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5nrxy3 | Why do we wake up early when we don't have to but tend to wake up late when we need to be up? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The simple answer is stress causes this. By setting a schedule your body will fall into a rhythm. After a while you don't really need the alarm at all. However as we know our natural rythems get disturbed occasionally. When we must get up we are creating stress that is easiest to avoid by doing nothing and that is what we want to do (avoid stress). On the weekend you don't have stress to avoid and your body is doing its thing. A sign of depression (just one of the signs) is oversleeping. Your mind allowing your body to avoid the stress of life every chance you get. Feel good that you feel awake when you don't have to. Your life is manageable to you.",
"I know the true answer. we are in the computer. you are people born and living in the computer. just some program, like a demon, bother you.",
"I was actually wondering the same thing not too long ago when I was on holiday. We have just been on a cruise with endless activities and I found myself waking up at around 5am every morning. I wasn't actually able to do anything but watch tv until 8am but I think it is just the fact of waking up to something you really enjoy. After coming back, I have had a boat load of university assignments to finish, and I find myself waking up 9-10am. I usually get up at around 8am, but knowing that I am going to be sitting by a computer all day doing work, I find my bed just all that more comfortable."
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5ns36i | The war on Yemen and why Britain joined the bombings. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's a civil war going on in Yemen, with 3 main sides. * Houthis - largest minority ethnic group in the country. They're allies of the former President. Proxy force of Iran. Don't like the Yemeni government because it's friendly with Saudi Arabia and doesn't give them enough say in politics * Government - Allied/proxy of Saudi Arabia. Doesn't like the Houthis because they're an Iranian proxy and constantly try to expand their control far past what they feel it should be * Al Qaeda - Were being bombed by the government and the US until the civil war broke out. Now making major grounds as the government is distracted by the Houthis. Much like every conflict in the region, all the parties suck. * Houthis wanted near 50% control of politics when they're not even 33% of the population. Their flag literally reads \"DEATH TO ISRAEL. DEATH TO AMERICA. CURSE THE JEWS. VICTORY TO ISLAM\". They force Somali refugees to carry out suicide bombings against the government under the threat of force against their families. They use human shields. * Government abused the Houthis for decades on end, and only recently tried to bring them more into the fray. They allow and encourage Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States to bomb Houthi targets indiscriminately, killing thousands of innocent civilians. * Al Qaeda's action's are the same as it's always been sadly. Britain joined basically because something needs to be done. Al Qaeda's power is drastically increasing the longer the war goes on for, and as shitty as the government is, basically no one wants the Houthis to win. A Houthi win puts an Iranian proxy directly next to Saudi Arabia, which destabilizes the entire region, and only brings the region that much closer to direct military confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. No matter what anyone thinks of either nation/government, the notion of a war between them is simply something that can't happen, without **major** ramifications to the rest of the world. I'd imagine that the UK is going to hit the Houthis and Al Qaeda hard and fast. Force the Houthis to the table, and demand the government make serious reforms, with threats of action if they don't hold to them. From there, there can be a single unified front against Al Qaeda again, like the US had before the civil war broke out.",
"There is not a war *on* Yemen, there is a war *in* Yemen. Half of the country is controlled by jihadist terror groups. Britain is supporting the Yemeni government against the jihadist Houthi and their terrorist allies."
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5ns5fp | Why does your brain sometimes refuse to recall something until you stop trying to remember it? | We've all been there: talking about something and we just can't remember the detail, it drives us nuts, and we give up and go about our day. Then, out of nowhere, an hour, day, or week later, that thing just pops into your head... | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Actually, this is a good neuroscientific, meaty question. Well done!! Our memories are stored as series of hierarchically arranged and organized associations. The reason we know this is when we make a word mistake, such as want to say \"world\" and say work, or \"word\" instead. Most all mistakes verbally are of this kind. And as the cortical cell columns all over the brain where such memories are stored, are very much the same, memory storage is all very much a variation on the same common, efficient theme. Association. how this weighs in on the question is very clear cut. We have a LOT of information in our brains. But it's not all stored in the same place, nor is it stored alphabetically, but by comparison processing. Thus like ideas, like words and their associations are all stored in a complex network. Now, you're thinking of a word, and you can't quite recall the name of that place. The reason is we need a clue as to what the word is, so we can find that network of associations. Was trying to think of Bruce Willis one day and all I could get was \"Lewis\". I knew it was close, But couldn't recombine the letters to properly. find the tracing. so when we walk away from the problem a while, we stumble upon another clue word, and that works. It's trial and error. It also works when there's a creative or work block. Working for a few hours and we often get blocked. So we take a walk and bingo, 20' later, we're at it again. We've reset the working memory, emplaced lots more different inputs inside, and ready to go again. This is also the benefit of peripatetic teaching. Where by walking about, stimulates the memories and associations and allows teaching to be more thorough. We do this in medicine on rounds, Darwin was famous for his walk at his home in Down, and many of us like to take walks because it jogs our memories as well. So that is likely what's going on. And why we must often simply \"jog\" our brains to come up with the word we need, or the creative clue, & much else. it often puts our brains on better tracks to solve the problems.",
"It is thought that this phenomenon is a result of the brain's natural (and normally useful) process of blocking out unrelated words when trying to retrieve a specific one. Sometimes, the word that you are trying to recall will paradoxically be blocked, leading to the situation where you focus your attention elsewhere only to spontaneously remember the word after your brain stops the \"block unrelated things\" process."
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5ns5pd | What's the difference between a motel and a hotel?? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Motels have doors which open directly to the parking lot. Hotels have rooms which open into a shared hallway. Generally, hotels will offer more and better accommodations than motels, but that is not always the case. I have stayed in hotels that didn't offer anything but a room with a bed.",
"A 'motel' is a 'motor hotel'. Basically it's designed for motorists so will have a little more self-sufficiency like kitchens and things there, whereas hotels tend to be larger single buildings with a restaurant and bar etc. Motels have parking areas near the rooms and don't generally have a main front door, just a separate reception area."
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5ns69n | Why does water expire? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Water doesn't expire. It's the bottle that expires, because the plastic that makes up the bottle breaks down.",
"Laws in countries ask that every single food and drink item have an expiration date. It's a formality that needs to be followed. Water doesn't really expire. Some guys wrote about bottles too, and yea that's a factor too, but not a major one unless you're talking about storing a sealed bottle for years."
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5ns7hd | Why can't we just dump garbage into volcanoes? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No. First there's the high transportation cost. Then there's the fact that it doesn't just \"disappear\" as harmful chemicals and pollutants are released into the atmosphere. It's really not much different than incinerating garbage locally just with a much higher transportation cost.",
"Trash isn't a significant space problem, it's just that no one likes living near landfills and they cost more the further away they are. And of all the places that generate trash, most places aren't close enough to a volcano to make that an economical option. Volcanoes are also unpredictable, and not terribly active in that there aren't too many open pools of lava sitting around in the world like they are in movie-land. It would also be terribly dangerous to approach one to dump the trash in. And there is nothing fast about getting trash from your house to the nearest active volcano to you, which I predict is probably very far from you unless you live in Hawaii or Iceland, or along parts of the Pacific rim in South America or Asia. We do have a thing like a local, economic volcano, called an incinerator, which burns trash and generates electricity, but people tend not to like these things, either. Near me one was built and shut down weeks before beginning operation due to local complaints.",
"Rocks are dense, as you may well know. They're heavy. They sink. They hurt if one is chucked at you. * If you went to the trouble of building a ramp up a volcano... * And spent the money to make it sturdy enough that it wouldn't collapse if the volcano behaved unpredictably... * And you spent the money to ship all the garbage, say in the united states, to your nearest active volcano... * And you spent all the money to bribe however many thousands of dump truck operators it would take to take all of the world's garbage up however many of these few, accessible, infrastructure-ready volcanoes you had built, 24/7... **Then** You'd never have enough transportation to get all the garbage into the volcanoes. **and** Like I said, rocks are dense. So is molten rock. Now you have a pile of burning garbage sitting on top of lava, polluting the atmosphere.",
"No. Apart from the massive effort required to bring thousands of tonnes of trash up to a mountain top, it's dangerous to throw stuff that contains water, or any other liquid really, inside volcanoes. [See here.]( URL_0 )"
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5nsa8k | Why we don't create our own energy for free using magnets? youtube video below | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Videos like this are scams. They either want to sell you something, or more likely, they just hide a battery somewhere in there and get ~19M youtube views with very little effort. Try to make one yourself and you'll see that they do not work. Conservation of energy is a tough principle to violate.",
"You can't generate energy from *nothing*. Magnets don't actually create energy - their motion does, and you can only get them to move by putting energy into the system. When two magnets attract each other, that's just using up the energy that was spent pulling them apart in the first place.",
"Magnets always have two poles, [one positive, one negative]( URL_0 ). This poles are always equal in strength, and there is *no way to make a magnet that only has one pole.* Cut a magnet in half, and you have two magnets that both have a positive and negative side. Pole positive always attracts poles negative and always repulses other positive poles. If you make a wheel covered in magnets, there will always be a position where the attraction and repulsion equal out. You can spin a wheel with rapidly turning on and off electromagnets, but electromagnets need external power and it will always use more power than you extract back from the spinning wheel. [\"Perpetual motion\" machines always have a hidden power source.]( URL_1 )",
"Think of it in simple terms, you've got a fan with one blade. It begins to spin, because the magnet you are holding repels the magnet on the blade. What happens when it goes around the circle and is now approaching your magnet again? It would push it away, reversing the fan. This would oscillate, until your fan blade is eventually at the opposite point, stationary. Adding more blades does not 'erase' this effect.",
"This video, and the thousands that came before it, are fake. This same scam has been around in one form or another for decades. I think it actually predates the internet. By the laws of thermodynamics, you can't get energy from nothing. It must be extracted from another source, such as the chemical bonds in oil, the kinetic energy in wind, the gravitational energy inna reservoir of water, or the nuclear energy of the sun. Magnets do not store their own special energy, thus there isn't anything to extract energy from to power your house. Typically these devices shown off on YouTube have an internal battery, or a hidden power cord pulling power from a wall socket. I'm happy to elaborate if you want."
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5nsbmj | ٌWhat is the most important factor someone's larynx have in order to make one have a "powerful voice"? | What I mean actually is, how different is the larynx of someone like Adele with other people that make her have a powerful voice? Another example would be Persian legend Mohammad Reza Shajarian. URL_0 Luciano Pavarotti would be another example. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A ton of factors contribute. In my opinion, the ability to project is what best determines a powerful voice. Ever watch Sister Act? Whoopi puts her hand on the young soprano's diaphragm and the tremulous becomes clear and strong."
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5nsd0d | How does the brain encode sounds and music such that you can "hear" an almost perfect recording in your head, from memory, as if it's digitally encoded | Building on the earworm question posited recently. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Scientists have started to zero in on the way the brain stores and encodes information, called sparse distributed representation. This encoding mechanism is in fact digital. Large groupings of neuronal columns and micro-columns connected to sensory pathways are activated sparsely, and unique clusters of connected activated columns store spatial and sequential data. The collection of activated columns within the total collection of columns in a structure can be represented as digital bits, and each bit has semantic meaning. In the case of music, the semantic context is that of notes, duration, and other sound qualities. Each \"on\" bit, or 1 in a representation, is roughly equivalent to the column or columns of neurons in the brain that fire in response to hearing or recalling a particular note or sound. So yes, it does appear that our experiences are digital in nature."
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5nsel9 | Why is the average work week so much higher in the United States at 34.40 hours per week in comparison to other countries such as Germany where the average person works 26.37 hours per week? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The way Fortune took the numbers from oecd and converted it to hours per week is not taking holidays out of the calculation. They simply divided the number by 52. According to a slightly older article from the FAZ, Germans were working 41.1 hours per week on average: URL_0 There might have been a rise of very short part-time work which skews the statistic,between then and 2015, but I doubt that it is that much. I personally work 8 hours per day at 5 days a week, so 40 hours, which is a very common working schedule for Germany.",
"It's not as if, in any given week, Germans work 26 hours. A full-time job in Germany is 40 hours a week, but Germans get mandatory paid leave, and a lot of public holidays (and those who work in a profession that means they have to work on a public holiday -- like nurses, for example -- then get another day off in lieu). Also, Germans get mandatory sick leave, maternity leave and so on. Added to that, since the 26.37 hours/week figure is an *average*, a robust welfare benefits system means low wage-earners are not taking two full-time jobs just to try to make ends meet, and that also affects the figures."
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5nseq1 | The Medal of Freedom has been described as the highest honor for a civilian, yet non-Americans and military have won it. Is it not really for civilians but just humans the president likes? | Or is my definition of civilian incorrect? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not that the medal of freedom is exclusive to civilians, it's that there are other medals (such as the medal of honor) which a civilian can't receive. So the medal of freedom is the highest honor which can be given to a civilian, though it can be given to other people too.",
"> Or is my definition of civilian incorrect? \"Civilian\" is not the same as \"citizen\". A civilian is just a person who isn't in armed combat or police forces. Also, just because something is the highest honor a civilian is eligible for does not mean that only civilians can be awarded it. It just means that if a military person was awarded the Medal of Freedom they would be eligible for higher honors than that."
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5nsg2k | Why do so many Train tracks run along creeks and rivers? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Rivers tend to form in places that have a long, continuous, mostly-gradual path from high to low places. This is exactly the sort of path trains need, as they cannot climb (or safely descend) very steep slopes. Some rivers do have steep bits (rapids, waterfalls), and in these bits the train will of course take a different route.",
"Rivers tend to connect developed industrial centers, so following them aids in connecting towns and allows relatively easy transition from sea/water to land movement of freight and passengers.",
"Railway engineers had to design tracks which stayed dry and did not get washed out. The natural solution is to build a ditch capable of handling water beside the track. The water has to go somewhere sometime, so it needs a creek or river to drain into. It works just as well to run the rail line down a real creek or river along the bank.",
"There are several reasons why train tracks were developed close to water. Before railroads, the primary way to transport large amounts of cargo was by canal. First, it was barges pulled by horses that ran along the side of the canal. Later, with the advent of steam power, you had steamboats as well. As steam locomotives were developed, they initially competed with these canals and steamboats along the same routes, and so they laid track along these same routes. Another reason is that steam locomotives need water, and lots of it. For this reason, it made sense to locate the tracks and stations close to major water sources. And finally, as trains expanded westward across the mountains, they needed to choose the easiest routes with the smoothest grades. Over millions of years, waterways had carved routes through the mountain ranges, so it made sense to just follow the smooth grade that the river had already formed."
