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ELI5: Why is it that if I'm hungry right before going to bed, I'm not longer hungry when I wake up in the morning? | The other night, I was going to bed and felt pretty hungry, but I just went to bed. I woke up, expecting to be somewhat hungry but the feeling of hunger was gone. Does anyone have a nice quick explanation? | Very concise answer: The loss of hunger when you wake up is due to excess glucose in your system caused by the breakdown of glycogen from your liver while you're asleep.
Explanation: Glucose is the main source of energy that your cells use to generate ATP, which powers many processes in the cell. When you eat, the glucose in your food, in the form of sugar and carbs, is absorbed into your system and spread to your tissues. Any excess glucose that you eat is stored in the cells in your liver in these giant chains called glycogen. These glycogen chains serve as a way to save the excess glucose for when your body needs it, much like how you store excess fats and lipids in your fat cells.
The prime example of when the body needs these stores is when you're asleep. Think about it. The average person sleeps for 7-8 hours. For that same amount of time during the day, you can easily fit in two full meals, so your body needs some way to keep all of your organs supplied with glucose when you have no ability to get it from food yourself. That's when these glycogen molecules come into play. As your body falls asleep, the liver starts breaking down these long chains of glucose and releasing the individual glucose molecules into your system. This makes sure that all of your organs (especially your brain) is supplied with glucose throughout the entire night. This breakdown occurs for the entire time you're asleep and stops when you wake up (and shifts back into storage mode). But right when you wake up, the glucose in your blood is still high from the overnight glycogen breakdown process, and there still may be some residual breaking down as your body shifts back into an awake state. The higher level of glucose in your system tells your brain that "you're full' even though you may have not eaten anything for 12 hours by that point.
You may have noticed that you got REALLY hungry within a couple hours after waking up. That's your body realizing that you haven't eaten anything in 12 hours AND you have the ability to do something about it. | 23 | 43 |
[MCU/DC] Who's richer? Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne? | More specifically Tony from the MCU and Bruce from the Dark Knight trilogy. | If we only count the resources that each of them can freely use to advance their agendas (versus assets that can't leverage or liquidate, corporate holdings that are as much other people's money as their own, etc.) Tony appears to have more on deck. Batman's got a DIY 1984 level surveillance state, but Tony has a DIY space program. Further skewing things, Tony has some assets up his sleeve that are literally priceless; if he ever said "fuck it" and sold a man-portable arc reactor to the highest bidder he'd probably be able to buy a small country with the proceeds. Wayne, meanwhile, mostly works with gear that Wayne Enterprises *couldn't sell* because the original buyers balked, so none of his hardware could be easily liquidated.
The comics or animated Justice League versions of Batman would be able to put up a stronger fight, but film canon Batman can be outspent by Tony. | 236 | 227 |
When was it first determined that Mt. Everest was the highest point in the planet, and how were they able to know for sure? | Mt Everest's hight was measured during the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1856.
All of the mountains on earth that are higher than 7000 meters appear in the mountain ranges in central/south Asia. All of the mountains higher than 8000m are in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges which were measured in the survey.
None of the other mountain ranges on other continents came close, and it was clear when they measured Everest that it was the highest peak.
That said, the furthest point from the center of the Earth is Mt Chimborazo in the Andes. | 73 | 140 |
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[DC] How can the Anti Life Equation and the Life Equation exist in the same universe when they both "prove" inherently contradictory truths about the universe? | The Anti Life Equation mathematically proves that life is meaningless and not worth living, while the Life Equation proves the exact opposite. But they're both undeniable proof of ideas that cannot exist in the same reality with the same basis of life. There can't be a universe where 2+2=4 and 4-2=3 can coexist, so how can both Life Equations? | Different axioms.
If you run the numbers from one set of premises, you calculate that life is meaningless and has not capacity for more then slavery to darkseid. If you run from another, you calculate that all people have value and deserve freedom.
One could say the entire point of all of DC comics is a discussion over which starting premises are more reasonable. | 140 | 121 |
ELI5: Why do warmer countries/closer to the equator tend to be poorer than colder countries? | Sure there are exceptions like Singapore and Mongolia, but why do most colder countries seem to be richer than warmer countries? | For most of history, there wasn't that much difference between most region of the world. Great civilizations rose and felt, bringing stability and wealth to different region throughout history. China was often one of the richest region of the world, the Middle East was a power house between the Ancient World and Islamic Golden Age, and Africa was known for several rich Kings, etc.
America was usually behind in term of wealth. Why it was the case is a bit complicated. Being separated by an Ocean limit the spread of trade and knowledge (trade between Europe, Middle-East, Asia and North/East Africa was important), but there is also a theory about the lack of tameable work animal in America, which limited greatly the work capability of American tribes. Animal work in the field mean some people could do other things than food production, which lead to more trader, artisan, craftsmen, etc.
It's really only because of the industrial revolution that Europe was able to get in front of the rest of the world in term of technology and wealth. According to Maddison (a British economic Historian), in 1600, China and India had 51.4% of the world GDP (PPP), but at that point in time only had 47.5% of the population, meaning they were not only big, but richer than the world average. In 1600, India had 22.7% of the World GDP (PPP), by 1820 it was 16.1%, by 1870 it was 12.2%. India wasn't getting poorer, their economic growth was 22.7% in the 16th century, and 21% in the 18th century. The difference was that the economic growth of Europe was just too big to keep up. Similar story with the rest of the world.
So the question really is why the Industrial Revolution happened in England instead of somewhere else and why remained concentrated in Europe. That's again a really difficult questions to answer. The is a lot of factor that made the industrial revolution happen in England, the agricultural revolution of the 17th-19th century, a large and easy access to coal, the political climate, etc.
Once this started, Europe had the technology and wealth to spread its power across the world through colonization. Places where European settled the most (America, Australia, New Zealand, etc) become rich, the places that were not settle by European but instead become exploitable colonies didn't received the technology and knew how needed to kick start an Industrial Revolution until several centuries later. At that point, their delay in economic growth was just too big leaving Europe and places they settled in ahead. | 1,341 | 549 |
While driving, if you look at dips in the road that are far away they seem to reflect light from ahead like a mirror. Why? | Other answers touch on this, but a substance's refractive index changes with it's density.
The refractive index affects the angle at which incident light is "bent" at the boundary between two media (specifically, it obeys Snell's Law). When the angle of incidence (measured from a normal line perpendicular to the boundary) is great enough, the light can undergo total internal reflection, and reflect off the boundary rather than refract through it. A common example of this is if you have a fish tank, shine a laser at the top surface of the water from underneath at a wide angle, and it will reflect off rather than go through.
Total internal reflection only happens when the light is travelling in a medium of higher refractive index compared to the medium it borders (refractive index of water is greater than that of air). In your case, on a hot day the road heats up and creates a layer of hot air over it, which has a lower density than the cooler air above (the ground has to be substantially hot to combat the hot air eventually rising away). The light from far away, then, is in higher density air - and hence air with a higher index of refraction, and so it undergoes total internal reflection with the lower density hot air and bounces off, just like a mirror. | 20 | 43 |
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ELI5 : how do we know what's under the crust? | How to we know what the layers of earth are? I've learnt in primary school that underneath the crust is the mantle, then the outer and inner core, but how can we prove this if we have never dug below the crust? | By looking at the stuff that bubbles up through features like volcanoes.
We can also use data from seismic measurements around the world. As the energy produced by earthquakes moves it will deflect as it goes through areas of different density. By collecting data from all over the world we can get a pretty good idea of the depths of different layers.
We can also measure meteorites in our solar system older than the earth's crust to get an idea of the likely composition of the earth. | 32 | 57 |
ELI5: Why are weather forecasts sometimes so different from each other? Don't they all use the same data and science? | I'm talking about information displayed on different weather websites. One will say that there's a very high chance of rain in a place at a certain hour, for multiple hours, and another will say that there will be just some light rain in the first hour, then it will be dry/sunny. | There are a couple of main models that almost all forecasting sites get their information from. The US model is GFS and the European model is ECMWF.
Some websites will just pass on Unmodified forecasts direct from one or other of these models.
Some websites will combine the data in some way and present a likely average.
Some websites apply local knowledge of particular regions and geography to make more precise localised predictions based on one or both of the models. | 32 | 32 |
I teach high school Econ, but it’s very basic and relies heavily on content from before the Great Depression. What are some current theories an Econ 101 should include? | I focus on the basics; being a business, taxes, government spending - but I know that economics has changed beyond basic supply and demand/ rational actor. I just don’t have a sense of priority with more modern content. | I would just suggest a textbook? (Mankiw, Krugman-Wells, Goolsbee-Levitt-Syverson, etc.) Supply and demand is still very relevant, but most textbooks do have modern content (even if "modern" means "from ~10 years ago," that's still modern relative to "before the Great Depression") | 38 | 44 |
ELI5: How does price gouging work? Couldn't one producer keep its prices low to attract all the consumers, and either profit by itself or force the other producers to lower their prices back to normal market value? | Usually the advantage is that a good is in such a short supply compared to demand that at least some sellers can ask for nearly any price and people will still pay that price, since there is no competition with a lower price AND still has goods to sell | 763 | 805 |
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ELI5: Why do squatters in the UK have rights to where they are squatting? Why can't they be kicked out as soon as they are discovered? | Although the specific laws and development differ in different places, the ultimate reason is always that the people who have to enforce an eviction don't know in advance who is actually right.
Even if it may seem obvious in a news report, if someone is living at a place and some third party comes in and says "that's not there house!" presumptively believing that second person can create a lot of problems. Generally, society thinks it's better to let the tenant/squatter stay in place while the court system sorts out the truth, rather than acting hastily.
It also incentivizes landowners to monitor their property (and prevent squatters) rather than pushing all the costs to the police.
Of course, this can lead to weird outcomes, but the same thing could happen the other way.
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What are philosophers experts at? | When I want to fix my plumbing I can turn to a plumber as an expert at fixing plumbing issues. When I want to have knowledge about climate change, I could turn to resources from climate scientists and learn about the relevant facts on climate. For what should people turn to philosophers for? What kind of knowledge can they provide and what kind of skills are they the best at? | Philosophers are often expert witnesses at courts, sit in all kinds of ethics commitees, are bioethicists at hospitals. Logic is a subfield of philosophy and logic is used in many fields. Philosophers of science sometimes work with scientists on solving problems of data classification, solving some problems of method etc. The uses of philosophy in science are many. Most of the previous century quantum physicists were also writing work in philosophy, in an attempt to interpret the empirical evidence they were gathering. On the other hand, Einstein credited Mach's philosophy on time for helping him develop general relativity. There are many other subfields of philosophy, most of them have some practical use, even though practical use is not always the aim of philosophy. | 34 | 36 |
Moon Base...feasibility and whether or not its worth it | So we have the ISS which is a pretty impressive feat and allows us to conduct experiments in space and keep a presence there. Why not a Moonbase?
I've read some of the obvious reasons such as cost and not believing there are many useful resources there. Although this article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9141416/Russia-to-finally-send-man-to-the-Moon.html
Says: "Scientists believe that precious metals and Helium-3, a rare isotope that has potential for power generation, could be extracted from the Moon’s surface."
So clearly they can find some useful resources there. More than that though, why have the goal of sending a manned mission to Mars before establishing a presence on our own Moon. I understand it isn't as 'exciting' since we have been there and its not technically another planet, but wouldn't it make more sense to take steps such as these?
