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cpayjo | Biology | What is cryogenic freezing? How can living beings be resurrected through it? | To be clear, people are being cryonically preserved in the *hopes* that one day science will figure out how to repair and resurrect a frozen body. The technology doesn't exist, nor is it likely to exist in the near future, if at all. Basically, people are spending vast sums of their legacies betting that: 1) the technology to resurrect and repair the freezing damage is developed 2) the technology to cure whatever originally killed them is developed 3) human memory and mental function are not permanently erased by freezing (due to the denaturing of brain chemistry and damage to cells, even if repaired) 4) that their body will be preserved quickly enough for any future reanimation technology to work 5) that their body will be well looked after by the cryonics company for decades/centuries (based on some reports I've seen, not always the case) 6) that the cryonics company won't go out of business 7) that far future societies will be somehow incentivised to revive elderly, anachronistic, potentially disabled/dependant, legally-dead people with no understanding of the current world, beyond defrosting a select few for historical, curiosity purposes I mean, it's worth a shot of you've got the money, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. | 1 |
71mml1 | Biology | How is it that sperm and eggs can be frozen for years to be used later but we can't freeze a living person without killing them? | I've also watched a lot of documentaries and read a lot of articles/blogs and also found them fascinating! Although I've noticed some big concerns. 1-Many of the small cryo storage companies (who are true believers doing their best)just can't afford the rising costs of both their facilities and the proper equipment to store their patients properly. Costs increase, equipment changes, families can't continue to pay the monthly fees or change their minds... (which can also be an ethical/legal dilemma that can cost the cryo company a lot of money) 2- Many fly by night companies popped up who merely sought to make money by defrauding the patient/family --the 'showroom' and supposed storage tank areas were outfitted to look like the most cutting edge SciFi film of the time. (70s-mid 80s?--the controversies surrounding cryogenics and increasing costs reduced the number of potential patients as well as the public's interest) WARNING----before researching the dark side of cryogenics, the stories are graphic and heartbreaking. What absolutely angers me the most is the false hope that many cryogenic "scientists" promised the families of dying loved ones--especially the parents of young children. (while all the lies are unforgivable, defrauding these parents for money is unconscionable) I think that we are no where near successful human cryogenic trials --on *healthy* subjects. Plus head transplants are very close to being a reality, and some tissues can already be grown in labs. so this method of prolonging life and healing disease seems more cost effective and seems to be more attractive to patients. (pun intended) | 17 |
68j7rx | Culture | Why do Europeans dislike Gypsies so much? | (Disclaimer personal opinion) It depends on what kind of gypsy your referring too, In the UK from my perspective gypsies are not the Romanian kind, their the inbred caravan illegally put on your local park type people. I hate those kind of gypsies because they ruin any area they come in contact with, start fights with individuals because they know they will win because they are always in groups and have no public decency. I have absolutely no problem with Romanians or gypsies that have respect for others and they have a very interesting culture. | 3 |
7dfj0a | Biology | If our bodies are supposed to be able to run on fat reserves, why do we feel weak and are unable to think clearly when very hungry? I've always been basically useless when I'm hungry and my brain chugs along at 2mph if I miss a meal. Surely once my body starts metabolising fat it should continue to function normally. It seems like it'd be a severe disadvantage in a survival situation to be cognitively impaired when you need to find food. | It's also because the primary source of energy for your brain is glucose. When you don't eat for a while the level of glucose in your blood drops. That's when your body has to change to burning fat and proteins. This can deliver energy to your brain to function but it rather has glucose so it makes you go hungry so you will get it some more glucose. | 4 |
mzwx6h | Biology | Why won’t your body allow you to do things like hold your breath too long, but you can ingest enough alcohol to poison yourself or overeat? | Because breathing is an automatic process and you do not have conscious control of it. Eating and drinking are not. | 3 |
iqiu6b | Technology | Advantage of medical experiments conducted on ISS So I know that the ISS has made a lot of contributions to the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals.What I want to know is that how and why does microgravity play a role in this field as I guess it's the only variable that's changed by testing it in space; everything else can more or less be simulated on earth. | Things get weird in microgravity. We can do some experiments in microgravity if they’re less than a few minutes long. But if someone wanted to see how a biological process worked for more than 10 minutes without gravity, they’d need the ISS. Sometimes, they’ll find that microgravity has no effect, other experiments find that it does affect the results. Why will vary based on the specific experiment. For example, a few diseases are much more virulent in space because the microgravity makes them want to reproduce faster than they usually do. | 2 |
5o3qx0 | Other | What is the role/ effect of music in human psyche? Why do some songs make us cry or some make us happy? Why do music effects our brain the way it does? Why do few songs make me sad or wanna cry? How do I immediately get a feeling of transcending beyond limitations of time and space when I listen to few song? | Music actually effects our brainwaves... ie some genres or songs like EDM or more upbeat music tends to have a positive influence on our behavior while aggravating music like rock or metal tends to make the waves and connections faster but more irritated if you get what I'm saying | 3 |
9loh5c | Other | When a flight is overbooked why would someone need to be removed from their seat to let someone else on? I understand why flights get over booked - thank you [ELI5]( URL_0 ) - but why would one passenger get removed from a flight to let another passenger on? Is it based on ticket price? Airline miles or loyalty program(s)? Trying to keep families together? Or totally at the discretion of the gate agent? | It's generally what's going to be the cheapest for the airline. When a passenger is involuntarily denied boarding due to overbooking, then the airline has to compensate the passenger an amount of money that's based on how much they paid for their ticket and how much of a delay they will encounter to get to their final destination. If they can get someone there less than an hour after the original arrival time, then they don't owe the person any money. If it's one to two hours late, they owe the passenger 200% of the one-way fare, and if it's more than two hours late, they owe 400% of the fare. So, let's imagine two passengers, Amanda and Bob. They are both booked on a plane from Oklahoma City to Dallas. Bob is just going to Dallas, that's his destination. Amanda is changing planes to go to Miami. You need to bump one of them off the flight. The next flight to Dallas is in 90 minutes. There's also no other good way to get Bob to Miami other than going to Dallas. If you bump Amanda, she'll miss her connection to Miami. The next plane to Miami leaves three hours later. You can get her on that flight. But since she will be more than two hours late, you will have to pay her 400% of the one-way fare. That one way fare is $500, so you will have to pay her $2,000. If you bump Bob, he will just be 90 minutes late getting in to Dallas. That one-way fare is $160. Since he's getting in between 1 and 2 hours late, you'll owe him 200% of the one way fare -- $320. So, is the airline gonna bump someone who will cost them $320 or $2,000? | 4 |
bnkcf9 | Technology | How can online games like first person shooters be so in sync across all users without hardly any delay? | There is a term "tick" - tick is an instance of updating and sending game session information to clients from dedicated server which hosts the game. Tickrate - amount of ticks per second. Most modern games have 20-100+ tickrate. Meaning each client receives data for all game objects each 50-10 milliseconds.Human reaction times from moment when something appears on screen to recognizing that something appeared on screen and starting doing appropriate action to this vary in between 200-400 milliseconds. So 1st thing is that game state updates faster than human reaction time. 2nd thing - whenever client prepares to render frame, it interpolates (finds out approximate) position of game object from last know object position, velocity and other info received on last tick. | 5 |
mhukxs | Economics | What was gold replaced by FIAT money? Moreover, I also want to understand before the FIAT money fiasco why did only gold achieve an standard for barter. Why did not any other metal met that standard? | Fixing the value of money to the price of a commodity which has, normally, very stable prices (due to limited production and demand for non-monetary purposes), effectively ensures stable prices. Gold fit those needs better than most commodities. However, it leaves governments with very limited capability to expand or contract the money supply in response to economic conditions. The "fiat money fiasco" has allowed central banks to respond to downturns and are a big reason why the financial crisis and covid downturns didn't look more like the great depression. The big downside of a fiat currency is if the central bank loses its credibility to set inflation targets. For example, see Turkey, where the president, who believes that low interest rates reduce inflation, has repeatedly fired heads of the central bank and the market largely believes (and acts as if) inflation will be high regardless of what the government does. When a central bank is independent and the market believes them when they say "monetary policy will aim for inflation of x%" then inflation remains low. | 2 |
