred to as 'breakage') and recognise that portion in revenue in the current period - essentially free money that they collected a long time ago. The estimates can be complex based on historical redemption patterns and should involve thing like statutory expiration. Source: am Nerdy Auditor",
"The other answers are correct. Once did a business summary for college on Best Buy, back when they were really struggling. The amount of money that they claimed as revenue based on unclaimed gift cards was staggering. Can't remember how long they wait to mark it as straight revenue though.",
"It depends on company policy. If done correctly they will record it as an unearned revenue. The company policy comes into play regarding the liability. It can be based on a policy similar to accounts receivable and bad debt. Or they can just leave the liability on the books permanently. Or they can say after a certain time has passed so much is now recorded as a revenue. This does not mean that your individual gift card is void (that is actually in most states now I believe), it just means the company's general account decreased and moved to a revenue account. Source...auditor who sees several different policies used.",
"Gift cards would be recorded as a liability, unearned revenue. Same goes for buying an airline ticket. Although the gift card was purchased, likely with cash, there has been no service or product provided for the exchange of revenue, hence unearned. If you purchased a gift card from a large chain they likely know roughly what to expect when it comes to how much of the total unearned revenue will actually become revenue and then adjust to the actual number when the time comes. For example, you pay cash for a $25 gift card but are you really going to go out of your way to use the last dollar or few cents, probably not. Source is an annoying amount of college accounting classes."
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5oj5qi | Why are the numbers on an analog radio dial irregularly spaced? | Take [this dial]( URL_0 ) for example. The 60 and 70 are just as far apart as the 100 and 130. Why does the dial need to travel just as far to span 100 kHz as it does to span 300 kHz in a different part? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Actually it's not logarithmic, it's closer to a 1/x relation since what you turn is not a resistor, but a variable capacitor. A capacitor and an inductor are used in the tunning circuit attached to the antenna. But log scales are indeed used in frequency plots since it better represents the behavior of systems.",
"Behind the dial is a resister that connects between where the needle is and the input antenna. A resister coil adds resistance in a linear state, in order to have the printed scale show what frequency matches for the adjusted antenna length, the scale is printed in a logarithmic scale. Most phenomenon involving waves (sound, light, earthquakes, etc.) work in a logarithmic progression. A simple explanation is that for every 10x increase in a log scale, you always move a specific distance on a linear one. The actual scaling can be any number, but 10 is easy to demonstrate. So to go from 10 to 100 takes 1 inch on the scale. Going from 100 to 1 000 takes another inch 1 000 to 10 000 takes another inch The measure of distance would be from 1 to the number measured. The dial scale does not go down to 1 so you do not see the actual progression from the beginning. Edit: changed description of linear motion from multiplier to step size.",
"It's got to do mostly with the physics of how the tuner works. Most old school tuning knobs adjust a capacitor or resistor (electrical components) in order to change the frequency that your antenna picks up. We find it pleasing to have linear scales (consistent spacing) for the frequency that is being picked up, but it is hard to make resistors and capacitors that adjust linearly. Because it's cheaper to just use resistors and capacitors that don't adjust linearly, the scales on old school equipment are often nonlinear and based on the what components were used in the circuit. However as components became cheaper over time, and the market had an increase in demand for user friendly electronics, aesthetic design became more important that creating the circuit in a cheap manner. Engineers went through an obsession with creating smooth, consistent, linear adjustments for everything. Now volume knobs, tuners, equalization knobs are almost all linear in order to be more intuitive to the user.",
"It's a logarithmic scale, not linear. It's actually driven (in part) by the physics of how the radio circuit works."
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5oj66l | How/why do "quilted" paper towels pick up more liquid than non-quilted? | Is it just a gimmick? I would imagine a non-quilted that has the same thickness of a quilted's peak thickness, only all around could pick up even more liquid. I also imagine a thick paper towel is cheaper to produce than a sometimes thick sometimes thin quilted paper towel. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Quilted paper towels have more surface area than non-quilted. Our intestines work the same way, to absorb more nutrients."
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5oj8h4 | how can animals with shorter legs be faster than humans with longer ones? | this question is pretty stupid but I can't explain in simple terms so here it goes; how come animals that have shorter legs than people-like impala or gazelles-be faster? Tommy seem very small yet they are incredibly fast when humans can be six foot something and be incredibly slow. thank you for answering this stupid question... | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Four-legged animals use their whole spine (and the muscles along it) as a giant flexible spring. So they have a whole new huge source of power, and a much longer gait than what just their leg length provides.",
"It gets down to the slow and fast twitch muscle fibres in our body. Humans have evolved with higher amounts of slow twitch muscles that allow us to perform intricate and delicate tasks(writing, dance, woodworking) rather than apes such as chimps that have a lot of strength behind their backs but cannot perform such tasks. Think of dogs, with shorter legs than humans they have many fast twitch muscles that can give them large bursts of speed and sustain it for long periods albeit at a relatively high cost. Humans have evolved for endurance in hunting that give them large amounts of stamina to chase out prey and exhaust them enough to get a chance at killing them. Length of legs is relatively unimportant unless it is a apples to apples comparison of the same animal with different leg lengths. Hope this answers your questions"
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5ojfao | Why is it that mentholated shower soap makes me feel like I dipped my dick and balls in ice water, but feels totally normal on the rest of my skin? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The nerve endings on your meat whistle are more sensitive that the rest of your skin, you have over 20,000 nerve endings alone on the tip!",
"The thermoceptors of the skin are not only stimulated by temperature but also some chemicals. Menthol cools, capsaicin warms, etc. These receptors (TRPV1 or -2) are activated by the stimulus, and when they're activated they send signals to your thalamus and cortex - which perceives that particular signal as \" cold/hot\". So if you stimulated them by say light touch, your brain would still interpret that as cold. Fortunately that's not the case typically. So, each receptor responds to a certain modality of sensation, and when that happens your brain has a particular association with it. As someone else mentioned, some areas of the body are more densely packed with receptors. Biologically it makes sense that important/vulnerable areas are more sensitive. So you realize danger quickly when appropriate, and don't freeze or burn off your laser-snake. Interestingly, you can force some receptors to respond to a stimulus that it doesn't normally recognize. For example, exerting a great deal of pressure onto the light sensing photoreceptors in the eye will turn them \"on\" and your brain perceives light. Hence why you see lights if someone punches you in the face.",
"The skin on your, ahem, genitals, is much thinner than most of the rest of your body. Therefore the menthol in the product is able to easily penetrate it and act on the target nerve endings.",
"I think these are actually incorrect - this area of the body is a mucous membrane. From almighty wiki: \"...they are able to absorb a number of substances and toxins but are vulnerable regarding pain\". Thus the menthol can actually make it inside the body vs. normal skin tissue that it cannot enter as easily. Rub some inside your nostril, under your tongue, in your eye etc... Same reason hot peppers wont 'burn' your hands, but they will burn when they hit your mouth, or vapours go in your eye, or you choke your chicken with a handful of habaneros.",
"Should I not be putting it on my shaved balls and penis every day?",
"I read this unauthorized biography on the Stones. And, there was this place they went to in the Phillipines where the Profesional Dates would use toothpaste in conjunction with ministry tins from their mouths to get their johns off."