If we established something on the Moon that could semi-sustain itself, complete with a landing/launch pad wouldn't that make reaching Mars much easier? Launching from the Moon rather than the Earth? Just seems like since we have been to the Moon it is overlooked now, but wouldn't it be a very useful stepping stone to more difficult tasks?
I have more thoughts on the topic, but want to hear other people's thoughts who are more qualified or who have more knowledge. Thanks
Edit: Just wanted to thank everyone for the replies...I understand and agree with the top points made. I guess we are just still not quite "there" yet. As in anything involving space is just so expensive and throwing humans into the mix further complicates. (I recently finally read Ender's Game so that also explains the desire for us to be better at space-type badassery) | The scientific value of human space exploration is very small, because of the huge overheads in cost which are required to get humans safely into space and keep them healthy up there. Instead of sending 70 kg of human, you could just as well send 70 kg worth of robotic equipment which can do far more science, and doesn't need food or water.
Sadly, this is evidenced by the close-to-zero scientific return of the Apollo program and the underwhelming scientific achievements made at the ISS. A human Mars program would be equally worthless from a scientific point of view, the money is much better spent doing really cool stuff like sending submersible probes to the Saturn moons for example.
As to the economic viability of mining moon: there just isn't a business case to be made at the moment. No business would ever be able to convince investors that it's worth gambling on a moon mining station which may or may not start producing something in 50 years from now. There's just too many unknowns, like for example how are you going to get stuff reliably back down to Earth at a price which doesn't outweigh the profits? While it might be feasible to build and maintain a small moonbase with our current know-how, it will still be a very risky undertaking, which could be wiped out any moment by known and as-of-yet unknown dangers. | 18 | 18 |
ELI5:The structure of middle eastern music | could you be more specific on what you want to know?
I might be able to give an answer, but it really depends on specific countries and if you're talking about how the music is composed, put in order, performed. | 22 | 111 |
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eli5 Is it correct to think of events happening on the far side of the universe or in a different galaxy as occurring "at the same time"? | If you involve relativity events "happening at the same time" depends on the observer.
So you can say some things are happening simultanously, but you have to say from wich perspective.
There is no universal neutral observer that could give you a "most correct" order of events. | 223 | 353 |
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ELI5:How is it that old Japanese houses seem to be made mostly of paper, but don't seem to experience any problems during rain seasons? | Just generally curious as to how this works. For example if one of these were built in, say England would it survive the rainy weather?
Edit:wow I got a lot more responses than I expected! thanks everyone. | Traditional japanese buildings are built primarily of wood and wood products, the use of stone being reserved for special buildings such as pagodas. The large roofs, usually made of tile or thatch, we're built to over lap the furthest extremities of the base, providing excellent protection from the elements. | 141 | 272 |
ELI5: Embezzlement | Embezzlement covers a rather diverse group of crimes, but let me give you a straightforward, concrete example.
Suppose Bob works at a roofing company, and part of his job is to buy roofing tiles. Bob talks to his friend Charles, who sells roofing tiles, and agrees to let Charles overcharge Bob's company for those tiles. Instead of paying $30,000 dollars for the tiles Bob needs, the company pays $50,000. The extra $20,000 is embezzled from the company. | 10 | 15 |
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Would a perfect being ever create anything? | Obviously this is about the idea of a perfect God that created the universe (or the world, or humanity, or anything really).
Doesn't creating (or *doing*) anything imply there's some kind of need that isn't being fulfilled or at least is not being maximally fulfilled, which would imply the being in question is not entirely self-sufficient? And therefore not perfect?
I'm not sure I can really wrap my head around the concept of creation for creation's sake. There surely has to be some impetus for an action. Empirically, I'm not sure anything can ever truly be done 'for it's own sake'. If this can be justified philosophically please help me understand.
I suppose it could be said that the being is creating for the sake of the creation. But if it's morally better to create something than to not create it, than wouldn't that imply that the being's morality has been greatened and our being had to have been *less* moral prior to the creation and therefore not perfect?
| Depends on what we think 'perfection' is supposed to be. It's not necessarily something that is incompatible with 'creation' - which we would also have to have a more thorough conception of. At any rate, 'self-sufficiency' need not be the determining theme.
Besides, you'd have to fit 'agency' into this. If _doing_ is an issue, it's going to have pretty serious ramifications for the notion of 'a being'.
Also, doing something moral doesn't make you _more_ moral. That's not a common conception, at least. It just means you did what was moral. Becoming "more moral" would be more akin to aligning your convictions better with whatever moral system you'd be adhering to. | 12 | 32 |
[Harry Potter] Are the owls that deliver the mail magic owls with heightened intelligence and such, or are they just regular owls that were trained by wizards? | There are presumably magical variants of otherwise ordinary creatures found in the wizarding world. For example, in Prisoner of Azkaban, when Ron was shopping for some tonic for his pet rat at Magical Menagerie, Harry and co. ran across a rabbit who was able to transform itself into a top hat at will. And the shopkeeper also pointed out a set of black mice who were not only more intelligent than the average mouse (and able to skip rope with their tails) but also had a longer-than-normal lifespan compared to an ordinary garden mouse.
Granted, it is possible that these were normal, garden variety animals that were captured by wizards and enchanted to gain higher intelligence, longer lifespans, and magical abilities, but since the shopkeeper offered to replace Scabbers rather than offering to improve Scabbers with these spells, it's unlikely (unless the shopkeeper is a middleman that buys and sells the enchanted animals but is unable to enchant them himself). | 56 | 75 |
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[DCEU] From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn't Aquaman be pale? | Asking purely from a scientific/evolutionary perspective: If the Atlantians evolved underwater for tens of thousands of years, wouldn't the lack of constant direct sunlight leave them without any melanin in their skin and hair? | There may be countervailing selection at work here - traits that are beneficial in certain circumstances, but are deleterious in others.
For example, pale skin may attract more predators in the depths and so the genes for them get weeded out even though it's metabolically more expensive to produce pigmentation. | 28 | 21 |
[The Road] What exactly destroyed the world? | While it is never directly stated in either the book or film, there are hints that can be gleaned from the details of the world. Noting the ever-present ash and the progressive cooling of the earth and darkening of the sky, we can assume that the world ending event ejected enough particles into the atmosphere to create a "nuclear" style winter. Since there doesn't seem to be huge signs pointing towards a nuclear war (no descriptions of destroyed cities or danger from fallout) we can probably assume that the collapse of civilization was due to the eruption of a super volcano or an asteroid impact. | 60 | 31 |
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Do freeze-dried fruits have the same nutritional value as fresh fruits? | Are freeze-dried fruits less nutritious than fresh fruit? Is there any kind of damage that the freeze-drying process does?
I'm not talking dried, sugared fruits, I mean just pure fruit freeze-dried. | This question depends heavily on how one defines *nutritional value*. If you mean specifically the inorganic mineral content, then the answer is flatly yes, freeze-dried fruits have the same inorganic mineral content as fresh fruits. On the other hand if you are more interested in the content of various organic compounds in the fruits, such as organic vitamins, antioxidants, or sugars, the answer becomes slightly more complex.
The freeze-drying process simply removes water from the tissue, so it should have no direct impact on the either the inorganic or organic components *at the moment of removal*. The process sort of locks in what is there by removing the water, which may have otherwise fostered an environment in which degradation of the organic compounds would have been more favored. However, it is also important to note that many nutritionally-relevant compounds continue to be synthesized in fruit throughout the ripening process, and freeze-drying would also put a halt to that.
I think most people probably do not know how freeze-drying actually works, so here is a quick overview: Fruit samples are frozen to some temperature well below the freezing point of water, and are then placed under a high vacuum. We are all familiar with the melting and boiling points of water, but what we often fail to appreciate is that these points are also dependent on pressure; 0°C and 100°C are the respective melting and boiling points for water only at 1 atm. If we increase or decrease the pressure, those points change. For example, this is why boiled foods often include "high altitude instructions", which will say something along the lines of "boil 4 minutes longer." Why? At higher altitudes there is lower atmospheric pressure, meaning the water boils at a lower temperature, which means you need to cook your food longer to compensate. Back to freeze-drying: in a high enough vacuum (i.e. low enough pressure) solid frozen water will actually be unable to melt into the liquid phase, but will instead *sublimate* directly to the gas phase. You have probably observed this phenomena in carbon dioxide, which exhibits this behavior at normal atmospheric pressures. So-called *dry ice* goes directly from a solid to gas, and in the freeze-drying process the water is behaving as a dry ice.
In freeze-drying, the water is removed in a low energy system through the process of sublimation. Because no additional energy is added, no additional reactions altering the nutritional contents of the fruit (or other food). Compare that to heated drying (or even cooking!), where energy is added and water leaves through boiling, a system favoring additional chemical reactions. These reactions may well destroy some of the desired nutritional components, though on the other hand they create other compounds with desired properties, such as flavor.
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How can one prove simply that the Earth rotates around the Sun? (I know that it does, but I have to explain it to someone who is being very stubborn/ignorant) | I know that it has to be true because the Sun is so much more massive, so the Earth would have to rotate around it and not vice versa, but the guy is even rejecting that the Sun is larger than the Earth. What would be a simple explanation/proof the Sun is larger than the Earth? | You can construct geocentric models that take into account any simple observation you might make; people did so for a long time. The way to go would be to show that heliocentric models provide simpler explanations. The usually-cited problematic observation is the apparent retrograde motion of the planets. If you watch how the planets move relative to the stars, sometimes they reverse their direction for a while. In a heliocentric model, this occurs because the earth is moving past that planet, while in a geocentric model, you generally need to assume that the planets are moving along a more complicated path. | 29 | 38 |
ELI5: How are octopi, salamanders, etc. able to regrow limbs, and why can't all animals do it? | The exact mechanism that allow animals to regrow parts of their bodies are something scientist study to figure out how to help humans. It seems very complicated and not immediately transferable, but it might give us clues as to how to help people.
The reason why humans and other similar animals can't regrow limbs when animals like Lizards can usually comes down to evolution and costs and benefits.
Keeping or evolving such a trait if it was easily done, would be more of a cost on the average individual than a benefit (especially if the individual is highly likely to die anyway after an injury like that).
Unrelated fun fact:
The plural of octopus is not octopi. Most of the words that end in -us and have an -i plural are from Latin. Octopus is Greek and Greek grammar is different. The correct Greek-derived plural is octopodes. The normal English-based plural of octopuses is the least wrong plural though. | 58 | 59 |
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How did Leibniz come to the conclusion that reality consists of single indivisible windowless monads? | I'd like to know how you can even reasonably conclude that with just reason. | Leibniz's issue, along with many others at the time, was the problem of having matter at the foundation of all substance. If we take a chair, we can divide it in half, and again, and again... Leibniz doesn't like this answer. He argues that there must be a single complete soul-like concept as a foundation of substance. This foundation can't be material because then it would just be divisible.