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5nsjne | Why is it bad to quickly restart an air conditioner compressor? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The air conditioner has a motor which compresses the gas hence it is called the compressor. If you start the compressor after a period of being off then the electric motor, the compressor, starts against no load. It does not begin pumping against a compressed gas. It is easier for a motor to start against no load. If the air conditioner was running then there is likely to be compressed gas still in the system. That is why the compressor is there. The compressor starts from zero speed against a load just as you might begin pedaling up a hill on a bicycle. Electric motors draw a large current getting started. They will draw even more when starting under a load."
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5nslnm | Why does the tempo of a certain song seem so different depending on activity level when listening? | As someone who listens to music when I workout/run it always astounds me that generally up-beat songs sound sooooo slow when I'm working out. Does this have something to do with our heart rate or breathing?! What shenanigans is my brain up to when this happens? Edit: Flair | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I make no claims to be an expert on this but I have seen articles where they tested the theory about \"time flies when you're having fun\"... Basically they say that the concept of time, especially inside our squishy brains is fluid and ever changing based on activity level, dopamine, etc. So I would go out on a limb and say when you are working out, you're entire body is basically in overdrive. Muscles are firing faster, internal processes are accelerated and music is just another stimulus that your brain is trying to process. Someone riding past you on a bike looks very different when you are standing still vs. passing them in a car at highway speeds.",
"I think Einstein said it best. “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.” While that isn't actually relativity it's a good anecdote. Your perception of time will vary based on your over all perception at that moment. Get distracted and time can appear to fly by, but focus on something and time can seem to stand still. We aren't very good judges of time which is why hourglasses, sun dials, and clocks are so useful."
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5nsmpp | What is the deal with the newly discovered organ? How come we didn't categorize it before? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The \"new\" organ is the mesentery, which has been known about for many years (it was in my medical terminology classes years ago). What's new is they decided it's *structure* is continuous enough to be it's own organ, as opposed to being a feature of another organ (the colon)"
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5nsnqh | - The Struggles of University | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Jesus what class is this? Sorry I can't really help; I'm as lost as you"
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5nson7 | How much of an advantage (if any) does being overweight give someone in terms of starvation? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If they have nothing whatsoever to eat, then the fat guy might live a little longer, but not that much longer, because vitamin deficiency will kill him long before his fat reserves are expended. If they get vitamin supplements to prevent that, then the fat guy would live much, much longer than the skinny guy.",
"This is the *exact reason* the human body developed the ability to store fat. Yes, it is a food reserve for the lean times when available calories are limited. It would help a lot in a \"no food\" situation, though as others have pointed out, you could still die reasonably soon for lack of key minerals and other nutrients besides just calories. It would help *even more* in a \"limited food\" situation, where you had enough of the micronutrients but simply needed a lot more calories to keep your energy up and fuel your activities (and your brain, heart, etc.).",
"The fat will get digested for energy. However, the fatter person could have issues from malnutrition. The thin person would have the same malnutrition issues, so the fatter person should survive longer, all other things being equal.",
"> Obviously the fat guy's organs might have suffered from his sedentary lifestyle and whatnot. Let's ignore such things for argument's sake. I just wanted to drop in and speak to this comment in the OP. Generally speaking, in human history institutional starvation and institutional instability go hand in hand. if people are starving (even in a context vacuum), it is also a dangerous time to be alive. Populations don't starve and then stay content and well-behaved. One may need to react extremely quickly in fight-or-flight scenario - in most instances the fit guy is going to have an advantage over the unfit guy. Fat reserves are great for survival in low-food and no-food scenarios, but being unfit is almost always to your detriment more so than carrying a few extra calories could offset.",
"Body fat is a mechanism to store energy for lean times, and through our history, periods of starvation/minimal nutrition were common, particularly during the winter. Yes, fat allows you to live longer during starvation. Quite a bit longer. On a typical human, every lb of fat is 2 days of not eating. If the 150 LB guy is a lean 15% BF, we're talking about 22 lbs of fat. He has about 30 days of survival until he's down to essential fat, and bad things start happening health wise. Let's say the 300 lb guy is sitting at 40% BF, and has 120 lbs of fat. That's over 200 days of food that's stored up. There's some comments about vitamin deficiencies, but most people don't die from having a vitamin deficiency for 6 months. If you're getting sunlight, you're getting Vitamin D. The skinny guy in this scenario starts having health issues after a month. The overweight guy starts having health issues 4-6 times longer than that. *Edit* I'm not trying to say that starvation/fasting are perfectly healthy & carry no risks. I'm just saying that if you took 1,000 people and starved them for 6 months, the skinny people would be all dead, and those that are obese would have many still surviving."
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5nsuh3 | Why does fact checking high ranking officials seem unimportant? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"At least partially it's due to economic pressures. As the old media lost the methods of revenue gathering - newspapers stopped selling, TV in its pure form is on its way out - they decided to adopt the methods of the new media that was sweeping over Facebook and Twitter. Higher response speed, clickbaity titles, listicles; and general cost-cutting to make ends meet. The latter means that there's fewer and fewer journalists to do any snooping, and the former incentivizes speed over quality. Basically, it's either to parrot the words of officials than to do any serious journalism these days, and the officials know this. Of course, partially it's due to the polarization; the fact that America is dominated by merely six media groups doesn't help either. Both sides are down to extreme distortion if not outright falsification of current events, and we're lucky they agree that the sky is blue.",
"Facts are not necessarily the whole truth. If I say blacks commit more crimes, by a certain set of numbers, I'm correct. But if you include other data like blacks are more likely to be searched or whites are more likely to carry drugs, those numbers are somewhat misleading. So truths matter - a collection of interpreted facts. As humans we have certain biases. We start with a general world view then seek information to support it. You may have seem that meme/Facebook post if the dude celebrating the repeal of Obamacare but loving ACA. Dude was so convinced Obamacare was bad because Obama; but then ACA was great for him. So you have people convicted that truths are facts. But like above, not all facts lead to truths. Overall, fact checking takes work. If you're in a history class with one textbook, you'll get incomplete data. If you're in a history class with 8 books of required reading, you'll get closer to the truth. But which one is harder? So we depend on others for things. I go to a doctor, a dentist, and accountant. And I go to sources I think reputable in order to make political decisions. \"That I think reputable\".",
"American politics over the years has been moving away from caring about the exact issues to more just being about \"your team\" vs. \"their team\". Once you have a team your on and rooting for you integrate that into your own personal self. So any criticism of your team is seen as an attack on your self as well. Most people when faced with such an attack will dismiss it as baseless lies."
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5nsunx | How does the media figure out how much money a combination of businesses in an area lost because of being shut down temporarily? (Snow storm, Hurricane, etc.) | In this case it says businesses in my area lost 53 million because of the snow shutdown. How was that number even determined? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You could look at a city's budget and see how much they collected in business taxes last year. Then take that number and divide it by 365 to get the average taxes per day. Finally you can divide that number by the business tax rate for the area to get the total business profits for a typical day in the city. That will give you a close estimate."
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5nsvbq | Sometimes my phone's change with go from say 3% to 7% if I leave it alone for a long time. Is it actually regaining charge? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your battery app calculates the remaining battery based on the battery power currently being used (mV) and your usage since it was fully charged. That's why you can generally do calibration to correctly measure the current battery status and range of it. Usually, if we ignore very little variations in the battery power, it goes down. So either your phone's forecast was wrong, or if the battery usage is lower than the expectation, in which case the battery level showed on your screen will increase a little. Hope it was clear, English is not my native language, sorry about that."
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5nsvnf | Why do we only breathe through one nostril at a time and why do some people breathe through both | What is the reason for only breathing through one nostril and why do some people (like my friend) breathe through both nostrils? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First of all, please ignore the other responses here as they are all guesses. Do NOT go get a corrective surgery or anything like that because breathing through one nostril is very normal. Your nasal passages go through what is called the nasal cycle. Basically throughout the day, your autonomous nervous system (what controls the bodily functions that you don't have to think about like breathing or your heart beating) will tell the blood vessels in one side of your nose to swell and the other side to deflate every few hours. This is mainly to give one side of your nose a break while the other works. So while one side will be clear, the other will have swelled blood vessels and mucous in it. This break helps the cilia in your nose sort of \"reset\" so they can better filter what is in the air around you, but also it keeps either side of your nose from getting too dry and causing constant nosebleeds. Your friend will claim to breathe through both nostrils, and air will go through both, but one will still be more \"clogged\" than the other at any given time. Sometimes you will feel like you can only breathe through one nostril when the other is completely blocked, and this is usually due to a combination of the nasal cycle swelling the blood vessels as well as allergies or illness furthering the blockage."
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5nt14e | Why do capacitors make that high pitched sound? | I have 3 old camera flashes, All of them make a noise when charging up, Why is this? And why are modern ones silent? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's probably not the capacitor, it's the transformer. Older cameras generate a high voltage to get a bright flash, and that voltage is generated through a transformer/capacitor circuit. The whining is caused by [magnetostriction]( URL_0 ). As the magnetic field rapidly changes in the transformer, the materials expand and contract a bit. This sets up a high frequency vibration that you hear as a whine."
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5nt25o | Why do we sometimes experience tremendous mood shifts based upon music? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's based on you experiences you have had with these genres. For example, I used to listen to the most annoying alarm clock every morning because it was the only thing loud enough to wake me. One day I was walking through a store and heard a sound with the same frequency going over the PA and immediately felt angry about the question my mom was asking me. When you hear sounds your brain uses your memory to consider what this sound means to you i.e. hearing gunshot would frighten you if you were at the gym."
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5nt308 | What is the logic behind AI in strategy games such as Starcraft or Xcom. | I can understand something like a basic chess AI using a simple net points (Might be the wrong term but I'm mostly self taught, sorry) system but I'm having trouble figuring out how to get an AI to consider strategy past that. Thanks. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In starcraft, each unit has a \"counter-unit\". At the highest difficulty, an AI will likely have one of its workers or cheap units in your base, watching your build, while simultaneously building the counter to what you have. This is how it decides upon the macro side of the game. For the micro (individual skirmishes or fights), each unit has a given value to variables such as damage, range, and speed, and the AI can make a decision to fight, run, or a combination of the two based on the units it owns and the units you own in each respective fight. If you think about it, starcraft isn't a hard game to learn from a \"what-to-do\" standpoint of what you should be building and which fights to pick and which ones to run from. The hard part of the game is getting your ideas from your head to the game while managing everything simultaneously, but an AI can do this all instantly, making it quite difficult to best the hardest AI's. All it has to do is simply separate the big picture (buildings and units) from the small stuff (fights and movement). Source: High master rank in starcraft with lots of bot games played as well."
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5nt4tq | Why do people seem upset at the price of products in their country vs others (like the Nintendo Switch being $300 US and $400 CAD) when in fact those prices are nearly identical with exchange rates? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Some of it is because your purchasing power is relative to the cost of living where you are."