biiiie | Other | Why are theatrical film's success rated by money grossed, when ticket prices rise every year? Shouldn't it be judged by amount of tickets sold? | I guess a follow up would be why a more knowledgeable public, who usually would be against any kind of corporate media manipulation for profit, are in this instance so happy to join in. & #x200B; I imagine people say "it doesn't matter" and "it's just movies" but if it doesn't matter, then why, for instance, do posts saying how much money a film has made become some of the highest-upvoted comments on this site? Clearly people think it's important enough to get excited about, and in that case people should make sure their excitement isn't based on something that is factually misleading. (Let's be honest: when people get excited for a films' gross it's not because it means the film was successful or popular; they're tacitly celebrating the "fact" that the film is *more* successful or popular, which may or may not be true.) & #x200B; I'll also say that it's not as easy to solve as taking tickets sold per capita, as people's entertainment choices were more limited in the past, meaning a "Gone With the Wind" situation may not be possible any more. Meanwhile, marketing techniques today are more advanced and pervasive than ever before. Social media, particularly social media where less popular opinions are buried, has led to a kind of feedback loop of hype that has never been possible until now. Who can say how well Titanic would have done with today's media? | 7 |
iobyis | Other | Why do online job applications ask you to submit your resume, but then ask you to manually fill in the information on said resume into the application itself? | Your resume is usually a stylized document intended for a human to comfortably read. However a lot of recruiters use computer systems to filter and sort applications and these computers can not read the documents as easy. So they ask you to fill out the information in a form that can be read by a computer but also attach a human readable version of the resume for when it is picked up by humans to read. A lot of times the resume does include information about you that is not asked for in the forms but is still very relevant. | 1 |
hwq39f | Biology | Why are girls more prone to eating disorders? | Because overweight women are far more stigmatized than overweight men. As one example look how many TV shows have an overweight man married to a thin woman, versus how you almost never see the reverse. Being overweight isn’t viewed as being as unattractive in men as it is in women. | 3 |
hswkia | Other | Who buys cruise ships when they're out of commission and where do all the amenities onboard go? | When i was younger a cruise ship was in the docks at southampton, it was being sold to a company out of greece, so this mega cruise liner from one of the big cruise companies was being sold to a company to run between the greek islands. | 17 |
6aofcr | Economics | Why do uneducated people tend to have more children? I would like to know specifically regarding first world nations. I know many people in developing nations don't have access to contraception. | Religion and access to healthcare. It sounds like a bad stereotype, but there is a wealth of evidence to support the fact that uneducated people are far more likely to be religious. Many religions frown on birth control in one form or another. Uneducated people are also far less likely to see a doctor on a regular basis or take birth control. In America, lack of education has a direct correlation with income, which has a direct correlation with access to healthcare. Especially now. There are many other small reasons which may contribute, but most are speculation. If you are looking for common factors with evidence to support them, it always comes back to religion and healthcare. | 78 |
ix6ekp | Technology | Why does a washer-dryer combo use twice as much water when washing and drying compared to just washing? Drying should be the complete opposite of using water... I'm looking at specification sheets of washer-dryer combo units and this seems to be always the case. | In a normal standalone dryer, the hot moist air from the dryer is either vented outside, or is run through a compressor to cool down and release the moisture. In a washer/dryer combo unit, they instead cool the air using cold water, since a water supply is already present on the unit. | 2 |
bqk0al | Mathematics | What are mathematicans trying to solve while inventing new math stuff? I don't know how to ask this question better... but what I'm trying to ask is: \- What problem did a mathematican face, that he thought "a matrix would solve my problem" while matrices weren't 'invented'/'discovered' at this time? \- Why did Mr. Rudolff thought "x^(0) = 1" is needed to solve his problem? What was his problem he tried to solve? & #x200B; I understand that "counting animals" or whatever is useful and I can imagine that it's useful to add/substract animals or whatever. But I don't understand what the very first person thought or was trying to solve while he invented a new thing in mathematics, that's later on known as "squareroot" or "matrix", "vector", etc. I hope you understand what I'm trying to ask :). The "History of Mathematics" article on wikipedia just explained what cultures had which math concepts and operators and sometimes what it was used for (egyptians used math mostly for accounting and stuff like that) but not the "why" or "how". Thanks in advance :)! | The entirety of mathematics is about finding patterns. Patterns are found better when you interpret them differently (e.g. you might notice a nice tartan pattern on a 2D fabric, but what does that same pattern look like on the unravelled thread that created it? What would it look like if you could only see the pixels of an image of a Scotsman on a windy hill wearing a kilt? Same pattern, very, very different appearance everywhere you go). Finding alternative interpretations greatly helps in joining two distinct areas of mathematics that, up until then, had zero correlation. Once you make that link, you discover that you can take your original "pattern" that you're trying to solve, transform it into a completely different type of problem, and in the process find a solution that has relevance back in the original form. Thus things like matrices are discovered when you take, say, a distance and a speed, look at it in vector terms (i.e. a change in each direction), which if you combine several of them gives you a matrix, which has \*entirely\* different mathematics but... when you then dial your answer back down to vectors, and then back down to distance/speed, it solves your problem in a way you never imagined before. 3D matrix transforms, for example, are very "unusual" arithmetic, but are used in drawing 3D graphics in a 3D game, for example. To rotate a point in 3D space, express it as a vector, multiply it by a matrix that describes the camera position / angle, and it gives you a vector back which - if you do it properly - is the pixel you need to draw that point on on a 2D screen. That's basically the entirety of OpenGL, for instance. (P.S. The OpenGL Superbible, prior to I think 4th Edition, has a lovely explanation of this - in later versions they focused on things other than "immediate mode" and it strays into display lists and shaders, but the early editions had a lovely explanation). | 6 |
641sb3 | Technology | Why are residential solar panels common, but not wind turbines? Or water wheels for people who live by rivers? | Wind turbines are all about size, bigger is more economic, not more (edit: not more of them. If a manufacturer/operator could choose, they would pick bigger size over quantity), so they're not cost effective in a subdivision. They also make a lot of noise, require quite a bit of maintenance, and space, kill birds, and are unsightly (for those who care). You can't expect homeowners to keep up on the maintenance of their own turbines, so you have to build a far less efficient model that at least won't explode in a catastrophic failure, sending blades sailing and impaling people or property. I don't think there are enough people who live along rivers to make this a viable market for a manufacturer. I think they'd be more interested in hydro turbines instead of old fashioned water wheels, but that requires building dams, which have a huge environmental impact and we're doing what we can to tear down small, privately held dams, not build more of them. | 2 |
981z7w | Technology | Why website extension name have different prices | Because the different TLDs (Top Level Domains) are administered by different organizations. The basic country specific TLDs like .fr or .jp or .de are administered by organizations in those countries often have limits that mean only residents can buy those addresses and often are designed to be cheap to help drive that whole internet economy thing. .makeup on the other hand is administered by L'Oréal in hopes of helping the marketing PR and advertisements of their own products. The amount of money it cost to register a domain name in that TLD is easily payable for big players like themselves but out of reach of smaller ones, so the pricing keeps out the rifff-raff. | 1 |
hrwpln | Physics | If muons are subatomic particles that only last two millionths of a second, what can they teach us about the universe? | Our understanding of physics might seem like it works really well because it does at scales that are relevant to humans. For example, there isn't much of a dispute about how fast light travels, at least not out to a decimal place that humans can measure. But our understanding of physics doesn't work *at all* under more extreme conditions. A good example of this is fusion research. The National Ignition Facility is a fusion research lab that was built in the late 90's. It was over engineered to guarantee that it could produce a self sustaining fusion reaction based on our then current understanding of physics. Except whoops, our current understanding of physics was totally and completely wrong. As it turns out a self sustaining fusion reaction isn't even possible using the type of ignition source that the NIF was trying for, but we didn't learn that until the NIH failed to achieve a sustainable fusion reaction and we were able to delve into *why* that didn't happen. "Physics being wrong" really only comes up in the context of research like that or nuclear weapons design, since those are the only circumstances under which humans can reliably test how the universe functions under extreme conditions. But we know that we're wrong about a lot of other stuff. Another example is the electron. If you go read a physics textbook - even a graduate level book - what you'll read is that the electron is a fundamental particle. Its not. An electron has a magnetic moment, which means that *something* inside of the electron is has an negative electric charge and is rotating around *something* else. One of those somethings is probably a form of neutrino, but we have no idea what the other something is. And the problem with electrons is that they're so stable that we can't actually break them apart to look at whats inside. Muons are very similar to electrons but substantially less stable. This means that its easier to break them apart. The problem is that they don't always break apart into the same thing. You always get an electron and two neutrinos - but you don't always get the same kind of neutrinos and sometimes you get *other stuff* and we have no idea why you would ever get other stuff. The hope is that if we can figure out what muons are made out of that it might give us some insight into what electrons are made out of and, in turn, help to fix some of those areas of physics which we know are wrong. | 1 |