So he posits these *monads*. Monads are necessarily immaterial. These monads are soul-like in that they are indivisible and thus suitable for the foundation of substance. | 12 | 21 |
ELI5: Why are doctors and nurses encouraged to work such long shifts(like 14hrs +) Wouldn't the quality of care be of utmost importance, and decrease as staff get tired? | To some degree having them work longer shifts reduces the frequency of hand offs which is where a significant amount of medical errors are generated through specific details about a patient being left out and the incoming doctors ignorance of the detail possibly leading to a bad outcome. Its a trade off though as the shift gets too long the work fatigue itself can impair the providers/staff functioning. Also lot of people like the longer shifts because then they can work 3-4 days a week instead of the "standard" 5 days a week from "the prototypical work week". | 71 | 94 |
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Do molecular shapes really matter? | We all have learnt about how water molecule is "bent" , SF ₆ is octahedral , etc but does it affect the macroscopic substance we see? if it does , how does it affect it. | The bent shape of a water molecule makes it polar, and contributes to it being an excellent solvent. Life started in water, because of all the cool stuff dissolved in it. So yeah, shape is pretty important!
Proteins are molecules with complicated shapes, and the shapes determine their properties.
The double-helix of DNA allows large amounts of information to be encoded and replicated.
The macroscopic version of DNA is you) | 39 | 24 |
If the human liver can regrow itself, why don't other important internal organs regenerate? | People's livers can be cut and transplanted into other people, and then they regrow into full-size livers eventually. As far as I know, the liver is the only organ that can do this. Why can't a kidney? Or spleen, etc? | Much of an organ's ability to regenerate has to do with the importance of fine structure for the function of that organ. The human body is unfortunately kind of crappy at rebuilding fine structure past development. The kidney is a perfect example - the entire system is an intricate "pipe structure" (know as nephrons) which conduct reverse osmosis and filtration. This structure, once destroyed, is very hard to rebuild.
The liver is a different story. While it has a structure, liver cells, for the most part, all perform the same function and do it in relative isolation of one another. When part of the liver is destroyed, neighboring cells divide to fill the gap. It is important to note that even in the case of the liver, structure is lost; a single lobe will regenerate enough tissue to restore function but would not restore the multiple lobe structure of the original. | 23 | 22 |
ELI5: Why do patients who suffer severe trauma often complain of being thirsty? | Patients who have suffered a severe trauma resulting in a lot of blood loss begin to go into shock. Without enough blood to circulate the oxygen to all of their organs, muscles, etc, their body goes into a natural state of damage control. What blood supply you do have is sent to the brain/heart in an attempt to keep these 2 most vital organs running. However, with oxygen practically cut off to the rest of your body, things begin to shut down; and one of the first systems to be ignored for the "greater good" is your digestive system.
Naturally, you will experience a water craving because (even though everything is going haywire) your body wants to get back to normal and replace your blood volume. However, drinking water will cause the patient to vomit (because the digestive system is offline) which will cause further imbalances in the body and the possibility of breathing in/choking on the vomit resulting in respiratory distress. | 64 | 65 |
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ELI5: Why is it that I can buy a perfectly edible block of cheese that has "aged for 3 years," but then cheese in my fridge goes moldy in a month? | I'm fucking sick of this shit.
AND I WANT SOME FUCKING ANSWERS!!! | Usually, it has been aged in a highly controlled environment, with precise temperature, humidity, and direct inoculation of a specific strain of tasty cheese-making micro-organism(s). Your fridge has varying humidity, temperature, and is full of thousands(++) of different micro-organisms all trying to get a taste of something to keep them going. | 3,944 | 3,959 |
[Star Trek] how educated or intelligent is the average Federation citizen? | Very well educated compared to 20th century humans.
Every citizen has access to very high quality education and job training as well as access to medical technology that can level the playing field in terms of alleviating disabilities that otherwise would have had that citizen restricted from pursuing an education or work.
Imagine a world where all colleges are top tier, its completely free and you can research anything you want to pursue.
Its created a society of artisans and intellectuals. | 30 | 21 |
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ELI5: How do we know DeepMind is right? | I read that DeepMind AI solved the baffling problem of protein folding which is supposed to open new worlds in science. But if the issue is so baffling, how do we really know DeepMind is correct? | There's a class of problems, ones called NP-complete, that we know how to verify in a reasonable amount of time, but cannot solve in reasonable amount of time. Protein folding is one, so we can verify the solution and whether it's sound fairly quickly, even when finding the solution can baffle us for a long time.
Think of a jigsaw puzzle. It's a lot easier to verify if somebody completed it (is it a perfect rectangle?) than it is to actually complete it. NP-complete problems are that, at a computational scale. | 662 | 116 |
ELI5: Why do people find the dark so fearful? | Of course there can be many reasons, but is there any ultimate characteristic that is most common or something? | Evolution. Darkness presents increased risk. We as a species depend strongly upon vision, which is in particular very hindered by darkness. The same is not true of every other species, some of which are formidable predators, nor is it an inconvenience to risks like falls and other sources of injury.
So us being strongly active (ranging and the like) at night, for much of our evolutionary history, would face a greater danger to our survival than if we were to sit down and shaddup. Fear is a natural 'discourager.' | 23 | 15 |
Should residential rental investment be disincentivised? | Across the world, investing in residential housing as an investment is extremely popular. So much of people's wealth is tied up in housing.
Are there any disadvantages of this? Should residential renting be disincentivised? | Should is not a thing economics can tell you about, but here we can also talk the trade-offs present in a policy proposal so that you can decide what trade-offs you think we should make.
When an "investor" buys a house the purchase price of housing is expected to marginally increase but when they go to rent it out the rental price of housing is expected to marginally decrease. So, what actually changes when we allow investors to buy housing to rent out? The person who gets to live in the housing unit. Do you have some reason to prefer that the, on average, relatively well off get to utilize some random house instead of the, on average, relatively less well off? | 40 | 59 |
How to ask critical questions nicely at a conference | When I ask a question after a conference presentation, sometimes it’s critical in nature, but I don’t want to sound too aggressive or hurt the presenter’s feelings. So I want to sound as nice as possible and add comments like “thank you for your presentation, it’s very interesting…” before getting into the question. But sometimes this feels too superficial, and I was wondering what would be a more natural way to sound nicer when asking a critical question at a conference. | Go into it with the assumption that they considered what you're about to ask and have a good reason for having done it their way instead.
Instead of essentially phrasing "I think you should have done Y instead of X" as a question, ask "can you elaborate on your rationale for doing X instead of Y" or "what are your thoughts on also attempting this via Y" or "what do you think are the pros and cons of doing this via X vs Y."
I've seen questions asked this way a lot and answers ranged from a jovial "great idea, let's collaborate" to a thorough explanation that probably left the questioner feeling quite stupid because they were wrong (lol), to an interesting discussion about data availability/integration issues (I got to a lot of talks that are studying very large public datasets) that is helpful for many in the audience and occasionally helpful to the author as well. | 298 | 144 |
what's the expected number of meeting hours with an assistant professor mentor | I (early undergrad) was matched with an assistant professor in a mentorship program (we aren't at the same school). She runs a lab group of 15-20 people. This looks like a large group to me lol, so I suppose that she is quite busy. I hope to learn some technical/hard skills/knowledge during this mentorship program.
I am wondering what would be a suitable meeting schedule with a mentor like her? How often will we meet? How long should our meeting times last?
I don't want to come off rude by proposing a meeting schedule that's too much commitment for her, but I also don't want to propose an under-average meeting schedule as this doesn't allow me to fully take advantage of the program. Thus, I am wondering what would be considered as a suitable meeting schedule for such situations?
Any explanations would be appreciated! | Mentorship programs aren’t usually the place to learn technical/hard skills. Those would be things you get from courses or working in a research lab.
Maybe your mentorship program is set up differently, but I’d strongly recommend making sure you’re on the same page as to what this program is for. | 26 | 16 |
ELI5: Why do teeth not repair themselves after cavities? | Cavities form when bacteria (or plaques, which are biofilms or special colonies of bacteria) secrete acids and other waste products that demineralize your teeth, leaving a hole essentially. For as long as the plaque is still there, the bacteria will continue to secrete acids and if your body can't *re*mineralize as fast as the bacteria *de*mineralize, the cavity will grow. Essentially the answer to your question is because there's usually still active tooth decay going on. | 15 | 26 |
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ELI5: If you have cancer in a certain organ (like liver cancer) why can't you just remove the infected organ and be cancerfree again? | (cancer biologist / oncologist here)
* Cancer likes to infiltrate other areas and where this has happened is not always clear.
* Removing the organ might pose too much risk (e.g. you need your lungs) - this is why chemo and radiation often occur prior to any surgical removal
But yeah generally surgical removal is very effective it just depends on what kind of cancer it is, how far advanced it is, how clear the surgical margins would be, etc.
For example, breast cancer is treated rather aggressively with surgical removal of the effective tissue (so much that in some cases like dcis its considered to have an overtreatment problem) | 60 | 57 |
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(ELI5) How do hot teas help with sore throats? | Other commenters have commented on the chemical compounds within tea leaves, but there are also the important elements of heat and hydration.
So even drinking warm water without tea leaves (sometimes with honey and/or lemon, or even just plain), can provide immediate relief for sore throats because:
- **heat** reduces muscle tension, so warming up the throat helps throat muscles relax which can reduce soreness. Think about how having a hot bath or shower helps bodily muscles relax. The reason heat relaxes is because it encourages blood vessels in the area to dilate (widen) so that circulation improves.
- **hydration** is an important general treatment for illnesses that often cause sore throats, such as viral or bacterial infections. These illnesses often cause dehydration because the immune system's response is to try to expel the pathogen from the body through processes like coughing, sneezing or even vomiting or diarrhea. All of these processes cause the body to lose fluid. So rehydrating is an important priority. | 15 | 40 |
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ELI5: What is happening when a chiropractor cracks a patient’s neck/back? | First and foremost, there's no scientific study that is peer-reviewed that provides any support to chiropractic adjustments except in very specific and rare conditions. Even then, the research is so limited as to not be trusted in those scenarios and says something to the extent "adjustment *may* provide help in this situation".
The popping sound when you crack your back, knuckles, joints in general is nitrogen bubbles bursting in your synovial fluid which is the fluid that lubricates your joints like engine oil to your car. There may be a short relief of pressure in the joint until the bubbles reform which takes about 20 minutes on average. The science supports that any relief you get from adjustments is basically psychological. | 1,348 | 654 |
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Is it common for someone to be published in a big research group paper and that person not be able to fully understand/describe all of the details in that paper? | There's a popular question right now about impact factor for publications, and I thought of this question because of it. I'm not up on my science, but I know a few people who are in large groups (10 or more people sometimes in a publication) and they can't even describe what all of their paper is about. There are some sections that go over their head because other members of the team performed those experiments. For example, an experimental side and a theoretical side. The experimentalist might not understand the work of the theorists. Is this common? Does this usually only occur in very large research groups, or in specific fields like Physics but not so much in Biology? | I have been told that it is customary that if you contribute SOMETHING to the publication that you get your name placed on the paper. That something can be funding, data analysis, running a sample, any number of things. One way to add emphasis on who actually did the majority of the work is to make them the first author. But in short no you don't have to be able to fully understand/ be able to describe all of the paper to get your name on it =/ | 10 | 18 |
Why is/was Hegel considered so important and had such a great sphere of influence considering it seems almost nobody understands him? | Probably a terrible question I know | Lots of people understand Hegel. Hegel definitely has a reputation as a difficult philosopher, but he shares that reputation with many other influential philosophers, like Kant. Hegel's difficulty does not prevent people from understanding him. It just makes it tough. | 28 | 19 |
ELI5: Why are moldy food bad for us? Molds on foods like yogurt/cheese is fine, but on bread and suddenly we’re sick. | Different kinds of mold are bad for us. Like bacteria, there’s many species; some are harmful, some are harmless or even nutritious. The ones used to make moldy cheeses are carefully selected cultures that don’t harm us. The ones on your old bread or fruit that get you sick generally will digest into chemicals that make you sick. So unless you’re able to determine the species, or it’s meant to be there, don’t eat the mold. | 179 | 207 |
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ELI5: Why does the heart beat slower, on average, for athletic people compared to less athletic people? | As you improve your athletic fitness, your cardiovascular system becomes more efficient. Put another way, your body becomes better at taking the oxygen you breath in, and using it to make energy for your muscles to perform their job.