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5ojgna | In retrospect, why was germany left largely unscathed from the 2008/2009 financial crisis? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The crash came from an excess of bad debt. Folks had been writing loans to people that can't pay, and eventually ran out of capital to keep writing loans when too many folks didn't make their payments. It was really a team effort. Banks shouldn't have been writing multiple mortgages to folks that work part time at McDonalds, and folks that can't afford $1200/mo shouldn't be taking out loans with $1500/mo payments. Easy lending makes economies do whatever they're going to do faster. If times are good and everyone is making payments, the economy grows very quickly. When times get tough, it crashes quickly. Germany's banking system kept restrictions on lending practices, and this was reinforced by their culture that didn't borrow what they can't pay back. They never really had a crisis of capital where the banks were out of cash to lend due to lack of payment. The downside here was that their economic growth was restricted during the boom times, but also restricted during a crash.",
"The european central bank set the interest rate low to suit the largest economies which were Germany and France. Germany had previously gone through a Bank collapse and had changed its laws to lower the probability of it happening again. the Germans culturally are good savers (which is strange as by saving money they were effectively loosing value due to the low interest rate was less than the Rate of inflation) Once the crash happened and the euro dropped in value all the high quality products that Germany sell became cheaper leading to a boom in the Germany complete with tax rebate. Who do you think lent all the money to the other european countries? german dutch and nordic banks. once they saw that they were not getting paid the called the government and Sanctions were imposed. So the german banks got their money back by making the people in the countries where they had lent the money to those banks pay back all the money. Yes I am still a bit bitter about it",
"I figured I'd comment on the automotive industry for a moment since that was a big part of the economic crisis. I'm not an expert so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I studied automotive engineering abroad in Germany in 2009, so I'm attempting to remember what I was told from 8 years ago. * A big part of the problem is that when the industry crashed, dealers were left with big lots of cars that they couldn't sell except for a loss. In Germany, dealerships are almost non-existent. People order their cars directly (and custom) from the factory, and then wait for it to work their way though the system and show up. As such, there was no capital tied up in inventory that depreciated. * This is the part I'm more fuzzy on, but I believe I was told at the BMW plant we worked with is that ~~part of the taxes paid by the corporation was essentially a \"bailout tax\"~~ the government has a program (Kurzarbeit) and when the industry crashed, the government had money to put back into it, and essentially paid BMW to keep their workers employed for a while. This helped keep the economy from bottoming out. Again, if I'm misremember this, please someone correct me. EDIT: Clarified kurzarbeit, see child comments.",
"Because German economy had enjoyed years of manufacturing growth based on exploiting credit growth in weak euro economies (See the PIIGS). This had a double positive for Germany. 1. These countries in Europe bought German goods with credit fueled purchases. 2. The low interest rates that caused the over heating of the PIIGS economies also meant a weaker euro compared to what the German economy should have had, thus increasing German exports outside the EU and making German goods more competitive in the Eurozone. The EU interest rates should have been increased to prevent the over heating of the PIIGS economies but was not for one sole purpose. To continue the benefit gained my the German economy.",
"Not an expert on this but I believe it's because Germans tend to have very little debt compared to the US. Little debt means few foreclosures. Few foreclosures means housing values did not plummet. If you watch the movie The Big Short, you'll understand how the housing market crash took the financial markets with it.",
"It wasn't it did suffer some economic hardships from it. But it is not as tied to the US so it was able to weather the disturbances better.",
"Euro policy was very beneficial towards Germany, in particular their export market. (it also meant places like Greek couldn't devalue their currency more). They had relatively low domestic debt, but EU policyalso shielded German banks from their exposure to Greek debt (of which they had quite a bit) by forcing Greece to pay back/take loans to pay them back. Lowish debt,manufacturing, and a strong role in setting EU policy they wanted, basically."
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5ojjsd | Why does it burn when you burp after drinking soda? Especially through the nose. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What you burp is actually carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is a mild acid. The CO2 that is dissolved in the soda can form some H2CO3, which if burped will enter the nose cavity. The airways are not as well suited to hold acidic solvants, and will therefore sting a little."
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5ojk2o | What determines if an element is a solid, liquid, or gas? How can heavier elements like Radon or Xenon be a gas while lighter elements like Lithium & Carbon be a solid? | All of this assumes standard temperature (273.15 K) & pressure (1 atm) | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"[This page]( URL_0 ) has an explanation. The point is that it's not the molecular weight that determines an element's melting point but rather what kinds of forces exist between molecules. Think of it like the molecules are college students at a party. Each lithium atom is like a skinny sorority girl, but each one is part of a really tight clique with her (identical) sorority sisters so you can't pry them apart easily and they hang around in a solid mass. It takes a lot of loud music and alcohol to get them to melt and move around. Radon, on the other hand, is an offensive lineman at the party. He and his lineman friends are big dudes, but they don't want to hang out with each other because hey, it's a sorority party and not a sausage fest. So without a lot of forces keeping them together, they bounce off the walls all night and you have to take a lot of energy OUT of them - maybe once the quarts of beer they've been drinking drank finally catch up with them - to get them to condense and hang together. There are second-order effects as you vary other chemical properties across a period on the table, but intermolecular forces explain most of the trend.",
"The type of bonds between individual particles (either atoms, ions or molecules). We have three kinds of bonds to speak of, at the simplest level: The weakest, van der Waals forces are found between seperate molecules (molecules' conmponent particles themselves are bound with covalent bonds). Van der Waals forces are, essentially, like a weak magnet. You might have heard of them as secondary bonds. At their weakest, such as with Radon or Xenon (and other noble gases), but also with apolar (symmetric molecules and special cases of assymetric molecules) ones too, they work by the molecule becoming a tiny, puny magnet for a split second as its symmetry gets shifted just a little, causing the nearby molecule to suffer the same fate and so on. Even the tiniest disturbance can destroy these bonds, so at standard conditions (your description), these are gases. This is called dispersion bonds. Symmetric molecules have an easier time, where they line up like permanent magnets, keeping themselves joined. Still, it's pretty weak compared to primary bonds, so expect to find a spread of gases and liquids at standard conditions. This is a special case of dispersion bonds, and is a called dipole-dipole bond. There's a special case of dipole-dipole bonds, called Hydrogen bonding. Hydrogen bonding only occurs in molecules with Nitrogen, Oxygen or Fluorine (as they are very light and greedy to electrons), and only if Hydrogen is bonded with something that steals all its electrons, leaving it naked if not for staying nearby the strong negative particle that stole its electrons. Should a stray molecule with O,N or F that has electrons not in use, it will 'convince' the particle to share those electrons, creating a sort of a bridge. These are often liquids, and can become solids at very high temperatures as well, despite secondary bonding forces being at play. Primary bonding forces could easily be summarized as \"Electromagnetic bonding and covalence\", but that doesn't tell you much. Metals and ions work roughly the same way. Ions are things such as table salt, where a very charitable particle (metals) and a very greedy particle (halogens, like chlorine) find a perfect match. This match is so perfect, that this bond becomes very difficult to destroy with just physical interaction, so these are almost without exception solids, with immense melting points. Metals on the other hand are a group of very charitable particles that decided to share all their electrons, binding them all together into a massive, continuous particle. The properties beyond are dependent on the way these component particles are arranged, into which I won't get into. Generally, the more easily the arrangement allows them to slide and get removed from their position, the lower melting point. Finally we get to the likes of diamond. Diamonds are like massive molecules. Rather than sharing their electrons in a cloud, or giving it to someone who wants it more, they decide to join their electrons together, forming complex structures that are incredibly difficult to break. That's as simply as I can figure how to explain this."
