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l7ckr5 | Economics | Stock Market Megathread There's a lot going on in the stock market this week and both ELI5 and Reddit in general are inundated with questions about it. This is an opportunity to ask for explanations for concepts related to the stock market. All other questions related to the stock market will be removed and users directed here. How does buying and selling stocks work? What is short selling? What is a short squeeze? What is stock manipulation? [What is a hedge fund?]( URL_0 ) What other questions about the stock market do you have? In this thread, top-level comments (direct replies to this topic) are allowed to be questions related to these topics as well as explanations. Remember to follow all other rules, and discussions unrelated to these topics will be removed. **Please refrain as much as possible from speculating on recent and current events.** By all means, talk about what has happened, but this is not the place to talk about what will happen next, speculate about whether stocks will rise or fall, whether someone broke any particular law, and what the legal ramifications will be. Explanations should be restricted to an objective look at the mechanics behind the stock market. EDIT: It should go without saying (but we'll say it anyway) that any trading you do in stocks is at your own risk. **ELI5 is not the appropriate place to ask for or provide advice on stock buy, selling, or trading.** | As much as its great to stick it to a sketchy hedge fund, did regular people get screwed out of their retirement savings because of this? | 489 |
9sjnfn | Technology | 3D Printers | Imagine building a lego sculpture. there is an instruction sheet that you must follow, and you have different colored legos. You follow the instructions, slowly building up and up until your sculpture is complete. A 3d printer works in much the same way. instead of lego’s, the printer melts little bits of plastic that dry quickly. It moves its head around to build up the same way as you would build with legos. In this case, the instruction book is a special set of instructions created from a 3d model. This is created with software that comes with the printer. If i’m not mistaken, some printers can hold several colors at once, and some printers need to manual labor to change the colors | 4 |
ir7pm4 | Chemistry | If nylon kitchen utensils are heat resistant to over 400F, why is it that they melt easily when they're used on a hot pan? Do pans routinely surpass that temperature? | Yes, pans and hotplates can easily get above 400F (200C). Easily. It isn't good for them, especially non-stick ones, but yup, you'll have no problem getting a pan to that heat. You should never get a pan up to that while cooking with it, although maybe if flash frying or charring the outside of a foodstuff. It will cool down real fast with food in it. | 2 |
8ott4l | Biology | Is cracking your bones bad? Not only knuckles but back, neck, wrists, toes, ankles, etc. | Cracking joints is just a release of built-up pressure (nitrogen I think?). It was an old wives tale that cracking knuckles led to arthritis, but that has never been proven in any respected study. As far as anyone can tell, the act of cracking joints is not harmful to you. | 4 |
8eupf3 | Other | Why is Catholicism so much bigger on imagery (physical representations of God, Jesus, saints, etc) compared to other religions? | It's actually the other way around - the religions that are opposed to religious iconography are the minority. If you look at most historical religions, they were big on religious iconography - look at the Ancient Egyptians or Romans. And indeed, this is true of the largest Christian sects, such as Christianity, as well. The ones who are opposed are the minority. Judaism is mostly to blame in this case. From Deuteronomy: > "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" Basically, the Jews at some point decided that religious images were tantamount to idolatry, worshipping the idol rather than God directly, so they banned such things. If you recall the whole Golden Calf incident from Exodus, that is an example of their opposition to such. Islam, Christianity, and Ba'hai are all derived from Judaism, and Samaritanism is an ancient Jewish schism. Islam and Christianity are two of the largest religions in the world, while Ba'hai, Judaism, and Samaritanism are all quite small (though Judaism is well-known in the West). So why aren't Christians iconoclasts? It is actually a rejection of Judaism - it was basically seen as heretical and Jewish to take the whole graven images thing literally, instead seeing it as a prohibition against idol worship. The problem with the golden calf was that the Israelites were worshiping it *instead of* God, and they believe that as long as you remember that the religious icons aren't God, they can be useful. Worshiping an idol is still wrong in Catholicism and other Christian religions, but kneeling in front of a cross or a painting of the Virgin Mary or whatever isn't actually worshiping the object itself, it is worshiping the subject of the icon. It was also probably a result of the fact that Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, which had all kinds of religious iconography of the Roman gods, and so having stuff of Jesus and the saints was a natural continuation of that. Thus, the Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and many other Christian sects are fine with religious icons (or, at least, *Christian* religious icons; historically, many Catholics engaged in iconoclasm of competing religious iconography). Some Protestant sects engage in iconoclasm because they are more fundamentalist - the same reason why creationism and similar things are more common in such sects. They take the Bible more literally and in many cases rejected Catholicism and its trappings as heretical so engaged in a lot of iconoclasm. Islam - particularly Sunni Islam - is pretty iconoclastic, though Shia Islam is less so. And iconoclasm itself amongst various sects tends to come and go in waves - there have been many periods in which religious iconography was more or less common amongst the various theoretically "opposed to religious icons" groups. For instance, the prohibition against depictions of Mohammad in Islam is not only not universal but was not universal historically, either. | 19 |
ju9mx1 | Biology | How do veterinarians determine if animals have certain medical conditions, when normally in humans the same condition would only be first discovered by the patient verbally expressing their pain, etc.? | Vet here. To add to the above points (we rely a lot on physical exam findings, we run tests, we try to "tune in" to our patients) but we probably don't even know about certain conditions in pets because they can't vocalise. I've never seen a dog with a migraine - because how the hell would you know? What about restless leg syndrome- it could explain those kelpie that never stop running. These are diagnoses that won't be apparent on physical examination and for which there is no testing. Overall however, we just have to be more thorough with a physical, run tests where findings are equivocal, and always have a back up plan if plan a fails :) thankfully for us, besides being super cute, pets are tough and tend to have amazing attitudes when it comes to coping with illness. | 24 |
aou2kk | Biology | Why do professional athletes spit water? Specially in football (soccer), when they stop for hydration, the spit out more than half than they drink. Does the this have any purpose? | They're wetting their mouths and thinning out their saliva. They don't want to drink too much and get waterlogged, which can hamper their performance. | 1 |
6w2hlh | Biology | Why do toddlers love to hand you things? I'm babysitting for my nephew (20 months old) and for the past hour we've done nothing but essentially play fetch. He's grabbed just about every toy in the room and runs to bring them to me. By the time I've tossed it back, he's grabbed another and is running it over to me with a smile on his face as wide as the Mississippi. I'm curious as to what part of development makes this so joyous for him. | I have a BA in Human Development with a minor in child development and am the mom of two children with the younger child being a toddler who just turned 1. It's a social interaction for them. My daughter will hand me something, I say thank you and she smiles and toddles off to bring me something else. Toddlers like praise and warm reactions from caregivers. | 48 |
5r8yhw | Culture | Military officers swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the President Can the military overthrow the President if there is a direct order that may harm civilians? | As a prior enlisted Marine, the President is your boss, officer or not. He has direct authority over Marines and can send us anywhere for a limited time without approval from congress. That's the first part. Second part, think of overthrowing him as the same thing as mutiny on a ship or secession from the US. If you're gonna do it, you better be right and you better have the power to do so. It would be the equivalent of fighting England for Independence. Win and be right and it's gravy. Lose and you're spam. | 54 |