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5nt5mk | What happens to a fit, pregnant mother's abdominal muscles during and after pregnancy? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They get stretched out, and can separate, causing diastasis recti. Not everyone experiences this condition, and many times the muscles just go back to normal. Your ligaments and joints get loose as well, all caused by certain pregnancy hormones that enable a women's hips to shift during birth. All of this usually goes back to normal in the months after birth. Binding your belly after birth can help your muscles come back together as well, at least anecdotally. Your skin will almost always stay a little looser than before. FYI, there are many exercises you can do to strengthen your ab muscles after birth (wait a couple months minimum though, to heal) and these are usually not your typical \"ab strengthening\" exercises/movements. Crunches will not help, and can often make diastasis recti worse. A quick google search will help you find something.",
"Picture your abdominal muscles running down either side of your belly button. Now see them, slowly over months, be pushed further apart. They stretch, flatten and separate, allowing your belly to grow forward. Pregnancy hormones allow a woman's muscles to soften and relax more; which is why you can do some serious damage lifting heavy things or playing sports (both things I did during my pregs). I had big babies so ended up post-preg with 6 inches of separation and had to do physio immediately after birth, while everything was still soft. Perfectly fine now, everything has snapped back into place, but I have a friend who did not do the physio who now has a permanent pot belly due to her abs being out of place.",
"They are stretched and thus can't provide the support they could before. Diastasis recti can happen, which means the rectus abdominus muscle (6 pack muscle) spreads apart, the left side pulled from the right. They can still use the abdominals they just won't be nearly as effective and are harder to strengthen. edited thanks to a comment regarding my word choice",
"I've cared for several pregnant women whom I'd put in the \"extremely fit\" category. The ones who maintain core fitness throughout pregnancy often keep their 'six packs' up to the birth. Diastasis (separation or laxity of the rectus abdominal muscles) is not inevitable. For those mamas who have cesareans, some surgeons suture the muscle layer back together and others don't, it's a personal preference. Wrapping the abdomen postpartum is a very old indigenous tradition that serves the purpose of encouraging muscle healing and preventing diastasis too. Source: I'm a nurse midwife",
"In addition to what others have said which is spot on, the size of the baby matters and the number of pregnancies matter. Someone who has a 6 pound baby generally will have a different experience than one who has a 10 pounder. You get stretched out. The delivery matters. Those abdominal muscles control everything in your core so your gait can get messed up. Pelvis and hips as well.",
"***Shout out to all the ladies in the building!!!*** Seriously. Reading this was very insightful as to the trauma a female body goes through.",
"Here's an illustration of what could happen. The rectus abdominus (six pack muscle) is actually divided symmetrically in half. The linea alba is the white tendon down middle and it can tear. URL_0",
"My nurse and Physio said my abs separated 6cm to accommodate my son during pregnancy. I'm quite little and my son's the biggest baby we've ever had on my side of the family. I ran and went to the gym regularly during my pregnancy. My abs are still very weak now (16months later) but the connective tissue healed up enough after a few weeks that the gap was only a cm or two. I should mention that I did a half marathon possibly a few weeks pregnant. This is only one anecdote though",
"I had great abs and a really strong core prior to getting pregnant with my only child 10+ years ago. I had pre-eclampsia, gained 70lbs of mostly water weight and was miserable - thought for sure my body was a goner. He was a nine pounder, had to have an emergency c-section because of his giant melon, but when the doc was sewing my guts back up, she commented aghast, \"geez, your belly's nearly flat again\". I had no issues with the muscles separating (actually, never knew it happened until I read the above comments), and I started working out when my son was 3 weeks old. My doc told me it was because I had a strong core that I recovered so well and so quickly.",
"Physiotherapist here! When somebody says 'abdominal muscles' they are mostly referring to rectus abdominus which is the 'six pack' muscle. This muscle helps you to do sit-ups and that is all (and I guess it looks good if toned). But the real important abdominal muscles are underneath the rectus abdominus. One of the primary muscles involved in keeping your abdomen together and supporting your lower back in a muscle called transverse abdominus. This muscle together with a couple of others including the diaphragm, makes up the 'core' muscles. Transverse abdominus acts as a corset around your body so, when working optimally, it can prevent any splitting of rectus abdominus during pregnancy.",
"I had an 11 pound babe and at the time I got preggo I was a very fit petite 115 lb person. I carried her all in front and she stretched my abs so far apart that I had a 7 finger abdominal split. I ended up with diastasis recti and an umbilical hernia. But, as any mother would,say, she was completely worth it :)",
"5'1', had a trainer, lookin good, six pack..and then, whoosh....gone. In a store: Hello, is there anything I can help you find? When I turned around, I took everything out. The clothes rack, small children! I Still had that nine year old body from behind but my stomach was a torpedo beast! I loved the gasp from the store clerk, turning into a weak supportive smile. My My.. I was having twins. My skin never went back. I was never overly concerned about it. However, I had my gallbladder taken out last friday. On the monday after my surgery, I was getting ready to fly home. I was coming out of a 2 day post surgery black out...fog was descending. I looked down at the bandaid and I saw a hole...like a hole...Nawwwwwwww. I quickly tried to talk myself out of this beautiful event which might have taken place. It's from the swelling that is somehow causing a hole where my belly button was, then stretched away, and here again..could it be? I run out to my mom sitting on the couch (she & my father had to fly down) and I ask...Is this a belly button? Did he give me a belly button? Did I ask the surgeon to give me a belly button? Why yes you did, right before surgery. I did?! How did the heavens open up to give me the clarity to jump on this ticket? I mean I was so sick, no memory of anything because of the drugs and there! There! That inner voice stood strong and had enough sense to ask! My boys are 9 and I can't afford plastic surgery...I have accepted the skin that hangs like an utter...but I swear to god, this moment of giddiness, happiness, was like that Time magazine picture of the little boy receiving a new pair of shoes....just the best feeling! A BELLY BUTTON! It looks like a melting mouth on an utter but it's there!!! It is there! What a good surgeon! He was probably like WOW, jeez! Ouch! WOW! Yeah, noooooo problem! Also, if I do a half sit up, I can put the tips of my fingers thru my abdominal muscles...down the middle..like there's a space. I think they stretched and never grew back together. To bad insurance doesnt pay for that. I think my back it worse for it.. I do have my sweet boys though! What'ya gonna do?",
"It doesn't matter your fitness level- the abdominal muscles have to separate to accomodate the growing uterus. Being fit before and during pregnancy can help aid in your delivery and recovery, but will not exempt you from the changes to every single system of the body that pregnancy requires.",
"To the women of this thread who have or will go through pregnancy/childbirth - - You are all amazing.",
"I can tell that a lot of folks here don't actually know what goes on during pregnancy. In short, it has nothing to do whether you are fit, out of shape, whether the baby is 6 lbs, 10 lbs, etc. As far as we know, only genetics play a factor. There are several 'fit' ladies who have their body practically destroyed by pregnancy, and there are several 'unfit' ladies that come out of pregnancy in better shape than they went in. The best that scientist can come up with is genetics...some women aren't meant to have babies, others are meant to have tons of babies. How I know: I have many kids, and know many parents. I have also researched this subject extensively as my wife has had issues after having multiple kids.",
"Omg I am currently 31 weeks pregnant and I am obsessed with what's happening to my ab muscles!! Can't believe there's a post about it",
"Where my mum is from (Mozambique) the women tie the babies to their backs with blankets called capulana. Not only does this bind the belly after pregnancy (since your belly muscles basically just split in two) it bonds your baby to you and you can get on with all your chores! She did this with all 3 of us even though she was in the uk and her figure was great.",
"I experienced diastasis recti after having my daughter. My core strength, and thus, posture were absolute crap for a whole year - even though i worked out both during and after my pregnancy. It was only when i discovered something called \"Tupler Technique\" that i realized some of the things i was doing to get \"fit\" were actually aggravating the issue. I started doing the tupler technique and it was really freaking effective! So i just wanted to recommend it to other mamas experiencing diastasis recti (you might not even know you have it)",
"Late to the party, but my wife has had two pregnancies. She kept active, as much as comfortable, through both. Came out ready to go and was as good as new shortly thereafter. For the record, it was her goal to stay fit and she acted accordingly. It wasn't by chance or for giggles but instead a conscious effort. Not looking to be a supermodel, just healthy. Nailed it.",
"The uterus expands and the abdominal muscles are pushed to the sides. The stomach is not expanding outwardly so much as the uterus is moving upwards in the middle. This is why a woman's sides hurt during pregnancy around what is the oblique muscles. Those muscles are being stretched and other muscles are being pushed into them. The abdominal muscles don't stretch over the uterus because it would restrict the womb. A person with super fit abs will probably have less expansion and may have a smaller womb or look less pregnant. Whether or not they bounce back largely depends on how fit they are, their genetics, if they work out during pregnancy, and if they go back to working out.",
"It depends on the condition of the mother's abdominal muscles pre pregnancy. The more fit it is, the better recovery although it won't be as good compared to its pre pregnancy status. Mothers with weak abdominal muscles pre pregnancy have risk of developing diastasis recti.",
"I was an OBGYN nurse for 3 years and there were several mothers who had a visible 6 pack as the stomach flattened during the final pushes. I would stand there smiling and clapping while thinking \"damn I gotta start going to the gym again\".",
"Not a doctor but... From my brief research it looks like the uterus stretches out above the abdominal muscles and more into your diaphragm such as in [this]( URL_1 ) or [this]( URL_0 ) image. (Both probably NSFW.) At least it stretches out above the abdominus rectus muscles that give you six pack abs. This sort of makes sense to me as I would imagine those muscles not to be very stretchy and therefore junior would expand someplace easier instead. Later in pregnancy they tell you not to lift heavy weights because they worry about the abdominal muscles squeezing the placenta too hard and rupturing it resulting in a premature birth so if you were a fit pregnant woman you would probably need to ease up on the crunches at that point. After you recover from your delivery you could probably start up again. I don’t know if your six pack would ever look the same but having babies can’t be that much of a long-term detriment to the woman or humans would have died out long ago.",
"During? For me... each week, as I grew larger I would have a sharp pain... Week after week, if I twisted, or got up to fast... Ouch. Sharp pain on the midline... It kept getting higher and higher with each week. By week 36, the pain had stopped. At 40 weeks I had a baby. 6 weeks post, I was 120lbs at 5'5\", but I had a belly. 6 months post, I had lost too much weight and was 104lbs. But I still had a belly. Next baby comes along. No pain, no ripping, but, if I did a crunch, she'd pop up like an alien. It was fun to push her out and convolute my stomach, it was easy because I had no muscles there. Ended up with C-section. The doctor asked if she could do a tummy tuck... Okay. Go for it. What she really meant was she took my muscles from either side of my belly, and sewed them back together. So, not only did I have my c section stitches running across, but I also had stitches internally all the way to my belly button. Now, 3 kids in, My muscles didn't rip with my last pregancy. I'm a mom of 3, 125lbs with a flat stomach. So, In short... They rip, they stick out, and they get sewn up again for a flat tummy.",
"I think it would mostly depend on the size of the baby but having a strong core will definitely mitigate the damage. Helps get the little bugger out faster too. The obstetrician said he was amazed how fast my son came out because most first babies take at least an hour to push out (ugh, I would die!) Mine were 6lbs and 5lbs and I've always worked out.. I see no discernible difference in my body from pre-baby to now. I wear a girdle after the birth for a month and with my last baby I started working out 2 weeks after delivery (I gave myself a month for my first). Maybe there is permanent damage in there that I'm just not aware of but my ab definition looked the same to me after about 12 weeks.",
"Be careful about any exercise or belly binding in the first 6 months after having a baby and with breastfeeding. Your hormones makes your bones and muscles soft. The famous women that get back into shape weeks after birth are probably causing themselves problems we cant see or feel! Strong muscles might cause a prolapse. I have had 5 kids and no problems. I just do the usual house and kid duties for the first 6 months with help from my partner (alot of help)... Then start going on walks and will probably hit the gym soon (8 months post birth). I am pretty skinny but have a wrinkly jelly belly. I am not really expecting my body to be how it was before kids again... My partner is still interested in me and says he knows why my tummy is like jelly ... Its a nice story... 40 week twins! :)",
"I asked a similar question once when I was younger and apparently \"Wow, how could you ask such an insensitive question?!\" is the answer..."
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5ntah7 | Why is it a bad thing if America and Russia become friends? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First off, Putin has acted in ways more akin to the Soviets during the Cold war than any leader since the fall of the USSR, such as invading Ukraine, having opposition politicians and journalists killed. Secondly, the evidence suggest it's not about being best friends or equal super powers with them, but Russia gaining benefits through control of Trump at the expense of the U.S. or the rest of the world.",
"There are fundamental disagreements to big to paper over. Russia has shown, through its annexation of Crimea (and its operations in South Ossetia), that it is willing to violate international law for purely territorial gain. This threatens, both directly and indirectly, our major trading partners and long time allies in Europe."
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5ntg2g | If we as humans exhale CO2, why do some fires like campfires burn more after we blow on them? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Two things. First, we don't only exxhale CO2. Each breath is about 4-5% CO2. So blowing on the fire does send some oxygen than way directly. Blowing also clears out the dead air in the fire (CO2 being heavier) allowing normal air to replace it.",
"The difference in CO2 between inhaled and exhaled breath is surprisingly small. Natural air is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and less than 1% everything else, including carbon dioxide, argon and other substances. The air you exhale is about 5% carbon dioxide and about 15% oxygen. So it's still a lot of oxygen. Moreover, when you blow on a flame, the air you exhale is also pushing a lot more ambient air along with it (sort of like how you can make a huge splash of water in the pool using just your hand, because the patch of water you hit makes a little wave that captures more water.) So the air that hits the flame is likely to be very close to the same amount of oxygen as regular air. Compared to this, if there is no significant air current, the flame from the fire may be depleting the oxygen immediately nearby almost completely (i.e., the air next to the flame may quickly go down to far less than 15% oxygen). This is similar to the reason why if you blow on your hands to dry them off, the air traveling over your hands will indeed dry them faster, even though the air is coming from inside your wet lungs and mouth. There's just so much more of it that it's more efficient.",
"Because we inhale about 20% oxygen and exhale about 15% oxygen. Meaning we aren't using all the oxygen in the air we breath. So we dont exhale pure CO2... edit: not unless we were breathing very stale air."
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5ntisd | Why's the Wii U being phased out so early? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's sales and adoption have been terrible. The original Wii was released in late 2006. By 2010, it had 70 million worldwide sales of the console. Source - URL_0 In comparison, the Wii U has been out since 2012, and in the same time period only has 14 million units shipped. Compare that with its competition like the Xbox One or PS4 and it is getting murdered in sales and has an extremely low game adoption (rate at which consumers buy multiple games). Edit: fixed date",
"The Switch is **also** a replacement for the 3DS, which is early 2011. Nintendo has aligned their portable and console development teams, they said part of their problem previously is they were starting to do twice the work for not twice the sales. For example, Smash Bros and Super Mario Maker are both on 3DS and Wii U, and building those respective versions took quite a bit of time and effort. They'd also have issues like the Wii U not being interesting to consumers because the games people were interested in were on the 3DS. (ie Pokemon). Now all of Nintendo's franchises will be on one platform, and 3rd-parties no longer have to pick and choose which of the 2 Ninty boxes to target, which is important in an increasingly competitive market with more systems. **edit**: let me clarify, it's a down-the-road replacement. The 3DS is not dropping off the map, I'm aware of what Nintendo has said regarding future support of the 3DS."
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5ntj4n | What do water towers do? | I was always told that they just store water, but why would they be raised up like that, instead of being built into the ground. This is in America by the way. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The water pressure in your pipes is due to gravity pulling the water down from the water tower; there's no extra pumps to give you water pressure. Once the water is pumped up into the tower, that stores the energy to push the water out of your water taps. So, since it's gravity pushing down, a water tower can't push water back up to the height it's stored in the tower, which is why tall buildings have their own water towers -- that provides water pressure for the upper floors in the building, because the regular water pressure can't push the water up that high. Also, this has a financial incentive, in that mulicipalities can pump their water into the towers during off-hour power times, where electricity is cheaper."
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5ntjcn | Why when you have a fever do you feel freezing cold and shiver? | I have the flu right now and I'm under the covers fully clothed and still shivering. Since my temperature is up, shouldn't I be warm? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dce8j6b"
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"text": [
"Your body can only sense temperature differences, not actual temperature. For example, if you put your left hand in ice water and your right hand in warm water for a while, then dip both hands in lukewarm water, your left hand will feel hot while your right hand will feel cold even though they are feeling the same temperature water. During a fever, your entire body is at a higher temperature than normal. Normal is identical to having your hand in lukewarm water then putting it back in lukewarm water. During a fever, your body is like the hand in higher temperature water but then you place it in the lukewarm water (your normal surroundings) so you feel colder."
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5ntk9s | Why are we more creative as children? | Is there a way to tap into this creativity? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dce78ia"
],
"text": [
"When you haven't been told how to think about life yet and all you think about is the interpretation of your situation creativity tends to much easier. Adults are bound by the limits of what they believe is possible and tend to think within that box of reality. Children are able to think outside of the box without feeling like what they are thinking is wrong/stupid."
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5ntlx2 | If so many places and products claim to only use "100% Chicken Breast", where does the rest of the chicken go? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dce7l53",
"dce7xiy",
"dce82up"
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"text": [
"Nuggets, Chicken-based sausage products, stuff like that. The meat is almost always ground up so it has a consistent texture. You can use ground chicken in a product and still call it 100% chicken, cause it is, but in order to say 100% chicken *breast* it better be breast meat.",
"[Russia]( URL_1 ). Seriously, for many years [Russia was a major importer of leg quarters]( URL_0 ) of chicken. When the banned US chicken the price of leg quarters dropped in the US until prices were low enough that US buyers would buy both in similar amounts.",
"Basically anything that doesn't say \"100% chicken breast\" is probably the rest of the meat. You only really notice it when it's called out, but if you start looking you'll notice that it often isn't called out. Roughly half the meat on a chicken is breast, so it's not like there's *that* much more meat out there."