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5ojkrh | why does being wet reduce friction while being damp increases it? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Friction reduction is due to aqua planning. Basically, you get a layer of liquid in between two surfaces, and a liquid causes a lot less friction than hard on hard material. As for dampness, I'd assume you mean barely wet surfaces. If a surface was perfectly smooth, it would become less frictious from any amount of liquid on it, but most of the surfaces are porous due to nature of material or mechanical damage such as microscopic scratches. As they get filled with liquid you get a bit larger contact area what would increase friction, you might also get some microscopic suction or surface tension due to hydrophility of material. However, all these factors wouldn't be very consequential and would mostly matter if the objects are static.",
"Not very detailed, but still a response: There has to be enough water to completely (or at least mostly) prevent the two surfaces from touching. Once the water is thick enough to \"hold\" the object apart from the surface, the coefficient of friction becomes incredibly small. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the last part of your question. If I understand it right, then I would say that it's because the object is capable of absorbing water and swelling - causing more surface area, meaning more space is interacting with the other surface."
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5ojkwo | What is the Single Market and what does leaving it do to the UK? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"So lets say you own a company that sells clothes. You get all the proper paperwork saying that your company is authorized to operate in your home country. So you are free to sell it's clothes within your own country. While there might be some minor regulation differences between regions, normally countries take steps to make these \"domestic\" sales as easy as possible. But when you want to expand that company into a new country, you'll face a series of problems. First is that shipping the product itself into the new country will likely incur a kind of tax. This is known as a tariff or duty, aka an import tax. The next problem has to do with regulations. Different countries have different regulations on products. So my home country might allow the use of red die #1357 but the country I'm trying to expand into might not. Just different rules for different countries. A long time ago the people of Europe saw some problems with this system. European countries tend to be fairly small so companies were always looking to expand into the country next door, and due to the above 2 things this was a giant pain in the ass. The idea of the \"single market\" was that they would do away with the import/export taxes. Second they should take steps so that a product that is legal to sell in Germany is also legal to sell in Spain. This makes it easy for companies to expand their customer base from one country to another. In a related way, the same idea was applied to the movement of people. A, Employee is just someone who sells their labor and they should be allowed to sell it in Germany, Spain or the UK. Just like any company can sell it's goods, any person can sell their labor. So what does leaving this do to the UK. It means that the citizens of the UK will require special permission (a visa) to live and work in other European countries. So a Londoner wanting to work in Berlin would face the same challenges as a Londoner who wanted to work in New York. Next, UK companies would face additional challenges when it comes to selling their products to the rest of Europe. This would likely mean the prices of those products raise, and sales fall. This is expected to cause some economic problems for the UK. Foreign companies would also face higher costs when selling to the UK. So a product made in Germany would cost more. This would make it easier for local companies to compete with those foreign companies. So in general there would be a few more jobs, but the costs of almost all imported goods would raise so everyone would be spending a little more of their income on those same goods. In general it is expected that the economic boost from the new jobs will be fairly minor, wheres the damage from increased prices would be fairly large, so a net negative.",
"The basics of the single market have been well explained already but one aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet is renegotiating trade deals. Trade deals basically determine the conditions under which certain products can be sold in each country. As it stands, the EU has trade deals with lots of different countries and groups of countries that have been negotiated and renegotiated over the years. When the UK leaves the single market, they will have to create their own trade deals with all of these other nations. This may be problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, the UK doesn't actually have many people who specialize in this kind of thing as it was mostly done for them by the EU. And secondly, these deals are incredibly complicated and have to be done not just for every country, but for every industry too. On top of that, it is technically illegal for an EU member to negotiate trade deals by itself so in theory, the UK won't have any trade deals in place the day it leaves. Although, there will probably be behind the scenes negotiations. They could use the current EU deals or they could default to the standard WTO deals while the sort out their own but these come with their own problems. Basically, leaving the common market has made trade for the UK a lot more complicated than it was before.",
"The single market means is like having all your friends be your family so you can sleep over whenever you want. The nice thing is you can sleep over at your best friend's house whenever you want, unfortunately Urkel your least favorite friend can sleep over at your place whenever. If you leave the single market, then you can set boundaries when Urkel can sleep over at your place, but now your best friend can request your barbie doll in order for you to sleep there. The UK just lost the friends as family and will need to establish new rules for sleep overs.",
"Essentially the single market allows the (currently) 28 EU Member States to move things between themselves freely. This includes goods, workers, services, and capital all without paying any fees (tariffs). For the UK, leaving will mean that they can charge for their goods going to the EU and vice versa (however this could change depending on the final deal, a Free Trade Agreement will be likely). One of the main reasons the UK want to leave the single market is because it will allow the country to restrict the free movement of people (E.G. require EU migrants to have a work permit before arriving, rather than them being free to work and live in the UK). Source: URL_0",
"The free flow of capital within the EU has made the U.K. a major hub for banking. This sector contributes more than 10% of the GDP, the highest portion among the G7. Thousands of jobs will be lost, nevermind billions of taxable revenue that funds things like schools, healthcare, and security will vanish quite quickly as major banks move to the likes of Amsterdam and Dublin. With a \"hard\" Brexit like May is suggesting, it will be years or decades even before the U.K. sees growth again. All because grandma doesn't like brown people. \"Leavers\" other favorite argument is that the EU gets the decide unilateral manufacturing standards for goods (they had a commercial about the 64 regulations that affect the pillows on your bed). But leaving the customs union means that if you have any hope of exporting products to countries in the EU, you still have to meet these regulations. The British public have been duped, and it will change the country forever.",
"And not to be forgotten...UK under Margaret Thatcher proposed and pushed and insisted on creating single market within EU.",
"Will EU citizens living in the UK be removed from the country or have their right to work cancelled?"