6xogy4 | Technology | Why do spreadsheet programs like excel and google sheets have the default text wrapping set to 'overflow'? It seems like everyone switches it to "wrap". Is there some use for excel that's extremely common that I don't know about that uses overflow frequently? | I despise wrap. I receive a lot of customer produced Excel files and immediately strip out their formatting by saving to txt, closing and then reopening. This takes care of things like, non default fonts, wrap, borders, shading, etc. Its like the abomination never happened. | 10 |
6wgruj | Chemistry | Why do you need to boil water before you are cooking noodles? Why are noodles only softened when the water is hot or boiling? I'm just interested if there is any specific reason. EDIT: If you know anything about the chemistry of it I would be really interested. | Because it happens faster, you can hydrate noodles with cold water as well. It just takes longer and isn't as good tasting for some reason. | 3 |
ataxb6 | Biology | What was/is Spanish Influenza and why did it kill so many people? | There are many different strains of flu, we get slightly different ones in flu season every year, that's why you need a different flu shot every flu season. & #x200B; Towards the end of WWI a particularly bad one (currently called H1N1) started showing up. The war meant that it could spread very easily. You had crowded barracks, soldiers squatting in cold, wet, dirty trenches, hospital wards that were overwhelmed, trains crisscrossing every country ferrying troops back and forth, young men from across the countryside being called to centralized bases for training, and soldiers departing the front and going back home when they had leave or were injured. & #x200B; All of the warring nations censored any news of the flu. They didn't want the enemy to know that they were weakened, and if it wasn't virulent on the other side they didn't want the enemy to take countermeasures and gain an advantage. & #x200B; It's called the Spanish Flu because Spain was neutral in the war. When the disease reached Spain they reported on its severity honestly, so the first time the average citizen would have heard about it would have been when there were breakouts in spain. If the warring countries then took countermeasures and acknowledged it was going around their territory, it would seem like it spread from Spain, even if it actually was the other way around. & #x200B; H1N1 is one of those flus that hits people in their prime harder than it does children and the elderly. Strong adults have a healthier immune system that attacks the virus harder, which increases the risk of death from immune reactions like fever. Add to this the rampant malnutrition, poor sanitation and such, and people were more likely to catch it and more likely to die from it. | 7 |
5yi1zo | Culture | In America, why is taking the bus looked down upon, more so than taking the train/subway/taxi? | Many American bus services are run as "coverage" services, which means they try and provide some level of service to as many people as possible. This means the "some level" is often very infrequent which makes journey times longer overall because of the waiting time. Bus stops are also sometimes very close together, closer than is really needed for able-bodied passengers, which slows the bus down even more. With such a poor service, people who have an alternative take it. Private car, taxi, or in some places walking to the subway station. The buses are only taken by those with no other choice and that includes the very poor. Hence taking the bus becomes stigmatised as something for poor people. The alternative approach to bus service planning is "ridership" service. That means trying to make the bus services useful so that people actually choose to ride them. That generally means more frequent services, like buses every 5 or 10 minutes, and longer spacings between stops, 400 metres is commonly suggested. Of course you don't get something for nothing, and with a fixed overall budget to cover a city this can mean leaving some neighbourhoods, typically those that were built in a very car-centric way, with no bus service. | 5 |
iw2lcq | Biology | How do genes tell a baby turtle to follow the moon to the ocean after birth? | Same way that your genes tell you that sugar is tastey, girls are pretty, and sex feels good. There's patterns in the genes which tell the cells in your brain how to get made. Brains are not entirely blank slates where everything has to be learned. Some bits are hard-wired or baked-in. We're specifically wired to learn languages btw. We've got dedicated hardware for it. Some of that also influences things like... behavior, personality, and fight-flight responses. And to go make babies at puberty. | 10 |
63on69 | Culture | why can you buy cheap farsighted glasses in supermarkets and general shops but can't buy nearsighted glasses in the same places? | Weak "farsighted" glasses aren't actually meant for farsighted people who need full-time glasses. If you're farsighted, it's recommended that you get a prescription from an optometrist and that you get a set of lenses made specifically for you. This will ensure that your prescription is actually accurate, and that the lenses of your glasses are the proper distance apart (since not everyone's eyes are the same distance apart). Wearing the wrong prescription or misaligned lenses full-time can cause eyestrain and headaches. The glasses you find in the stores are reading glasses, for people with *presbyopia*. This is the age-related decline in your ability to focus on close-up objects. It's not the same as farsightedness. Your eye has a lens inside that changes shape to change the eye's focus to whatever distance. It flexes to look at close stuff and relaxes to look at far stuff. Nearsightedness and farsightedness are "calibration errors", where the lens doesn't focus the light properly onto the retina no matter the distance. They require full-time correction. Presbyopia is that as you get older, your lens loses its ability to flex as hard as before. It's still calibrated properly, so you don't need full-time glasses, but once an object gets close enough to your face, your eye can't flex enough to look at it anymore. Since it's not a condition that requires full-time lenses, you can get away with treating it using cheap glasses with an imprecise prescription and misaligned lenses. So you can buy cheap reading glasses at the supermarket. But there's no corresponding "age-related nearsightedness" that could be treated by cheap nearsighted lenses from the supermarket, so they don't sell those. | 1 |
myvipi | Other | If soap and water cleans you, why is the towel dirty ? | The towel collects your dead skin cells when you dry yourself off. Moisture from the towel plus dead skin cells can breed bacteria and other yucky stuff. | 3 |
bd22md | Economics | How do some countries with very high national debt (Japan, US) still manage to drive their economies, but some (Greece) fail to do so? | To be honest, debt only exists if the entity who loaned the funds comes to collect. No one is collecting the trillions of dollars of debt at the world level, so why does it even matter? | 17 |
6disqr | Other | After watching Captain Phillips, and hearing the true story that inspired it, I was left dumbfounded by the obvious question: Pirates have been a thing for nearly a millennium, why would there not be a defense plan by default? | Like the Pirates of the Caribbean, fighting pirates takes money. You have to defend a large ocean and the pirates get to pick a small area to attack. Arming merchant ships leaves weapons in the hands of untrained people who almost never use them. It's safer for everybody to just not use armed merchants and leave the weapons in the hands of trained Navy or coast guard sailors. | 7 |
cyagkp | Biology | why do our bodies tend to automatically wake up earlier than normal after a night of drinking? | In addition to what /u/is_reddit_useful said, alcohol also interfers with your body's ability to regulate the different stages of sleep. One of these stages is where dreaming happens, and this stage is also widely thought to be one of the most important stages. So when the dreaming stage gets messed with in a bad way, it negatively affects the quality of sleep that night. | 11 |
jfxr0b | Physics | How do scientists know electrons exist when they can't see them? | Thompson is credited with the discovery of the electron. He was investigating [cathode rays]( URL_1 ); with his discovery we know that these are streams of electrons. He could manipulate the rays to hit or not hit a target using magnetic fields. When they hit the target, electricity was produced. When they missed, there was no electricity. So he first proved that the rays carry electricity. Second he could repeat the above using electric fields (i.e. the field produced by un-moving charge) instead of magnetic fields. Finally, he could also use a balancing act of magnetic fields and electric fields to calculate how much charge each gram of the cathode ray has. He found this number did not change when he tried different metals and different gases in the tube. From this we know that there is a fundamental universal quantity of charge. This heavily implies that charge should have a fundamental particle, i.e. the electron. The [non-eli5 version]( URL_0 ). | 5 |