The human heart naturally adjusts based on the need to get oxygen and other supplies to tissues in the body. When you're exercising and your muscles are doing a lot of work your heartrate goes up; when you're resting, your body is doing less work so your heart rate goes down. But because athletes condition their body to efficiently provide and distribute oxygen and other nutrients through the bloodstream, they don't need as many beat cycles to provide their resting body with the supplies they need.
Think of it like a bunch of firemen in line passing along buckets of water to put out a fire. If the buckets were smaller, you'd need more buckets to get the water necessary to put out the fire. If the buckets are bigger, you need fewer buckets to get the same amount of water.
When you get in shape, it's like you have big buckets that don't spill. When you're out of shape, it's like you have smaller buckets that may spill and not get all of their water to the fire.
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ELI5: How do we know that conservation of energy is a law? How have we proved that energy cannot be created or destroyed? | A scientific law is simply a statement that holds up under repeated experimentation.
The law of conservation of energy has held up with every experiment ever thrown at it across all parts of the universe we can observe. It is verifiable with math, measurements, and tests. Is it *possible* that it's wrong (or incomplete)? Sure, but just try to prove it. | 14 | 26 |
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ELI5: Why do doctors ask the exact same questions that I just told the nurse before he came in? | ELI5: Why do doctors ask the exact same questions that I just told the nurse before he came in?
Pretty annoying. Why do they do this? | A couple of reasons:
* Easy to get charts mixed up. By asking you directly, they know for sure what your symptoms are.
* It prevents the loss of communication. What the nurse interprets and what the doctor interprets may be two different things. Getting a first-hand explanation is better than a second-hand one.
* The reason the nurse initially asks you questions is to help assess the severity of your symptoms. | 235 | 216 |
CMV: The public should be able to allocate where their taxes go | Before I start explaining my view I should say that I am from the UK and since I do not have experience with other countries systems I'll mainly be phrasing this in terms of the UK's system. The only source I could for the tax as % of gpd gives a figure for 2017-2018 so I'll be using this but the basic idea stands without it.
[Source](https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9178)
Every year when people pay tax they have very little if any say as to where the money goes and what it is spent on. I believe that a system whereby, say through the UK government's website, people could allocate and choose where their money went to within reason. The site should have the option for funding local, regional and national scale projects as well as giving additional funding to various public services. For example if you lived in Essex (one of the country's of England) you could put some additional money towards road maintenance, education, local projects and so on.
In this system on individuals would be able to allocate where the money they have paid in taxes goes and what it is spent on, businesses wouldn't be allowed this same process as a business is (normally) made up of a fair few people and so unless the business did an internal poll to decide it then it's not fair on those that didn't make the choice. Businesses wouldn't have a choice, the tax they pay would just go to the government to do with as they want.
The reason I believe that this system would be beneficial is because it allows the public to fund and allocate their money according to their interests cuts through alot of the issues that people tend to have with governments and local councils spending money on things that aren't necessarily. The government would still have its own money if you like, namely if X% of GDP is from taxes then the government would have (1-X)% to spend as it likes.
One issue with this idea is that the average person might not know choose or what's important enough to warrant their money. I have a few solutions one of which I focus on for the rest of the post. Solution 1. Before the government switches to this system it should spend time educating the population about what is and isn't important. Solution 2. A minimal budget is created for important services and projects ie in terms of the police for it would be the bare minimum needed to maintain the police force and allow them to do their jobs. In practice it might be difficult to determine such a number but let's assume it's possible and that the government only puts the relevant services in the minimal budget.
I am going to focus on solution 2. for the rest of this post but there are likely others that would work as well. The amount needed for the minimal budget should be payed for both by the governments income and the taxes of the individual. For example say the minimal budget comes out to be Z billion pounds, find the proportion of Z of the total of the governments income and the total taxes paid by individuals and then deduct that percent from everyone's taxes and the governments income ie if the proportion came out to be 50% then half of the governments budget is sent towards the minimal budget and half of each individual's taxes and spent towards it. Everyone is then free to allocate the remaining money as they wish.
Another issue is the fact that people who do not earn enough to pay tax would be largely left out and unable to access this system but that is not very different from how it is now. On the flip side those that earn a lot of money and so (hopefully) pay a lot of tax would have a larger impact and influence when it comes to allocating their money and this is completely true but again is not very different from how it is now and might even hopefully encourage them to pay more tax.
I admit that I'm not a qualified economist or anything like that so the long term effects it would have on the economy if any I cannot say so please if you do criticize that please explain as best as you can as simply as you can.
There are of course more things to consider such as what happens if a non essential project doesn't reach its desired funding? Should it go ahead with the amount it received or should it have to wait until it reaches its goal among other issues.
TLDR: In this system people (not businesses) would be able to choose where their tax money went to and could act as another kind of voting if you like to represent public interest. | Average members of the public have little to no understanding of civil engineering, macroeconomics, national defense, and a host of other topics that are relevant to various functions of government. We don't understand how much things cost and how much they pay out, and even how to quantify the latter in many cases. In democracies, we (in theory) elect people specifically so that they can make it their job to understand these issues as well as they can, and to consult experts in doing so. It's a full-time job.
If we went with your proposal, then flashy programs would make out very well but the more mundane, and often more essential, would go critically underfunded. Goodbye, waste management. See ya, coastal drainage studies. So long, regular clearance of fire-hazard dry brush.
Moreover, many government programs rely not just on quantity of funding but predictability too. They build multi-year budgets that require a consistent stream of funds, but your plan would make that funding follow the fleeting whims of the public. That would be utterly devastating for the efficacy of these multi-year plans.
The root problem of this plan is its disorganization. It would be one thing to suggest that lawmakers build a budget and then put that budget to a public vote (direct democracy). There are difficulties in that still, but you're at least working with a single plan assembled as a cohesive entity from the start. Even *if* the public had a good idea of what a government budget should look like, they wouldn't know what to do with their small part of it without knowing what everyone else was also doing with their own parts. No, the way to make your voice heard is to organize your community and *call* your representative, whether local, national, or other. It's their job to negotiate how funds are apportioned, and if you make it a reelection issue they'll try to get the package you want, especially if it's for a concrete local plan. | 19 | 20 |
[Marvel/DC] If it was possible to create a Lantern Corps based around each of the different Infinity Gems what would they be like and who would use them? | Power Gem - enhances strength, durability and has energy powers-- given to those who come from weak backgrounds, deep with insecurities, those who want power for control or to never have fear. Given to? Legionnaires: Bruce Banner, Cain Marko, Jessica Jones.
Time Gem - Time Travel, slow or accelerate time, clairvoyance; draw to people too obsessed to live in the present moment, those prone to distraction by the past or future. Legionnaires: Drax the Destroyer, Cable, Steve Rogers.
Space Gem - Teleportation. Drawn to outsiders, those who feel they fit no place; wanderers. Legionnaires: Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner, Logan Hewlett, Amadeous Cho.
Soul Gem - Omniscience for souls, ability to steal souls; given to the spiritual and spiritually tormented. Legionnaires: Johnny Blaze, Doctor Strange, Frank Castle, Matt Murdock, Adam Warlock.
Reality Gem - Reality alteration. Given to the mad and the utterly sane- those who live in their own realities and those with deep understanding of reality itself, as a counter balance. Legionnaires: Scarlet Witch, Reed Richards. Science and humanities, madness and super sanity, objective remove and subjective passion- there can only be two wielders, as any less would leave one in control of reality and any more would destroy it in the resultant confusion.
Mind Gem - Telekinesis, telepathy, with limitless power. Drawn to empaths. Legionnaires: Charles Xavier, Jean Grey. | 89 | 64 |
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CMV: If I'm not educated in a field, I shouldn't be highly opinionated (specifically economics/politics) | In my professional life I'm a programmer of about 3 years or so. I know a decent amount, but I also know how much I don't know. Every field is extremely complicated, and requiring years of study to gain any real understanding. I don't know anything about physics, chemistry, civil engineering, economics, or political science, so I generally don't form opinions on them.
I wouldn't walk over to a chemist and tell them they're using the wrong instrument.
If someone's car broke down in the middle of the road, I wouldn't just start pulling pieces out.
So why should that change for economics or politics? How could I take a stance on universal healthcare, or increasing minimum wage, if I have no actual understanding of what that entails because that's not my field. I'd just be picking which one sounds nicer, and obviously more money and free stuff sounds nice.
I feel like this is the case for the vast majority of the world. Very few people actually study economics and political science and yet we have people extremely polarized vs the opposing side.. Isn't this intellectually dishonest? | I don’t think either is comparable to computer programming and I’m speaking as someone who was a minor in economics
Programming, and other technical skills and scientific fields, are about learning a pattern of facts and knowledge that can help you work within a specific field
Politics and economics are about your own personal interests in society
If politics and economics were equivalent to the sciences, then there’d be no need for democracy. The “experts” would run everything.
To their benefit. Because, of course they would. Because politics and economics is about personal interest and your groups interest, it’s not a technical skill, it’s the struggle for power and resources. | 155 | 261 |
When to mention/not mention that I want a position partly due to its location? | I'm writing cover letters. In addition to touting my qualifications and experience, for what types of jobs should I mention that the area has specific appeal to me, either because of family proximity or something else?
My understanding is that an R1 TT job does not want to hear this, but that smaller teaching school might. What about a medical research job? | I can’t speak for R1 schools or medical gigs, but speaking as someone who has served on and chaired search committees, knowing you have family nearby means you might be more inclined to stay in the position, which is a plus. I’d rather hire someone who is looking to put down roots than someone who sees the position as a stepping stone to something better, meaning another search for the same position in the near future. | 43 | 18 |
If photons have no mass, how do they have momentum? | I was reading that E=pc for photons, however, isn't p=mv? I'm probably missing some critical background here :P | It's better to think of momentum as something that moving objects have, rather than an explicit product of mass and velocity. p=mv just applies to slow moving objects, as an approximation.
The full relationship between energy, mass, and momentum is E^(2)=(pc)^(2) + (mc^(2))^2 | 275 | 377 |
ELI5: Why do fruits and vegetables have more vitamins than other foods? | Not to be too flippant, but the reason why fruits and vegetables have so many vitamins is because fruits and vegetables have so many vitamins. Let me explain… evolutionarily speaking, these are things the body needs but can’t produce. Many are things our distant ancestors could produce, but can’t anymore. The reason is that they are plentiful in the easier-to-get food and can be absorbed from them, so losing that ability is not something that would cause you to not be able to survive to childbearing age or raise children. There are other genetic issues people can have that cause the body to not be able to produce certain things, but because our common foods can’t supply them either (or our bodies can’t absorb them through the gut), they are considered genetic diseases instead of the missing things just being labeled “vitamins”.