93gj52 | Physics | Why are soft things like towels so hard to cut while hard things like carrots and potatoes can be easily sliced and diced? | When you try to cut a towel, the towel moves somewhat with the knife (the fabric bunches up and shifts around under the pressure of the knife rather than remaining still) while the firmer potato doesn't move and instead lets the knife do its work. If you pull fabric so that it is tight, it is easier to cut. | 1 |
5wv6te | Biology | What is the neuroscience of meditation/spirituality? | Ask this question again in late April/early May, as I'll be taking that as the topic of my term paper in my cognitive neuroscience course. From the little research I've gathered so far, the meditative state has a plethora of activation patterns that differ from other states. One of the major patterns is Transient Hypofrontality, or essentially brief periods of reduced activity/blood-flow to the frontal lobes (involved in many functions such as emotional processing, impulse control, and planning or risk assessment). | 1 |
h7zc0e | Other | What is the difference between America having Confederate statues and memorials and, say, Germany having statues of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany? | Aren’t confederate statues and flags just symbols of domestic terrorist? And they lost the war so... also losers. Literally. The confederate flag symbolizes losers 😜 | 3 |
b4y7nd | Biology | Why does the roof of the mouth/tongue get numb and painful after eating a lot of sour foods (e.g sour skittles, sour patch kids etc.)? | Sour flavor is caused by tartaric or citric acid. After eating a bunch of acid covered food, the cells in your mouth are damaged so it causes discomfort. ELIActually5: There is tiny oof sand on sour candy that gives your mouth boo-boos. | 1 |
k21n3v | Biology | . How does inhalers help people with asthma and other kind of lung problems breathe normally? How does inhaling from it make them breathe normally for a relatively long time? How does it exactly work? | The inhalers contain drugs that when inhaled act as bronchial-dilators. This process makes the lungs absorb oxygen more efficiently and allows the user to breather better. | 2 |
n1w8kx | Economics | What is the difference between the Classical concept of full employment and Keynesian concept of full employment I am having a hard time on understanding the concept. I have minimal knowledge on economics and I am seeking here for an explanation about this. Thank you people. | In classical full employment, everyone has a job. In Keynesian full employment, everyone who wants a job has a job. If someone is moving from a Walmart stocker to spaceX engineer, it’s probably a good thing that they were unemployed for a month. | 4 |
7358hi | Biology | Why are some otherwise harmless chemicals extremely hazardous to a fetus? | One reason: The developing embryo's cells signal to each other in hugely complex and frankly not very well understood ways. The only way a cell can 'know' that it is supposed multiply into say, a finger, is if it is getting messages from nearby cells giving information as to what they are doing. Some drugs, thalidomide being the obvious example, disrupt this signalling, so some cells don't develop. Once the limb & organ development stage is over, this signalling system shuts down, so it doesn't matter if a non-pregnant person takes them. | 1 |
hzjn63 | Biology | why we feel like something is going in the heart or chest (heavy chest ) when depressed when it's all chemicals in the brain | Check out “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk...it has to do with stress hormones & how their release is physically perceived by the body. The limbic system (sometimes called mammalian brain) & reptilian brain are both primarily involved. | 2 |
71bhzf | Biology | What is physically happening when someone changes their voice? I was out with friends and one of the guys could mimic Rick, Morty and Mr Poopybutthole to perfection. What is happening to your vocal cords to allow it? | Nothing is happening with your vocal cords. It is the shape of the inside of the mouth and the tongue which shapes the sound. Vocal cords don't actually create anything besides pitch. They can't speak on their own. | 3 |
70tjzg | Culture | Why was Charlie Brown, a comic strip essentially about a depressed and abused child, so successful? | Wow, something I can actually answer having read a biography of Schultz and being a student of graphic lit. When you're talking about American comic strip writers there are two artists who sort of rise above the rest in terms how seriously they took their creations artisticly. Schultz and Waterson. Both of these guys were totally all about the art, but they expresses that in totally different ways. Waterson focused more on the physical art and using the strips to reflect not just his own personal life but also the political and emotional realities of every stage of life (at least for Americans). For Schultz however the strip was personal in a different kind of way. Not only did Charlie Brown generally represent all of Schultz' fears and anxieties, but as the strip grew every character tended to represent some part of Schultz or his psyche. Now obviously this isn't the case for every character in every strip, (when you write the same comic for 50 years the characters tend to take on a life if their own) but as a generality it works. Schultz was quoted as saying something along the lines of "I suppose if someone was very clever they could read all of Peanuts and understand exactly who I am." (That's a paraphrase as I don't have the quote next to me.) So to answer your question, the strip was successful, among other reasons, because Schultz was pretty depressed for a lot of his life and he put all of himself into an art form he had been practising since childhood. This made the characters so relatable and the strip so much deeper than anything else commercially available at the time. It was kind of a no-brainer that it would be popular. Fun fact: Schultz didn't pick the name "Peanuts" and in fact he hated it. This is one of my favorite subjects and if you want to know more about Schultz and the ways he compares with Watterson I'll gladly keep talking and point you toward some great resources | 26 |
6mcczt | Other | Why is it so difficult to understand radio comms between aircraft and ATCs when it'd be much more beneficial for it to be crystal clear. I've been watching some aviation videos, and for all the technology packed into planes, you'd think they wouldn't want to overlook a better communication system. Comms are extremely difficult to understand a lot of the time due to quality. Why is this? | Your question has been answered but I'd like to point out that to a non pilot these transmissions may sound weird and bad and crazy, but to a trained, experienced pilot, you know this stuff and this is how it works, it's no big deal, youve trained like this your whole time flying. When you start flying it's crazy hard, it's fast, difficult to understand, use slang and jargon. Very quickly you figure it all out. This is a pretty major part of the learning process | 2 |
7z3abz | Culture | Why did that 1971 Coke ad become so legendary? | Actually, the real McCann ad agency did write it. It was so popular due to the fact that 1971 was the high of the most brutal US actions during the Vietnam War. The radio ad with the jingle and after Apollo 14's return to the moon in February, the week before the radio ad's release. The 'Hilltop' video commercial was released in July 1971 as a message of peace that was intended to resonate with the times, but was initially seen as anti-American, and was a huge flop initially. In fact, it was the most expensive commercial ever created at the time. It gained popularity after it was reworked in the mid 1970s as a Christmas commercial, since the peace message resonated with the holiday season. We look at the Coca Cola 'Hilltop' commercial as an piece of American iconography, but the fact is that the original 1971 commercial, the one that was the climax of the Mad Men finale, was initially a failure. | 1 |
kn58em | Other | Why is Sean Bean pronounced "Shaun Been" and not "Shaun Baun"? | I'll do you one better. Why is it not pronounced as "Seen Bean"? | 8 |
a6h6e4 | Other | In TV show opening themes, why is the last cast member listed as their character? Using Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example, in the seasons in which Giles was a main character, in the opening theme he is listed as "Anthony Steward Head as Giles". In seasons 6 & 7 (perhaps even earlier than that) Alyson Hannigan (excuse my spelling) is listed last and then it's "as Willow". How come it's not every show that does this? How come it's always the final cast member to be shown, and how come it's always secondary characters (I mean, not Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy. She is the lead and title character. Wouldn't that make more sense?) ? | I figured, at least with Buffy, that it was because those were the **most** famous actors in the show. Anthony Stewart Head had obviously been acting for a long time before playing Giles, and when Alyson Hannigan got named “as Willow” it was when people would have known her from American Pie. | 5 |