ijgvxc | Technology | Why does internet explorer have such a bad reputation with tech-savvy people? Average users seem to have no problem with it. | IE has a history of bad support for common web features as well as issues around browser security. "Average users" don't understand this, they see a webpage look bad and just assume the designer didn't know what they were doing. Or they get a virus from a site and just assume the site itself is bad (very much can be the case, but it may be caused by exploits that other browsers are immune to). They don't see the above and think "Wow, IE is a crappy browser", they see the above and think "Wow, this website sucks". In short, average users don't know enough about internet technologies to recognize that IE is a bad browser. | 5 |
l27f99 | Chemistry | Would the medication of a “shake well” medication that separates be stronger or weaker as you reach the bottom of the bottle and why? I want to think if anything it would be either the same or maybe even stronger, but I’m asking because when I start the bottle there is a thick layer of powder separated, but when I get towards the end there might not even really be any powder. I’d expect there’d be less obviously but just not that much less, making me think it might be weaker. | It depends on if the medication itself was more dense than the diluent. Take water and oil and put them together. The oil will float to the surface because it's less dense than the water. If the oil is the medicine, then as you get lower it will be weaker. If the water is the medicine, then it will get stronger. Assuming you don't mix properly, of course. | 1 |
8jwlce | Engineering | When my turn signal bulb is about to die it starts blinking faster. How does the car know? | It doesn't "know". The fact that the clicker is going faster means that the bulb is already dead: The dead bulb is an open circuit rather than a closed circuit with some resistance. The change in resistance causes a change in the timing of the electrical circuit that makes the blink/click. | 3 |
5uhr0x | Culture | Why is it appropriate for PG13 movies/shows to display extreme violence (such as mass murder, shootouts), but not appropriate to display any form of sexual affection (nudity, sex etc.)? | Sorry if I can't quote anything since this was explained to me a while ago but it's due to western culture. The rating system varies country to country but I'm assuming you're talking about it from a U.S. point of view. U.S. culture was highly influenced by the Puritans who were a religious group and I believe were the dominant religion of the first people to settle the U.S. While violence was common in those days, the Puritans shunned nudity and sexuality. While the U.S. has changed quite a bit since then there is still an echo of that in current culture equating to nudity being something naughty while violence is something cool and interesting. URL_0 If you compare it places like Europe where nudity is more common you can see quite a difference. | 51 |
e9td5k | Other | The difference between fatalism and determinism | Determinism is the idea that the universe is in some way determined, because there are natural laws that seem to be immutable that govern the actions of everything in it. This extends to individuals and their choices, because there are physical causes behind everything, including our decisions, and whatever factors might effect our decisions. It says nothing about whether we can understand the reasons behind certain events or choices, only that they *are* determined. The word determinism usually relates to free will, because of the implications a deterministic universe has on our agency, and thus our morality. Important to note that determinism does not mean things are *necessarily* pre-determined, only that natural laws and previous causes determine what happens. Cause and effect. Fatalism is the idea that *because* things are determined, there is no value in choosing one thing over another. A fatalist might say that what one might choose does not matter, because it is already determined. I don't think it's controversial to say that it is an awful, not to mention irrational, mindset and should be avoided at all costs. You see it to a lesser extent in things like depression, in which people might feel that they cannot change. Fatalsim is in some sense, fate. It is the idea that no matter what you do, some inevitable event will happen and you are helpless to avoid it. There are different responses to the idea of determinism as it relates to free will. I think I'm right in saying that compatibilism is the view taken by the majority of academic philosophers, in the US at least (might be wrong about that but I remember reading it somewhere). * Compatibilism is the belief that free will and a deterministic universe are compatible and do not contradict each other, usually by saying that free will is simply the ability to make choices free from outside intervention, coercion or otherwise someone else imposing their will on you. * Hard determinists believe that determinism means that free will cannot exist, and that what we call free will is not true free will and as such we should not call it free will. It is an incompatibilist position because it does not consider free will to be compatible with a deterministic universe. * Libertarian free will is an incompatibilist position, different to hard determinism, which states that free will is not compatible with a deterministic universe, and as such, the universe cannot be deterministic. Libertarians tend to posit that humans have true free will, not beholden to natural laws or outside interference. People who believe that god gave us free will would fall into this category. Importantly they believe that free will *does* exist. Of course there are lots and lots of different ideas about free will and determinism, and there's a good chance I missed something big, but as far as I know those are the three positions most people fall into when discussing free will. Which isn't to say that anyone in the same group would agree with everything someone from the same group might think or say, just that those are the three broad approaches we have come up with to deal with the issue. Fatalism itself is by and large considered to be a logically invalid and harmful response to the idea of determinism, though no doubt there have been arguments made for some forms of it, and it can be worth checking out ideas you don't like in order to understand them. Keep in mind I'm not educated in philosophy, this is mostly what I've learnt reading about stuff online so you'll definitely want to do your own research. I highly recommend this site [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) | 2 |
6hmez6 | Culture | Why does Americans call left wingers "liberals", when Europeans call right wingers "liberals" You constantly see people on the left wing being called liberals (libtards, libcucks, whatever you like) in the USA. But in Europe, at least here in Denmark "liberal" is literally the name of right wing party. Is there any reason this word means the complete opposite depending on what side of the Atlantic you use it? Edit: Example: Someone will call me "Libtard cuck" when in reality I'm a "socialist cuck" and he's the "liberal cuck" ? | Because countries have their own political spectrum. Take America; Democrats are the "left wing" party and the Republicans are the "right wing" party. However, if the democrats were running in the UK they'd be considered centre right and the Republicans would be considered far right. The left / right paradigm is best used when referring to individual policies, and not party's or people because it's all relative to where the center ground is. Whether you're liberal, communist, fascist, anarchist or socialist is largely irrelevant to that. In some societies classical liberalism will be a right wing ideology, in others it may be left. It depends on the average view within that country. | 12 |
iqdgv7 | Biology | What exactly happens in our bodies in the split second between when we hurt ourselves and when we actually feel the pain? | It depends what's happening. Either way, your nerves send signals to your spinal cord that something isn't right. Depending on the severity of the signals, one of two things can happen: \- Signals are routed to the brain which assesses the situation, decides how to respond, and sends instructions to the relevant muscles, organs, glands etc. \- Or, in the case of an urgent threat (e.g. you are touching something hot that's burning you), what's called a reflex arc can be activated, this is where your body can invoke a response (usually to withdraw your hand) without reference to the brain, which saves vital time. Of course, even in the latter case, the signals still reach the brain eventually, which still takes stock and decides how to respond. So in the case of touching something hot, you probably withdraw your hand (via the reflex arc) before you consciously realise what's happening or feel the pain. You can then make more immediate unconscious decisions like saying "ow!", or cradling your hand to protect it, followed by more conscious decisions like dealing with the hot object, or running your hand under water. | 1 |
nv4kv8 | Physics | kW and kWh difference Can someone please explain the difference between kW and kWh? Thank you! Edit: thank you for all the responses, I appreciate you taking time to respond! | A kW is an amount of power, specifically 1000 Joules every second. A kWh is a kilowatt, multiplied by an hour. 1000 J/s \* 1h = 3 600 000 J So a kWh is an amount of energy. Specifically it is the amount of energy used by a 1kW device every hour. | 6 |
5smble | Other | Law enforcement of reddit. Do Undercover cops have preset guidelines for crime they are allowed to commit while Undercover? | I remember hearing of a case involving conspiracy, and part of the legislation means 2 or more people (or more than 2, I'm not 100%) need to agree to commit the crime in order for it to be conspiracy. One of those was an undercover cop, and it was agreed that the officer had to have committed the offence of conspiracy in order to convict the other offender/s. So in this case, he was 'found guilty' of conspiracy, but was never 'convicted' because obviously he was undercover and had no actual intentions of committing the crime. EDIT: Another way of looking at it is possession. If an officer seizes a controlled substance and arrests a suspect for being in possession, the officer immediately becomes in possession of the controlled substance. Why isn't he arrested? Because he seized it! He has a lawful excuse (Being a police officer and lawfully seizing the controlled substance from a suspect) so despite 'breaking the law' he isn't because he is allowed to do so. | 4 |