So the reason these foods have so many chemicals we consider “vitamins” is that they were plentiful and thus our bodies didn’t have evolutionary pressure to keep making it ourselves. | 41 | 16 |
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Since the CoronaVirus has a limited lifecycle outside of human body (up to 3 days on different surfaces) can the masks left unattended be reused? | If not, why? What are safe ways to disinfect face masks in household conditions?
Edit: Some have claimed that virus on the surfaces can stay infectious for longer than 3 days. I was unable to verify this claim, however. Please do your own research and don't believe what some guy on reddit said. | The newest CDC guidelines contain several reuse strategies, the easiest - if you still have supplies, that is - is to dispense 5 masks/respirators to staff. Have them number them and or the bags they go into, using one mask per day and then placing it into the paper bag (please be careful not to contaminate the inside of the mask). After the fifth day, you start over at mask #1. The research from UNMC suggests that after about 3 days they don't seal well and need to be tossed, but with the rotation that could get you several weeks of use. | 4,369 | 12,362 |
[Star Trek/General Sci-Fi] What prevents an aggressor from simply orbiting a planet in their ship and locking on to all of the inhibits hearts and teleporting said organ out of the body. Seems like an easy way to pirate planets. | Easy? Even a small colony likely has a couple hundred residents. Have you ever worked with a transporter?
Even assuming you have the proper equipment, such as many banks of extra buffers, and power supply for a large scale transport job like that you still have to target all these individuals. Oh, and not just the individuals but specific organs! Even from people who may be on the opposite side of the planet from current orbital position! Yea, good luck getting that kind of range.
Hell, remove the technical limitations you're still talking about a lot of calculations necessary to get this done. Not really possible and even if it was possible it certainly wouldn't be easy! | 30 | 51 |
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ELI5: Why do small blood vessels become visible in your eyes when you’ve been awake for too long? | Optometrist here. The vessels dilate so more blood can flow through them, bringing in oxygen. Happens when our eyes are opened for too long or we are wearing contact lenses too much or just eyes dry. The eyes from far away appears to be pinkish/red due to these vessels being more visible than before.
I don't think this was really discussed at school at all actually but that's the train of thought!
Edit: Someone mentioned the use of visine, EXCELLENT POINT that i want to add (because i"m constantly telling people): DON'T OVER USE VISINE. Tetrahydrozoline is the decongestant ingredient. Overuse causes REBOUND REDNESS, the opposite of what you want. Visine makes your blood vessels constrict, which sounds like a good idea since vasodilation is the culprit. But keeping a constant blood vessel tone is a delicate balance between vaso constriction/dilation. The constant Visine use tricks your eyes into thinking that it already reached that balance of vaso constriction/dilation, so now when you take the visine away (which did the constriction), your eyes will vasoDILATE because there is nothing to oppose it, causing the rebound redness. It's great if you use it once in a while for allergies/occasional redness, but it's not for long term. Also don't use it if you have family history of glaucoma.
Go for something more natural. Like artificial tears. (no specific brand recommended because YMMV for most of them). | 2,915 | 5,356 |
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ELI5: What is (or was) the point of wisdom teeth? | Anthropologists believe wisdom teeth, or the third set of molars, were the evolutionary answer to our ancestor’s early diet of coarse, rough food – like leaves, roots, nuts and meats – which required more chewing power and resulted in excessive wear of the teeth.
The modern diet with its softer foods, along with marvels of modern technologies such as forks, spoons and knives, has made the need for wisdom teeth nonexistent. As a result, evolutionary biologists now classify wisdom teeth as vestigial organs, or body parts that have become functionless due to evolution.
They are typically removed because human jaws have become smaller throughout evolutionary history, when wisdom teeth form they often become impacted, or blocked, by the other teeth around them. | 13 | 25 |
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Why can we talk in our heads? | Hey guys, I've always wondered how we are able to talk in our heads. I can say a whole sentence in my head and when I think about that it seems crazy that we can do that. So how are we able to speak in our head without saying it? | Language related information in the brain is represented at different levels of abstraction. At one end of the spectrum you have the basic visual and/or auditory input coming in from our sensory organs. This information must be preprocessed and analyzed by sensory cortex to reach the point at which we represent it as an actual word form. At the next level, word forms are represented amodally (i.e. equivalently across sensory modalities) and are linked to their grammatical properties. Finally you reach the other end of the spectrum of abstraction where words are linked to their semantic content.
In language production this process is essentially reversed, the primary difference being the fact that the lowest level of abstraction is motor programming of the mouth and throat rather than input from the eyes and ears. Inner speech essentially just stops short of this lowest level - auditory word forms and their grammar are represented, but we don't actually send the necessary information to enunciate them.
It's worth pointing out that not all of our thoughts - even complex, abstract ones - are "spoken" to ourselves in this way. Mental imagery is a good counterexample.
As to why, in an ultimate sense, we have/make use of this ability: from an evolutionary perspective it may simply be a spillover benefit from language (which of course is hugely adaptive for us). However, given the role of language in enhancing working memory via the phonological loop, it may also give us the capacity to think about more at the same time. | 672 | 1,239 |
CMV: Not everyone who thinks they might be transgender is transgender | Throwaway because I am active in the trans subs.
There is a party line in the transgender reddit community whereby if someone posits they might be transgender, the response is to convince them they are. This includes sharing personal experiences which mirror those of the OP, which is great and supportive and helpful. But it also means that anyone who expresses a dissenting opinion is silenced, even though there are other explanations for someone possibly feeling trans. Someone can experiment and question their gender similarly to the way people do for sexuality: trying on different hats, not committing to one identity until they find what fits. There seems to be a little bit of a conveyor-belt mentality within the trans community, in which newly questioning trans people are placed on the path to transition, even though that [may not be the best decision for everyone.](https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42#.s6xppgrr9)
The negative impact is that people who are not transgender but get caught up in the idea eventually realize it and often become some of the biggest opponents of the trans community, erroneously concluding that since they are not transgender and transition didn't help them, it won't help anyone. Also, these people have been demonstrably harmed by the transgender community, which sucks.
I understand WHY this is the modus operandi. When the rest of society is constantly trying to attack us and delegitimize our identities, it makes sense to band together and defend ourselves. I just don't see how telling someone they may not be trans delegitimizes our experiences.
Anyone, I would appreciate having my V C'd because I feel like this is one of the things preventing me from being a proper advocate for the community.
Edit: Changed "from" to "for" in the last line.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | I would say because if someone tells you you're not trans, a highly stigmatized identity, you're more likely to believe them than process your identity, whereas if they believe that you are trans it only forces you to reexamine further. | 10 | 19 |
CMV: We should be focusing on impoverished people who show innate talent and potential, just lack the resources | I think a lot of people in poverty are brilliant, just lack opportunity, and while I’m not saying abandon the poor who aren’t talented, I think we should be focusing resources on kids with potential. For instance, in Germany, by age 12 it is determined whether or not you are able to attend university. While this is a result of rationing in the more socialistic way, as most German Universities are public (to my knowledge), however In the US such a system would never be allowed (nor should it).
However, kids who perform very well from the inner city or rural communities should be given access to good schools, funding, etc. These are the people that will make a difference in the world. I know everyone would love equality, but that doesn’t exist because humans aren’t equal. I have family members that didn’t go to college because they simply (despite being able to afford it) weren’t academically talented enough, and went into trades. I believe that when we talk about improving the lives of the poor, this should be considered. My cousin may not be smart enough for university, but he’s a damn good plumber and makes a great living.
On top of this, so many kids have student loans up to their neck because they study things that don’t provide solid career paths (shout out to all the gender studies majors, im sure what you learn is interesting and important, but nobody will hire you)
Is it wrong to support people differently based on talent? Because I feel like that’s the best way to approach it with the smallest amount of waste. Focus kids where they should focus, don’t tell them they’re screwed if they don’t go to college, or that college is the only way out of poverty because it definitely isn’t
People are different, some are more talented, some are better looking, some are more creative, some are smarter, why shouldn’t we focus public spending on these attributes instead of blanket funding public schools that never seem to actually get better, or use the funding properly? (Im looking at you, Baltimore schools who had no heat all winter, and somehow afforded to bus kids to DC with a free lunch to march in the gun rally, give me a break) | Some of the largest social effects from education come from the most basic things. For example, illiteracy alone is massively associated with all kinds of bad outcomes. Same with basic math skills. You may think we aren't doing anything for the guy with a 90 IQ who never goes to college or fails out the first year, but most likely that person still has received enough education to fill out a job application, read his mail, pay his taxes, and probably operate a personal computer. When people fall behind in those basic things into adulthood, it costs our society a lot.
This is in addition to the fact that we already have a lot of programs and tracks dedicated to people with gifted abilities. | 10 | 42 |
ELI5: the financial term "total cost of ownership" as opposed to say, buying and running costs | Financial experts of reddit: I think I understand the usefulness of TCO (total cost of ownership) but I'm at a loss when asked to explain it. Most people I know prefer buying or running costs as for appliances but I don't see how to persuade them that TCO will give a better overall picture. Or doesn't it? | well...
Theres several things you have to take in to account.
It depends if its something you plan to trow away or resell after you´re done using, what it consumes while operating, if you have to get additional services for it.
Lets say a car
You buy a car for 25,000 dollars,
So you fill the tank (40 bucks) once a week, thats $2040 a year.
Insurance thats around 1000 a year,
mechanical service/oil changes/wheel change around another 500 a year.
you keep it for 5 years so its 3540 x5 thats 17700 dollars. but you sell the car on for 10,000 dollars,
So total cost of ownership over the 5 years was the price of the car plus the price of running costs with the resale price deducted.
So over 5 years the car costed you (25000 + 17700) - 10000,
total cost of ownership was 32700.
but lets say a TV,
You get a 37" TV for 400 bucks, the TV consumes 50 bucks of electricity a year, you keep the TV for 4 years, and then sell it for 150 bucks,
TV cost + Running cost - sale price.
(400 + 200) - 150, the total cost of owning that TV was 450 bucks. | 16 | 25 |
[Star Wars] How bleak/difficult is life for the average person in the Galaxy? As in, on a scale of Awfulness from 1 to 10 (1 being us, 10 being Warhammer 40K). | Has the answer varied a lot through the different time periods we see, or remained consistently good/bad throughout? | It depends on the world you live on, and your personal circumstances.
Most people living on Alderaan (before it was blown up) would've been comfortable at worst, decadent at best. It would still have its own pockets of poverty - most planets do - but on the whole it would be better than say... Earth.
If you live on Coruscant, if you live on the surface you're well-off. The further underground you go, the worse you tend towards - with a few exceptions of people who can exert power.
If you live on Tatooine... dude, you're fucked. | 409 | 509 |
How is density measured in porous materials? | If I want to measure the density of the material a sponge is made of, how do I go about that? For liquids I imagine you put it in a vacuum chamber on a scale. For metals I imagine you melt it down and do the same. Am I right? | You can use helium pycnometry to determine real densities of solids, essentially you calibrate a pressure vessel to determine it’s volume, then fill the volume with a known mass of sample, and then recheck the volume of the vessel, giving density of your sample, you can do archimedes method as well, much less accurate and requires attention to solubility | 112 | 177 |
How comes the sand of most beaches is yellow and very few beaches have either white or black/gray sand? Aren't white/black/gray rocks way more common ? | Most beaches are made of one of two things: quartz or carbonate.