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"http://www.unitedpoultrygrowers.com/old_site/prices_leg_quarters.htm",
"http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-03-15/business/0203150219_1_chicken-leg-russia-leg-quarters"
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5nto7x | How do chameleons *know* what colour to change to? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dce80zk"
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"text": [
"they don't. chameleons change to fit their mood. they don't change to camouflage. on other hand, animals like cuttlefish and flounder, use their eyes to see what to colors and patterns to change to"
],
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5nttor | How do orchestras know how a song should sound the first time they're playing it? | If it's not a cover of an old composition, how do they know? Does the composer send a demo that's made on a computer, like pop producers do? Do they just play accprding to their notes and the maestro's directions? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dce9cim",
"dcea7ap"
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"text": [
"Do you know what the word \"omniferous\" means? It means \"bearing many things\". Have you ever seen or heard that word before? I'm going to assume you haven't. Do you know how to say it? Even though you've never heard it pronounced? Of course you do. They know how to read music, just like you know how to read letters. **Edit:** [Here's a dramatization of a composer seeing another composer's sheet music for the first time]( URL_0 ). That specifically starts at about three minutes in, but the whole scene is great.",
"Yes. They just play according to the notes and the conductor's directions. Music is a language that can be read like any language. A person skilled enough to be in an orchestra playing a composer's original, unheard piece is going to be very, very good at reading music."
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5ntwn6 | Where did the expression "paint the town red" come from? Why the color red? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"The phrase “paint the town red” most likely owes its origin to one legendary night of drunkenness. In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford—a known lush and mischief maker—led a group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mowbray. The bender culminated in vandalism after Waterford and his fellow revelers knocked over flowerpots, pulled knockers off of doors and broke the windows of some of the town’s buildings. To top it all off, the mob literally painted a tollgate, the doors of several homes and a swan statue with red paint. The marquis and his pranksters later compensated Melton for the damages, but their drunken escapade is likely the reason that “paint the town red” became shorthand for a wild night out. Still yet another theory suggests the phrase was actually born out of the brothels of the American West, and referred to men behaving as though their whole town were a red-light district. [Source]( URL_0 )"
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|
5nu34h | Why do we use numerals of base 10 and base 2? Are there any systems with a different base? | Binary uses base 2, decimal uses base 10. Are there any other systems that use a different base? If not, why not? Wouldn't a system of base 1,000 (for example) be better (and maybe even more intuitive) for expressing incredibly large numbers (weight or distance in outer space) where constants are not that important? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcecof3",
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"text": [
"when you look at a number like 4,367, what you're really looking at is the sum: 4(1000) + 3(100) + 6(10) + 7(1) which is a **power series**: 4(10^(3)) + 3(10^(2)) + 6(10^(1)) + 7(10^(0)) That is, each \"digit\" corresponds to a **power** of 10. It's actually a sum of infinitely many terms, where all but finitely many have the coefficient 0: ... + 0(10^(-3)) + 0(10^(-2)) + 0(10^(-1)) + 7(10^(0)) + 6(10^(1)) + 3(10^(2)) + 4(10^(3)) + 0(10^(4)) + 0(10^(5)) + 0(10^(6)) + ... if you wanted to, you could switch this to any base you wanted. for instance, if you wanted to express it in terms of powers of 7: 1(7^(4)) + 5(7^(3)) + 5(7^(2)) + 0(7^(1)) + 6(7^(0)) or 15,506 That's just an arbitrary example, but it actually works out that you can do this with *any* number other than 0. You could work in base 12, base 34.572, or even irrational bases like π. Some interesting properties arise when you switch to a different base. For instance, using a ternary (base 3) expansion, Giuseppe Peano proved that you can map the real line (think the x-axis on the plane) onto the unit square [0,1]^2 (the square with corners (0,0), (0,1), (1,1), (1,0)) - basically, choose a point in the unit square, and it will correspond to (at least) one real number. This was mind-blowing at the time because it forced people to rethink the idea of dimensions - you can use one dimension to cover a two-dimensional object! He exploits the properties of base 3 [to do it]( URL_0 ). The reason we like expressing really really big numbers in terms of base 10 is because... well... it's familiar. It's really easy to get an idea of relative sizes when you compare things in the same base. Would you know, off the top of your head, which of 12525^27 or 235^30 is bigger?",
"It's a balance between having longer numbers (small base) or too many symbols to keep track of (large base). The reason we don't have base 1000 is because no one wants to learn 1000 symbols- it's easier to just use metric prefixes. Software developers do commonly work with hexadecimal (base 16, so equivalent to four bits) and less commonly with octal (base 8, so equivalent to three bits) because binary is so long. Data over the Internet is often base-64 encoded to make it easier to transmit."
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5nu4yx | Why nowadays up to 60% of the people in developed countries have some kind of vision impairment? | I remember my father telling me that when he was young (70´s) no way near as many people had to wear glasses as today. Someon knows why? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcecnq7",
"dceddgy",
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"text": [
"Totally winging this, but I'm guessing it just wasn't diagnosed much before reading small text became a part of daily life. If you learned to read when younger but need bifocals at 40, who cares if you already know everything you need to know?",
"Because being outside prevents nearsightedness. Children spend more time indoors which changes the way your eyes focus on things and you don't get enough natural light. Screens and reading in low light also cause problems with your eyes. URL_0",
"I don't believe there is a 'right' answer to this. My opinion is that much more work is being done on computer screens that are incredibly bright and a close distance from your face. This can be reduced by some simple things like taking 'eye breaks' from a screen, turning down the computer monitor's (or other device) brightness, or even just sitting a little farther back from the screen. It's not technically considered ergonomics, but I believe it falls within that realm."
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5nu5j1 | Why are the 7 continents when Europe and Asia are basically the same land mass? | There is a rather straight boarder along the eastern part of Europe, leading into what we call "Asia." But looking at a map, there's no indication that Europe is a seperate landmass. You can say North and South America because there's a narrow stretch of land connecting the two. The same for Asia and Africa. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcecngj",
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"text": [
"Geologically Europe and Asia are a single continent referred to as \"Eurasia\", Europe and Asia as two separate entities is a cultural and political divide more than anything.",
"Like many things in life, this geographical untidiness was the result of clever people operating with incomplete information. The Ancient Greeks wanted to put the world into a neat package, with three great seas (Mediterranean, Black, and Red) dividing the world into three great continents (Africa, Europe, and Asia). Unfortunately, their limited knowledge of the extended region led them astray. Two out of three wasn't bad, though, they got that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas both connect to the ocean to provide real separation. Not so much with the Black Sea, which wraps around in the Crimea, rudely disputing an otherwise tidy notion. By the time people figured this out, the idea of three continents was widespread. The Black Sea and the Caspian Sea also did serve as a geographic barrier that divided cultures. This helped reinforce the distinction between Europe and Asia, so cartographers threw in a few rivers and mountain ranges, with the occasional line in the sand, to perpetuate the notion there was a border.",
"What we define as a continent and not a continent is really convoluted. If you have time, I'd take a look at [this video.]( URL_0 )"
],
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5nuaf7 | Explain why people succumb to "mob mentality" like im five. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfdko4",
"dcedxq2"
],
"text": [
"Most people are weak, directionless and crave \"group-belonging\" no matter how bad it is. Non-mob-mentality is only ever for a small number of people who are just flat out smarter people.",
"Have you ever seen a swarm of birds, fish, insects, really any massive group of animals? They function as one at least somewhat cohesive unit. Humans are highly social apes, and when we \"swarm\" we also act as one group. You are \"hardwired\" to develop a compulsion to act as part of a group. Ever been in a large crowd at a concert, sports event, any other event, they start chanting and you get the urge to join in? That's the impulse, it's an evolutionary mechanism to make you function as a member of a group. If you have a group of monkeys or apes and one starts acting up, it is contagious and will work up all the other primates in the group in some capacity. We are apes, primates, and animals, subject to these same instincts."
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5nuc6b | What is that high pitched tone we get in our ears occasionally for about a second? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcegv13"
],
"text": [
"You have Tinnitus, my friend. It is one of the least debilitating diseases in the world, so don't worry. It only means that when it's quiet you may hear a high-pitched sound."
],
"score": [
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5nudba | How do adult movies film in public places like restaurants or laundromats, or outdoors in the park or the beach? | How is it that porno films can be shot in locations like restaurants or stores that appear to be open for the public? Are these places just rented out and filled with extras to give the appearance? What about in parks or parking lots? It is just filmed in such a way that they record on a handheld in a place far away, and get their thing done as quickly as possible? I've even seen movies, usually filmed in foreign countries, where they're flat out going at it on public streets in front of pedestrians, are there just places with lax or nonexistent laws covering this sort of thing? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcedoxe"
],
"text": [
"They get permits for filming. Some of them are just warehouses and houses and other locations just made up to look like wherever the scene is supposed to be taking place, others - like the beach for example is taking place on a beach, just the movie makers have the permit to film there and it's cleared out. Remember Porn is just stereotyped to be some smut with just the stars and some creepy guy with a camera, but it's a actually a whole production with cameras, a Director, Writer, Producer, Sound Guy, Lighting and Wardrobe. There is even a catering part of it, laying a buffet of food for every day filming. It isn't any different to production on TV & Movies save for the budget and content, everything else is the same; hell pornstars even have contracts and a union."
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5nufq8 | How can there be transparent animals, e.g. some fish and frogs. How can they have transparent muscles? | See, for example, [these]( URL_0 ) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dceql48",
"dceqyrf"
],
"text": [
"The way muscles are developed in mammals isn't the only way to produce movement in an organism. Often evolution will find more than one way to do something. There are many different kinds of locomotion like flagellum, or even pumping water around to stiffen or relax. So while they have muscles, they aren't necessarily going to look the same as ours. The nitty gritty is our muscles are built up of sarcomeres which are like little chemical machines that can curl in on themselves, lengthening or shortening. For the large muscles in our bodies there are many sarcomeres chained together working in tandem to create our muscle fibers. The sacromeres are triggered with the help of a chemical called troponin. There are different varieties of troponin which are used in different types of muscle cells. I don't know much about transparent fish or frogs but some species of fish have transparent embryos and there have been experiments done with them that make mention of the same sarcomere structures and troponin so they appear to function the same, even if their physical structure and features are different. Fish have very strong structures that are transparent membranes called sarcolemma which bind the sarcomeres together so there isn't really anything to prevent transparency. Ours are just arranged differently. you can read a great book on the subject [here. An introduction to the study of the comparative anatomies of animals.]( URL_0 ) Pages 95-96 have information on frogs and the transparent muscle structures. One of the reasons that transparency isn't seen more often is because of damage from ultraviolet light. For an animal on the surface it would lead to genetic damage and the death of the species. Water provides a better barrier to block UV light, and of course cave organisms in light-less environments have no genetic advantage to have protection from UV so they are often albino or semi transparent. Other creatures may live in lakes, rivers, or oceans and stay in the murky depths during the day, and forage out at night when there is less risk of UV damage.",
"[This video]( URL_0 ) explains this really well even though it doesn't eat deep down into the specifics. The basic gist is that they have no pigments, like albino animals, so they don't reflect any light. However, unlike albino bunnies and and alligators, their skin, muscles and organs don't scatter light either, which is what makes you able to see albino bunnies and alligators. This is possible because if microscopic structures within the body are organized and tightly packed together, individual photons of light can just travel right through them in a straight line, going in on one side and out the other. When structures are not highly organized, light bounces off of them and scatters around in many directions making them visible. Your eyes detect the light acting all wonkydoo (technical term) and your brain turns it into a picture. There are much more complex answers to this that deal with particle and quantum physics that are beyond me. I'm just a humble biologist."
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5nutto | Why does processed food cost less than organic food when it seems to cost more to produce? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcehra6"
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"text": [
"Because it's actually cheaper to make processed food. Processed food doesn't go bad as fast as non-processed because processed food is full of preservatives and chemicals. Pepsi is made of water, corn syrup, food coloring and carbon dioxide of which all are plentiful and cheap. Fresh oange juice is made from a fruit and some water with no preservatives. Oranges take a longer time to grow and without preservatives the actual juice will breakdown and degrade which makes its usability much shorter."
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|
5nuyd1 | How do sin, cos, tan and their reciprocals work with angles that are multiples of 90? It seems like the opposite and adjacent wouldn't even be a part of the problem, but that's not what the results say... | In my precalc we're currently learning about unit circles, and I've never before been so confused by math. At 90, 180, 270, and 360 degrees sin cos and tangent give many results which I simply don't understand! For example, how is the tan of 90 undefined, when at 180, it's zero? There still is no 'adjacent' (or opposite), why isn't the equation still dividing by zero? The only side there is is the hypotenuse. I've spent at least a few hours trying to wrap my head around this and I can't and i'm not even usually bad at math. I'd deeply appreciate any help from anyone experienced in trig. Also i'm sure someone will ask, I did ask my teacher, and I just had more questions. :/ | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcek72h"
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"text": [
"[Here's an animation I did to explain sine and cosine]( URL_1 ). This is the main idea behind 90% of what you'll learn in trigonometry. Pick a unit circle. Move a dot around that circle at an angle & theta;, shown there in yellow. The sine of that angle in yellow is the vertical position of the point on the circle. The cosine of that angle is the horizontal position. Since this is a unit circle, you should be able to see why cos^2 θ + sin^2 θ = 1. Now, what about tangent? Tangent is better understood [like in this image]( URL_0 ). The tangent of an angle is the y coordinate where the line passing through the center of the circle and that moving dot crosses the vertical line x = 1. As you can see, when the angle is 90° the radial line will be pointing straight upwards, so it'll be parallel to that x = 1 line. The lines will never cross, so tangent is undefined at 90°. After 90° and towards 180°, the line from the center to the dot (which is infinite in both directions) will cross the x = 1 line below the x axis, so the tangent is negative. In that last image, you can also see that secant is the hypotenuse of the triangle 1^2 + tan^2 θ = sec^2 θ. This is also a very useful relationship you can get by dividing the entire equation cos^2 θ + sin^2 θ = 1 by cos^2 θ. Other manipulations will get you other relationships that may be useful. --- Now, if all of these made sense to you, with a little practice you can now spot these triangles everywhere, and you'll find a way to apply sine, cosine, tangent and secant whenever they appear. By the way, [these is another geometric interpretation]( URL_2 ) of tangent and secant, but I don't find them nearly as useful as the one I gave above. It's worth knowing about them, though."
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"https://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/18/18.013a/textbook/HTML/chapter02/images/trigo_functions.gif"
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5nv2eb | What is the difference in a muscle strain/pull and normal fatigue from working out. Why does one heal so much faster. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dceob1z"
],
"text": [
"They are very different. Normal fatigue from working out is caused by lactic acid, a compound produced by your muscles when they run out of oxygen. Lactic acid is a byproduct of breaking down carbohydrates for energy that has the unfortunate side effect of making your muscles feel sore, but it doesn't physically damage them. A muscle strain or pull is when your muscle tissue is torn. This means the fibers have to regenerate and repair."