9th2h5 | Chemistry | Why is hot water better at cleaning things than cold water? | Say you have a bunch of LEGO’s connected to each other to form a block. You place the block into a box and shake it. The harder you shake the box, the quicker the individual legos break off of the block. Tiny molecules behave in a similar way with temperature: The colder it is, the easier it is for them to stick together, but apply some heat and they start to shake around. So when it comes to cleaning, hot water is better at “shaking” and breaking off unwanted particles (dirt, food, etc.) from the material or surface you’re washing. | 5 |
7o1rh0 | Economics | How do aged spirit brands(whisky etc.) that grow rapidly manage to have enough stock if everything is aged minimum 10 years? | On the one hand, they often simply don't have enough to meet demand. It's an unavoidable problem in the liquor industry. A company with demand higher than supply can raise its prices, of course, but it's probably still missing out on potential revenue. Still, there are several ways that businesses adapt to this. Lending and investment in the sector is based on future profits: someone investing in a new whisky distillery is going to be doing their business analysis based on expectations of when the whisky is actually ready for sale. (This is just like with farmers, who often sell this year's harvest before it's even been sown.) So it's normal for a promising distillery with few sales right now to be able to raise some capital to start aging whisky for later. In the meantime, new distilleries will also produce spirits that don't need to be aged as much, like gin, to pay for their regular expenses. You have to keep in mind that brand name isn't everything, either. If there's more demand than there is aged whisky, a company might start selling a new line of whiskys under the same brand name that don't have an age statement. It could also sell blends from other distilleries under its own name. When you look at the label on the bottle, you've got to be careful about just what is being advertised (or not). | 27 |
jgzsrd | Other | I've obviously heard of D'n'D but how does it work and what are the rules? All I know is that you roll a dice and theres wizards and knights and stuff. | It's basically roleplaying. The dice rolls are for specific actions such as attacking or skill checks. If you roll a number higher than your character's attribute for that action plus any special modifiers then it's considered successful. The dungeon master can basically makeup whatever scenario they want or there are premade scenarios you cam buy. The DM lays out the scenarios and the players basically say what they want to do, and the DM either allows it or not. | 4 |
d9cwan | Technology | How do the likes of PlayStations remember what year/time it is when turned off for a long time with no connection to WiFi? | There's a small battery that does nothing put power an internal clock. They can run for years. Same basic concept, open up your computer and you'll see a small button-cell battery on your motherboard. Once upon a time this stored CMOS settings as well, but these days it's sole purpose is maintaining the system clock. | 1 |
7m57ks | Technology | Difference between LED, AMOLED, LCD, and Retina Display? | Retina != a display. It's marketing. Anyway. LCD == Liquid Crystal Display. A large lightsource, in the back of the display (a backlight) or around the edges provides white, multicolored light. Each pixel, or rather color sub pixel, is controlled by a pair of polarizers. Think of polarization as a direction, it goes through a polarizer, it has a polarized direction, call it up or left (it's actually quantum blah blah blah not important right now). Now that it's gone through one polarizer, it's chance of going through the second depends on the "direction" of the second polarizer. If the second polarizer's direction is parallel to the photon's (they're both "up) the photon goes through. If it's perpendicular (the photon is up and the polarizer is left) the photon doesn't. If the direction is "somewhere in between" the photon has a chance of going through, dependent on how close its direction is to the polarizer's. If the polarizer's direction is halfway in between, it let's half of the "up" photons through and blocks the other half. A liquid crystal display has controllable polarizers. Each little pixel has 3, one for red, green, and blue, that change to let in however much red, green, or blue light you want going through to the users eyes. All this complexity means you get lightleak, or photons bouncing around and through pixels you don't want and blah blah blah. But it works. OLED, or AMOLED (Same thing really, for this purpose) uses something far simpler. Run a current through an organize compound (the O stands for organic) and it emits a specific color of light, easy. The brighter you want it the more current you run through it. You can turn it off completely by not running any, no lightleak. Just same as above, you run three colors (red, green, and blue) per pixel (dependent) and combine to get whatever color you want. | 13 |
8235su | Economics | Why do conservatives hang on to the fossil fuel industry so much? Why do they not like renewable industries? | Money. The oil and gas industries pump millions into republican campaigns, in the expectation that future policies and subsidies will help them to carry on carrying on making more money. (e.g., reportedly 57% of Cruz's and 39% of Christie's 'super pac' money in the 2016 presidential campaign was from fossil fuel millionaires.[^1]( URL_0 )) There just isn't that combination of 'spare' money and political will in renewable energy industries at this time. | 1 |
i8jke7 | Biology | Why do rubber bullets leave an outline rather than a filled in circle as a bruise? | So the ball hits the skin. The skin is full of capillaries full of blood. The pressure of the ball pushes the blood out of the capillaries right under it away from the center. The increased pressure breaks some of the capillaries as they get too full, letting blood clot inside and under the skin, visible as a bruise. The area right under the impact had no blood in the capillaries, it was all pushed out, so those capillaries don't break like the ones right outside the impact. | 2 |
bix0up | Technology | What is the process for creating cgi effects on the scale of something like the battle for Winterfell where there are so many individual moving objects? | I can think of two techniques that are typically used high character count scenes. 1. Duplicating actors through a process called **rotoscoping (think copy and paste)** multiple times in the scene. This works best for characters with similar appearances like the Dothraki Horde or the Unsullied. 2. CGI Studios can make use of specific plugins in Maya that can **simulate large groups of people using the same technology to simulate fluids or particles.** This cuts down render time and means that animators don't have to animate each individual person/object. This is particularly useful for something the wights. An example of where this type of technique is used is in war games like Total War. | 3 |
6k51ks | Engineering | How does a flash bang grenade work? | A flashbang grenade is a small explosive charge surrounded by a pyrotechnic compound and packed in a metal tube with cutouts along the sides. When the explosive detonates it isn't contained (thanks to the cutouts) so it doesn't cause the grenade to fragment. Instead it makes a very loud noise, and a concussive shockwave. Along with the shockwave comes the pyrotechnic powder (usually some mix of magnesium and aluminum). The heat of the explosion ignites the powder as it is ejected from the grenade, causing it to burn with an intense white light. The combined effects of the noise, shockwave, and flash serve to blind, deafen, and disorient anyone in the immediate vicinity of the grenade. | 1 |
5tf1b1 | Engineering | What Americans mean when they say their infrastructure is crumbling. Which parts of US infrastructure are broken, and why were they allowed to go defunct? | Roads are probably biggest example. Major highways get much of their funding from per gallon taxes on gas. But the federal gas tax hasn't been raised since 1993 and many states haven't raised theirs in years either. So with inflation and increased fuel efficiency of cars, there just isn't as much money available for maintaining highways. In Michigan, they're closing a section of a major highway into Detroit for 2 years so they can do major repairs of a bridge. The bridge had gotten so bad that holes in the road were going all the way through and concrete was falling down onto roads underneath. So in this case, it is literally crumbling. In 2003, some tree branches falling on power lines in Ohio caused a blackout that affected over 50 million people. In my city, the rail cars used in the public transit system are 30+ years old and there are no current plans or funds available to replace them. The current fleet is kept running by salvaging parts from broken trains. Over the past few years, the state has cut funding for public transit, leading to reductions in bus and rail service. | 9 |