When you take those black/gray rocks and start eroding them and breaking them down, the quartz (which is nominally clear, but when in a big pile ends up being sort of yellow) is the last thing to survive that is sand-sized. Most of the darker minerals break down into clay (which floats away from beaches) or into dissolved minerals. They will often have a few percent of dark grains - they will actually be concentrated in lags by wave actions. Look at the last dribbles of water in an outgoing wave and you will see dark grains being the last ones to be deposited. This is density sorting just like you would use to pan for gold - except the least dense minerals are deposited last.
Places where you get dark sand beaches will have a source of igneous rock nearby; that is why you get black sand beaches on Hawaii. The dark volcanic material gets to the beach and hasn't had time to break down yet.
Carbonate accumulates when organisms that produce it die. These organisms include most things with shells like clams and corals, even though most of what you will find on a beach is the remnants of carbonate forming plants. Carbonate beaches are common at low latitudes - think the Bahamas and Florida. | 38 | 34 |
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ELI5:"Time heals all wounds" What exactly is happening here? Why do you feel less "hurt" as time passes? | It takes time to understand and process what happened, your hormones and emotional state have a chance to return to relative normalcy, and you adjust to your new existence as a slightly hurt person.
Imagine the string of an instrument being plucked, it strongly vibrates, and the disturbance dissipates over time.
Your current emotional state is sort of the sum of all the things that have happened to you, but the more recent things have a larger effect. So over time your wound is "healed."
Obviously, in terms of physical wounds, if it isn't permanent damage then the passage of time allows your body to repair itself. So because time allows us to adjust to emotional hurt, and to repair ourselves from physical hurt, it heals "all" wounds. | 20 | 22 |
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CMV: A Person Dying Should Not Exempt Them from Negative Opinion | This view has largely been sparked by the passing of xxxTentacion and has caused much controversy in my area. The idea that "speaking ill of the dead" is wrong and abhorrent seems like an aged and counterproductive concept. Why should someone, notably those of questionable character and impact, be suddenly free of all criticism simply because they are now dead? I obviously understand the social implications of speaking ill of, say, someone's deceased son. However, if that son were a character of questionable morality (criminal, warped views, etc) then perhaps I could see reason in doing so. This taboo is certainly a sensitive subject but should find no place in constructive dialogue.
I hope I have made my view clear.
Edit: Many different posts have all found a typical agreement that I can get behind: there should be a period of time, however long it may be, where the dead should be allowed time for family and friends can reflect and the world can reflect on the loss. I still firmly believe the dead should not be exempt from negative opinion, but having that peace time feels important too. | There are times to speak. And there are times to refrain from speaking.
The hours and days after a person has died are a time for silent reflection on the life of the person who has died, on world we are left with that has a human sized gap in it, and on our own mortality.
To quickly fill that silence with chatter and opinions robs us and those around us with that opportunity for reflection. | 766 | 2,594 |
I believe modern feminists should refer to themselves as egalitarians. CMV. | The feminists I have met want equality for everyone. The word for that is 'egalitarian', and that term also benefits because it loses the whole stigma around radical feminists (though few really exist - ideas of radfems seem to be perpetuated by people misunderstanding regular feminists).
I feel the word 'feminism' implies tackling equality issues that adversely affect women - and this has some historical truth, but modern feminists take pains to distance themselves from this. Women in the past had to *fight* against severe, one-sided inequalities. Gender inequalities today are more complex than 40 years ago, and require improvements for both men and women. Feminism has evolved, to become synonymous with 'egalitarianism', and I feel this also cheapens the battles fought earlier in history as the word is diluted.
I am concerned that the word 'feminism' alienates people who would otherwise be supportive of egalitarian principles, if only they understood that's what feminism is supposed to *mean* nowadays. The historic baggage is heavy, and the name is tarnished by supposed radical feminists.
I do not believe feminism in the Western world is a cause unique enough to justify its continued existence alongside the egalitarian movement. CMV. | Part of the reason feminism emerged as a distinct movement is precisely because egalitarianism historically failed to actually address women's equality. Part of the supposed goal of secular humanism was always *supposed* to be true egalitarianism, but whenever women leaders in the movement pressed to get women's issues address, such as women's suffrage, reproductive rights, equal wages and so on, they found themselves being told "yes that is important, but maybe later." Worse yet, women's voices in a lot of these movements were often entirely disregarded, as male hierarchies tended to assert themselves even in these supposedly egalitarian settings. Eventually, many women got fed up with this supposedly "egalitarian" movement that was not in actual practice egalitarian towards women, recognizing that this seemingly pleasant word managed to cover up for a lot of deeply ingrained prejudices and, yes, even patriarchal hierarchies. It is in this environment that feminism was born, and it is for this reason that many feminists are suspicious of those that claim the mantel of egalitarianism. | 221 | 247 |
How do we know redshifting is due to the universe expanding? What if it's an effect similar to friction, so the wave loses energy as it travels through space, and it's just more noticeable from the extremely distant galaxies? | I ask party out of curiosity, but also because the idea of space expanding so fast that light can never reach us really kinda freaks me out. | With respect to photons losing energy as they travel, one has to understand that, although we perceive light as taking billions of years to reach us, in the frame of reference of a photon, the journey is instantaneous. There is no opportunity for a photon to "leak" energy, or change in any other way, as it travels.
In fact, the same argument has been reversed to demonstrate that another type of particle, the neutrino, must have mass: neutrinos come in different varieties, and the ratio of those varieties change as neutrinos move through space. This implies that the neutrinos have time to randomly change from one type to another as they travel, meaning that they travel at less than the speed of light, meaning that, unlike photons, they must have a nonzero rest mass. | 298 | 948 |
ELI5: Why do older bath towels absorb water so much better than brand new towels? | Brand new cotton fibers have a layer of natural oil in them that improved softness. New towels may also be treated with oils or waxes to enhance the softness of the cotton fibers. These oils prevent the fibers from absorbing liquid efficiently.
After several washings the oils no longer remain. The towel dies not feel as soft, but it gets you dry quicker. | 6,678 | 9,531 |
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ELI5: What happens when you blank-out whilst driving and realise 5 minutes later you haven't paid attention, but also haven't crashed? | This is a really hard thing to ask unless it's happened to you (and I am sure that it has).
So you're driving a car. One minute you are paying complete attention to the road/traffic/etc, the next some thought forms in your head, or you just go blank and after getting side-tracked, you suddenly realise that you haven't been fully concentrating on the road. Yet you're waiting before a traffic light, or still driving etc. all without having an accident.
What happens? It's almost like some kind of 'auto-pilot' brain mode. | Once something is "learned" - like hardwired into your brain cells -, you don't have to use as much "resources" as you had the first few times. Here, repetition and interaction is the key. The brain can be "programmed" in the sense that if you do the "same" task over and over again, the brain "builds" a specific set of combinations that facilitate the travel of the electrical pulses that help your motor coordination to work smoothly.
Which means that the workload that was executed in your brain to performed that task gets "memorized" and "optimized". It's more technical than that, but essentially the brain devises shorter routes and faster pulses to deal with that task. In some way, is like the brain "understands": "*Ok, this is somehow important, let's make it semi-reflexive.*"
You can still maintain focus on it, since the parts of the brain that deal with attention, the right cerebral hemisphere, the "back" part of your parietal lobe, the cerebellum a little and the brain stem, can take control some of our reflexive actions, such as breathing, which you normally do regardless of your attention to it, but can also control it if necessary.
In a way, you brain works together with you and what you do. When you "space out", the brain - obviously, it does not have its own will, but it works based on what you do or don't do - takes control of the now well known process necessary to drive. Since you have done it before plenty of times, the brain "doesn't need" you to do it anymore. You are still paying attention in some way, which is why you can remember what happened and realize that you weren't exactly completely focused, but the brain power necessary to perform that task was optimized, so sometimes you don't need to feel so "alert", specially if you heart beatings are low - if you are calm or sleepy, in a way.
However, it's important to point out that driving is a highly complex task for the brain. Your "auto-pilot" **cannot deal with unexpected stimuli**. Which means that it will do what you have done a thousand times before, but not something new. If someone cuts you off or breaks too suddenly, everything is "shut down" and the part of your brain that deals with self-defense kicks in. Blood pressure goes up and the brain starts to handle this as a "fight or flight" situation. Now, in a way, you're on your own. If you were in auto-pilot, it takes "a little longer" for the brain to get everything ready to kick ass than it would take if you were paying attention - since this paying attention side of your brain also works together with other parts in a "fight or flight" situation. It's partially activated already, so your reflex is faster.
To sum up, if you're in a deserted road, it's ok to space out a little every now in then. If you're going Fast & Furious Detroit Drift, than you better pay attention to what you're doing. It might not look like it, but you're carrying a very heavy weapon. | 47 | 57 |
How long would it take two separate groups of humans to develop obvious differences genetically? | For example, one very large group of humans, say 250,000, went to another planet. Humans somehow are unable to contact them or send new supplies or people. If we assume that they all live, how long would it take for thee new group to have obvious differences in their genetics? By this I don't mean small things and I am just using the space example to explain what I mean. The groups could be separated by anything and this question could also apply to other animals. Also how long(or how many generations) would it take for the animals to not be able to reproduce? | It would depend on how different the selective pressure were between to the two locations.
If your other planet had 10x the UV radiation, it might only take a couple generations for all the light skinned people to die off. | 10 | 19 |
Not a philosophical question per se, but are there any articles that deal with the question of why wisdom in the Classical world is feminine? Why is it Lady Philosophy? Why Athena goddess of wisdom? | You can do all sorts of etymologizizing metaphysics, but the only truly philological explanation is going to be the fact that the word σοφία (*sophia*, wisdom) or sapientia (same) are feminine. The same sort of matter-of-fact explanation holds in other contexts. Why is it the god*dess '*Roma'? The word *Roma* is feminine. Etc. | 30 | 46 |
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ELI5: Why is it that when it's dark you see with less detail on your fixation point and have to use the area around it? | There are two kinds of light receptors in the eye, rods and cones. Cones give you color perception and work better with higher light levels. Rods work better in lower light levels and for detecting motion (because they respond to light changes faster) but aren't sensitive to specific colors.
The center of your field of vision is mostly done with cones and the periphery is mostly rods. | 17 | 15 |
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ELI5: why does inbreeding cause issues? | I never understood why inbreeding is said to cause defects. In a pond of guppies, it's normal for them to be inbred for decades at a time, but this isn't the case for more complex animals? I understand how only having the same genes might make you more susceptible to some diseases, but wouldn't you be no more unhealthy than your parents? And if you had good genes that are immune to serious illnesses, wouldn't inbreeding keep those genes active?
Edit: I had a slight suspicion that it'd come to GoT. But thanks for answering my question :D | Not sure what your background with genetics is so I'll start at the basics. There are two types of genes: dominant and recessive. Dominant genes always actually affect your body. Recessive ones only show up if you receive them from both parents.
That being said you definitely have a ton of recessive genes that have no effect on your body because you only relieved them from one parent. Furthermore, your genes mutate, and those mutations either show up or they don't. As such, you likely have some weird mutated genes that would be really bad if they were dominant, but they aren't.
You will pass those genes to your kids, just like your parents passed their weird mutations to you.
The only people that will ever have those genes are people related to you.