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5ojl10 | Why tags are located inside the clothing and usually in the most uncomfortable areas? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Tags are located inside clothing so they don't spoil the look of the garment, and they are usually placed on a seam as the printed strip of fabric needs to be sewn in. Places like the back of the neck are going to reliably always have a seam and area easily accessible so they are standard locations for tags.",
"not enough people seem to care, so the manufactureres have little reason to switch to a more comfortable but expensive setup, like removable tags or printing the information directly onto the fabric"
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5ojmlt | How does a court transcriptionist get every single word of a court case down so fast? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Yay, I can answer this! I was a court reporter for three years after doing two years at a college to get a certificate for captioning and court reporting. The machine that court reporters/stenographers use is called a stenotype. The keyboard of a stenotype is blank, but [this is what all the keys represent on it]( URL_0 ). Multiple keys are pressed at a time, sort of like playing a chord on a piano. Honestly, the [Wikipedia article]( URL_1 ) does a way better job of explaining it than I will. Before we had computer-aided transcription (CAT) software, reporters could either transcribe that code themselves into written English or re-dictate it at a slower, averaged speed for a typist to type up for them. If a readback was asked for during testimony, the court reporter would have to go back through a ream of paper that their code was printed onto as they wrote and read back the steno code as English. This is why CAT software is great. The stenotype connects directly to your computer, and your steno is translated real time into your software, making it much faster to turn around a transcript or do a readback. The firm that I worked for could provide what we just called \"realtime\" to lawyers who wanted to be able to review the transcript as it was being written, and we could broadcast it to their laptops as the questioning was happening, which meant that we had to be incredibly accurate and do a lot of editing on the fly; although, a realtime transcript is never as accurate as a completed one. Court reporters aren't perfect, though. Sometimes they can be asked for a read back of the testimony, and they won't have it. I only know of a few court reporters who would feel comfortable working without multiple audio back ups being recorded while they are writing, and most will listen to these again while they edit a transcript after the fact. I guess I haven't really answered the question yet. Because you press multiple keys down on a stenotype at once, you can write entire words, phrases, or sentences with one movement. A program that teaches court reporting will use a certain theory for what the best combination of keys are for certain things, but once you've been at it for a bit, your steno code definitely becomes your own since you can customize it to how you like to write. You can define a combination of strokes to come up as anything you'd like in your transcript using the CAT software, including things like paragraph breaks, formatting, stuff like that. So, say you work a lot in a court setting, you can press a certain combination of keys and it'll bring up \"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,\" which is a very common phrase in court cases, allowing you to keep up. I believe that most programs require a 225 WPM typing speed to graduate. 225 WPM is a decent speed, but when people get excited they can easily break 300 WPM, so constant practice and improvement is key to being a court reporter. If you're very fast and very accurate, you can do things like realtime, or you can move into captioning live broadcasts. Anytime you watch the news, sports, anything live with closed captioning, you're watching a stenographer at work, likely in their living room or office at home. TL;DR: One movement creates entire words, phrases, or sentences that are directly translated to a computer-aided transcription software on a computer, allowing for instant read back of the testimony. Generally court reporters must write at a minimum of 225 WPM.",
"They have special typewriters and learn shorthand. It's called stenography. They go to school for 2 years to learn how to do this.",
"I was in a court room 3 hours ago, and the person there had a device that she held up to her mouth and presumably spoke into. I imagine it uses a speech to text software to record what she says. ~~I've searched Google, but cannot find a name for this device. I'll update this post if I can find it.~~ Edit: It's called a [Stenomask]( URL_0 )",
"Court reporter chiming in here! As other commenters have mentioned, we are writing by syllable and sound rather than letters. We use a lot of short forms that can be whole words or phrases. Take the word hello, for instance. On a regular keyboard you would make 5 different key strokes (one for each letter). On a stenographic keyboard you'd break that down by syllable, which would look like HEL / LO. You go from 5 keystrokes to 2. Any other questions, feel free to ask!",
"[Here]( URL_0 ) is a video that does a great job explaining it. Not to take away from the other responders.",
"Stenos are largely becoming extinct as they are replaced with audio and audio/video recording systems. Programs like For the Record and JAVS are much cheaper to run than paying a stenographer a yearly salary."
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5ojn69 | When someone talks about rendering a video, or an animation, what does that mean? And how would not rendering it affect it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Let's compare video editing to building a car. So you're editing your video, but really it's a collection of parts. Multiple footage clips, effects like color correction, etc. The computer is able to tell you that \"yes, these parts put together make a car\" but rendering is where the parts actually get put together and consolidated into one piece. It's a little more complicated than that I think, but ELI5. If you try to play your video/move your car without rendering, the smoothness really depends on if your computer is strong enough to pick up x amount of parts at the same time. Rendering is like putting some of the car together so it can drive a little smoother.",
"Think of \"rendering\" as a painter painting a still image. In an animation/video, the computer renders/paints each frame of the video. If you do not render it, it would not exist.",
"Rendering a video and rendering an animation are two completely different things. To produce a 3-D animated movie, you actually have to do both. Rendering an animation is taking the 3-D scene the artist works with, and computing what the end result would look like. The artist isn't working with the whole thing, they are often using a simplistic lighting model and the final render actually traces out paths of light and how they reflect and refract and absorb across complex objects. Oftentimes there are also physical simulations being rendered. Animators don't model what water looks like, they just have a water simulation that needs to be processed by the computer to figure out what the water should be doing and what it should look like. URL_0 This video is an example of what artists actually work with when making the movie (with glitches, obviously). See how the models are simple with no textures and simple lighting? That all gets added in for the final render.",
"Rendering takes all of the different assets that may be in a video (clips, audio, etc.) and orders them and is more or less a set of instructions...I.E. \"draw a pixel at this location with this color and play a sound\" instead of \"find the sound and video assets in storage, put it in RAM, run calculations on it THEN draw on screen/play sound.\" Videogames, conversely (for further illustration), are rendered at runtime. Since the character could be anywhere on the screen, particle effects could or could not need to be drawn on the screen, sounds could be true or false, obviously it's not going to be pre-rendered because we don't know what's going to happen yet! Thats why you need a good graphics processor for gaming and video rendering, and why you don't need much processing at all for playing even 4k movies.",
"Rendering means having a machine draw each frame (picture) used in the video. Not rendering it means it would be blank.",
"The other aspect of it is that generally when we think of rendering we are also talking about packaging the video elements into a file that is able to sent and played by others (like a .mov or .mp4). Unlike when you are editing it, these are self contained files with all the parts (footage, effects, sound, titles) baked into each frame so that youtube or whatever can play it. While editing the video, the parts are all being pulled from their locations on the hard drive and the computer processors are temporarily configuring them in a way that you can preview it. Or in the case of an animation the computer is \"drawing\" a model based on what you created. This allows you to make changes and see them instantly since the computer will have to redraw the image again either way (think of how a video game would function). But this takes a lot of computing power and so may play slowly or at a reduced resolution until rendering. Also the file will probably only be usable by that particular animation or editing software. Once you are finished, rendering allows the computer to take all the parts and calculations and \"bake\" it in. Basically, instead of drawing the image it instead is just taking what you as a viewer sees and putting that into a digital video file format. Another metaphor might be a simple modeling clay figure. You mold it with your hands into a shape, and you can even still move parts of it around or change its features. Once you are done, you take a picture and now you can go show it to your friend without having to bring a block of clay and tools to do it all over again in a different place."