bnu742 | Economics | What do power companies do with excess electricity? | There isn’t an excess of energy per se. the generators themselves are only excited enough to produce the current required. Eg: current demand is say 1000kw I have 5 gens capable of 250kw each Total capacity = 1250kw I can run 5 at 200kw, or 4 at 250kw In the 5 gen scenario, I won’t excited the rotor field enough (ie: run them at 80%) to prevent overloading and allow for transient current demand responses. I can’t change the speed of the generators (normally) because this would affect your 60 or 50 hz frequency that comes out of the wall plug (depending on grid). This is a function of poles in the generator and operating rotational speed. Eg: A 4 pole generator on a Diesel engine generator must run the engine at 1800rpm for 60hz or 1500rpm for 50hz. Hence why I can’t speed them up or slow them down without consequence. HTH Edited spelling of generator. | 3 |
aok38v | Biology | If AB blood is the universal recipient and let’s say it receives O blood, wouldn’t the A and B antibodies from the O blood destroy the AB blood? | Only the plasma contains antibodies. When AB Blood is called the Universal recipient, it is in reference to RBC only. For Plasma, AB is the Universal Donor, and they can only receive AB Plasma. | 3 |
8w2wal | Technology | Please help me understand cloud storage such as GoogleDrive I'd like to free up a bunch of disk space on my PC but still have access to the files, I'm not sure if cloud storage is the answer. I don't really understand it -I'm not very good with technology at all. Could I upload a bunch of files onto google drive and then delete those files off my PC and have access to them from a cloud? would that free up space or would it just create another copy or something. Is it's purpose just to share access to files while still having a hard copy? | Thank you guys for the explanation, very helpful! | 4 |
eyyth7 | Biology | can your current physical state affect your offspring? Does it make a difference if I'm fit, or have overweight? thanks! | For the most part no, but there are two exceptions: * if you have damaged your DNA somehow, it can lead to birth defects * epigenetics, a few rare situations where a developing embryo's genes can be turned on or off based on something the mother experienced Aside from maybe having less damage to your DNA, becoming fitter or fatter would not change the genetic composition of your child. | 2 |
6v7o5l | Culture | Why do books about things that couldn't possibility ever happen need a "any similarities to real persons is purely coincidental" disclaimer? | Ass covering. That said, just because events in a book cannot ever happen doesn't mean there can't be a similarity to actual people. i can write a book and include a werewolf called... say Drump, who incompently leads a pack of werewolves, oh and he had a tiff with a weird hag called... Billary. Meanwhile there is also a good wizard Ibama who combines both black and white magics... okay, my point is, obviously the fantasy elements are never going to happen, but clearly there is resemblance to real people in what I am writing. A great number of fantasy books have contained references to real people and events, usually historic. | 3 |
8e2bff | Physics | When we get issued plates for our IOTV vests in the army, we get told not to drop the plates or they might shatter. How can these plates that are rated for a 7.62x54mm bullet stop said bullet if they can't even hold up when they get dropped? | Same reason you replace a motorbike helmet aftwr any crash or dropping it - the structure is designed to save you from one incident, but smaller knocks can be enough to cause weakening of the internal structure and reduce the overall effectiveness. Sure it's probably going to survive a drop, but the chance it won't and then you die later because of it is enough reason to be safe | 11 |
7ekdgl | Biology | We do we feel tired after thinking/focusing for a while? Are we expending energy in our brain? | Yes. Your brain and the cells inside it are little factories. They make and sell goods, as well as talk to other factories to make sure everyone is on task. A byproduct of factories is waste, and all of our cells produce it, including our brain. When the cells are asked to work harder, they take in more energy from your diet (sugars/carbs/proteins/fats, etc), use it to do work, then a bit is left over which - to most cells - is toxic or unwanted. A lot of toxic waste can be dealt with (such as hydrogen peroxide formation and degradation), but there will always be stuff left over to get rid of. The brains "city sweapers" and "road cleaners" can only work so fast, and can't keep up with the waste from these factories who were told to work overtime. The result is that your brain tells your body, when too much waste exists, "ok, stop, i need to be cleaned and to recover". You expend energy when you're focusing, and your creating problems which take time to fix, no two ways around it. | 1 |
aavn94 | Other | Since the police can't hold someone for too long without charging them, can they keep calling the person back to the station? So we always hear on detective shows that they can only hold someone for x hours unless they charge the person. Can't they just let the person go and call him/her in again the next day and ask more questions and hold the person for as long as legally possible. Then do it a few more times until the person slips up and gives them the information that they want? Is there a limit on how many times the police can bring you in without charging you? This seems like it would be the easiest way to solve crimes. | The holding period is the time the state has to gather and show evidence of probable cause to move forward with a charge or an indictment. This time limit stems from the Due Process Clause of the Constitution which limits the state (or federal) government’s ability to take away an individual’s rights in the course of conducting its legal proceedings. Holding a person by calling them back in without cause would violate their rights; the only reason to call someone back in would be upon discovery of new evidence (of a substantial nature). Can you imagine a world where police and prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to bring a charge but get to call people back in endlessly? Time wasted, potential false confessions, and no more protections for individuals. Also, most likely, anyone who was being continuously questioned would ask for a lawyer, which is another Constitutional right. I’m sure there are instances where a person is clearly guilty of a horrible crime but the state can’t produce the evidence to charge him/her and that sucks but the alternative of having no limit on state and police power is much worse and, realistically, for most crimes, where the suspect in holding is guilty, the state will be able to produce the evidence to bring the charge. | 3 |
eby2mi | Engineering | Why do airplane cabins need to be pressurised? So, when the cabin is sealed, the interior pressure is equal to the atmospheric pressure at sea level. When the plane lands, the exterior pressure is equal to the interior pressure. So why does the plane need to be pressurised for the duration of the trip? | Because the air pressure is extremely low at typical cruising altitudes. You'd lose consciousness from lack of oxygen in less than a minute, and would die not long after. That's why planes have oxygen masks that drop down in case the plane loses pressure. It's also cold. Like, really cold. Upwards of -60C cold. As an aside, plane cabins are pressurized, but not to sea level. Usually they're pressurized to somewhere between 6,000ft - 8,000ft. This is enough to be comfortable for people while also reducing stress on the aircraft from the pressure differential. | 5 |
kuwuob | Biology | how weed goes from a leaf that looks like a star into a bud that looks like craggy fried chicken? I just can't seem to wrap my head around how both things are the same plant. Do they dry the leaf out? | You smoke the flower, not the leaf. The flower looks roughly like a hop cone, which it's related to. It's not brightly colored like the flowers that come easiest to mind, because cannabis is wind-pollenated, so it doesn't need to attract insects, the way [normal] flowers do. | 3 |
603nmz | Technology | How does Netflix and other services know I am using a VPN? | There is not an official way to determine if a remote user is using a VPN. However, services sometimes just block a range of IP addresses that they know to be connected with a popular VPN provider. | 11 |
gdpxmk | Biology | What is actually happening in your body when your extremities (fingers/toes) are cold and then you put them in warm water and they feel sharp pains..? | Our sense of temperature is based on a difference in temperature, rather than absolute temperature. So, when you put your cold hands in hot water, your skin registers a larger difference in temperature and so it feels like the water is much, much hotter. | 3 |