dj8wdr | Technology | In graphics programming; what exactly is a texture? | A texture is a 2D image that is applied to a 3D object (could be a 2D object depending on the style of your game but usually 2D uses objects called "sprites") to give it some appearance desired by the developer. There's a lot of more intricate details such as texture mapping (this is the actual process used to wrap the 2D image around a 3D object), special texture maps (like bump maps, parallax mapping, reflection mapping, specular mapping, etc) which are used typically in addition to texture mapping to change how an object is rendered on screen, but the basics of "what is a texture" is simple a 2D image drawn onto a 3D object. Think of the peel of an orange. The orange itself is your 3D object, the peel is the "texture". If you remove the peel in one piece and lay it flat on a table, it's your 2D texture which can be wrapped around the 3D object (the orange). If you wanted to break it down further, the orange color and any coloring blemishes of the peel is the texture, and the bumps you see (the physical texture of the peel) would be more similar to something like a bump map (which can be used to make textures appear to have depth, despite being a flat image). | 1 |
k7e30h | Biology | If broken bones, skin and nerves can all heal why can't dismembered limbs be re-attached? Elaborating, if broken bones can be fixed (fractures), skin and nerves are connected back then why can limbs be re-attached in case of accidents or amputation | They can, and regularly do. But it is not always possible. If the accident is a clean amputation for example by cutting then it is likely possible to just attach the limb again and let it heal back together. However if the accident have damaged a lot of the tissue for example by crushing the limb then it would not be able to reattach it. There is a limit to how much damage doctors and the human body can heal. | 5 |
n7kqzu | Chemistry | Why can't we replace plastic bottles with carton boxes (like the ones used for juice boxes) when packaging products like shampoo? Since they are used to package juice they are clearly waterproof and airtight, and recyclable. Wouldn't that be a better choice than plastic? Edit: thank you for your responses! I have begun a low waste journey, switching to solid bars wherever possible, reducing & reusing etc. I am trying to understand recycling and product packaging better, hence the question. Thanks for your help | Plastic bottles are not worse than Tetra pack. They are a single plastic type and could be easily recycled. Tera pack as a mix is much harder. You can even make them resusable and refilt them | 8 |
kziho9 | Technology | How do Rancher, Docker & Kubernetes work together? I just learned about these pieces of software while doing some research for my new home network. It makes me feel not very smart. Please - ELI5 | Docker - creates containers in which applications can run. A container is like a lightweight Virtual Machine; rather than sharing one physical machine with multiple VM instances (which each require their own Operating System), you're sharing one single OS kernel with multiple container environments. Kubernetes - orchestrates containers. Allows you to easily manage multiple containers across multiple machines, including automating the creation/destruction of them. For example if you want to run a cluster of Docker images that automatically scales based on load, Kubernetes could do this. Rancher - adds a nice GUI on top of Kubernetes and simplifies the installation and creation of Kubernetes clusters. | 1 |
d1kyon | Biology | Oxygen toxicity with use of supplemental oxygen My grandma recently started requiring supplemental oxygen at home and the nurse told my family to ensure her SP02 isn’t maintained for long periods of time over 95% because this can lead to oxygen toxicity. She is on a medical grade oxygen concentrator which I have read provides approximately 90-95% pure oxygen. (She uses 1-2 concentrators to provide 4-10lpm as needed to maintain SP02 between 90-95%) How does oxygen toxicity work and how quickly can it occur in a situation like this? Articles I have found online are a bit over my head. Thanks! | Does she have COPD? If so the concern is more about CO2 retention. Maybe she meant dependency? Though with home O2 she's already there, but as far as preventing her needing more. And is she using a regular nasal cannula? Those only deliver up to 6 LPM, about 44% oxygen, compared to 21% in the normal air we breathe. Edit: we usually think of toxicity with people needing high %, not with chronic supplementation. If I get a chance at work tomorrow I'll look at UptoDate. There's a good looking study that I can access from there. I'm an ICU nurse so it will be good to know a little more about it anyway :) | 1 |
il2ul8 | Biology | . How does your body “know” to orgasm. | To understand how your body knows when to orgasm, you need to understand what an orgasm is, and why your body does it. The first question's answer is that, it is an response your body does after recieving a specific signal from the brain, only a response, your brain isn't in too much control of what happens after you send the signal to "pass the point of no return." The second question's answer is, your body does this because your brain has said, "okay, I have recieved the appropriate stimuli to have an orgasm, then it sends the signal down to the base of your back bone. It doesn't matter if you were really stimulated, if your brain just decided to send the signal without the physical contact, or even if I were to hook a signal up to the specific nerve ending in your back bone and fire said signal, your body will orgasm, and this is evident by the fact that we can even make recently dead bodies orgasm. From there your body has a "built in" pattern of contractions it does which we basically call the orgasm, these contractions then send a signal back up to the brain, which release a massive amount of feel good neuro transmitters, until the orgasm subsides. The differences between female and male orgasms start alittle bit before this point, but for the most part they are pretty similar. Anymore questions, just comment and I'll fill in some more blanks Tl;dr- brain sends signal, body receives signal, orgasm is something your body does independent of the brain, orgasm ensues. | 3 |
ec5b7f | Technology | Why do some images in softwares such as Photoshop appear fine at 85% zoom, blurry at 100%, and then fine again at 125%? | Imagine an image was to be displayed 50/50 red and blue. You start out viewing it at a size when it's 20 pixels wide, so 10 pixels red and ten blue. Bam, it is perfect. Now you zoom in by 25 percent, making it 25 percent larger. The red and blue should each be 12.5 pixels wide, for 25 total pixels Uh oh, a pixel is a smallest we go. A pixel has to be all one color, it can't be half one and half the other. So maybe out of our 25 pixel width, we either do 13 red and 12 blue, or vice versa. Or maybe 12 red 12 blue and a purple pixel in between. Either way, it doesn't look perfectly 50/50 red blue anymore, there's either a purple blurring of the line between the two, or it looks slightly off. Zoom in farther! 50%! Now that ten and ten becomes 15 and 15, for 30 total. The screen can totally do that, no problem, there's no half pixels there. So you had the weird half pixel problem at 25% maginification, but not 0 or 50. This is super simplistic, and the problem is drastically more complex over curves, but that's a basic. This is also just one element. There's also a case of extreme zooms where the 'pixel' elements Photoshop is representing get so big individually your brain stops seeing the pixels together as a picture, and start seeing the clear delineation of the pixels as separate elements. | 1 |
5xti9e | Culture | Why is macaroni and cheese such a big thing in America? | I'm sure this will get removed because it seems simple and insincere but in the interest of explaining it to you like you are 5 all you need to know is: It's delicious. Now open up your mouth here comes the yum yum train! | 32 |
n0buv9 | Physics | Why is light produced when an underwater bubble collapsed/destroyed with sound wave ? But I want to know why/how this happens ... [Water bubble-Light ]( URL_0 ) | Its called sonoluminesence. Its when a bubble of gas appears underwater due to a change in pressure as liquids cannot condens3 as easily as gas so when pressure changes happen submerged beneath yhe surface of a liquid any dissolved gas in the liquid can be "squeezed" out of being dissolved in the liquid (cavitation) And if that change in pressure was caused by a significant enough sound wave, and the gasses dissolved in the liquid are the right kind & ratio (made up of mostly noble gas, oxygen, helium, argon, xenon, neon, uhh maybe a few others nitrogen i think)then the pressurized gas bubble will phase transition into plasma for a moment and emit photons. Its not really well understood the exact mechanism that causes this but google sonoluminesence and lots if info will come up. Fun fact pistol and mantis shrimp species when attacking their prey produce these plasma bubbles underwater and supposedly the plasma inside the tiny momentary bubbles is hotter than the surface of the sun | 1 |
hca6fh | Physics | Why is it that planets closer to the sun are solid, and planets further from the sun are gaseous? Even though a gas takes more heat, and solids need to be cold enough, yet Mercury, which is closest to the sun, is a solid planet. | This is the explanation that I was given in my high school astronomy class: in the early solar system everything was hot from the early sun and the collapse of the mater that would eventually form the solar system. It was hotter at the center due to proximity to the sun and friction from gas and particles falling in. This higher temperature at the center ultimately resulted in only things like silicates (rock) and metals such as iron and nickel being able to condense and eventually solidify which formed the 4 inner, rocky, planets. Farther out in the solar system however, It was cool enough for elements like hydrogen and helium to condense more readily and form the gas and ice giants. It seems like your are under the impression that the outer planets need to be warmer so what they are mad of can stay as a gas however, the elements that mostly make them up will remain gaseous even at extremely low temperatures and need the low temperature to be able to form planets. | 3 |
bkna3p | Biology | Why are there sometimes people with 6 fingers, but never people with 3 arms? | There have been people with 3 arms, it just happens that often the third arm would not be usable enough and it will be removed whereas sixth finger is more likely to be a non-issue. | 3 |