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5ojngs | Why are there so many abandoned cars in the woods? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Drive car into woods, file a stolen vehicle report, collect insurance money. same reason they wind up in water bodies as well. Insurance fraud",
"I'd like to address the \"30 years ago cars were simple to fix\" part: 30 years ago, your average automobile had an engine that would need rebuilding a lot sooner than the cars we drive today. 30 years ago, parts were more expensive, most people' available sources for parts were much more limited, and information on how to fix something was not freely available on the internet.",
"Sometimes that's the intent. \"I'll fix it up later\" and then they never get to it. We've got a couple cars parked in the yard that need attention, but there are other priorities on the plate right now. As far as the woods goes... Is it possible that it wasn't always woods? Could have been a field? The back yard of our property is wooded....but it hasn't been that was forever. I found picnic benches and things back there that were set up as though to be used. I imagine that they were fields 40 years or so ago.",
"It is hard to get away with abandoning your car in a place with lots of people around. Same reason people hide bodies or treasure in the woods.",
"I've got family in rural Arkansas and Missouri. They never seem to throw anything away. When they get a new car, they keep the old one, because hey, it might be useful one day. Then years pass and the old car wasn't useful. They could scrap it, but they'd have to pay. So they load it up on a trailer, haul it off to the woods, and dump it.",
"A lot of abandoned cars like that were stolen.. If there aren't environmental/property concerns, it may be decided that the cost of extracting the car is more than the car is worth. It's common around here for stolen cars to get shoved off embankments when they're being disposed of.. There's not *usually* bodies in them..",
"Insurance Money. I have an old car, but it's insured. Something starts to go wrong - bad transmission, broken engine block, something expensive. I can't afford to fix it, but it is insured against theft. I drive it far out into the woods, abandon it, call the police and say it was stolen. Police have no time to actually investigate, and only return stolen cars that are abandoned in plain sight at the mall, street corner, etc. Call my insurance company, tell them car was stolen, give them police report, get replacement car. Boom. Felony insurance fraud but, hey! new (newer) not broken car through fraud and making everyone's insurance rates go up.",
"When I was younger, growing up in a rural area, I used to see tons of cars up on blocks in people's yards. Talking to a few of these people, they said they had no where to put the car and couldn't sell it because it was too old and too expensive to fix. I had the idea I could get the car's for free if I moved it off their property for them, then sell them for the scrap value. I did one car like this. Turns out (at the time anyway), that the scrapyard required me to remove the gas tank, oil pan, empty all fluids, remove all the glass (including headlights/brake lights), remove the tires, remove the rubber door/trunk gaskets, etc. It cost me more in labor/time and towing fees than the cash I got from the scrap metal. Junk yards (different thing than scrap yards) didn't want these cars as they were either too old for people to want the parts from them, or they had enough of that model on hand anyway. Sometimes the only thing poor people can do is drag them off their property into nearby wooded areas.",
"What you need to consider is that disposing of a car (essentially throwing it in the trash) is very, very expensive. It needs to be taken apart and materials need to be separated. Certain elements in it need special treatment, you can't flush motor oil down the drain for example. Some people end up with cars that are so shitty that even scrap dealers want money for it, because even when you don't have to, they need to dispose of the car eventually. So you face the decision of paying to get rid of your car, or just abandoning it somewhere.",
"One example: Person is drunk and crashs car into concrete barrier at 3am; calls in panick and doesn't know what to do; it can't be driven home as it's to far but can't call police cause he is intoxicated. Car is driven mangled through four wheeler trail into woods, plates removed and abandoned. car is then reported stolen. Basically no better options in messed up situations.",
"Among all the other reasons, it's harder to get an abandoned car out of the woods, whereas a car abandoned in a parking lot can easily be towed away.",
"As a kid I always found cars in the woods, learned that my neighborhood was built in the middle of a scrap yard and only decided to clear the parts where they were building",
"Same question but about people who dumb trash in the woods. Why do they do that? If they’ve already got the trash into their car, why not drive it to a garbage disposal site?",
"I lived in New Zealand for a number of years. Cars left in wooded areas or near secluded spots were either stolen and abandoned or are sign of a missing hiker/adventurer/tourist.",
"Well abandoned cars on the roads are usually moved out of the way so other motorists can pass. Nobody cares about abandoned cars in the woods. That's why they are still there.",
"I'm reading the Bruce Campbell book and he talks about how he and Sam Raimi, when they were kids, would use cars in their movies for stunt cars and then have no way of getting rid of it so they'd drag them to a secluded area in the woods somewhere. Probably a lot of people that do this. Sometimes junkers won't accept your vehicle due to safety hazards with it. I couldn't turn my old car in with its prior condition because it had a gas leak. I had to fix it before they would come and pick it up.",
"I geocache as a hobby and I probably find one or two abandoned cars in the woods every year. I've made it a minor personal mission to figure out as much probable backstory to each car I find. The remains of [this truck]( URL_0 ) are in the middle of a forest in Old Bridge, NJ. It turned out to be a 1951 Ford pickup. Not too far from that picture I found the remains of what I think used to be an old tool shed or small barn. After some research I learned that the forest I found it in used to be a farm up until 1962, but the owners of the farm passed away and nobody in the family wanted to take it over so it fell into ruin. Eventually the state bought it and turned it into protected land, but nobody cleared out the farm so the forest just grew all around it. There's plenty of trails nearby so over time people (read: teenagers and drunk males) simply wrecked the truck a little at a time. This [VW Beetle]( URL_1 ) is less than a mile from my house and is literally a stone's throw from the edge of a large (105 acre) park that was built on the remains of a farm that the town had purchased from the owners several years earlier. The VIN on the car is still visible and it's registered to the son (deceased since 2009) of the former owner of the farm. Based on photos of the area before construction was done, my best guess is that the car was left in a barn that was situated about 75 yards from where the VW is now, and when they were leveling out the land someone just drove or hauled the car to the edge of the land, parked it, and walked away. It's been sitting there for about ten years now and is accessible with minimal effort. Body panels and parts of the car are strewn over an area about 100' in diameter, often partially buried due to the fact that the car is right next to a drainage area for the park and nearby housing development.",
"You know when you see on the news \"police are looking for a maroon '89 bonneville\" well....anyway it was always a bonneville. Do they still make those?",