hpi5v8 | Biology | How is the process of sequencing DNA give us the ability to identify species and individuals? I was reading Never Home Alone by Rob Dunn and realized I had never learned how DNA sequencing works on various levels. In the book, Dunn notes that it helps him determine what kinds of species are in a sample; however, sequencing is also used to identify differences in individuals. What parts, patterns, codes, structures, etc. help to identify what species you are looking at versus a difference in individuals? Bonus question: what kinds of thresholds are there for deciding if a variation is high enough to warrant a classification as an entirely different species? | There is very, very little difference between individuals. It's hard to tell but our best estimate is that you differ from your neighbor or your friend by 0.6% of your genome. That means that 99.4% of your DNA is identical. Between species, there is *usually* more difference. Furthermore, we have a very thorough catalog of known genomes. By identifying small fragments, you can tell whether they belong to one species or another. So let's say Bacterium 1 has a sequence AAAAA, and Bacterium 2 has a sequence AAAAC. If you sequence your sample and you see both, that means both bacteria were present in your sample. On a scale of animals (not bacteria), if you're not comparing humans to chimpanzees or some very closely related species, there is usually enough difference to easily identify the species | 1 |
bes315 | Other | Why when promoting a performance/show/talk do people say “Buy tickets NOW because this WILL sell out!”? Surely this fact renders their marketing unnecessary? | Fear Of Missing Out. People will buy things more readily if they think they can't at a later date. It's the same strategy as "Limited Edition" or "Flash Sale". | 1 |
8xqozi | Biology | Why do you get nauseous when you wake up super early? | I used to get nauseous before school as a child, barely being able to eat breakfast, and it usually went away eventually. I do believe it was linked to anxiety and the same thing is happening now at 26, always in the morning and sometimes to the point of vomiting or dry heaving. It’s debilitating. I used to treat it with mint, lavender, and lemon tea or marijuana, but nothing seems to work anymore. Now as an adult i know my anxiety manifests itself in my stomach, and I’m not even sure who would be helpful. After eliminating a very stressful situation, it definitely has calmed down, further proving how much anxiety/stress can fuck with your body. | 9 |
9wf8e0 | Technology | How does Captcha security verification work. Why does it sometimes ask to click on images but other times directly goes through without any tests ? | There is no single Captcha system. Basically any system designed to tell humans and machines apart automatically is a Captcha. Some are only designed to tell humans from machines. Others have a secondary function of also *teaching* machines. For example, when you're clicking those pictures, you might be confirming that you're a human, but you might also be helping to teach AI how to tell those pictures apart. | 1 |
b5m7t0 | Technology | Why do some radio/alarm clocks have antennas that are just long wires? | Because radio signals are just invisible electromagnetic waves blasting through the air around us. Depending on where these radio waves are being broadcast from determines the direction that these waves are passing the radio receiver. The wire is long like that so that it can catch these waves most clearly (avoiding static and shit) by sensing the full wavelength. This is the reason that the antenna are opposable. Bend it one way to catch that frequency or channel clearly. Change the channel and all of a sudden the image or radio is no longer clear? That's because the antenna is oriented in the wrong direction to from the broadcaster. Just jimmy around with the antenna and it'll be clear again when facing the right direction. | 2 |
78ozyg | Biology | Is leaving a cup of water overnight a bad idea? I often use the same cup for a week or so and have it sit overnight most nights in case I get thirsty. Sometimes in the morning the last bit of it has a vaguely "skunky" smell/taste. Is it a bad idea to drink this? | Nalgene bottle bro. It'll cost you like $12. Buy two so you can have one to use while the other is in the dishwasher. I seriously never go anywhere without mine. | 4 |
8e0no4 | Biology | What does dying of "natural causes" mean? You just get old and your body says "peace"? | Everything has a lifespan. Tires, tubes, fluids, pumps, computer hardware, structures, everything. When you die and you are very old, natural cause of death is assumed unless there is evidence of foul play. Even if an autopsy is done and specific cause can not be found, natural causes. Edit: clarified a phrase | 4 |
9no4m1 | Other | How does flak ammo work and why is it only used against airborne targets? | While flak wasn’t used against tanks or infrantry there were many “flak guns” like the German 88 that would load HE, and armor piercing shells to use against ground targets quite effectively | 11 |
g7p3hj | Other | How do headphones get tangled so easily? | The short answer is that given each arrangement of a cable is equally likely, many more of those arrangements have the cable tangled than untangled | 2 |
8n7kqi | Other | Why does the UK use . URL_0 rather than just .uk? I'm aware the .UK domain name is now in use, however i'm interested to know why that when the internet first started, why did the the UK not follow suit of other nations like France & Italy and use .FR and .IT | The way a countries top level domain is subdivded is up to the registrar that manages it. some chose to mirror generic TLDs like *.com as second level tlds like *. URL_1 and *.gov as *. URL_0 . This makes sense as the standard .gov and .edu or even .mil are reserved for American government, education or military institution and a country wanting to have something like that of their own would need to make them underneath their countries TLD. Other countries never bothered with that and just threw everything in directly under their main TLD and others again made a mixed solution. Much of that is grown from poor standardization when stuff got started and inertia and tradition carrying it to the present day. | 5 |
8usjc4 | Repost | How exactly does inflation work? If I held onto £50,000 now and did not earn a penny more for fifty years, for example, do I STILL have £50,000, or does it’s “worth” depend on other factors? | You will still have 50,000, but you will be able to buy less with this money. In 1980 loaf of bread was worth 0.715$, now it costs 1.966$. And such trend goes for everything. So your amount of money is the same, but you will be able to buy less with it. Source for prices: [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) EDIT: correct link | 2 |
6jbjj0 | Biology | Where do animals in the wild, such as birds, go to die? With so many of them, I would expect to see many dead ones. Or do animals of prey get to them first. | They're there even if you can't see them. I find tons of dead animals all the time but their rarely fresh. It's usually just some leftover fur or bones that I run into. You'd also be surprised at the number of live animals within a few feet of you. Last week I was clearing trees with a chain saw after a storm and I almost stepped on a turkey sitting on its nest. I had been in the area for hours making a huge racket and thought I was alone. I didn't think 2 foot tall grass could hide a turkey until I was within 3 feet of it. The other thing that would surprise you is the sheer amount of literal shit that covers everything off the trail. Bird shit, raccoon shit, and deer shit are everywhere. EVERYWHERE! That's just the stuff big or numerous enough to easily notice. | 36 |
5nni5y | Biology | Why can we "feel" someone's gaze on us? | [This might help you]( URL_0 ). **Explanation** We're not entirely sure, but it seems to be that humans assume people are staring at them even when only presented with partial evidence. This was tested in an experiment by the University of Sydney, which noted that when not given sufficient cues, the subject would still almost always assume they were being watched. **TL;DR** There's no accepted theory, chance? | 7 |
ipwvow | Biology | How do our ears not flood when we go underwater? | for the same reason that, if you cap one end of a straw with your finger and dip the other end into a glass of water, there won’t be any water in the straw when you pull it out. for water to go into your ear, the air inside needs a way to get out first. unless you’ve got a medical issue, that generally doesn’t happen | 5 |
985sp6 | Economics | How do buffets not get put out of business? | Even if you truly do consume more than 10$ of food, the average customer doesn't. What's more, most buffets are filled with low cost foods (I.e., mashed potatoes, Mac and cheese, iceberg lettuce). To eat 10$ of those foods - when bought and prepared in bulk is an almost impossible feat. Even consuming 10$ of chicken would require you to eat something like 6 lb of meat. | 7 |