If you have sex with a person not related to you, you'll pass on your dad's recessive gene that makes all your skin fall off and your partner will pass on her dominant gene that makes that not happen. If you have sex with your sister, you could both pass on the recessive skin fall of gene and now you've created a skinless baby | 3,692 | 2,349 |
ELI5: how is it possible that we can only see between 430-770 Thz and hear 20hz-20khz? Does that mean there are things around us we just cannot hear or see? | EDIT: if aliens were real, and they were on a different spectrum/wavelength is it possible they could be anywhere and we would have no clue?
SECOND EDIT: wow thank you all so much for your responses. I’ll try my best to read through all the comments! | Sure, there are lots of things we can't see or hear.
The chemicals in your eyes are only sensitive to narrow wavelengths of visual light. Anything outside that is invisible to us.
You can not, for example, see the infrared light emitted by your TV remote. But your phone camera can, to a certain degree. Go into a dark room, point your TV remote at your phone camera, and you should see it light up.
Same thing with sound. Your eardrum and middle ear bones are only able to resonate within a certain frequency range. Go above and the bones are too heavy to move that quickly, go below and the eardrum is too small to be put in motion by such a long wavelength. | 7,942 | 10,192 |
ELI5: What kind of things does MI6 and the Secret Service actually do? | The Secret Service is in charge of investigating counterfeiters, and provide protection services for the President, Vice President, Senators, Congressmen, and various other Dignitaries and their families in the US.
MI6 is the British Foreign intelligence Service. They spy on other countries, and attempt to counter spies in Britain though that is the primary purpose of MI5. The US counterpart to MI6 would be the CIA, and the counterpart to MI5 would be both the FBI and NSA. | 32 | 30 |
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ELI5: Semicolon: How to? | I'd like to think I paid enough attention in English class to effectively punctuate, but I am lost as to how and when I would ever use a semicolon. Examples would be great. | Use it to join two closely related thoughts; each half should be able to stand alone as a sentence, but the sum is clearer when they are not fully separated.
You can also use semicolons to separate a list in which individual items contain commas. I've traveled to Bangor, Maine; Paris, Texas; and Memphis, Tennessee. | 76 | 46 |
ELi5: How do food manufacturers know how many calories are in the food? | For example, say I was a company who grew tomatoes. How would I find out how many calories are in the tomatoes? Thanks! | They use Food Calorimetry, basically they burn a sample of the food and the energy released heats some water, the temperature change is a measure of the amount of calories.
This tells you how many calories are in the food, it doesn't necessarily tell you how many calories you'll actually absorb from the food when you consume it (which can be impacted by variables like gut microbe composition). | 52 | 21 |
ELI5: Standard deviation | I've read the Wikipedia article a couple times, but I still haven't quite grasped it. | The standard deviation basically gives you an idea of how far apart all the different measurements in a set are.
When you have a set of numbers, the average (called the mean) equals all the numbers added up, then divided by the amount of numbers.
The standard deviation tells describes the *average distance* of the measurements from the mean. The average distance to the average value. The bigger the difference, the larger the standard deviation. This tells you something about thing that you're measuring. Let's say you're tracking the scores of your classmates on the latest English exam. If the average (mean) is 6.7, and the standard deviation is 0.3, it means that your classmates, on average, scored pretty close to that grade. If the standard deviation is 2.9, it means that your classmates' scores were all over the place, some scoring very high, some scoring very low.
Very simple example:
> take these 5 numbers: 3 9 7 4 2.
> Mean: **5**
> Std. deviation: **2.6** (rounded down).
This means that the average 'distance' from the average (5) is 2.6 (either up or down).
Edit: clarification | 24 | 75 |
ELI5: How does a male animal know he's the father of offspring when there could have been multiple partners much less he doesn't know how the reproductive process works? | Not all of them do and it depends highly on the animal. There are some male birds which will "rape" female birds so that the female's mate will raise the child. Female penguins will actually engage in a form of prostitution where the let other males have sex with them in exchange for rocks to build a nest. Cuckoo's have evolved so that they can get entirely different species to accept their offspring as their own.
Among many other species, the males just don't care and the burden of child rearing lies on the females. | 35 | 39 |
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ELI5: How does the eye-sight-measuring machine at the glasses shop actually give you the exact number of your eyesight? | Lenses work both ways. The machine is basically getting a camera trained on your retina and then ‘auto-focusing’ until it sees a clear image of your retina. Software then calculates the properties of your lens based on the amount of focusing it required to get that clear picture of your retina. | 5,721 | 10,115 |
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ELI5: How can two (or more) languages be mutually intelligible yet not be considered the same language? | So Danish and Swedish are an example of languages that are mutually intelligible, apparently, yet if thats the case, how are they not considered the same language? If a Danish speaker can understand a Swedish speaker, then what makes the two separate languages and not just like… really distant dialects (like a Scottish accent + slang vs an English accent + slang)?
I’m very confused! | But mutual intelligibility is not the only requirement in distinguishing languages and isn't a simple binary. Rather it is a spectrum that relates to the level of effort a person that knows one language has to expend in order to understand someone of the second language.
Also there are different kinds of intelligibility, notably "lexical" (being able to understand the language in writing) and "phonetic" (being able to understand the language verbally).
With respect to Danish and Swedish specifically, while there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, there are enough lexical and phonetic differences for them to be considered different languages. | 37 | 16 |
ELI5: How did Seth Bling manage this code injection in Super Mario World? | Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0
I have no understanding of coding so most of the jargon used is completely over my head. My basic understanding is that he performed some moves to put the game into a debug mode and then somehow sent the code for Flappy Bird to the game.
How did he do it without using any extra equipment?
What was the idea of having extra controllers with buttons taped down?
EDIT: Thanks to everyone for your answers and taking the time to explain.
| Start with: Computers are (to oversimplify) really complicated calculators. This also goes for video game consoles (and their emulators)
Video games (like all programs) are ultimately really complicated calculations.
In order to reduce the load on a computer's ability to perform the "calculations" (aka reduce lag when playing the game and save space on whatever storage media the game is on), corners are cut in the amount of space for calculations.
You can think of thi
s as limiting each l
ine of a paragraph t
o 20 characters.
Any overflow from one line juts down to the line that follows it.
Playing the video game by performing very specific and well-timed actions can cause a value (an object's identifier in the code, the time registered by the game at that specific point of time, the vertical and horizontal location of a very specific object on a screen, etc.) to be copied or forced into the next line. **This is code injection**.
Every program will have its own tolerance for code injection. Seth Bling (and those like him) enjoy finding and exploiting the possible outcomes of code injection. | 26 | 80 |
[Star Trek] Why are Vulcans often misunderstood by human Starfleet officers? | The emotional "deficits" generally exhibited by Vulcans are similar to the symptoms of high functioning autistic individuals, right? Shouldn't officers have at least a passing knowledge of this comparison and use that information for better relations between the species, by relating to Vulcans like they would autistic individuals? | Also remember that Vulcans are largely a secretive and traditional race. Humans that join Starfleet are a largely rare breed and those that excel are rarer still. They have to be a combination of scientist, diplomat and soldier, which not many people are capable of doing. Vulcans with that same aptitude are even rarer than that.
Most Vulcans keep to their planet, or ships made by Vulcans or crewed by all Vulcans. This is logical to them. If they deviate from their centuries of tradition, or consort too much with more volatile species, they might find themselves slipping back into unbridled passion and unchecked logic. They don't express emotions, but they do feel them, and the fear of regressing back into those old ways frightens Vulcans more than anything.
So they keep themselves isolated and a little stagnant. Unfortunately, this means few people really understand Vulcans. Add on top of that the already inherent difficulties of another species trying to understand the culture of another and you have a recipe for constant misunderstanding.
| 32 | 48 |
[DC] How does a Green Lantern abilities work? | Ok so i know the Green Lantern is powered by Willpower and using that you create it constructs or use its abilities but for the complex stuff like for example if you want to create a robot then besides willpower do you have to actually know how the robot is made or just imagine and will it? or what about Time Travel, does the user have to know anything or just will themselves to time travel?
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Note: Just started reading so not up to date but i dont mind spoilers if it helps with the answer. | There are two ways to make constructs. Let's use a crossbow as an example. The easy way is to make the construct look and act like a crossbow. User tells the power ring to program the construct with three behaviours: pull a trigger, crossbow goes "twang", the missile fires in that direction.
The hard way is to completely build a crossbow from scratch. This means creating dozens of parts with different attributes. One construct has to act like wood, another one has to act like the string, and so on. Then all the constructs have to be fitted together exactly like a crossbow.
Most Lanterns do it the easy way. Create a construct that looks and acts like a robot but doesn't have any internals or electronics.
In the case of time travel, the power ring doesn't have that capability, so the user have to be able to visualize and construct a time machine from scratch, one component at a time. | 25 | 26 |
ELI5: If the situation arose and it was for survival, would I be able to live off of just water and multi-vitamins? | Dietetics student here! Your body needs what we call macronutrients, which provide you with energy in the form of calories. Your body burns anywhere between 1500 (low weight, sedentary individuals) to 3500 (high-intensity athletes) Calories a day. These are present in the diet as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and to a small degree, alcohol.
You *can* survive on one macronutrient for an extended period of time; for example, potatoes are primarily carbohydrates. However, eliminating one macronutrient from the diet does have consequences. Protein deficiency, for example, is one of the largest nutritional concerns in third-world countries, especially in Africa. Each deficiency can lead to a variety of diseases and health concerns.
Multi-vitamins are micronutrients, and we need them – them being vitamins and minerals – to be healthy, but they do not provide any energy. In a survival situation, you'd ideally want a source of water, carbs, proteins, and fats. Most of the micronutrients can be found in the food you'd likely be eating.
**EDIT:** It's important to note that certain nutritional deficiencies can lead to eventual death on their own. However, as long as you have an adequate caloric intake, you will not die from starvation. For example, Vitamin D deficiency can lead to death in extreme cases. Same goes for B12. | 17 | 20 |
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Everyone has projects, no one has funding | As I'm coming to the end of my PhD I've noticed a pattern emerging in my postdoc search. Everyone I talk to has a project for me, some more interesting or high impact than others, but no one has funding. I'm wondering how everyone else (in the social sciences) deals with this type of conversation? I don't want to be rude, and I am genuinely interested in working with many of these projects, but I can't afford to work for free and I'm getting tired of having meeting after meeting that lasts half a hour only to end with the suggestion that I apply for external funding, or I conduct a pilot study and publish it to increase funding opportunities. How can I make it clear from the beginning that I'm not interested in more projects unless they can put food on the table (and at least the team is willing to do some of the leg work getting there) without coming off like a jerk?
Edited to reply to comments: Wow! I love the feedback this post has gotten and the conversations this has inspired! Just to clarify, I have applied to external funding and won it for both of my graduate degrees (two sources for my Masters and one that fully funded my PhD) so it’s not that I don’t have a history of winning funding. Im also not approaching PI’s asking for a funded project, im finding PI’s approach me, throwing projects and material at me, and then expecting that I source funding relatively unsupported. Many of these projects are in regions or time periods in unfamiliar with, so applying for funkend requires a large time dedication just to get up to speed on the research being done currently, in a broad sense. | I don't know if this is true in your field as well, but in mine, even if you would get hired on a funded project now, this would backfire in the next applications after that \-\- beyond the doc level, one of the requirements is almost always "proven ability to obtain third party funding". Depending on your further aspirations, this may be something to keep in mind now. | 29 | 73 |
[Star Wars] (TLJ spoilers ahead) How powerful is the First Order after TLJ? | [Spoiler: Canon](#s "After all the damage and losses inflicted to the First Order over the course of TFA and TLJ; how weakened is the First Order? Can they still reasonably expect to conquer and control the galaxy? Or will decentralized local defense forces give them trouble? Are they weak enough for the Hutts/Criminal underworld to begin challenging them and what's left of the New Republic?") | Powerful enough that they can send several separate fleets to different systems to challenge them.