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5nv5wv | What are the benefits of drinking water everyday? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"dcekkpo",
"dcepyu1"
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"text": [
"Well the biggest one is that humans require water for almost every bodily function, so by drinking water we prevent dying.",
"Humans are around 60% water. Water is used in every cellular function and reaction. We lose water continuously through everything we do (sweat, urine). It continuously needs to be replenished for us to be able to perform the normal bodily processes to survive. Drinking sufficient amounts of water help metabolic processes greatly, in a superficial way can help with weight loss, skin, immune responses, COUNTLESS advantages. Very beneficial, 10/10 recommend 😉",
"I assume you mean water rather than other liquids, since I'm *pretty* sure you know humans need water to survive. Water is the purest form of, well, water. So drinking it in that form is the most efficient way to get water. It is also considerably healthier than many popular beverages.",
"One additional thing not mentioned yet is that the body isn't that good at telling the difference between hunger and thirst. Often when you feel hungry during the day, you snack. Often that snack is something unhealthy (chips, candy, etc). So one benefit of staying well hydrated is not having false hunger pangs and not smacking unnecesarily."
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5nv98s | In a medium-sized company with computerized accounting systems, why does it take so long to prepare W-2s and get them out? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dceksks",
"dcel19w"
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"text": [
"the deadline is Jan 31st. there's no reason to send them out early. so if it's a mature payroll department, and they know it takes them 2 weeks to do it, there's no reason to start them Jan 1st because they got other things to do.",
"So I prepare payroll reports and have to do them quarterly. There is also Year end reports that go to the IRS along with W2s. Our average client has 1-3 employees and using QuickBooks it takes approx 15 - 20 to do those reports. They then get reviewed by my boss for accuracy. He sends it back so we can file them via QuickBooks and then print it. So depending on what you consider is medium size (?) that's why it may take them longer. Also if they're double checking them it's easier to check them all at once and then mail them."
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5nvaaf | Why can't we draw what we picture in our minds? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcepka7",
"dcel3zr"
],
"text": [
"Its Soemtimes easy to forget how much of a skill drawing really I is. This is similar to asking, why can't we all make shots in a basketball hoop because we can picture it in our heads. Muscle memory and building skill",
"If someone gave you a pencil and asked you to sketch their face, you could probably get the outline, and some of the facial features somewhat okay, but doing shading or using darker/lighter and broader/skinnier lines, or using blank space to simulate highlights (exposure not dye) is more advanced and not something a regular person would even think to do in the moment. So if you are decent, you may be able to [do this]( URL_1 ), but only people that take art seriously could do something [like this]( URL_0 ). And that's having a physical version of what you want to draw in front of you, your mental imagery loses a lot of detail."
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"https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTGv95YAZkEVR5rz2wAIjHmiQDJrd75OmC5T6RNDjXfmV9cxPqm"
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5nve1c | wikileaks, who runs it, and why it doesn't get stopped. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Julian Assange, and a collective of anonymous others. No one stops them because they do not \"exist\" in any real location, aside from Assange, who is taking refuge in an embassy in Europe. He recently did an IAMA on reddit, and gets talked about a lot."
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5nveka | How can Germany, a country gone to two world wars and severely losing both, still manage to be (comparatively to other countries) one of the richest countries in the world? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The Marshall Plan, and a cultural commitment to education. After WW2, the US committed to rebuilding West Germany from the ground up, probably for Cold War propaganda reasons as much as altruistic reasons. Billions of dollars poured in to get West Germany's infrastructure back up to pre war levels. The German population did the rest.",
"By being in Europe, rather large and have a very strong minded culture, losing wars under regimes which, let's be honest were shit, doesn't make a country weak, yes they were terribly weak after ww1 which led to the rise of extremism and subsequently ww2. If anything the kid of WW2 helped Germany, as the rest of the world helped them (Russia just didn't know how to help) They're the engineering capital of the world, and determined people, and like I said, losing Wars doesn't always mean the downfall of a country",
"Their culture is very industrious and very hard working. They have a lot of people for an industrial country (2nd in Europe.) They are a dense country. Meaning they don't need as much infrastructure to transport people and material which allow them to be very efficient in the manufacturing market. After the war the Marshall Plan gave them a big enough boost to start their recovery. They still had to pay reparation until 1971, but the iniatial boost was very important. Just like Japan, after the war, they just didn't had to put much money into their military. Still today, German and Japan are amount the country with the least % of their GDP as military budget."
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5nvj4g | Certain blood pressure medications like Nebivolol list "increased weather sensitivity" as their possible side-effects. Is there a known mechanism behind that claim? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm not entirely sure, but I'd guess its similar to why people with arthritis can tell when a storm is coming hours or days before. The changing pressure in the atmosphere (caused by an approaching cold front or storm) interacts with the pressure in their bones and tendons and somehow makes them more sensitive to pain. I'd assume that changing your blood pressure also somehow makes you more sensitive to changing atmospheric pressure caused by the weather."
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5nvthg | How does soaking in Epsom salts help heal an injury? | For example, my sister fell while skiing and hurt her leg. It wasn't broken, but extremely tender and bruised. She took a bath in Epsom salts and the next morning was able to walk on that leg, when she wasn't able to before without severe pain. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Your immersing the wound into a hypertonic environment(high salinity) which will then cause your cells to move water toward the solution. This Hydrates the wound while also killing bacteria due to the salinity, speeding up the healing process. That's about all I got off the top of my head.",
"People are talking about antiseptic properties and the placebo effect, neither of which adequately address your question. An Epsom salt bath does two things. First, it's a warm bath. Applying heat to a muscle injury increases blood flow and relaxes muscle spasm. The old rule of cold for inflammation and heat for pain reflects this. You're immersing the limb in a warm liquid - basically surrounding it with a fluid heating pad. Second, adding Epsom (or other salt) to the water raises its density, increasing the buoyancy of anything immersed in it. Increasing the buoyancy of a soaking bath allows the person bathing to use their muscles less to support their weight while in the bath. Because you float easier. \"Float\" or sensory deprivation tanks use this to extreme effect, with highly concentrated Epsom salt baths that allow you to effortlessly float on the top of the water. Taking the strain off the muscle + applying uniform heat = relaxation, pain reduction, and increased mobility. It didn't heal anything faster, but it likely relieved spasm and discomfort."
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5nw1dd | Why is evidence found illegally by police inadmissible in court? | I am **NOT** asking why it is illegal to do random search and seizures of private property, or why police officers gathering evidence should be charged. Rather I am curious why any evidence found illegally is considered inadmissible? Its still evidence isn't it? Is it simply because it was found illegally or are there other reasons? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In the simplest way it's because they broke your rights, typically either legally or your constitution, and if we allowed cops to break these rules for evidence that defeats their purpose in the first place.",
"2 main reasons why. The first is that any evidence illegal seized is can be viewed as planted. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty so if you commit an illegal search without possible cause then the evidence is not tied to the suspect. The second main reason is that it acts as a deterrent. If illegally gathered evidence was able to be submitted than there would be no real reason to not do it. If all you will face is a B & E, if even that, then why not do it and completely void the amendment.",
"It's to incentivize police to respect suspect's rights. If illegally-obtained evidence was admissible in court, you'd have Dirty Harry breaking into your house and going through your things if he thought you were guilty. (Speaking of Dirty Harry, remember that scene where he tortures the dude by standing on his gunshot wound to get a confession, which is later ruled inadmissible?) Sure, police would still be liable for illegally obtaining evidence but the criminal justice system is slow to punish their own, and many police departments favor convictions over respecting criminal's rights.",
"If police officers just got a slap on the wrist, but allowed them to still use the evidence, then there would be almost nothing to stop them from doing it. Having the evidence thrown out forces them to do good police work to get probable cause for a search warrant",
"It comes from the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. [SOURCE]( URL_1 ) In short, it is one of the most basic rights you possess as a US citizen. If police could ignore it and the evidence they illegally gathered was allowed to be admitted to court then that constitutional right would be meaningless. So, the only thing that can be done is to reject all evidence illegally obtained. Unfortunately, this has been one of the most eroded constitutional rights we have. The Supreme Court has given great leeway to law enforcement on this issue. So, while it is not entirely gone it affords you little protection these days (sadly). Indeed it took another hit just last year (mid 2016): [Another Hit to the Fourth Amendment]( URL_0 ) < -- That article describes the dissent which illustrates why this is important...well worth a read."
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5nw9es | How do people acquire skills to become high end criminals, e.g bank robbers | I've always thought how on earth do people even learn this stuff, it's impressive if you ask me. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"*\"Necessity is the mother of invention...\"* Most criminals start small, very few go in for the big jobs straight off, and even then they usually only have small roles to play if they do. Simple skills like picking locks and pockets just take a little practice, and most people can be reasonably successful in a short period of time. Plus if that's the kind of life you live or the kind of people you associate with regularly, then like any muscle, you'll get better and can move onto bigger things. More skills are gained, old ones are improved, and you go from simple things like stealing cars or breaking into houses, to larger, more complex jobs like heists",
"Jail is a bit of an incubator for criminal skills - in jail, you can network, be recruited, and teach and learn. I know a guy who was offered jobs as a getaway driver by biker gangs while in jail for street racing/ speeding."
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5nwbs4 | Is the US actually able to recover from the debt it's in? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Not particularily alarming yet. > How is it possible to ever pay that off? Remember, this is soveriegn debt. It's not like a loan you'd take from a bank. In fact, the idea of a national bank and sovereign debt was partly created to alleviate the catastrophic borrowing some monarchs did. So for one, while you'd go to a bank and ask for a loan, the United States *sells* Treasury Bonds. Treasury Bonds mature at a set rate; this means that the owner of the bond cannot demand payment earlier, nor can the government pay it earlier. US Treasury Bonds are the most trusted in the world, so the interest rates are incredibly low. During times of crisis, demand skyrockets. During the 2008 crisis, at one point the interest rate for the debt was lower than the inflation rate, which meant the government *made* money from it. The idea is to take the cheap funds you can get from the debt and use that expand the economy. Borrow money for cheap, increase the economy, get more tax money, borrow more money, ad finem."
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5nwc0a | Is genetic engineering possible to an adult? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Kinda, we can work with Recombinant DNA to insert certain genes on certain cells so they produce a protein that they are not producing, but should. One example would be getting pancreatic cells to produce insunline on a diabetic patient. [I'll leave you this video]( URL_0 )"
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5nwdav | How do health insurance companies know you have a preexisting condition. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you apply/sign up for it you generally give them rights to access your medical records. They can basically get records from any doctor you have seen. And if they find out you didn't disclose something in the first place then they will just deny your claims."
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5nwdqc | Why are car manufacturers doing away with traditional gear shifts? | I hope this isn't a case of "they're not... what cars are you looking at?" Anyway, I've noticed that some car manufacturers are getting rid of the traditional automatic gear shift and replacing it with either a very small Prius-style shifter or a knob similar to an air conditioning control? What's the deal? Is this really a design that consumers desire? For examples of this, see the Chrysler 200 and Ford Fusion 2017 models. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That's very much an American thing. Want to see Americans freak out? Go to a European vehicle rental counter.",
"The shifter on my 2015 Grand Cherokee, \"looks\" normal, but is really just a huge toggle switch, when you \"flip it\", the PRNDL indicator on the dash moves in the selected direction. There's a slight delay and I hate it because if I'm not paying attention, it doesn't always move to the desired position fast enough. It's the same shifter that killed Anton Yelchin when he got out of his jeep and it rolled and crushed him.",
"Im pretty sure you arent talking about it moving away from a manual transmissions which is what most people are assuming from what ive read, the answer is aesthetics. Also they are moving away from manual gearboxes. You'll notice that cars that offer manual gear boxes have more traditional shift nobs. This is because they have to have that to accommodate manuals, which again are being phased out in many markets. If a car doesnt have a manual option then they can do what ever they want with the shift \"nob\" because they have far more freedom because it doesnt have to be mechanically linked."
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5nwimr | What physically is current, and what is charge - why do they move in opposite directions in an electrical circuit. | ? I've searched ELI5 and can't find an explanation | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Current is in the opposite direction of how the charges are actually \"moving\" due to historical reasons. When Franklin and others were first formalizing an organized set of laws for circuits, they assumed that the positive charge (arbitrarily named so) moved. Well, they were wrong. Electrons are the particles that \"move\", so to say, not the positive protons. So the current is in one direction, but the negative electrons actually move in the other."
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5nwl2g | Why haven't all primates entered the stone age yet? | I read an article about a year ago that some chimps have made extremely primitive weapons sometime recently but this technology for them is not globally known. My question, is why has it taken them so long to smash two stones together to make a sharper one? I feel like a human could explain that to them in a short afternoon? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Couple of things here. First is us. We got there first and we have created enormous pressure on other species. Second is time. They could be doing exactly this but be a million years behind us - the blink of an eye for evolution.",
"1) All the primates are known to use tools. At least to some degree. 2) Why do you think evolution is on some kind of linear path?",
"Because that's not how evolution works. Evolution does not have a \"goal\". There is no natural pressure toward a state of sentience, self-realization, or human-level tool/technology development. Evolutionary pressures adapt organisms (as a general rule) just enough to be able to survive effectively within their environment. Basically, either evolve fast enough to not die, or go extinct. Occasional mutations may result in a distinct advantage over other competitors for resources, allowing a species to take over their given ecosystem. However, there is no linear goal of nature to move organisms progressively from nematode to fish to lizard to mammal to primate to human. Every kingdom/phylum/species evolves on its own track according to its environmental pressures."