adwzji | Biology | How does sleep affect muscle growth? | Dreaming helps the muscles work through unresolved abstract problems that build up incrementally through the muscles daily waking activities and experiences. | 16 |
kn324d | Physics | What prevents planetary orbits from degrading? I understand that the elliptical shape of the orbit helps keep planets and natural satellites from falling into their parent or fling off into space. But IIRC the International Space Station is constantly making small corrections to its orbit to prevent crashing down to Earth. Without these kinds of corrections, how to planets and moons maintain stable orbits around their parent body? | Others have pointed out that the ISS experiences drag where other bodies mostly don't. However, there *are* forces that cause celestial body orbits to degrade. They experience tidal drag forces: for example, when our Moon tugs on our oceans it causes a drag that causes Earth to slow down, which in turn speeds the Moon up and causes it to go further out in its orbit, away from the Earth. Other planets and moons experience tidal drag that can pull them closer to the body they orbit. They are all also radiating energy away as gravitational waves. As to what prevents their orbits from decaying due to these forces? Nothing. It's just such an incredibly slow process, and the distances are so vast, that it takes millions or even billions of years for the effect to become noticeable. | 9 |
6bpy7r | Culture | Why do marriage vows use the line, "Til death us do part" if in Christianity there is an afterlife (heaven). Wouldn't you still be with your wife/husband in that afterlife so? Why do these vows not transcend this life? **Edit:** Wow, I never expected this too take off like it has. Thank you to everyone that responded, there is some very interesting discussion **Edit 2:** It's a shame people can't play nice. I am Athiest myself but was merely curious as to the reasoning behind that vow. I think mature discussion can happen between believers and non believers, but it seems not today | Because the founder of their faith says they don't transcend this life: > Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Matthew 22:29-30 | 58 |
dhehoj | Biology | How do scientists figure out which colors animals can see? Occasionally I see those “this is what humans. see vs what animals see”. How do scientists even know what animals see? Do they just ask the animals? Or is it a secret organization of animals pretending to be human scientists for the clout /s | We observe their behavior in various environments and look for clues. Such as picking certain colors in their mates, seeking darker shades of shelter, seeing a trend in their prey's colors. We can further verify our hypothesis through tests to help eliminate other possibilities, and confirm they react or make decisions based on color and nothing else. We can also look for clues in their anatomy. The size, and shape, along with the rods and cones for capturing visual information helps us understand how they see the world. Such as Dogs with only 2 cones being color blind, compared to our 3 cone eyes. Reference: * [BBC: How do we know what animals can see, hear, and smell?]( URL_0 ) | 4 |
7fcqzu | Biology | Why do warmer alcoholic beverages get absorbed into the system quicker? Lately when my drinking buddy and I drink we have had the beer as it's been sitting out. We feel immensely more buzzed, or intoxicated when the beer is warm. We've reasoned it out to our bodies having a tougher time absorbing when we drink something ice cold. What's happening? Also, we drink the warm beer slower, because it's gross. (Had to repost cause I forgot the tag, and knew mods would delete) | I can't find any literature linking the temperature of a drink to it's absorption rate. And as far as I'm aware, the temperature of alcohol doesn't affect the rate of absorption. Things like how full your stomache is, weight, gender, do. And because how "buzzed" you feel is a "feeling" vs. an objective measure like blood alcohol content, the placebo effect is significant. If you believe the temperature of a drink affects absorption, it'll definitely feel like it. If you have a home breathalyzer you can experimentally check. One day get drunk on cold beer and measure your BAC periodically. The next day get drunk on warm beer. Be sure to eat the same amount of food before hand and consume at the same rate. Please get drunk for us in the name of science and report back your results. Edit: abortion doesn't have anything to do with absorption | 3 |
6dzqgy | Biology | How do flies constantly fly into hard objects at high speeds(walls, doors, windows, etc) but never manage to get hurt? | How do we know they don't get hurt? They have pretty short lifespans, virtually no organized medical care (I will go out on a limb: no medical care) so I don't know if we can say a fly hitting a window hundreds of times doesn't suffer some chronic injury that sadly goes unrecorded, unnoticed. There are few creatures more anonymous than a fly. Even an ant gets some sort of recognition at least sometimes from its nestmates but flies are on their own their entire lives except those that manage to mate. | 32 |
5p37t3 | Physics | How can physicists spend years on solving a single equation ? Why is it so hard, and what does it entail? | They don't start with an equation and find the answer, they start with a bunch of answers (i.e. observations of something) and try to find an equation that fits all of them. For example, say you want an equation that explains why a molecule moves the way it does. You observe the molecule moving in a bunch of different ways and then come up with an equation, do all the math and see that it indeed does fit all those ways you observed. But then you test it with a magnetic field nearby, and you find it moves in all these totally different ways your equation doesn't account for. So now you have to modify your equation (or even come up with an entirely new one) that explains not only the original movements, but these new movements you observed when a magnetic field was present. And then you have to try different fields of different strength and positions and whatnot and make sure you equation fits all of those, too. This all takes time and money, sometimes quite a lot, depending on what exactly you're testing. | 2 |
hg83mx | Physics | If we are all made up of atoms then how can intelligence or thought exist? How can a bunch of atoms assembled in a certain way develop to have brains and thoughts that will inquire about itself, i.e. atoms themselves? | No one can give you a 100% answer for this. Obviously, there are chemicals and processes in the brain that let animals have instincts and carry out complex tasks, but self awareness and consciousness is a whole 'nother beast. A very mysterious beast. | 1 |
9lknsl | Other | How sports are able to keep such high viewership without any change while esports games need to change constantly to stay relevant? | E-sports don't *have to* change constantly. But for most it's easier to attract players and spectators by doing so. Counter-strike, which has a very high amount of tournament viewers, is basically the same game since its inception. The fundamentals have been tweaked numerous times, but never really changed. The reason traditional sports don't tweak their rules often is that they've been around long enough to have refined them already. | 37 |
hu1pjx | Other | How do people get graffiti onto the backs of highway signs that stand 30+ feet ABOVE the road without dying or getting caught? | Honestly the most inexplicable shit we've done is because there were scaffoldings in place. Ropes, ladders and blitz crews have also been on the menu | 20 |
bvru2p | Biology | How does your stomach know the difference between food/liquid - bowels/bladder? How does your stomach decide that food goes one way and drinks go the other? | It doesn't. It all goes to your bowel, where nutrients and water are absorbed into your blood. Meanwhile, your kidneys are at work pulling water out of your blood and into your bladder (using the process to get rid of unwanted chemical byproducts like ammonia). | 3 |
j98opp | Other | Why do lawyers have a bad reputation? I've wondered this for a while. I have a family member who's a lawyer. He's a nice old guy. He handles a lot of things like accidents, property disputes, divorces and helping people manage their deceased family member's money. But I honestly don't know anything about law. It bores me to death so I've never asked. If someone could explain to me like a five year old what makes so many people dislike lawyers, I'd appreciate it, thanks! | It's worth noting that lawyers' bad reputation goes way back, for example Shakespeare's Henry VI, in the context of some people discussing what a pretender to the throne should do to improve the country. > The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. | 15 |