82homb | Other | Who are the people peer reviewing statistics and scientific findings Every week I see a new study on some subject and some of them contradict one another, others coincide, others are just off the wall and all of them use different metrics and ways of analyzing to skew the data to make it seem like there way is the best way. So who the heck is approving all this stuff? Is there some entity in charge of checking if someone's findings are 'honest', accurate, and not skewed into some bias or is it just scientists in the same field signing off? If it's the latter that seems like a massive conflict of interest. | Are you seeing actual studies, abstracts or articles about studies? All those are different and only proper journal studies are peer reviewed. Basically it gets sent to a random selection of experts in the field, who comb through the paper and the report to are if the findings are reasonable. It depends very much of the field how specific the circumstances for reproduction are. Do you have any examples or a particular area? | 1 |
89ect0 | Biology | Why do heroin users have to switch veins? What does the heroin do to “kill” the vein? | It's not the heroin. It's poking the same spot with a needle over and over again without giving it enough time to heal. It can get more complicated where if you *do* give it time to heal after you've abused it too much it will develop scar tissue which makes it harder to inject there. | 2 |
o2i4xf | Other | Why do we have powdered sugar not powdered salt? | You can make powdered salt. It just isn't needed and so it isn't popularly sold. What ever your use for salt is (in cooking) powdered isn't needed. | 2 |
gqg1pq | Other | How do people translate dead languages into modern-day languages? Languages like say Mayan, or Egyptian Hieroglyphics, how do people look at them and decipher them into, say English, so that we can understand them? | This is the result of some very dedicated work by archeologists and linguists. Most languages are related to each other. And we have studied these long enough that we know most of the rules of how a language changes. We do not know the direction but usually a word will only have a few different ways it can change linguistically. So if we have a word we can fairly accurately guess how that used to be pronounced. And we can correct those guesses by looking at other languages derived from the same source but have developed in a different direction. We also have lots of text written in these languages and they have similarly been puzzled together with the written languages we have today. In some cases we even have text books used in schools to teach kids and grownups alike to read, write and spell. The texts also includes word play and puns which we can use to confirm our understanding of the language. In the case of Egyptian there is one language still used called Coptic which is very similar to ancient Egyptian. The Egyptian empire lasted all the way to the rise of the Greek city states so we have lots of Greek and Egyptian texts from that period which we can use to piece together the language. Mayan on the other hand is not that ancient. When the Europeans arrived in America there were millions of people speaking Mayan and related languages. So we were able to study these languages in full. And there are still about 6 million people speaking a Mayan language. | 2 |
aoq5hy | Physics | Why does your house get colder when it's cold outside? Is it problem insulation or air flow? Like do your walls get colder or is the problem that your house has to circulate and probably isn't airtight so cold air gets in? It's weird to think the structure around you is colder. If your walls were really thick or made of special material, could it stay warm in your house? Like your walls acted like a thermal container for hot food? | The actual physics answer is that the bigger the temperature difference between two things, the faster heat transfers. So if you have a cup of hot coffee and you want to add cold milk, it's better to add it sooner than later to keep it hot. It you have a hot house and it's cool outside, there will be less rapid temperature change than if it's super cold outside. The next part about this is related to how fast certain materials exchange heat. If you touch a metal pole outside, it's feels colder than the air. But really they are both the same temperature. But metal is a better conductor of heat. The goal of insulation is to get more air, wood, and other bad conductors of heat into the side of your home. So the practical answer is that it's related to both insulation and air flow. You should make your house airtight in the winter. You should use air as an insulator just like thermal containers do. That means creating gaps in the outside walls for air to fit instead of 1 solid wall. | 2 |
b6wdcg | Technology | Why are records still made of vinyl? I know they're more of a collector's item nowadays, but haven't we invented any materials that are more durable or would otherwise be better for the job? My boyfriend is really into records and he's tired of me pestering him about this. I've heard that records used to be made of something called shellac and then it turned into vinyl around the 1930s. But that only caught on when they started using lighter needles that didn't damage the record. It's almost 90 years later now, haven't they made a material better suited for the job? Maybe something that's more durable so they don't scratch as easily, for example. Edit: I'm adding this because it seems to be coming up in the comments a lot: I am well aware that CDs and other digital media (mp3s, Spotify etc) exist. What I'm curious about it the reason why vinyl is being used for the big black records my hipster boyfriend likes. | We still make houses out of wood and brick. And knives out of steel. Tires have been rubber since they’ve existed. And we still drink out of glass. It’s hard to improve on some materials. | 15 |
l52snj | Other | Why did the early globemakers decide that the North pole is the "right side up" instead of the south pole? | Early Western world maps weren't made that way. They were centered on the Mediterranean, often with (central) Asia at the top, Europe at the bottom left, and Africa at the bottom right. But as for physical globes ... think about when you're using a globe for reference. You want to look at the parts of the world that you're in, that you travel in, and so forth. Those parts should be facing you, not facing the table. So if you're most likely to travel in the Northern Hemisphere, then it makes sense for that part to be facing you, the user. It's just user interface. | 3 |
k2g2bo | Other | Why do so many words have silent letters? | It's not that the letters were added, but rather, pronunciations were dropped. French is particularly notorious for this. I'll comment on French separately. In the case of English, and likely these other languages with silent letters, those silent letters were probably pronounced at some point, and then the pronunciation got lazy and dropped the letter from the pronunciation. All the Greek terms imported into English that start with ps are spelled with the letter psi in Greek, and in Greek, you are supposed to start the sound with the p sound. We have one letter which does the combined consonant sound: X. The X sound is equivalent to ks, and we don't find it weird, but we never start words (at least not native words) with certain combined consonants. Anyway, words like psychology and psalm and psoriasis didn't have an initial silent p, it's just that we got lazy in teaching and correcting this pronunciation, so the p sound got dropped. Even words like pterodactyl aren't technically supposed to have silent p's. The Greek word root 'pter' means 'wing'. We see this in words like helicopter. The word isn't made up of 'heli' and 'copter'. The proper breakdown is 'helico'+'pter' (spiraling wing). With this word root breakdown, "[cyclocopter]( URL_1 )" (a type of drone whose rotors tumble in a cylindrical movement) should actually be cyclopter. Terms like "tsunami" are right at the cusp of losing the pronunciation of the t. A lot of people still pronounce it, but a lot of folks are dropping the t sound or blunting it so much you barely hear it. This term is Japanese, and in Japanese, the first syllable of this term is "tsu", with the ts pronounced the ts in "tootsie roll". Again, Americans tend not to pronounce initial polosives followed by fricatives. The word "knight" used to have the k sound pronounced. As for the gh, it used to be pronounced like how Germans pronounce ch. Words like "walk" used to have the l pronounced, but people get lazy and parents don't correct their kids pronunciation with sufficient rigor to preserve these things. There are some examples where complicated and annoying pronunciations persist, and I can't say for sure why. In Britain, they keep saying "maths", whereas nobody in the US says that because the ths combo is like nails on a chalkboard. But we drop the s, rather than spelling it with the s and simply not pronouncing it, because terminal s can indicate plurals, so leaving it off and referring to all of mathematics as one unitary "math". Long story short, it comes down to this: English standardized its spelling before undergoing major changes in pronunciation. Here is the video from LangFocus that covers the [English spelling weirdness]( URL_0 ). | 16 |
776v4d | Technology | How does clearing browser cache fix a lot of website issues? | In the case of a web browser, sometimes temp files and cookies are not current, or even become corrupted. Either way, if changes were made in the browser when trying to load, if the browser is attempting to use what is cached and it is conflicting with what the website currently has, then it can load screwy or not load at all. So clearing it forces the the browser to load it as if it were visiting the page for the first time. Also to note, sites that use a page count, such as newspapers who allow a limited number of articles to be read without a subscription, use cookies and temp files to show that this browser/pc has read x-number of articles, which would cause it to load that annoying screen prompting you to log in or subscribe. Clearing the cookies removes that reference point. | 1 |