"Cars used to be considered trashed at 100,000 miles; My father had a car that only bothered to have a five digit odometer. There were a lot more cars to get rid of, the \"we'll come pick up your junker\" services didn't exist. So push, pull, or drag it into the woods out back. Maybe pull some nuts and bolts off it if you needed them for something.",
"Tons of reasons, ranging from people being stupid, to bootlegging. The most probable answer though is probably something along the lines of needing to get rid of something with no good way to get rid of it",
"A lot of times there weren't woods there when the car was abandoned. Maybe it was parked on the edge of someone's property and left, or broke down while camping. Who knows. After 30+ years a field can turn into a forest.",
"I go 4 wheeling in the desert a lot and find abandoned vehicles more often than you'd think. My guess is that they are stolen, the reason they're in the desert(woods) is because they want to drive it and not get caught, and there aren't any cops patrolling those areas.",
"My grandfather used to race cars in the 60s and 70s. He owned a decent chunk of land (around 30 acres) in a very rural area and would just haul his old racers out to a clearing in the woods once he deemed them 'too much trouble to fix'. He also filled a sinkhole on his property with trash, so that tells you all you need to know about his views on environmentalism.",
"At my grandmother's house when I was a kid, there was a cliff, with woods at the bottom. There was like 6 cars hidden at the bottom.... I've actually learned that, pre 70s cars were really easy to steal and change the Vin numbers on them. There's a good chance the cars were stolen and tagged. Salvaged for parts, then dumped in the woods due to not being able to scrap them. Or it could be they just were not worth the fix.",
"If you have an old car that you don't drive but don't want to sell and if you don't have your own garage or land to keep it at, then in order to keep it at let's say your apartment complex parking lot you need to have valid registration and therefore insurance, otherwise it is considered abandoned property and will be towed. So basically you paying all that money (insurance + plates) on the car that you do not drive. If you park it somewhere far that no one cares then no one will touch it (probably)."
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5ojnjg | Why is it hard to pee when erect | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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5ojr1v | Why can my eyeglasses take constant dropping and abuse while my phones screen is so delicate? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Glasses are usually made with Polycarbonate lenses while phone screens are made of thin, pre-stressed glass. Polycarbonate will dent and scratch easier than glass because its softer than glass, but as a result it will not shatter. ~~Usually you dont notice these, and if your glasses get really bad, you can actually get the lenses buffed and polished back to a smooth shine.~~ (you cannot buff scratches in the actual lens, as it will alter the prescription, but on the top layer and antiglare coatings can be reapplied.) Gorilla glass on iphone screens, for example, is much harder so that it doesnt scratch and can be made thin enough for the sensors to detect your finger on it. The drawback with this hardness is that instead of deforming (denting) when it gets a hard impact, it will shatter much easier than polycarbonate does. This same phenomenon can actually be seen in diamond \"the hardest substance on earth\" The only way to cut diamond is to use a diamond coated cutting wheel (EDIT because not everyone's 5: or cleave it along an axis specific to its crystalline structure.) . When I was little, I thought \"then how can you cut diamonds to make the wheels to cut the diamonds to make the wheels...\" BUT diamond is SO HARD, it can be pulverized with relative ease. And that pulverized diamond dust is then bonded to cutting wheels to cut larger diamonds.",
"An iPhone 6 weighs about 129 Grams. A Pair of eyeglasses weighs closer to 20 grams. Drop both items from 1 meter high and they will hit the ground going 4.43 m/s For the iPhone that represents 1.18 Joules, while the glasses only register .2 Joules. So, because the phone is heavier, it must absorb about 6x as much energy on impact. URL_0",
"In addition to the other answers like your phone is heavier and your glasses are plastic, a phone has very sensitive technology directly behind the glass. It needs to be able to detect your finger as well as having a 1080p display that is crisp and clear. Because of this, the glass has to be thinner. As with any brittle substance, thin pieces are exponentially easier to break than something slightly thicker. Your glasses also have more give. Meaning if they fall on a lens, the body of the glasses can bend slightly to absorb impact. There is no such give with a phone. Think of the karate move where you break a cinder block. If the to holders are spaced out, its much easier to make it crumble than if you balanced it on one stand and hit it dead center. But seeing how much abuse my glasses take without a scratch, i'm pressed to say that at least mine are plastic lenses.",
"The lenses in your glasses are thicker, and they are curved (which adds impact resistance). They are also probably made of plastic, which is less prone to cracking. And your glasses don't have the added weight of the phone, which adds kinetic energy to the impact.",
"Speak for yourself, every pair of glasses I've ever owned have been horribly scratched the first time I dropped them on pavement. Even if I paid for the 'anti-scratch' coating and shit. They don't shatter though, because they're usually plastic and they weigh a lot less than a phone. Glass lenses are uncommon in eyeglasses because they will have to be a lot thicker than plastic, and therefore weigh more. Plastic phones are nearly impossible to shatter, but they scratch more easily than glass.",
"Your glasses, at least in the US, have to withstand the impact of a 5/8th inch diameter steel ball dropped from 50 inches, as required by the FDA.",
"In my experience repairing both iPhones and androids (9:1 ratio, or more) it has to do, not with the strength of the glass itself, but with the flexibility of the phones. While Apples have prestine engineering under the hood, they have a solid, aluminum case whereas most droids are plastic. When an iPhone hits the ground, it doesn't have any flexibility to distribute the force. I throw my android across the rooms as a demonstration to most of my clients and haven't broken the screen yet. They still stick with Apple and I have several returning customers because of it. Edit 1: Spelling.",
"We must be opposite I've dropped my phone 2368947 times over the 3 years I've had it and it's still in perfect condition I buy a nice pair of sunglasses, drop them once onto carpet and they're horrifically scratched.",
"Mostly relative mass. Your glasses are very light relative to the thickness of the glass, whereas your phone is very heavy. Force against a surface of sufficient hardness and sharpness of profile is what causes scratches (usually sand on the ground, which has particles that are very hard and very sharp), and the more force you generate before the impact the more likely it is to scratch. The simple equation for force of a moving body is F=ma, or force equals mass times acceoeration. Acceleration is usually just gravity in the case of a simple drop, and its constant. So at equal drop height more mass equals more force means more likelihood of a scratch on impact is the simple answer. Where it starts getting more complex is energy transfer at impact, basically does the impacting object bounce off of the other object or transfer energy to it while deforming, and heavier objects are more likely to deform and break themselves instead of bouncing, which also gets into a materials ability to non-permanently deform. It also has to do with internal stresses in the materials. Eyeglasses are usually freely held (so it's fixturing - the frame - is not applying stress to the lens) and there is no internal stress in the glass. Screen glass in phones is held more firmly, so there is more energy transfer between frame and glass, and it's often internally stressed glass, where there is unresolved stress between layers of the profile of the glass, which can make it hold complex shapes easier, makes the surface harder, and has several other beneficial effects, but makes it more susceptible to damage when something like a scratch relieves stress in one area and takes the system out of balance. But as simply as it gets, because a phone is heavier.",