o5bojv | Biology | How adhd affects adults A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with adhd and I’m having a hard time understanding how it works, being a child of the 80s/90s it was always just explained in a very simplified manner and as just kind of an auxiliary problem. Thank you in advance. | I'm pretty damn sure I have it. Seriously, not in a "I HaVe AdHd cAuSe I'M sO cReAtIve" way. I can more or less function, but the biggest problem for me is that, no matter how much I like the job I do, there always arrives (around 6-9 months) a point where I become disenchanted by it and start losing motivation, become sloppy, and eventually lose it. I feel like it's really taken a toll on my career (29, M, Producer at a museum). I have never really held a proper job down for more than 1year and a half. I could get diagnosed and get medicated, BUT, I'm terrified more of the idea of medicating (with what fundamentally is amphetamine) for the rest of my life, than having a bit less of a career. I've progressed a lot over the years (when I was a teen, there wouldn't be a day that went by that I didn't lose or forgot something), but to those who have medicated, would you say is the best course of action, or does it make more sense for me to just "work through it" until I arrive to a point where I'm functional enough to be "normal" and get through life? I ponder... | 41 |
64xjxg | Technology | How come we can make an AI that can beat humans at Chess on a level playing field, but AIs in computer games like Civilization can only beat humans when they have access to extra resources? Difficulty in chess programs is scaled by AI behaviour, whereas difficulty in the Civilization series (and other computer games of that sort) is scaled by 'cheating' to give the AI less or more resources than the human player. Why the difference? | The goal of AI in a computer game isn't to win - it's to present a calibrated challenge to the player. However, if you were to attempt to design the 'perfect' AI for a game like Civilization you'd first need to determine what that perfect strategy should look like. Lacking the millennia of thought about the rules of the game as you have with Chess, this would be a fairly difficult task with little reward - especially considering you'd need to redo all your work whenever a new version came out. | 2 |
6yfp2v | Other | what happens to animals who live in the ocean beneath where a hurricane is? | I had a submariner tell me recently that unless you are on the surface or in shallow water it makes no difference | 19 |
hk50of | Technology | How does a camera save what it captures? | Depends on the technology in the camera. If its a film camera, the light is focused on a strip of chemicals which are effectively 'burnt' by it and so capture the image. A digital camera focuses that light onto a grid of photosensitive sensors, much like our eyes, and it records the data it gets from them. | 1 |
654x0b | Biology | if the cells in our body get replaced regularly, why does our hearing and eyesight not get repaired? | Neurons (nerve cells) are not generally replaced. Some parts of the brain like the hippocampus (involved in learning, memory, spatial ability) gets new neurons, but peripheral sensory nerves (photoreceptors in the eyes and neurons in the optic nerve) are never replaced if damaged. | 12 |
6tfs11 | Biology | why do some people (aka my girlfriend) get bitten by every bug whereas some people (me) never get bitten? Even when we are with each other all day, same place, same activities. | Actually, it's also possible that both of you get bitten but you do not have reaction to it. Kind of like bee stings: some are allergic and some are not. | 11 |
5z48tj | Culture | Who decides how many days we work per week ? If everyone (I mean everyone) worked 3 days a week, what would be different ? Is the number of work days and hours a natural process ? | You'd also have to remember the retail and restaurant employees, doctors and nurses, janitors, etc. not everything can be reduced to a three day work week without a silly number of employees to rotate through. | 12 |
l6m0ip | Technology | App developing and patenting What’s the deal. You have a great idea you want to make an app. How does one regular ol’joe shmoe go about creating and patenting an app/idea ? | Oh hey, I can answer this one! I’m a UX/UI designer at a software dev company and custom designing apps for people is our entire trade. When you work with a company on something like this, they’ll be able to provide you with custom design & development and you still keep intellectual property (well at least that’s how my company does it). If you’re serious about your idea feel free to ask me anything! | 2 |
jqlbwd | Biology | Why do humans have a bigger appetite when they are sleep deprived? | Wait, wait.. People get HUNGRY when sleep deprived!? I get so nauseous I have hard time even drinking water. | 8 |
8z90f6 | Biology | A seed planted in a small basket can grow into a big flowing plant. Where does all the material come from to make the plant? It seems to me that the amount of material used in the plant is far in excess of the amount of soil I used. All I have added is water. Is the plant made up of just stuff it grabs out of the air? | People have already explained where the carbon comes from (which is most of the non-water mass of the plant). Nitrogen is something like 70% of the air, but the reason crop plants need nitrogenous fertilizer is because the nitrogen in the air is in an inert form that plants can't access. Special plants called legumes (eg beans - anything with a high protein content typically) have nodules in their roots that contain bacteria. These bacteria are capable of converting the unusable nitrogen in the air into nitrates, a form that plants can then absorb and use. Some GMO has been looking into giving this ability, called nitrogen fixation, to crop plants directly, to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed, which can be poisonous. | 4 |
idgrhx | Other | What creates wind? The outside kind, not the internal bodily kind. | Temperature differences in the air. Air is a fluid so it flows kind of like water. As the sun heats one area of air it expands and has to move to an area that is colder and less dense, that movement is wind. As I understand it | 2 |
bjyzdb | Biology | Why doe we feel like we're in a "fog" when we're sick? Currently fending off a nasty cold, and I've felt like my brain has been working at half-power the last few days. What makes us feel so out of it when we're sick? | Your body can only do so many things at once. Fighting off an illness is stressful (physically and mentally), so you're not operating at full capacity in any regard - including your ability to think and move. This is obviously more pronounced when you're severely ill, but even a minor cold will have some impact. Otherwise, a fogginess may also occur from the fact that your mucous is working overdrive with some colds. The mucous from your sinuses effects your breathing and eyesight - watery eyes and runny noses. There's generally more humidity around your face with a cold which isn't something you're always used to. | 3 |
7omdob | Biology | Why we sometimes get the feeling that we're falling as we drift off to sleep. And then we flinch every freaking muscle in our bodies. | Brain: Okay, time to sleep so we don't die for some reason, everybody pack it in! Heart: \*beats slower* Muscles: \*relax* Lungs: \*breathe deeper, slower* Brain: \*starts turning off higher functions* Brain: OH FUCK WE'RE DYING WE'RE DYING EVERYONE WAKE UP THE BODY IS SHUTTING DOWN OH GOD AHHH | 4 |
6tonty | Other | how are deafblind people taught to communicate? | Hi, have a look @clarissavollmar on Facebook. I belong to the deaf community myself and follow this family. Clarissa is a deaf-blind child and her family documents how they are raising her. It is very interesting to see their experiences and the family is thorough in explaining their challenges. | 9 |
i6qvp6 | Other | how dangerous is lifting kid by head | Well thats a new one. Yeah thats a terrible idea. You neck is meant to turn and support just your skull. Not only that, its meant to compress, not be stretched. Its possible to fully paralyze someone doing something like that. | 2 |
guhwk7 | Biology | Can animals get PTSD ? | A friend of mine had a young german shepherd follow him home from school. His parents were unable to find the owners, so she became their dog. She could never be enticed to go upstairs in their home, and would flinch if you raised your arm around her. Otherwise she was a sweet girl. We always assumed she had been abused. | 6 |
gg2hbp | Biology | Is it possible to eat and drink just the right amount, so that your body has enough energy to run but produces no waste? | No. If you run net calorie through your body you will still produce waste. Even if you fast an have no intake, your body will start to consume itself instead and produce waste. | 11 |
7eynab | Biology | How do smelling salts wake you up after you’ve been unconscious? Also as a side note, could you sniff them to keep you awake? | You can sniff them to keep you awake, actually. Inbetween periods, my team will crack open a few and pass the little packets around. You take a whiff of the salts and the intensity and potency of it really opens your eyes. It's almost like a drug, without the harmful effects. | 19 |