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5nwm5q | What is Bose Einstein Condensate and how does it look like? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Imagine a classroom with three rows of seats. Suppose for example, that there are 3 students in the first row, 5 in the second and 6 in the third. This is called a distribution, one of students into rows of a classroom. We do the same with particles and how they arrange themselves into various states in a system. Typically this is the energy level, however an energy level can be called degenerate if more than one particle occupies that certain level at the same time. In the above classroom example, if you only looked at rows, all three rows were degenerate because they had multiple students in them. However, if you looked at individual seats, each seat had either one student in it, or none (a free seat), so no seats were degenerate. Now, as far as this *distribution* of particles into states is concerned, we have two behaviors, two different distributions. One is the Fermi-Dirac distribution, and the other is the Bose-Einstein distribution. These are both functions that describe how many particles occupy a certain level, and they vary based on system temperature. These two different behaviors and distributions give us two types of particle, one that obeys one behavior and another that obeys the other. Consequently, we have *fermions* for the first, and *bosons* for the second. Turns out that the key difference between these two types of particle is a quantum property called spin. Bosons have a spin expressed by a whole number (integer), while fermions have \"half-spin\" (1/2, 3/2 etc.). The reason why the distributions are different is because fermions cannot occupy the same \"quantum state\" as another fermion, while bosons can occupy the same state, multiple at once. By quantum state we mean a full description of a particle's current \"properties\". The first is energy level, so on a first approximation fermions will have to avoid having the same energy level as other fermions. They can occupy the same level, but only if all fermions on that level have different values of spin. Further, if they can be differentiated by another quantum property, they could also have the same spin, as long as that other property differs. Bosons don't have this restriction. A certain energy level can be occupied by any number of bosons regardless of their spin. It's a bit like allowing the seats in a classroom to hold more than one student at a time, and, in fact, potentially an infinite number of students in a seat, with no upper restriction. The reason why temperature comes into play is it changes the distribution of energy levels. Normally, each particle wants to occupy the lowest energy state possible. Note that fermions can't all just go to the lowest level because of the exclusion principle forced onto them, so they will only go to the lowest state that is *unoccupied* by another fermion, and you get a stack of energy levels. Bosons however could all simply go on the lowest energy level. The existence of a nonzero temperature, however, provides vibrational energy that allows particles to occupy higher states, even if the states below them are unoccupied. So the entire distribution shifts towards higher energies. A Bose-Einstein condensate is, as described in the previous paragraph, when a system of bosons is at almost zero temperature, and thus nearly all particles are allowed to occupy the same lowest energy level at the same time. It's as if the all 14 students in the class were in the first row, even though the first row only has 5 seats. Or, if considering a per-seat level, having all 14 students in the rightmost seat of the first row."
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5nwol9 | Why is it sleep deprivation can sometimes be euphoric and other times it's wretched? Is there a way to influence it one way or the other? | Sometimes when I haven't had much sleep it's like I'm getting a full body massage from the inside out. My mind feels spry and joyful. Other times it's like a headache for my for entire being. My brain feels like it's made of heavy crumbling bricks. The time span seems about the same. Why is one so much worse than the other? What causes such a drastic difference? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's awesome if you don't have to go to work or school.or have obligations. Once me and my friends went geocaching in the woods while staying up for 3 days straight only going back to my house to eat and drink."
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5nwswp | Why does toast bread keep all the cheese in while normal bread lets the cheese ooze out? | I was just eating breakfest and pondering about it. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What is toast bread? As far as I know there is only bread. Once it's toasted then you have toast. Or are there specific breads that are meant for toasting and I missed the memo.",
"I understand your question. In lots of places in Europe, they have their usual bread, which most of North America would see as fancy bakery bread. It's either a sourdough, a fluffy white loaf or a dark rye. What they call \"toast bread\" looks what a North American would think of as regular bread. A pre-sliced loaf that comes wrapped up in a plastic bag. Toast bread has a denser structure than the white bread you are used to. Therefore the air pockets are smaller and the cheese can't sink through them. Plus with the denser structure, it can hold the melted cheese better."
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5nwz8c | how do muscles push? | I understand that muscles contract, and therefore pull on tendons and bones. But how are we able to push? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Skeletal muscles move bones by pulling on them. Because we control this movement, they are called voluntary muscles. Muscles can pull but not push, so skeletal muscles are often arranged in pairs that pull bones in opposite directions."
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5nx04a | Does my breastmilk have healthier properties if I eat healthier food? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Regarding healthy and unhealthy fats: generally speaking: the membranes of your cells always feflect the stuff you eat. Of course the body has its own fattyacid metabolism and can contribute here. but regarding the fats the general rule applies: you are what you eat. On the other hand: the milk you produce contains still certain healthy components eitherway. like omega3 fats that are important for the brain of the baby. Thats a propriety of breastmilk that should not be influenced by diet."
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5nx2s4 | Why do people who haven't had a great education and on low incomes vote for parties on the right when most of the time their polices are against them? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Rural farmer types tend to vote right, working class union members tend to vote left, Jews in Miami tend to vote left, poor black inner city folks tend to vote overwhelmingly left. Your statement doesn't really apply because education and income are too broad of factors to generalize how they will vote. Got to get more specific if you want to draw stereotypes."
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5nx4g5 | If I'm about to starve to death but food was present at the very last moment, would it save me? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No. You wouldn't be saved from eating immediately before. Your body needs to metabolize the food into your blood which isn't instant. Not only that, if you're on the brink of starvation, then your digestive system wouldn't be functioning ideally; after all, starving to death takes typically over a month (assuming you're hydrated) and in the last week or so your organs would be damaged and shutting down, plus you're barely producing stomach acid to digest anyway. To add even more on top of that, there's refeeding syndrome which involves a number of pretty shitty disorders. Essentially though, from my understanding, during starvation, your body uses up it's resources and switches to consuming your fatty acids to conserve red blood cells. When refeeding occurs, the body tries to pump out more red blood cells, but the resources used to make those normally are used up, so some compound builds in the liver and skeleton which uses up ATP in red blood cells causing the red blood cells to not work properly and they don't deliver enough oxygen around your body. There are also other things that happen, but I'm not sure about them. Often times, when faced with emancipated, emaciated WW2 captives, allied soldiers were told not to give any food to the emaciated captives and to keep them away from finding food as it could literally kill them because of refeeding syndrome.",
"Depends on circumstances and type of food. Look at the holocaust victims, they were literally starving to death and if you allow them small bits of food and sips of water their body can handle it and slowly get better. Some still died of starvation even after being rescued. This is very circumstantial.",
"my grandfather told me that starved people who got to eat food the first time for a really long time in american camps(after they got captured) died because they ate too much and their bodies could not handle the food. he said the food they ate was too heavy and they got diarrhea and died because of that. he also said starving isnt really that bad after a couple of days. your intestines shut down and it takes a while to get used to food again. he had some interesting anectotes. one is that americans eat more pepper and less salt than germans. they had tons of pepper left over but salt was always rare.",
"Short answer: Standard practice when rescuing starving people is to give small amounts of food in order to prevent refeeding syndrome. It depends on your condition and the type and amount of food you have. Long answer: With adequate food, the body primarily uses glucose for energy, but the body can't store as much glucose as it can protein and fat. Trouble is, the brain can't use fatty acids for energy, so the body produces ketone bodies to help replace the glucose you aren't eating. This process, called ketosis, releases acid into the body. If you undergo ketosis for long enough to starve, then ketoacidosis, a deadly acidification of the the blood, may occur. If you can't get treated for severe acidification, then it doesn't matter what you eat. You'll die (interestingly, this is why untreated Type I diabetes is also extremely dangerous). But let's say your blood hasn't turned to acid before your rescue. Ketosis changes the metabolic environment of the body in other ways, but the body would prefer to metabolize food normally. If you eat a load of food, then the body will immediately shift to the normal mode of metabolism, and that shift is what causes refeeding syndrome. Several days of limited intake helps \"prime\" the body for regular metabolism and slows down the shift from ketosis to normal metabolism. If your \"last moment\" means that you have no more stored calories, then the shift from no food to enough food for you to live would probably kill you. If your \"last moment\" means that you have just enough stored calories to maintain your life until you can finish the metabolic shift, then it might save you.",
"At the very last moment, no. The blood stream takes time to absorb food, so you would have to eat a good while before you would die. There's also the risk of refeeding syndrome, so even if it wasn't the last minute you might die anyway.",
"Another issue I haven't seen mentioned on here yet is something called \"refeeding syndrome.\" It's something that happens when you haven't eaten for weeks. The influx of glucose and other nutrients into your system cranks up hormones that had been essentially shut down, especially insulin. The sudden change causes a massive shift and depletion of electrolytes like phosphorous and magnesium among others. It's so bad it can send you into heart failure. That's why if you're admitted to the hospital due to starvation, they reintroduce food very slowly with a close eye on your electrolytes. tl;dr Refeeding syndrome is more likely to kill you after reintroducing food than anything else",
"Look up how anorexics are rehabilitated. It really depends on how your body would react. Food/drink would have to be introduced slowly, gradually building back up to a normal diet. You could still die, it would all depend on how badly your organs were damaged from the deprivation.",
"It depends, are you asking if, \"when you're about to starve to death, you eat\", or , \"if you're about to starve to death, you see a bit of food.\" If it's the former, I saw a few other comments saying no, if it's the latter, I didn't really see any answers for it, but no, you definitely can't chain seeing different foods into being immortal, gavin.",
"Can't tell if you mean eaten then or there, or just seeing it will prolong your dying body.",
"So what would be an ideal food to give to someone on the brink of starvation? Small pieces of bread maybe?",
"I know most comments are about the nutritional content of the food and they are right, but speaking from a psychological point of view, you might just get the will to survive because you see food. Read more of it on victor frankl's man's search for meaning and it's sequels. He was a psychiatrist and a holocaust survivor (in the order). He came up with logotherapy.",
"Sugar, will entre the blood very quickly. Your not specific as to the specific time of your last moment. Starving can take weeks for you body to exhaust the last of its fuel sources to power the heart. Is this last moment you describe 60 seconds before you heart stops or an hour. My guess is you would have a ten minute to 30 minute window for sugars to get into the blood and be useful."
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5nx7j7 | Why does honey never expire? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Its basically pure sugar, so any mold or bacteria that touch it die because the concentration of sugar outside their cells causes water to leave them by osmosis and they shrivel and die.",
"There are a lot of answers here that *answer* the question but not to a satisfying level of detail so I'll take a swing. The main reason is because honey is almost completely sugar. That high sugar concentration dehydrates any cells that try to take up residence through osmosis. (Osmosis being like a gravitational pull toward balance.) If there's water inside of a cell that falls into the honey, the honey will pull water out of the cell until the proportion of water to sugar inside the cell is equal to the proportion outside the cell. Since the honey had such a high sugar content, a single cell just doesn't have enough water in it to make a dent in that so the honey ends up pulling nearly all the water out of the cell, killing it in the process. There are some things that can survive without any water; botulism spores have already been brought up and are a great example of why we pasteurise honey, despite how well it kills bacteria on its own. There are other properties that play lesser roles like a chemical secreted by the bees called defensin-1 which works as an antibiotic but these other properties pale in comparison to the mighty osmotic pressure. What this means, though, is that, yes, honey has antimicrobial properties but the main one (osmosis) goes away the moment you dilute it because the balance mentioned earlier is much easier to reach if the overall solution has a lower percentage of sugar. In turn, that means that honey does not pass it's abilities on to you by drinking it since you dilute it with your saliva and stomach acid. In other words, if someone tells you it will help fight off a cold because of its antimicrobial properties, they don't know what they're talking about. It will, however, make your throat feel better temporarily but that's another ELI5.",
"Honey can expire if it has too much water in it, which it can pull from the air if it is stored improperly. Bees will actually cap the honey comb when the moisture of the honey gets too high (around 16-17%) so it cannot absorb any more water. Moisture above 18% can ~~cause~~ allow the honey to ferment, which would effectively spoil the honey. When honey is processed by a beekeeper, it is typically done in a humidity controlled environment to avoid over hydration. Honey, if stored properly (dry and airtight), can last thousands of years because of its sugar content and natural antibacterial properties. It will often crystallize when stored for a long time, but this does not mean the honey is bad. Simply warm it and it will turn back to honey.",
"All of these top answers are pretty much wrong. Not really so much to do with the sugar, but not too far off. I wrote a paper about this, so I will tell you about honey and more at an age above 5. When bees gather pollen from flowers, they add an enzyme called invertase to break it down into two sugars: glucose and fructose. When the bee returns to the hive and regurgitates the nectar into the honeycomb it adds one more enzyme called glucose oxidase. This creates trace amounts hydrogen peroxide in the honey. Yes, the same hydrogen peroxide that your mother poured on your scrapes and cuts, and the same one that keeps everything it touches clean and sanitary. The bee then flaps its wings over the honey until all the water has left. The lack of water and the existence of hydrogen peroxide makes it a rough place for any bacteria to live. Civilizations as far back as the ancient Sumerians know that honey helps treat wounds. It prevents bacteria and moisture from entering while at the same time, sucks moisture out of the wound. A visit to Boca's Gumbo Limbo Nature Preserve shows how in their sea turtle rehabilitation, honey treatments are frequently and effectively placed over cracks and other exposed injuries to protect damaged sea turtles from developing infections. Eating local honey also can help immunize against local allergies. As an informal study from Xavier University in New Orleans found, bees gather small amounts of pollen that could normally trigger allergies.2 But eating that honey introduces tiny amounts into you, and allows your immune system to build up tolerance to common allergens. The positive aspects of honey continue. The National Journal of Biological Sciences research suggest that honey may be a great tool in the management of diabetes. Honey raises your blood sugar much less, and requires much less insulin to break down then the sugar found in most foods. Using it as a substitute could not only help combat diabetes mellitus at early stages, but also due to its anti-lipidemic effect, can fight against obesity. Like any good thing, honey can also have its drawback. While anyone old enough to read this can enjoy the full fledged benefits of the golden nectar, it is not recommended for infants. Toxicologist Charles Santerre recommend waiting until the baby is 12 months old before you introduce honey into the diet. Honey can rarely contain a bacteria called Clostridium botulinum which could affect an infant's immature digestive tract and cause infant botulism.",
"While it may not allow much bacteria to thrive, it can still contain botulism spores that can thrive. I've been eating raw honey for years with no problems until a batch I got from a local farm this summer. It has been a disaster with lingering symptoms. Now I buy honey from the market that must be pasteurized.",
"Undiluted, honey has a pH level that no bacteria can survive in. It may not taste good but some honey found in the pyramids was edible after thousands of years. [Here]( URL_0 ) is an article about it.",
"\"The high sugar concentration, hydrogen peroxide, and the low pH are well-known antibacterial factors in honey and more recently, methylglyoxal and the antimicrobial peptide bee defensin-1 were identified as important antibacterial compounds in honey.\" IUBMB Life. 2012 Jan;64(1):48-55. doi: 10.1002/iub.578. Epub 2011 Nov 17.",
"Honey never expires because the water that is present in the honey is molecular and/or chemically bounded (trapped). Water becomes bonded through their strong electrical attraction (polarity), this can happen through water-ion and water-dipole interactions. This is important to know because Many microorganism, such as the types of bacteria and yeast which are associated with food spoilage, require moisture (water) to grow and reproduce. You have probably bounded water yourself. When you throw salt on the sidewalk, the salt intercuts with the water trapping the molecules and preventing them from expanding (freezing) therefore lowering their freezing point and preventing snow from building up. But as we know it will eventually freeze. Back to honey- All foods have what is called a water activity (Aw)., with 1.0 being the maximum possible. To show an example: Fresh meat has a water activity of 0.985, while potato chips/crisps have a water activity of 0.08. The bacteria associated with food spoilage require a minimum of 0.90 to survive, grow and reproduce. Yeast require a minimum of 0.80 and 0.70 for mold. There are exceptions of course which I can name if you guys are interested. At low water activities, microorganisms die because water inside the cell diffuses out in an effort to balance the osmotic pressure. So basically the cells dehydrate and die because the water leaves theirs cell. This is why honey never expires, it has a very low water activity, preventing it from supporting the growth of micro organisms that would cause it to spoil. Source: B.S in Nutrition with a concentration in Food Science. That included 4 classes of Food Micro-Biology.",
"You know how you feel when your sweater's too tight? Well, the sugar inside honey feels the same way. There's too much sugar for the water to contain. So it tries to take water from anything around it. Even germs. Your skin's too thick to take your blood, so you're safe. But germs, their skin is thinner than paper. So when it tries to suck out their blood, it succeeds. And they can't live without their blood, so they can't eat it and make more germs like they would on other food.",
"Honey is sugar in water, but so much more sugar than is normally allowed that it's all gel-y and also very very dry. Micro-organisms that eat sugar and normally lead to something going \"bad\" need water to live, and find it hard to get into. Additionally, honey has antibiotics and antifungals inside it (among other things) which stop bacteria or fungus from easily eating it. (Accurate enough and could actually be read to a five year old, I think)",
"bacteria need water to survive. what little water is in honey is locked up by the sugar and unavailable to the bacteria."