"Chances are you glasses are made with plastic lenses, not glass. They're not as fragile.",
"This is the other way around for me. My glasses don't hold up for shit and I barely drop them. My phone appears to be indestructible. Expensive ass lenses because my eyesight sucks.",
"In the UK, not glasses do not have glass. It's heavy, costs more and is more dangerous. It doesn't scratch as much though. Most spectacles use: CR-39, or allyl diglycol carbonate, is a plastic polymer commonly used in the manufacture of eyeglass lenses. Some people get polycarbonate but it was easier to scratch and with certain solutions, would smeer permanently. Cr39 lenses are cheaper but probably gets more glare so you can have a coating on top that helps.",
"Not a scientist but the weight of the spectacles it's a factor here, they are very light and the frame will help them bounce off most drops.",
"Also with glasses, there's a chance that part of the arms will hit first, which will absorb some of the impact force before the lens hits (or preventing it from hitting at all).",
"Is your phone screen really that delicate? I would imagine the material of your phone's screen is roughly the same durability as your eyeglasses, but your phone's glass is thinner, it's handled more often, your phone is much heavier than your glasses (so when dropped, it lands harder) and it's a flat rectangle with the edges secured which is a very vulnerable shape to breaking upon any sort of impact.",
"I wore glasses for 20+ years, actually broke two lenses. I was a pretty bad case of nearsight, so in the beginning opticians used to advice me to buy glass lenses, as they were much thinner (they were heavy). First time they just dropped from the nightstand and broke as it could happen to a phone, second time I was looking for them and stepped on. Got plastic ones afterwards, still they were much thicker and not at all lighter than glass, they would scratch badly, they were just cheaper. Maybe my last pair was polycarbonated because never broke and were expansive but they scratched a lot and would change color perception like blue-yellow. By my own experience (old) spectacles and phones are fragile and break for the same reasons."
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5ojrhi | How this works in politics | Are the upper levels of government the only people who can remove the person in charge? For example, if you happened to live in a country where more than half the population did not like the person in charge and this country perhaps was a constitutional republic or democracy; could people ban together to form a petition to remove this person from power? Or is it something only the upper levels of government can do? This is purely a hypothetical of course. Yet, I am not entirely positive if this scenario were to occur if this is able to be done. Edit: May be not stating it directly but I am genuinely curious as to how this process would work and if it is something that could be achieved. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It differs from country to country. I assume you are talking about Trump in the US. The only, ONLY, way a sitting president gets removed is if he's convicted of a criminal offence. However, the president is not beholden to the normal justice system, since technically he runs it. So the only, ONLY, way this happens is if the House of Representatives charges the president with a crime (this is called impeachment), and then the Senate votes to convict him (after a trial). In the entire history of the US its never gotten that far. However, on 2 occasions the house has impeached the president, but the senate did not vote to convict them (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton). President Nixon was going to be impeached but resigned before the final vote came down. Your question of, is there a way for \"the people\" to raise up and remove a president because they don't like the dude. The answer is no. Technically the congress are the representatives of the people and therefore when congress removes a president they are acting on the will of the people, but that assumes there's been a crime committed. There is no direct means for the people to remove the president just because they don't like him. Of course, there's always revolution, but one would hardly call that \"legal means\". Other countries sometimes do have such a means, other times the barriers to removing he head of state are simply less. For example, in Canada there is no way for the people to directly remove the Prime Minister. However, the house of representatives (called parliament) can remove the PM by a simple majority vote for whatever reason they damn well please. In addition, the political party of the PM can choose someone else to serve as PM whenever they want."
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5ojth0 | How have we not noticed a planet in our solar system 10 times the size if earth? | URL_0 | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's extremely far from Earth and even further from the sun, meaning a minuscule amount of light actually hits it. If no light hits the planet, then you're looking for a dark spot on a dark background (space) and it's extremely difficult to see. Its existence is postulated based on other observed facts, but for the reasons above it's very hard to see, so we can't get visual confirmation.",
"Because if it exists, it's orbiting *really* far out. This means that 1. It recieves very little sunlight 2. It appears extremely small from earth 3. Its gravitational pull is practically undetectable. It's been compared to trying to spot a mosquito in a forest on a moonless night.",
"The only way we will be able to detect it definitively is by actually seeing it. We can do this in one of two ways, either this planet is large enough and hot enough that it emits it's own infrared light, and we use a detector to find that, or we see sunlight reflecting off of it and shining back to us. It's unlikely it's hot enough to emit infrared like Jupiter, so our best chance is seeing the light reflecting off it. Being so far away, it would be exceedingly dim, and the further out you get, the more area you need to canvas to find it. There is an astounding amount of space we need to cover. It's exceedingly difficult to see something so dim and so small (small from our vantage point). The intensity of light that leaves the sun drops with the square of the distance, and so the light that reflects off this planet is twice that, having to make a return trip to our telescopes. It's amazing we've seen distant objects like Pluto back when we did in 1930! And it's only been in the last 20 years we've had the technology and the sensitivity to discover the other planetoids that even led us to the deduction this new planet is out there in the first place. That this object is so far out there, it's gravity has an insignificant influence on the inner and what we commonly think of outer solar system. This object is beyond the Kuiper belt, projected to be 400 Astronomical Units out there; the Voyager probes are the furthest man made objects from Earth, and we consider them to be entering the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space, and it's a mere 135 AU from Earth. at 17 km/s, it'll take 74 years for Voyager 1 to match that distance. And consider the gravitational well of our sun extends even further, so who knows what else might be trapped in orbit about our sun that we would have never expected to be there, which we don't yet know and might not yet think to even wonder."