h8loza | Biology | why do humans scream when in pain? Is it a learned behaviour? | I have screamed when having a nightmare and terrified out of my mind. I believe it's entirely instinctual based on that alone because I'm usually quite quiet when startled or afraid while awake. I've almost stepped on a snake, been in a couple car accidents, been attacked by a dog, and had spiders drop on me. When in pain I may yell out to get someone to help, like when a wasp is in my hair and stinging but it's usually kind of like an "Ah! Get it off, get it off!" Nightmares though, I can full out terror scream. Not always, but sometimes. Like bloody-murder-attract-as-much-attention-as-possible-scare-the-neighbors-into-knocking-to-check-on-me-scream. I believe the primary function is to attract attention. Humans are pack animals, and like most other pack animals we make loud noises to attract the attention of our group to a present threat for both assistance and warning. There is also the bonus of potentially scaring away our attacker. When in a dangerous situation with a predator of any kind being as revolting, unappetizing, not worth their time, or frightening as possible has a higher chance of resulting in a positive outcome than anything else. It's why you may feel nauseous or throw up on yourself when under extreme stress, why you may defecate under extreme stress, and why you may run faster or fight harder or make more noise than previously thought possible to deter any kind of threat. Vomit and defecation are very unappetizing, running and fighting make it not worth the threat's time, and screaming draws the attention of surrounding prey/supporting group, which may disadvantage the predator. | 10 |
8wundx | Other | Why do airlines force people to keep their seat belts on for so long when people in private planes can lay down, sleep, party, etc.? | I am a pilot. I fly private jets (Mostly Citations) for private clients. Firstly let me make something clear. There is a considerable difference in what occurs in regards to seatbelts when the question is whether you are "Renting" a private aircraft, and owning a private aircraft and having a pilot on staff. I will come back to this as it's kind of relevant. So why are you forced to wear a seatbelt on take off and landing on a commercial flight? Safety, as you might suspect. Take off and landing are the two most dangerous phases of the flight and traditionally where the most accidents occur. By wearing a seatbelt during this phase, you reduce the risks somewhat, particularly when it comes to flying bodies. It's actually advisable to keep your seatbelt on for the duration of the flight, even if it's loose around your waist. Quite often, during turbulence you will be asked to return to your seat and put your seatbelt on. While turbulence can in very rare and extreme circumstances be so bad as to force you out of your seat and sometimes cause injuries, the general reason most airlines ask you to do this is because they do not want you up and about if the aircraft is getting thrown about as a fall can result in serious injury to yourself or someone else. By making you return to your seat, this is mitigated. Buckling your seatbelt up makes you less likely to want to stand up again for any reason. In short, it reduces their liability and makes a very packed aircraft a safer place to be. Now, back to what I said about the difference between commercial air and the world of private hire aircraft. ICAO rules actually require you to be restrained during take off and landing regardless of the aircraft you are in, so the rules do not actually differ for private aircraft when it comes to the use of seatbelts. To that end, when you hire a private aircraft, the crew will quite often require you to still wear your seatbelt during the take off and landing phase, particularly if you have hired the aircraft and will brief you accordingly. These days I find myself flying a lot of "Dead leg" passengers. This is basically when someone has hired the aircraft to fly somewhere as a private hire, and then the aircraft has to return to it's home airport. In previous years the aircraft would fly back empty and the cost of the fuel for this part of the journey, known as the "Dead leg", would be written into the hire fee the client pays for the journey. However in recent years most private aircraft operators have realized they can make more of a profit from the aircraft by "Selling" the seats at a knock down price on the return journey and removing that portion of the charge from the original hirer. Thus the original client gets a better deal and the aircraft makes an actual profit on what would have been a empty return trip or the "Dead leg" of the journey rather than just cost recouping. These dead leg seats have become so popular, a number of services have popped up to market them. You don't really get much choice in locations or timings as it's strictly limited to when the aircraft has to return so you have to fit your travel arrangements around it but it's quite an effective way of getting your own private jet or aircraft at a knock down price. For example I flew out to Italy the other week and the return seats where booked up by a stag party returning to England, they got each seat for £2000 each which is great considering it would have cost them a hell of a lot more to hire the aircraft for the bespoke journey! Now the point is these passengers, regardless of whether they hired the aircraft directly for a bespoke journey or they are dead leg passengers, are still required to observe the rules regarding seatbelts. That means in their seats and buckling up for the take off and landing. The difference is, nobody is enforcing it. There's no air steward or stewardess back there (Sometimes there is, but not always and it's generally an exceptional case). As long as they aren't running up and down the aircraft we are more interested in safely operating the flight. Once we are at the cruise portion of the flight they can do whatever they like (Within reason naturally). When it comes to private plane ownership, as long as the pilot has asked the owners to put their seatbelt on, he generally isn't going to press the issue. That's the boss you're flying after all! If he/she chooses not to wear their seatbelt then that is on them as you have exercised your safety mandate, you can't physically after all fly the plane and watch that he/she is wearing his/her seatbelt. So in short, your required to be in a seatbelt for take off and landing regardless of what aircraft your in. It's just enforced differently in the two different types of air travel for liability reasons. | 29 |
kbhyjr | Other | I never understood the concept of one’s IQ. I always thought it was measured by ones understanding of the world around them, but someone told me that it’s more a test to measure ones ability to reason. What does an IQ test actually measure? And is it really all that important? | I suggest listening to the excellent “G” miniseries from the RadioLab podcast, which goes into the history and faults of IQ testing. | 2 |
6xxu8q | Chemistry | If alcohol dehydrates you, how come when you are out drinking your urine is clear, but only in the morning does it turn bright yellow? | > your urine is clear Because you are dehydrating > your urine is bright yellow Because you have been dehydrated. Your body has expelled all the alcohol it can by maxing out the kidneys (and their water outtake) and now there is little water left to expel. | 3 |
ag4m7y | Chemistry | Why does baking paper not burn like paper when you bake it? How does it maintain an everlasting greasy feel? Was sitting in the kitchen while my partner was baking muffins and she asked me why paddy cases don't burn in the oven and I told her that it could be because they're made of baking paper (correct if wrong), so she followed up and asked me why baking paper doesn't burn. | There are three kinds of typical baking paper, one is parchment paper which is typically just paper that's been sprayed with sulfuric acid to alter the chemical structure and increase it's heat resistance. But a typical baking oven while cooking to burn paper, because that would also burn the food. Some parchment paper is also sprayed with silicone oil to improve it's non-stick qualities Waxed paper is just that, sheets of paper that are soaked in a food grade wax to prevent the food from sticking during cooking. | 2 |
b492v7 | Technology | How do CPUs decode and run instructions ? Do they have a dedicated circuit for each instruction / opcode of their set ? It’s unclear to me how the instruction contained in the ram is actually « parsed » and executed in the circuits | > Do they have a dedicated circuit for each instruction / opcode of their set ? Basically, yes. The CPU has multiple circuits dedicated to each specific instruction or set of related instructions. Each of these circuits basically outputs a bit which denotes whether the appropriate component is active, and maybe other bits determining what type of operation it should perform, and where it should take its input from. | 2 |
bc9ghp | Other | Why do shows on the Discovery Channel like "The Largest Submarine in The US Navy" tell all the intricacies of how something works when the enemy can watch that same show and learn our secrets? | Basically to show off all the declassified parts so people can see what we have and what their taxes are buying. Those shows will never reveal the important stuff. only the impressive stuff. & #x200B; This is why the B2 Bomber was eventually declassified, People how know what this cool plane looks like and we get to see how good our tech was back when it was made. But its also telling enemies of the USA it exists and if you start things you wont see it coming. & #x200B; Think of other things we freely see, Everybody has seen a Falcon 9 launch and land. You can kinda figure out how it works from what we have been told. But we will never know the secret sauce, However the streams are a way for them to show the capability of the company. | 6 |
6v7mhv | Technology | Why a portable game console like Nintendo Switch, can play games so well but a equally priced computer cannot. | They can, I could easily build a gaming pc that'll play most games for cheaper than the switch. | 6 |
lhkpbk | Biology | How after 10000 years of humanity surviving off of bread do we have so many people within the last decade who are entirely allergic to gluten? | 10,000 years is evolutionarily a blink. Also, microbiome changes likely contribute to celiac, and can shift quickly and dramatically, especially with antibiotic use. | 32 |
6iqtu2 | Biology | Does Marijuana really makes you slower? | It seems like it at first, but that's because when you are stoned, you are a different "you" and you have to learn to do things over again. For example: you smoke a bunch of weed then decide to go to the munchy store, you get outside and start walking, and it's totally awkward, you feel wobbly, your legs feel crooked, and you get all conscientious. But if you make it a point to go out for a walk after a bong rip, then your stoned body will learn how to walk and it will become easy and natural for you to walk stoned. The same applies to just about everything; you just need to learn how to do it stoned. Edit: Since I just saw your edit. As far as programming goes, it can help you and hinder you. It can actually give you an edge if you smoke a small amount. I find it makes more conscientious and so I notice extra little things when learning a language, that I might otherwise skip over. Also, programming means that you are using your creative facilities to come up solutions to achieve the desired results in your scripts and apps. A tiny bit will lend you a certain amount of lucidity that may help in those endeavors. I definitely wouldn't be able to program if I smoked a lot. I'm sure I would mess my code up and not be able to figure out how to fix it. Moderation is key. | 1 |