mrpky2 | Chemistry | How does frozen food sometimes “taste like a freezer”? | Freezer burn is a condition that occurs when frozen food has been damaged by dehydration and oxidation, due to air reaching the food. It is generally caused by food not being securely wrapped in air-tight packaging. Food is still safe to eat though but usually has that aftertaste you're talking about. | 1 |
m9qiqx | Biology | So, how do sexual hormones and arousal even work? | Pituitary gland is the master gland of the endocrine system (hormone producing system.) It secretes hormones that make other glands secrete their hormones that tell your body to do different things, hair growth, muscle development, breast development, metabolic regulators [mount up, lol] etc... Anecdotally, I am hypopituitary (low functioning pituitary due to a benign tumor) and therefore hypo -thyroid, adrenal, and gonadal. My body doesn't produce thyroid, cortisol, or testosterone in addition to some other hormones. I am on hormone replacement for all of the named, and will be my whole life. Specifically to testosterone: when I was off it for a few years I had zero sex drive, minimal and lackluster (to say the least) erections, weak urine stream, body hair loss, depression, tiredness, loss of muscle mass, etc... I still found women attractive, thought about sex, masturbated (no sperm production though), etc... The best way I can describe being an adult male who has the desire but not the drive or capability for sex is: it was like looking at a cake, and saying man that looks delicious, and I know I would love to eat it; but I'm just not craving anything sweet. Edit: I am not a Dr. And I probably messed/mixed up some terminology but I think I have the general idea | 1 |
ieqbg3 | Biology | Can you actually forget/repress completely a traumatic event? Like, say someone experienced some type of abuse as a child. Is it possible for them to repress this event so strongly they don't remember it in their adult life? Just feel the effects of unexplained mental illness? Or is this just a thing in the movies? | Yes. Nothing "movie traumatic" has happened to me, but though I've sought therapy specifically to deal with the trauma I do have and know about, it has frequently made me remember more. Obviously nobody remembers everything but there's a number of years where my memory is like a tape that's had big chunks erased and is just "blank" to me. To recall mundane details (e.g. what year I took specific exams or moved house) I have to piece it together from physical evidence or reason backwards from later milestones. This might be different from person to person though, depending on how they deal with their trauma and what help they get to do that. I'd say I'm quite a repressive person, burying things like that is a defense mechanism - a maladaptive one. it hurts to recall them so we "learn" to stop doing that, and they stop being part of our normal mental processes (thoughts, memories, etc.) Obviously people with truly awful horrors in their past have all the more reason to develop that defense quick and hard. ETA: this doesn't mean the trauma/inaccessible memories don't affect the person though. They can manifest in all sorts of ways. But in the case that someone has truly repressed the "root" of a feeling or behaviour they have (if one could be identified and singled out), they simply won't be able to connect the two, no matter how obvious it appears to an outsider with all the context. How receptive they are to being led to or told the potential connection varies, probably based on how distressing the thing is to them (I'm not a psychologist, but that seems the most obvious factor). | 8 |
8fooe9 | Other | Why do Americans have to pay for an ambulance if someone else called it for them? | I think I need to step in and clarify a few things here. First, as others have mentioned, if you're in a state of mind to refuse an ambulance, you can go ahead and do that. Now, I don't care what country you live in, if you get taken somewhere by ambulance, *someone* is paying for it. If you're in a country with socialised healthcare, it's the government. The US is thought by most people (including Americans) not to have socialised healthcare, but this is only partially true. There are many government programs that pay for healthcare. More now than a decade ago, imperfect as the new ones are and hobbled as they re becoming. So there's a decent chance that if you are an American and someone called you an ambulance, the government (federal or local) is paying for it. Barring that, you probably have private insurance, and *they* are the ones who will pay for it. Now, many private insurance programs will have various fees and copays for services, including ambulance service, **but this is not uncommon in countries with socialised medicine**, either. Your insurance might be charged a few thousand dollars, and you'll have to pay $100 out of that (or more, or less -- depending on the program you chose). Only if you have *no* insurance will you be billed directly yourself. And when that happens, that's when it makes a huge noise and people outside the US hear about how someone in the US is now $100,000 in debt because of medical costs. | 5 |
8zzujv | Physics | How does the opening bottle of wine in a shoe work? | Liquids don't compress. Holding the bottle upside down and striking the heel sends shockwaves through the bottle, which terminate in the spongey cork, causing it to move. Since it can't move into the liquids, it moves out of the neck. | 1 |
gpfy2h | Physics | Why does it seem like all of the color wavelength that we can’t see (UV, infrared, X-Ray, etc.) have special powers, while the ROYGBIV colors don’t? | Different wavelengths including visible light all do have different "powers" visible light is needed for photosynthesis visible light can pass through glass, but ultraviolet light can't. Generally it is because you live in a visible light world you overlook how special it is. | 1 |
9tthwa | Biology | How does muscle work? Will I get the same results if I do 100 push ups in a row or 100 push ups throughout the day? | I’ll try and make this eli5: generally you can train to be big but limited endurance, or have a lot of endurance but limited size. Lifting big weights for small reps = get bigger Lift small weights for big reps = endurance You will not get the same results with your push up idea because it’s different ways of training the muscle because you aren’t stressing the muscle the same way. | 4 |
in4iru | Physics | Why do planets close the Sun, like Mercury, have very hot days BUT very cold nights as well, despite being so closr to the Sun? It is obviously understandable why they are so hot during the day, but I don't understand why they are so cold during the nights | When the sun is shining on the side of a planet it warms up that ground, when that side rotates away from the sun it radiates its heat away into space. If there is an atmosphere, that traps a lot of the IR radiation and keeps that side of the planet warm Mercury has basically no atmosphere so it makes sense that it'll get hit with a huge amount of sunlight and be very hot during the day which takes 88 Earth days.... It then has no atmosphere to trap the heat so during the 88 Earth days that a side is facing away from the sun it can radiate away basically all of its heat Venus is another one that is closer to the sun than us and also rotates stupidly slowly (a Venusian day takes 116 Earth days) but because it has such a thick atmosphere the majority of the energy absorbed during those first 63 days can't effectively radiate away during the 63 day long night period. Venus's atmosphere at the surface is 50x denser than Earths so it is pretty much always at 460C all across the planet unlike Mercury which swings from -220C to 420C | 3 |
aisbxm | Biology | How does something like a loud noise give someone an immediate headache? | it's less actual damage and more all-in-the-mind when you're not at your best, your body and mind are trying hard to keep you functional and coherent then with a sudden shock, a part of you decides "you know what? that's enough trying. find some place dark and quiet, i'm done putting off this malaise" | 8 |
9jtnaw | Other | Why is the Queen in chess the most effective piece? I wouldn't have thought thought, given the age of the game, that women in that time period would be considered combat masters or respected so highly. | Lots of people are bringing up the historical reasons so I'd like to address a fundamental one. Chess isn't about combat, it's about medieval politicks (at least the version we know in the west today.) A lot of the pieces make more sense when viewed as political entities rather than military ones. You use Pawns, not soldiers as the most disposable pieces. Bishops wouldn't have anything to do with a military either, that would be lower rank members of the clergy, but they were highly political back in the day (and arguably still are, but that's a whole can of worms not relevant to this post). It's why Rooks/Castles can "move". They aren't literally moving around, their political significance is shifting. So from that lens, of course the Queen is the strongest piece, they have the greatest political power with the least limitations imposed by their status. | 15 |