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5nx8m5 | Why do car stereo remotes exist? | This has had me wondering for a long time. The thing is right in front of me or a passenger. I don't see any situation I'd want someone in the back seat controlling the radio. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Generally for when you're showing off your custom sound (doors and trunk open) you can control everything without actually having to be in the car. This can be great for subwoofer competitions, where the noise level in and around the car can be harmful to your hearing. It also can add a level of \"cool\" or enchance the flow of the showing of your car, as you could have various underglow systems hooked into the remote depending on just how tech savvy you are.. Or how much you paid someone to do it for you."
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5nx96h | why aren't ovens white on the inside? Since black absorbs heat the best, wouldn't that be the worst color? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Black does not necessarily absorb heat the best. It absorbs light best. The color of different materials comes from what colors they absorb and what colors they reflect. White reflecting all visible colors and black absorbing all visible colors. The color spectrum extends in both ends. Heat at the temperatures you would typically set an oven to is in the infrared spectrum. So the ideal paint to use in an oven is black but white in infrared. The reason you want it black is because it hides all the dirty stains from the food. The heat will make it hard to remove and white paint will make it stick out more. So you want your cooking surfaces to be dark. There are also lots of other things to consider. The paint have to be able to withstand the heat and the different chemicals in the food and in the cleaning agents, it have to withstand hard mechanical cleaning so you can clean it with a scrub, it have to be safe to prepare food in and lastly it have to be cheap to coat the ovens in it."
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5nxh0b | What do doctors infer from using Stethoscopes? How can they identify what's wrong with us by just hearing us breathe? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hi, medical student here! The two classic things most people think of when stethoscopes are mentioned are listening to the heart and lungs so I'll address these. But they can also be used to listen to arteries and the intestines. What the stethoscope does is amplify vibrations. Things moving underneath the skin cause tiny little vibrations which normally we couldn't hear, but the stethoscope is able to pick them up. So, on to what we actually listen for. **Heart** Mostly what we listen for here are *heart sounds*. On top of just hearing blood rushing around in the heart, in a healthy person there should be another two distinct sounds that we hear, each referring valves closing in the heart. These are often referred to as \"lub\" and \"dub\". Two of the heart's four valves close when it starts to contract, and the other two close after it has finished contracting. If we hear extra heart sounds or can't hear the normal heart sounds then this can be a sign that something is wrong with the heart. As well as this, if we place the stethoscope in very specific places we can listen to each of the four valves individually. This allows us to hear if there is a problem with any of them. **Lungs** When listening to breathing, rather than heart sounds we're listening for *breath sounds*. [This Wikipedia page]( URL_0 ) has some good audio files of what we're listening for. Also, if we hear an abnormal sound in just one part of the lung that isn't present in the rest, then this tells us which part of the lung is diseased. We can hear this because air flows through the airways differently if there is lots of fluid (e.g. in an infection), if the airways are narrowed, if there is a hard object (e.g. a tumor), etc. It is just a case of learning what healthy sounds are and then learning what all the abnormal breaths sound like in order to help in a diagnosis. > How can they identify what's wrong with us by just hearing us breathe? I'd just like to quickly address this. We would never be able to make a diagnosis *purely* on the basis of listening to you breathe. It is just one tool that would be used alongside the other parts of a respiratory or cardiac exam, the questions we ask you, blood tests, etc.",
"I once went to the Doc's for an irritatingly persistent (and... gooey) chest cold. He tells me to breathe in, winces a bit, then tells me to breathe out. And then says, verbatim, \"Gross. Yeah, you have pneumonia.\" I took a listen. Yeah, gross is one word to describe the noise coming outta me. Sounded like trying to suck up a bunch of KY through a vacuum with a cheese cloth tied to the end.",
"Stethescopes have the ability to audibly listen for irregularites or damage to your heart or lungs. Quick breathing in and out can help a doctor diagnose Bronchitis or Pneumonia from listening to your lungs or a heart afibrilation or tachycardia by listening to your heart. A stethescope is just one of many tools doctors use, but it's one of the most common tools used in just about every exam because every sick adult and children's lungs still sound roughly the same and the testing done with it is quick and simple, unlike scheduling an MRI or X-Ray.",
"A little beside the point, since most of the good answers have already been given. But some other neat little things a Stethoscope can be used for: - Bowel Sounds: not the most sensitive test, but a doc can infer whether your bowel is completely inactive (ileus), normally active, or hyperactive w/ tinkling, which could imply an obstruction. - Reflex: for your lazy, non-Neurology docs who don't carry around a hammer, a Bell of the scope can be used as a handy hammer for testing reflex."
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5nxkhd | What causes the moon to occasionally appear yellow? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Think of white light being made up of all the colors of the rainbow equally. Since light from our Sun is essentially white, and our moon is dark grey (ie: no color), it reflects light back to us without any colors of light \"lost\". So it looks white. (To prove this to yourself, try shining a white-light flashlight on a black piece of construction paper in a dark room... the paper will look white). However, the light must pass through our atmosphere before it reaches our eyes. As the white light passes through our atmosphere, some of it is scattered in different directions, but not equally across all the colors of the rainbow (spectrum). In fact, colors that are on the \"blue\" side of the rainbow get scattered much more easily than the \"red\" side. So by the time the light has made it to your eye, some of the blue light has been scattered away. Now the light has more \"red\" light than \"blue\" light left over, so it appears more reddish. You may be asking yourself \"where did the blue light go?\" -- well it got scattered in all directions and makes the sky look blue. Ok, now to your question. The more air that white light passes through, the more blue light is scattered away, so it looks redder and redder. When you look at the Sun or Moon directly above your head, you are essentially looking through 1 \"atmosphere\" of air. However, since we live on a sphere, the closer they are to the horizon, the more \"atmospheres\" we are looking through. For example, when the Sun or Moon is just above our horizon, it is passing though nearly 30 \"atmospheres\" of air. That is a lot of blue light scattered away, which makes them both look much more red. This effect is increased by other particulate matter in the air. So areas of heavy smog like cities or after volcanic eruptions, the Sun and Moon can look \"redder\" than usual.",
"If it's lower in the sky, the incoming light will be diffused just like sunlight is. The more atmosphere the light passes through, the redder and yellower it will appear."
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5nxnsa | ;What exactly is meant by Bismarckian and machevellian politics. What are good examples of their actions that brought about these terms? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It should be note that both terms (the Machiavellian more than the Bismarckian one) are usually used today to describe something that is often quite different from what those two people actually did and wrote about. Machiavellian has often a sort of evil undertone is basically used as a catchall term for any sort of \"evil scheme\". Bismarck unlike Machiavelli was somebody who actually got to put his ideas into practice and they worked extremely well. Because of that he is mostly seen in very negative light by the people of the neighbouring countries to whose detriment his success often was and he has gotten a reputation in part not just due to his actual action but also due to his enemies propaganda. Machiavelli's great crime was that he looked at politics like it really was without any pretence and suggest ways to act based not so much on ideology but on the benefit of the approach. It was in a way what we would today call realpolitik. People didn't like that approach and have painted him as evil for basically just telling the truth. (oversimplified) Bismarck was an actual politician who also had a bit of realpolitik in him. He was very much against socialism and everything connected to it, but he was the one who created the welfare system in Germany not to benefit the common people but to steel their support away from the socialists. Bismarck was forever making complicated alliance and treaties playing others out against each other for his benefit. He above all was some smart and wise enough to always see where the wind was blowing from and size any opportunity that arose rather than cling to old plans made before. After the pilot Bismarck left the ship of state his carefully maintained and balanced web of alliances began to unravel until in the end it left Europe in the situation where a continent wide war was inevitable."
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5nxopg | Why do people often want something even more once they know they can't have it? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The law of scarcity. The more expensive something is to produce (rare or limited quantities due to cost), the more valuable it is to us when we don't have it. URL_0"
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5nxq5b | Why does someone ignoring you cause so much pain and anger? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"We wish to have the attention and approval of others, since this is obviously a survival and reproductive advantage in society. Your brain's natural response to being dismissed or ignored, then, is to motivate you to gain more social acceptance. That being said, remember that the other person's action or inaction is not what causes the emotional response,it is your own mind which causes that response, and only you can identify, analyze and control it.",
"Human's are inherently social creatures and when we are denied of something that we seek out, we can become resentful"
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5nxri3 | What makes certain foods cancerous? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It depends on the chemical composition of the food or seasonings and ingredients used. For example cured meat. Cured meat or processed meat contains sodium nitrite. The heat when cooking allow sodium nitrate to react with the amines in the meat to form N - nitrosocompounds which is carcinogenic. Fatty foods. Fried food contains oil which can undergo lipid peroxidation when exposed to oxygen to form free radicals that can damage cells and their components like DNA which may have a role in cancer development. It is best to avoid consuming lots of fried street food as more free radicals are formed in reused oil. Foods that start to give off odour should also be avoided because the rancid smell indicates lipid peroxidation. It is good to consume plenty of fruits and vegetables (especially colourful ones) that are rich in antioxidants to prevent cell damage from free radicals. Source: food science major."
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5nxvka | What causes the difference in intelligence between persons? | URL_0 sorry if this has been submitted before, I'm new to this sub. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A combination of nature and nurture. Genetics obviously plays a role at the beginning of life. Someone genetically inclined to have higher cognitive functioning can still be a naive moron if raised in such a way. Same with an average Joe who's seen the world and learned how to process information in an efficient way."
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5nxymx | How do we figure out the exact weight of protons, neutrons, and electron? | How did we figure out that a(n): Electron weighs 9.1 x 10^-31 kg Proton weights 1.6726 x 10^-27 kg Neutron weighs 1.6749 x 10^-27 kg Considering the size of those imperceptible numbers, how far off are our best estimates? How did we calculate these numbers? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First of all, these are not weights, they are masses. Weight refers to the force of attraction that objects with mass exert on each other. Mass measures \"how much stuff\" there is, how much force is needed to accelerate something (inertia) remember F=ma, and also has to do with energy. What I mean by the last one is that increasing the energy of something increases the mass. In fact the mass increase m is given by m = E/c^2 or as most people know it E=mc^2. If it's a subatomic particle the total energy is E and the total mass is m. If a particle is moving the equation is E^2 = m^2 c ^4 + p^2 c ^2 where p is momentum. Anyway, the amount of \"stuff\" there is, the inertia, and the m in that big equation are the same thing and they all mean mass. We can measure an objects mass by F=ma or by measuring the energy and momentum. The energy and momentum way is more common. One more way (the most common) is a mass spectrometer. By accelerating a particle in a known and measured field, we can measure its kinetic energy in proportion to its charge. You can also use this to move a particle in a circular path, measuring the momentum. Both of these can be used to solve for mass. tl;dr using E^2 = m^2 c ^4 + p^2 c ^2 which is E=mc^2 for a moving particle (p is momentum) we can solve for m by knowing the other variables. You could also use F=ma or a tool called a mass spectrometer."
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5ny114 | why do light bulbs only seem to ever go out when turning them on instead of while they're already on? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"when you turn on a conventional lightbulb it heats up in a flash, which stresses the filament. once it's stabilized at its new temperature it's generally fine, but it does happen that they burn out while on, usually if left on for a long time or if there's a power fluctuation"
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5ny535 | Why does sticking out your tongue help you concentrate? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Does it?! I'm almost finished with my masters degree now and nobody ever mentioned that. Feels like I wasted all my university life."
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5ny67s | How do internet startups get a big user base before they are well known? | I am thinking of companies like AirBnB,quora, tinder and so on.. For example - on URL_0 ...there must have been a point when there were only a handful of questions and answers ..and the site was not deeemed useful? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I remember watching a documentary on reddit and before they went to investors they would have fake accounts to make the sight seem more active thus it seems more interesting. Now if where talking about companies like Google they were advertised by their professor who eventually got the entire universe hooked onto the program. When you think about it it's actually quite genius."
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5ny7hm | Why do millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers did at same stage of life? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A factor no one else has mentioned yet is women entered the workforce. We essentially doubled the amount of available workers without doubling the amount of available jobs. When you have a lot more of something, in this case labor, the price decreases. It became an employer's market, no different than when a lot of houses are available it's a buyer's market and when there aren't it's a seller's market. A job is after all nothing more than you selling your labor for a price, your wage. A lot more of the product became available when the entire other half of our population started working. Buyers, the employers, had more to choose from and thus could afford to pay a lower price for the product since more people were looking to sell than there were people looking to buy. Markets are markets, whether it's a job market, housing market, or rare Magic the Gathering card market. More product+fewer buyers= lower prices. Less product+more buyers= higher prices. Jobs are currently in the \"more product/fewer buyers\" phase and will remain as such until either more jobs are available or there's fewer workers.",
"Essentially born into different economies. Baby boomers were born into one of the healthiest economies arguably ever recorded in history, while millennials have come of age in a time of recession and slow recovery."