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5oju95 | Why some noises can't be avoided however you try to do your action silently? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"dcjtlok"
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"text": [
"Some actions inherently end in a sudden result -- like if you snap a pencil, the final break happens very suddenly, no matter how slowly you bent it up to that point. Sudden things release a lot of energy (such as noise) all at once."
],
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5ojudl | What causes the temporary inability to breathe when you "get the wind knocked of you"? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcjtlb3"
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"text": [
"The diaphragm muscle allows the lungs to expand and collapse. If you get hit hard enough in the diaphragm it begins to spasm and can't inflate the lungs."
],
"score": [
3
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5ojw8m | What actually happens when you get frostbite if there is no chance of saving the body part? Does the whole thing - including the bone - simply break off? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"No, the bone doesn't break off. The flesh clings on, and rots, leading to a possibly fatal infection called gangrene. To prevent this, the flesh must be cut off. The protruding bone is typically then removed with a saw, so that the skin can be sutured shut.",
"Your cells are mostly water. When water freezes, it expands, effectively killing the cells even if they thaw out. Your body can replace a few damaged or dead cells, but as the affected region grows larger, it destroys all the pathways the body uses to remove and replace the cells. Thus the whole region because a large set of dead cells which can have the potential of becoming gangrenous if not cut off.",
"If you are lucky the deed tissue will just die off and the live tissue will start forming scar tissue towards the dead tissue. Eventually the dead tissue will fall off and rot away. However in most cases there will be some interaction between the live and dead tissue before this. The problem is that the dead tissue starts to rot quite fast and may cause an infection in the live tissue. This infection is usually deadly unless treated with strong antibiotics and in most cases amputation of the infected live tissue. Having dead limbs still attached is like cutting open your flesh and add rotting meat to the gaping wound to stop the bleeding."
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5ok7kd | Why does Russia have such a turbulent history of oppression, tyranny, and violence that has plagued it for centuries? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcjwo91",
"dcjyftv"
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"text": [
"They had issues in the 20th century but were they worse in the 19th century and earlier?",
"Leaders such as Stalin who ruled with an iron fist. In other words they wanted to be in control fully. They wanted a society where no one questions the leaders orders. Like when they stripped farmers & peasants of their land because they wanted all the produce to be for \"the collective\". Then they ordered police to raid homes & take any grains they had stored & exported it for profit. People starved because of this, but they saw it as \"necessary\" to industrialize the peasant population."
],
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5okc6h | If baking powder is just baking soda with cream of tartar, why do recipes not just call for extra soda and cream of tartar instead of baking powder? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dck6m7z"
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"text": [
"Baking powder, these days, *isn't* just baking soda and cream of tartar. Now, you usually get double-acting powder, which has two pairs of chemicals that, when they get wet (or wet and hot, for one of the pairs), react and give off carbon dioxide. That way, even if your, say, pancake batter has been sitting in the fridge for an hour, it'll still puff when it cooks."
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5okg9k | How can the dollar be "too" strong and how does it negatively impact the U.S? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Let's pretend there's only three currencies: The American dollar, British pound, and the euro in the European Union. At different times, each one can be stronger or weaker than another. This month, the dollar is strong, the pound is weak, and the euro is weaker. While I'm an American, I like British suits, so I shop online at a fine British clothesmaker. I find one that reliably sells for 1000 pounds. If the dollar is weak against the pound, that might mean I have to pay $1800. If the dollar is strong against the pound, maybe I only pay $900. I'm happy with a strong dollar. Then, I go to my job at a factory that makes aircraft. While the UK has traditionally imported a lot of planes from us, the strong dollar means our planes are more expensive for them. British airlines start buying from European manufacturers instead, because their money goes further when they're buying in euros. The factory can't afford to employ me, so I lose my job. (Sure wish I hadn't blown all that money on suits.) My friend who works in Times Square is hurting, too, because none of the British and European tourists are visiting our country. Basically, that's the trade-off. A weak dollar means people buy more of our stuff, but their stuff is expensive. A strong dollar means their stuff is cheap, but they buy less of our stuff. A very strong dollar hurts businesses that depend on foreign sales.",
"It has to do with exchange rates. Let's pretend we are selling Cars manufactured in the U.S. to Mexico for $100. If the 1 Peso = $1 the car costs 100 Pesos for a Mexican. If the dollar is strong it means 2 Pesos = $1 (or any amount of pesos greater than 1). So now it costs 200 Pesos for our Mexican friend. Unfortunately they don't get a raise so they can't afford this car and so they stop buying American goods. That means less Americans working as we don't need to produce as much. On a positive note, goods from other countries are cheaper for those who get to keep their jobs.",
"Some good answers here but let me boil down the essential symmetry: * A **strong** dollar is good for Americans traveling abroad (tourists can buy more stuff), and it is good for imports (Americans can buy more stuff from China, EU as a whole, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, etcetera). Top trading partners sorted by imports URL_1 * A **weak** dollar is good for the American tourism industry (people from abroad visiting inside the US can buy more) and it is good for exports (Americans will have more customers from Canada, EU as whole, Mexico, China, Japan, UK, etcetera). Top trading partners sorted by exports URL_0 Takeaways: * If you want to make a lot of stuff within the US using mostly in-US resources, or if you work in US tourism, you benefit from a weak dollar. The benefits are significant; a weak dollar means more jobs are available in the US, because more companies will be making stuff and offering services from within the US. With a weak dollar, the customer support you speak to for an American company is that much more likely to be US-based rather than from some overseas country. * If you want to buy a lot of cheap stuff at Walmart or when visiting other countries, you prefer a strong dollar. A strong dollar also means more offshore jobs. You can't have your cake an eat it to. In general the overall economy prefers that the dollar be a little bit/somewhat strong, but not too strong. The dollar is very strong right now and that's an issue for competitiveness."
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5oktez | What causes the temporary inability to breathe when you've "gotten the wind knocked out of you"? | Yesterday a 250+lb dude fell right on my chest during a soccer game and for a solid ten seconds I couldn't gasp for a breathe of air. That sucked. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dck3zh4",
"dckj029"
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"text": [
"When somebody strikes your chest, specifically the solar plexus, this makes your diaphragm contract and spasm, making you lose control over your breathing.",
"When you breath in and out there is a portion of air that isn't used for respiration and it is called dead space. There is always supposed to be a certain volume of air in your lungs to keep them inflated. There are reflexes in place to prevent you from over inflating and deflating your lungs. Try it now to suck in as much air as possible and blow as much possible out. The body wont let you. When we get the crap smacked out of us there is a chance that remaining air is expelled and your body essentially freaks out to inspire more. Please correct my dumb self if I am wrong."
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