Now this doesn't mean that they are occupying every world in the Galaxy. Far from it. What it does mean is that they are a serious threat and can challenge the militias of several systems at the same time. Some systems will capitulate right away, others will stand down and bide their time, but the systems that are willing to fight will have a FO fleet attacking them and one that is strong enough to legitimately challenge them. | 17 | 18 |
ELI5: How it is possible to understand a language but not be able to speak it yourself. | Forming words and sentences is a different skill set to matching heard words with their translated counterpart.
You can hear cheval and connect that with a horse but being able to know you want the word for horse and that the word is cheval is harder.
Basically multiple choice being easier versus short answer on a test. | 139 | 88 |
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Eli5: how does herbivores obtain their required nutrients from just eating grass? | How does wild horses eat only grass and have sufficient energy to run around with those muscular bodies? While here I am, too tired of getting off the couch | Animals digestive systems alter to match their diet. This varies from size and quantity (large herbivores from horses to gorillas to elephants eat far more and have larger systems to process it) to processing (their guts are better at processing that kind of material than we are and can get more out of it, due to their own structure and chemistry as well as the gut microbes they host) to more complex chemical processes (like being able to manufacture certain proteins that others can't, such as cats being forced to eat animal protein to obtain specific things they cannot synthesize for themselves while herbivores and omnivores generally create those just fine).
It's also notable that many animals you wouldn't expect are opportunistically omnivorous if they're lacking something. There's a video of a horse straight up following and eating a chick that gets posted to general horror periodically, for example. | 47 | 28 |
[DC/Marvel] How much the average person knows about love affairs of each member of the Justice League/Avengers? | Do they know Batman is in a relationship with Catwoman? Spiderman with Mary Jane? Superman with Lois Lane? | In most cases, very little- they have secret identies, so there's obviously no concrete information. Or, in other words, there are probably tabloids pairing superman with every superhero, supervillain and public figure he's been photographed near.
Those with public identities have it public knowledge by definition, but in most cases this is just trivia- can you name Kamala Harris' husband without checking? If *both* partners are major players (say, Reed Richards and Sue Storm), then they're more likely to stick in the public's mind as Power Couples.
A third case is those like Batman/Catwomen issue, it's publicly known they're in a relationship but not who they actually are. This is likely used to add furious fuel to the fire as to who they are, with every chisled man with blue eyes dating an gymnast with green being pointed to as the pair, without actually adding much to the discussion. | 261 | 300 |
ELI5: Dark Matter | What is it? What's it use? How does it work? | Physicists studying the movement and structure of galaxies, and the universe in general, have seen evidence of large amounts of unseen mass interacting with galactic structures, and the unseen mass is called "dark matter". What exactly dark matter is still speculation. Whatever it is it seems to only affect gravity and not interact with electromagnetic radiation (light) or carry a charge. Dark matter is something that should be there according to what we know about gravity, but we can't otherwise detect its presence yet, so we have no other way of analyzing what it is. | 70 | 147 |
What does high level mathematical study give us? | May sound like a stupid question to some but I’m having trouble understanding how new advanced mathematical study is used to explain things like how AI works. Is it kinda like if simple addition didn’t exists and a farmer was struggling to know how many apples he had. A mathematician would discover “hey if you add one apple and another you have two apples” which revolutionises apple stock taking? | Sometimes it allows easier or more exact analysis of physical reality, such as quantum physics or general Relativity. Or it allows faster or more efficient ways to process information. Or sometimes, it is just perusing knowledge with no end goal or expectation of a "useful" outcome. | 23 | 20 |
ELI5:How are people trained to withstand torture? | I've heard of various government agents being trained to withstand torture so they don't give away classified information. Is it possible they can make you so strong willed that you can go through the most excruciating painful torture and still keep your mouth shut? | There are certain traps and techniques interrogators use. Once a technique is discovered, it loses much of its potency.
Training gives recruits a chance to practice detecting and avoiding those techniques. | 53 | 123 |
ELI5: How did Chile manage to surpass USA in life expectency? | According to the world bank [Life expectancy at birth, total (years) - Chile, United States | Data (worldbank.org)](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=CL-US)
Chile in 1960 was far behind USA in life expectency at 57 years compared to 70 years. But around 2005 life expectency in both countries had become about the same and a few years later Chile had reached 80 years while USA was at 79 and now the gap seems even bigger.
Chile seems to still be considered a developing country, while USA is considered a developed country, so how is it possible that Chile can have a life expectency several years higher than that of USA? | Chile has one of the highest standards of public healthcare in the world. They are considered a leader in Latin America, setting the standard for what other countries can achieve. Based on the World Health Organization's listing of global healthcare systems, Chile is ranked 33rd in the world. | 943 | 844 |
ELI5: Why does electricity not flow in an open circuit? | Take a wire, put the positive terminal (or negative) of a battery on one end, attach it to an industrial leafblower, but don't return the wire to the battery. Why will I not be able to blow them leaves? | A useful analogy for most basic questions about electricity is water.
Imagine you have a river and a waterwheel in that river. If the river is flowing, the water wheel turns. But if you block off that river, you end up with a lake. The water stops flowing and thus the wheel stops turning.
The 'circuit' in the case of the river is some water at high elevation that flows down to the sea where it evaporates into the atmosphere and is dumped back as rain onto the high elevation. As long as the water within the system is in motion, we can steal some of that motion to power our devices. Stop the motion, there's nothing to steal.
The same is true of electricity. If you've got electricity flowing through a circuit, you can steal some of the power for your leaf blower. Stop the flow of electricity and all you've got is some static charge. | 79 | 23 |
ELI5: How do you measure stuff in space? How do we know this star weighs x-times the weight of the sun? And how we know how much the sun weights. Same goes for distances. How can you tell how far something is? | # Measuring Distance:
There are several methods to calculate the distance of a celestial body. Which one is used depends on the exact circumstance. Here are some of the most important methods:
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* **Parallax**: Earth orbits the sun. In the process of this orbit, we change our position in space relative to a celestial body (just like you see a nearby tree in a different position if you move 10 steps to one side) Using trigonometry, we can calculate the distance to the celestial body in question.
* Advantages: very precise for close objects, no complicated instruments needed.
* Disadvantage: only possible for close objects
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* **Spectral emission**: Stars emit photons with specific wavelengths based on the material they are fusing in their core. We can identify the composition of a star by analyzing those photons. Due to the expansion of space, however, the wavelengths of photons emitted very far away get redshifted. That means, their wavelengths get longer the further they travel. By comparing the wavelengths of the photons we *measure* to the wavelengths the photons *should have* we can calculate the distance those photons traveled. And thus the distance to the celestial body.
* Advantage: Possible over longer distances
* Disadvantage: The object has to be bright enough so we can measure spectral lines reliably
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* **Standard candles**: Standard candles are celestial bodies of known luminosity (~brightness). We know this luminosity due to the characteristics of some bodies (special types of super novae etc.) By comparing the absolute brightness to the apparent brightness (the brightness the object has vs the brightness we see from the distance) we can calculate the distance to the standard candle. By identifying standard candles in distant galaxies and nebulae, we can infer the distance of those structures.
* Advantage: Possible over long distances
* Disadvantage: We need to find standard candles
# Measuring Mass:
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* **Orbital Mechanics**: Since we have a fairly good understanding of orbital mechanics in well-behaved spacetime (that is: spacetime that is not curved too much), we can use orbital mechanics to determine the relative mass of two orbiting bodies. That is, if we know the mass of Earth, we can use the shape of the Earth's orbit to determine the mass of the Sun.
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* **Gravitational Lensing**: Einstein's Theory of General Relativity tells us, that gravity is the curvature of spacetime. As such, the path of photons moving through such curved spacetime appears to be curved to an outside observer. As the curvature at a given distance to an object is proportional to the mass of that object, we can use the path of photons passing by a celestial body to calculate the mass of the body.
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What does Marshall McLuhan mean by "the medium is the message"? Is this idea useful in current times? | It is useful, but you need to be willing to extend credit to McLuhan and do some heavy lifting on the exegetical side, mainly since he isn't around to do any of that work himself.
The phrase "the medium is the message" means essentially that a given form of media communicates/transmits something to you irrespective of its content. That is to say, the characteristics of the medium itself carries a cognitive payload. Whether a medium is slow or fast, whether it contains pictures or text or sound, whether it is high or low resolution, whether it is interactive and to what degree, whether it is a private or shared experience, whether it is information dense, and so on. All of these questions can be asked of a given medium without even beginning to consider questions of "content". McLuhan suggests that these characteristics are, in fact, more important than so-called "content" with respect to the effect it has on us and our behavior. | 20 | 16 |
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eli5: What is the difference between a cosplay and a costume? | At the core, the difference isn’t the outfit, but whether or not the wearer is behaving in character. Essentially, a costume is merely a fancy outfit, but cosplay is adopting a personality, whole or in part. | 85 | 36 |
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CMV:It isn't worth my time to clean recyclables if it isn't worth the recycling facilities time. | I've read many times that recyclable items get tossed if they are recycled in anything but pristine condition. This is usually done to try to encourage people to clean their recyclables.
This makes little sense to me for a few reasons.
If cleaning the item isn't worth it to the recycling workers then why should it be seen as worth it to me? They don't view it as a valuable enough resource to put in the time to clean up to keep so why should I?
It takes me a lot longer proportionally to clean my recyclables because of the low scale and knowledge of what is proper. Economics of scale shows that doing a task at high volumes is a few orders of magnitude more efficient than doing things on small scale. I would posit that the situation looks something like this (The accuracy of the numbers isn't the point, the concept is). It would take 10,000 individuals 15,000 hours to clean their own recyclables whereas it would take 3 individuals 4,000 hours to clean the same amount of recyclables because they have the expertise, workflow, tools, and infrastructure supporting the task.
If under these circumstances, they still don't find it worth the time to clean up the recyclables. It is upwards of 3 times less worth my time to do it. Why should I?
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I'm open to having my mind changed. I recycle, but instead of cleaning I simply throw the dirty stuff in the trash because my brain is telling me that makes sense. | Think about the common recyclable items that you have. For example a can of soda.
Think about the relative difficulty of cleaning a can of soda immediately after uses vs 72 hours after use. If you left the remaining soda dry, you will thick hard to remove sugar/sludge deposit on the inside of the can. You'll need to scrub the interior of the can with an abrasive or blast it with very hot water. But if you clean the can immediately after use, all you need to do is rise it with some water.
Its not that the recycling centers time is more valuable then yours, its that for many recyclables cleaning them immediately requires considerably less time then cleaning them later. Basically anything that has a water component is easier to clean immediately before the water evaporates. | 22 | 22 |
ELI5: If species is defined as a group of organisms able to produce offspring with each other, how do biologists classify species that reproduce asexually? | Turns out there are lots of different species concepts and not a single concept that works for every species. You are describing the 'biological species concept', but species concepts exist that define species by their role in the environment, their physical appearance, their evolutionary history, etc. Many of those concepts work well for asexually reproducing species. Ultimately, scientists go by the concept that works best for the group they are studying. | 19 | 23 |
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