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5ny8ir | How do people calculate the energy, fat, protein, carbohydrates, and sodium? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are specific assays for quantification of protein, fats as carbs in food. The specifics such as reaction, duration etc vary and there are many different techniques for each category, but they all traditionally start by weighting the food, drying it (some hours at ~ 100°C), weighting again and then performing some reactions to either eliminate or separate **only** the fraction of interest (so you can discover how much was there by weighting again and comparing). This means that you normally need to perform the assay at least 3 times because a different piece of information (% of carbs, % of protein...) is uncovered by each individual assay. For sodium, people used to incinerate food (500+ °C) to discover how much minerals was in there, since it's all that's left after incineration. This gave a rough approximation to sodium content since it's a large component of food minerals. Today there are better (and more expensive) techniques available like high performance liquid chromatography ([HPLC]( URL_0 )) which allows you to accurately detect and quantify a specific element (like sodium) in your food sample. This is also applied to other things like individual vitamin content. Knowing how much protein/fats/carbohydrates are in the food, a simple relation is applied to discover its energy content: 1 gram of fat = 9 kcal, 1 gram of protein or carbs = 4 kcal (and also 1 gram of alcohol = 7 kcal)."
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5nyg70 | When you see stories like, "12 year old invents cheap alternative to a significant medical/military/household product", what actually happened? Were they receiving some uncredited assistance or are they actually just child geniuses working alone after school? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"It's almost always FAKE NEWS. The rest of the time it's a reporter without much expertise in the fiend that's unrealistically impressed by a good science fair project. If you look at genuine science fair awards, [like these Intel ones]( URL_0 ), you'll see the same kind of small, incremental breakthroughs that you see from regular scientists and engineers. These kids are older, 16-18 usually, and they got really deep into a narrow problem. They're probably really geniuses.",
"I do believe that there are actually child geniuses that come up with cool ideas. But also that there are a tonne of kids who are helped (significantly) by their parents. The thing with coming up with alternatives is that you're working on existing ideas. Also, the thing of being a kid is that your time is valued as free. So let's say ACME wants to produce a water filter. They set up a team to design this water filter. They have to make a a list of requirements, specifications etc. Well, after a while they have this. So they can set to work, designing a new filter and subsequently testing, redesigning, testing some more, tweaking the design to be suitable for (mass) production and done, they have a filter. This filter already costs money because it had to be researched, concepts had to be tested and the best concept was further developed into the final product. The final product is not yet ready to be sold since it has to be tested first to see if it is safe for consumers, even more money is being spend here. So when the product finally hits the shelves it has to recoup all those R & D costs, production costs, overhead and a profit margin, because ACME is a company after all. Now along comes a bright kid with noble intentions. They set out to work in their spare time. They do some research and find an idea that they like and want to often improve upon. So they do some work, some testing, use household stuff, because that is what most 12 year old kids have to their disposal, and find a way to achieve the same result. They show this result to the world and present the cost, which consist only of the material costs. The kid doesn't include all the hours spent on it, because it was a hobby. Doesn't have overhead, since their parents pay for housing, food, internet, etc. Doesn't have a profit margin because they want to better the world and doesn't have product testing costs because it is a hobby project. Don't get me wrong, these kids are very bright. But a lot of costs from their final project are hidden and a lot of research is done already."
],
"score": [
12,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.societyforscience.org/content/press-room/intel-isef-2016-grand-award-winners"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nygfa | Why can you hold water, or any liquid, in a straw by placing your finger over the opening? | I understand it has something to do with pressure. But I don't really get why. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcf82ad"
],
"text": [
"Because you're creating a vacuum in the straw. The space inside of the straw has to be filled with something lighter than the liquid (air) in order for it to escape through the bottom. Your thumb is preventing the air from being sucked into the top of the straw as the liquid leaves, which in turn causes the created vacuum to hold the liquid in place."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
5nygn7 | Why do we stretch? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcf9l73"
],
"text": [
"When you sleep, your muscles lose tone and fluid tends to pool along your back. Stretching helps to massage fluid gently back into the normal position. Also, your muscles protect themselves from over-extension by inhibiting the nerve impulses as they approach their limit."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nyhf2 | Why do we puke when we get too dizzy? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcf7dt2",
"dcf7dsm"
],
"text": [
"When you get dizzy, let's say from spinning too fast, your eyes see something different than your balance tells you. In nature, the most likely reason this happens is because you've been poisoned, i.e. eaten something poisonous. So you puke it out just to be safe.",
"Your brain thinks that the dizziness is caused by something you ate, so it makes you throw up to get that thing out of your body."
],
"score": [
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nyjec | Why arent SSDs and SD cards the same size even though a lot of them can hold the same amount? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcf93qk",
"dcf9ccg",
"dcf9rmg"
],
"text": [
"An SSD is very much different from an SD card. SSD's, SD cards and phone internal memory for that matter uses the same NAND flash chips. However a fundamental difference here is the controllers. Imagine a room in which you want to fill in stuff and it has an automatic door. In layman terms a controller is like an automatic door. The bigger the door the more you can fill into a room at a time. But the bigger the door the more power you need to open and close it. This is exactly what happens. An SD card is used in small devices like phones, tablets and cameras. There's only so much power that a phone can supply with its tiny battery. There is simply not enough power to feed an SSD. If you ever open an SSD you will notice that the main memory is tiny. Its about the size of an SD card. But what uses up all the space is the motherboard. That has the controller and other components. Also, who told you they have the same speeds? An SD card barely has any speed. An SSD can do gigabytes per second while an SD card struggles with 100mbps. Source : Took part in the Mumbai Hackathon 2016. SSD speedup and SD card data security was my main topic. ( so I know some shit here and there)",
"SD cards and SSDs dont provide comparable speed. Good SD cars are around of 10MB/s while SSDs are around 500MB/S sequential bandwidth. SSDs also last longer their mean time between failurs is around 1000 times of a Sd card which can already fail at around 1000 write cycles. And third access time/ latency. SD cars need around 1ms for random accesses (or 1000 IOPS) while comodity SSDs already provide 100.000 IOPs So SD cards are smaller, cheaper in capacity but are not as fast as SSDs in bandwidth, latency and durability.",
"They aren't the same speed, SD cards typically read at 30MB/s based on typically using USB connection paths. SSDs can read from 500 to 2000 MB/s because they connect via SATA or PCI which is way faster. Beyond that, SSDs are the size they are to support replacing a magnetic hard drive as a swap in part, and to allow for the controller hardware to do things like spread writes around for longevity. So mostly, it's bigger because that is what we are used to in computer and notebook cases, and because SSDs have controller hardware, not just storage."
],
"score": [
32,
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nyn57 | How come that when you go to bed at 11PM you have a hard time to leave your bed at 7AM, but when you go to bed at 3AM you dont have any problems waking up at 11AM while you had the same hours of sleep? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfbzvp"
],
"text": [
"Might be a number of things. 1) You aren't used to waking up early, so your body isn't ready for it. If you don't usually wake up at 7am and then suddenly do, it'll be hard. 2) It's often colder in the morning, especially in the winter. Getting out of bed in the cold is hard. 3) It's much brighter at 11am than 7am and our body responds to sunlight. This is why we get tired at night, because your body release melatonin to help get ready for sleep."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nyt0l | What's the point of auto manufacturers working with their rivals to create identical vehicles, ie: Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute, Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcffsdx"
],
"text": [
"Sometimes they are co-developed, and this allowed for more variation during between what are effectively the same vehicle underneath, such as the 1990's [Ford Probe]( URL_1 ) and [Mazda MX-6]( URL_0 ). Other times, automakers are desperate to fill holes in their model lines without taking the 3-5 year time to develop a new model, and basically license a vehicle from another car maker--typically one where there isn't too much customer overlap. For example, Ford already had the Escape and Mazda realized they were getting killed by not having a small SUV available. Ford is willing to make re-badged Mazdas because it helps amortize the model's development and production costs and, ensures employment for their factory workers, and boost revenues by effectively doing a giant fleet sale of thousands of vehicles... they make sell slightly fewer Escapes but may get Mazda guarantees on sales. Mazda gets to fill a hole in their line-up and keep loyal customers from going elsewhere. Another example of an SUV quick fix was the Isuzu Trooper becoming the first Acura SUV."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--vkFY2S9t--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/byu0psvrxp1wyaasapr8.jpg",
"https://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/ford/probe/1995/oem/1995_ford_probe_2dr-hatchback_gt_fq_oem_1_500.jpg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nyta8 | who's with who and who's against who in the middle east regarding Syria, Iran, lebanon etc and why? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfh5is"
],
"text": [
"Vox and Kurzgesagt made pretty good videos 'bout it. Check 'em out [here]( URL_0 ) and [here]( URL_1 ). You're welcome!"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://youtu.be/AQPlREDW-Ro",
"https://youtu.be/NKb9GVU8bHE"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nz3mx | How does swallowing upside down work? | I was at the gym just hanging around after my last set(literally hanging upside down) and I was thirsty, I reached after my bottle and took a swig. Then I wondered, how in the hell does this work? So ELI5, what happens when swallowing upsidedown, how does the water go "up" to my stomach? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfcf3i"
],
"text": [
"Swallowing is aided by peristalsis. Basically, swallowing is not a passive thing aided by gravity. When you swallow, the muscles in your throat actively push food down your gullet. That pushing is peristalsis. When you're upside down, it works a little bit harder because gravity is the other way, but your throat muscles are still strong enough to push your food towards your stomach."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
5nz6ms | What do bees actually do with the honey they make? Surely they don't eat that much being so small. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfcsa7",
"dcfd604"
],
"text": [
"Honey is rich in sugars, which means it is rich in energy. That means it is a food that is prized by a lot of animals. As such bees have evolved to make a large surplus of honey, many times what they need to survive so that when some other animal breaks into the hive and eats the honey the hive does not starve to death.",
"The question is flawed. The bees do in fact eat that much, but they need a surplus if some of the honey goes missing from something breaking in and stealing it or if conditions are bad and they don't produce very much of it."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nz6pt | Why, when we are falling from a height, is it our first instinct to swing our arms in a circular motion? | Just to elaborate, I'd assume there are two parts to this answer - Firstly, what are the physics of why we swing our arms in circles, and secondly, how, biologically, we innately know to swing them. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfctqz",
"dcfcvz6"
],
"text": [
"I would assume this would be an unconscious effort to regain a sense of balance, control, and composure. We use our arms in locomotion for balance, so when our balance or equilibrium is interrupted (ie you take a fall), your body (which is really just a complex machine) engages its upper quadrant balance control modules, the arms, in an attempt to remain or end up topside up. Perhaps.",
"As you should recall, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Swinging your arms in a circle in one direction will push your torso to rotate in the other direction. Moving our arms in this way will act to keep our body aligned such that we can land on our legs. The behavior is instinctive."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
5nzg16 | Why is peanut butter only available in jars and not wider containers like hummus? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfezxg"
],
"text": [
"Um fresh ground peanut butter from a health food store comes in the containers you desire and its way yummier."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nzi6h | how does calculus work | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfja7f",
"dcfm9c4",
"dcfh3qj"
],
"text": [
"Disclaimer: I'm going to assume you mean something like \"what is calculus\". If you literally want to know how it \"works\", I suggest being more specific in your question, and also try to understand that calculus is a large and complex subject, so there is really no ELI5 answer for how calculus works as a whole. With that said: There are two main parts to calculus: Integrals and derivatives. Integrals are \"the area under a curve\". For example, let's say you've got a semicircular dome resting on the ground. You know the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared, and a semicircle is half of a circle, so the area under a semicircle is half of pi times the radius squared. That was not calculus - I did not use calculus to get that area under the curve. I just gave it as an example of what I meant by \"area under the curve\". You can get the same thing for arbitrary curves by using integral calculus. Derivatives (differential calculus) are how you can figure out the slope of a curve at any point along the curve. For example, if you're driving a car up and down steep hills, the direction that your car is pointing at any given point in time. These two concepts are both amazingly useful in a surprisingly wide variety of situations.",
"Calculus is basically all about change in rates. The derivative tells me how any equation is changing as a certain variable changes and an integral is the opposite of a derivative. Instead of telling me how it changes, integrals tell me the result of a change over a variable. Using patterns and rules I can find how fast a car is moving at any point in time simply by knowing the equation that describes it's position at any point. That is a derivative. Alternatively, I can figure out how far a car has travelled at any time in a trip simply by knowing an equation describing how fast the car was going at any time",
"Calculus works the same way addition works. There is a defined relationship that can be evaluated for specific cases. The concept of \"add 2\" can be evaluated at any point, but if you evaluate it at 3 you get 5 as the answer. The concept of \"derivative\" is the same sort of thing. It can be evaluated for any function, and in calculus class students learn many of them. When you take the derivative of the X^2 function you get the 2•X function."
],
"score": [
11,
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nziah | Why do we feel cold when our body is hot during fever? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfqdro"
],
"text": [
"Your body generates a fever in order to fight an infection. Molecules in your body (generated by the immune system or pieces of the bacteria/virus) signal the hypothalamus to raise the temperature of the body. Think of the hypothalamus as the thermostat of the body. Normally it holds your body around 98.6 degrees F. Now it is telling the body it should be sitting at 101 degrees F. So the body \"believes\" that it is cold because it is currently multiple degrees below what the thermostat is set at. Your body responds by shivering and uses other techniques to increase your core body temperature to what the hypothalamus has it set at."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nzmk5 | What is the difference between a poison, a toxin, and a venom? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfgc39",
"dcfgp6q",
"dcfgbjt"
],
"text": [
"Poison is something that is harmful if ingested, venom is something that is harmful when injected by an animal through a bite or sting, and a toxin is usually a harmful byproduct of some other process.",
"A poison is a substance that has a noxious effect on living organisms. ... A toxin is a poison produced by a living organism. A venom is a toxin injected from a living organism into another. A venom therefore is a toxin and a toxin is a poison, not all poisons are toxins, not all toxins are venoms.",
"A venom is a type of toxin which is a type of poison. Poison is any substance which is harmful to living organisms usually by a chemical reaction. Toxin is poison which is produced within living organisms. Venom is a toxin which is actively secreted by an animal, for example a snake's venom or a bee sting."
],
"score": [
6,
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
5nzns1 | How and why is mental illness hereditary? | I'm having a hard time understanding how a person could possibly get anxiety later in life because of an experience and pass it down to their children. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dcfgksu"
],
"text": [
"Not all forms of mental illness are hereditary. For example some forms of schizophrenia are related to the COMT gene. However, there are 20+ other genes with different connections. It may turn out that schizophrenia is like \"cancer\", a bad generalization based on common symptoms for many different diseases. However, trauma isn't genetic. There may be a genetic sensitivity to some sorts of trauma, but that's hardly the same thing. Mental illness is very complicated, and any \"one solution\" explanation is wrong."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
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