c4znkb | Biology | why doesn’t sunburn appear until hours after you’ve left the sun? | Wait so can we clarify something here? I always get like number 2 or 4 sun tan oil because i want to tan, but i read that even spf 15-30 you will still get a tan but less harmful effects. Is this true? Do you just get less tanned? I thought it just blocks off everything so you dont even tan and it protects you from everything. | 2 |
mjw0y0 | Biology | How / why does the human body rapidly heal during sleep ? I’ve always been curious as to how the body seems to heal different issues primarily during sleep, for example I’ve had a few sebaceous cysts in my life and they’re always noticeably smaller when I wake up whereas while I’m awake I can’t generally tell if anything has happened at all. Or even say the dentist, had a few wisdom teeth pulled one tike and each consecutive day after sleep the pain / swelling has been reduced drastically. I also have RA and most of the pain / swelling is always gone or reduced in the morning compared to the previous day / night ? In some sense it’s almost like my disease has been ‘reset’. | In short, the sleep cycle and circadian rhythm partly regulates the immune system. During the day, immune cells are searching the body for pathogenic invaders. At night, more energy is put into processes like healing and antibody production. It's controlled by brain-body communication, hormone and cytokine signalling, and gene expression. | 8 |
iqmvaq | Biology | Do schools of small fish have social interactions? I was snorkeling yesterday, and noticed a few schools of fish that were feeding. Aside from moving together and eating together, there didn't seem to be any conscious behaviour. Do groups of small fish recognize that they're in a flock of their social kin? Do they have and/or understand hierarchies? Do they have conscious recognition of themselves or others when in flock? If there is no registration of the above, what guides the fish to stay close and understand the rules of group behaviour? Do they gain knowledge through experience? In this case, I'm comparing small fish to large aquatic mammals such as whales and dolphines. | It varies by species. All fish are at least smart enough to recognize their own kind, and some fish do have social hierarchies though it's not common. Generally shoals move through group mentality, fish on the fringes just pick something to move to, while fish towards the middle follow the others. Fish who guess the groups next move wrong usually correct course or rush back into place, because being together is safer. As for how smart they are relative to dolphins, tuskfish use tools, while manta rays and whale sharks can recognize themselves in a mirror, placing them somewhere on par with dolphins. Even goldfish, despite being the poster child of short memories, are relatively smart and can be taught tricks like a cat or a dog. | 1 |
d4dil0 | Technology | Are servers giant advanced hard drives or is there more to it? | The word "server" can be confusing. It's a word that's used to mean multiple, slightly different, things in different contexts. - (1) A server is a *computer program that talks to other computer programs*. It's a program that does things when asked by other programs. (The "asker" program is called a *client*.) - (2) A server is a *computer program that listens for requests coming in from a network* [1]. It's a program that does things when asked by programs running on other network-connected computers. A server program (definition 2) is a server program (definition 1) that uses a specific means of communicating with its clients (a network). - (3) A server is *the main purpose a specific computer's being used for*. If a particular PC or laptop is being used to run server programs (definition 2), then that PC or laptop itself is called a *server* (definition 3). - (4) A server is *a computer specifically designed to be used as a server* (definition 3). If you're running server programs for a lot of users, or otherwise need a large amount of resources like CPU / RAM / disk, an ordinary PC might not be powerful enough to handle what you need. So you might decide to buy a more powerful computer. Instead of shopping for a laptop or a desktop PC, the kind of computer you're shopping for is a *server*. Computers that are significantly more powerful than ordinary PC's can be very expensive. So usually this comes up in the context of running some kind of Internet-based business. [2] - (5) A server is *a computer you can rent from an Internet-based company*. This could be a full computer (definition 4), but it could also be a "virtual server". [3]. Virtual server rentals are surprisingly affordable, for example, [this company]( URL_0 ) will rent you a server for $5 per month. [1] Usually "the network" is the Internet. But sometimes people / companies run their own networks for various reasons, so "the network" could be some other network. [2] A server (definition 4) is basically a PC that's way more powerful in some respects (more / faster disks, more RAM, many CPU cores), less powerful in others (no need for a powerful graphics system capable of playing 4K video). A server (definition 4) has different design features. Parts are designed for reliability / redundancy / minimizing downtime, e.g. power supplies and disks can be replaced without shutting down the system. A server (definition 4) often doesn't have a "tower" case like an ordinary desktop PC, instead it's designed to fit in standard-sized "racks". Costs are higher. [3] Today's computers have hardware features and supporting software that "pretends" one large computer is multiple smaller computers. One large computer that can pretend to be one hundred small computers is expensive, but it's much cheaper than one hundred small computers. Many large Internet companies buy a bunch of big computers, set them up to pretend to be a huge number of small computers, then rent out the small computers to other Internet companies. This lets the other Internet companies focus on their business without worrying about maintaining racks of computers. The rental systems are fully automated. Meaning rentals are billed by the hour, or even by the minute. You can rent a new computer system, or cancel an existing rental, in a matter of minutes. You can even set up the rental orders to be managed by a computer program, so it can e.g. automatically rent more computers when your website's starting to get slow and overwhelmed, or cancel rentals to save money when few people are visiting your site and you have more computers than you need at this precise moment. This has made life much easier for Internet companies, because you can rent exactly as many computers as your business needs right now, and rent more / less right away whenever your needs change. This new way of renting computers is called "cloud computing." | 3 |
duuzbp | Technology | Why does battery powered electronics (such as a remote or an electrical toothbrush) lose power as the battery is weakened and not work at full power till the battery is dead? | A battery's voltage decreases as it is drained of energy. Think of voltage (electrical potential) as water pressure. You hang up a bucket of water and open a hole on the bottom to shower. The water pressure at the start is strong from the weight of water pressing down. However, as the water drains, the pressure weakens and it gets more difficult to wash yourself. This is the same thing that happens with the motors and lights powered by batteries. As the battery drains, these parts lose power gradually until they stop working. One way to prevent this is to put in regulators that fix the pressure/voltage at some level rather than have it decrease over time. Newer electric toothbrushes have this. They will run at full power and only start weakening when they are low on battery. | 2 |
69kh26 | Repost | if video can be measured in frames per second, is there an equivalent unit for audio? | For digital audio there is the sample rate. Audio is recorded in digital form by taking the amplitude of the sound wave at regular intervals. CD quality audio does this at 44.1kHz, in other words 44100 times a second. | 3 |
lociuc | Chemistry | Why was purple pigment history difficult to produce? Couldn't ascestors have just mixed red and blue, instead of laboriously extracting it from sea snails? | Green is also hard to make. Arsenic is a green mineral that makes a vibrant colors. It had a period where it was used in fancy wallpapers and dresses. Took them awhile to realize it made people fucking crazy and sick. | 9 |
luhnyl | Physics | Can an intense enough sound generate heat? If I remember right from highschool, heat is just molecules moving fast. Since sound travels through air, moving molecules on it's way, can a sound intense enough generate some kind of heat? (I apoligize for my ignorance both in english language and physics!) | Sure. There's a process called ultrasonic welding where sound is literally used to weld materials together by heating them. | 2 |
dbyv0l | Economics | The process of repacking goods for resale after they are returned. Many times, items themselves will be returned in like new condition for a full refund but their packaging is more or less destroyed (e.g. plastic film/bags torn open, styrofoam broken, etc.), or certainly not in good enough condition to be sold as new. What happens to these items and who eats the cost of repackaging them? I can't imagine it makes sense to ship the item all the way back to its factory in a different country for repackaging. Are there specialty firms that handle repackaging things to a manufacturer's spec? Do retailers do it? Are there laws about disclosing that the item is returned? | I can comment on this from direct experience, because I work at a consumer electronics brand. We source electronics from China and deal with returns in the US. We test everything to make sure it works properly before re-selling it, the only real differences might be in battery lifespan and cosmetics. When it's sent back broken, it gets taken apart for spare parts or trashed. OR, sometimes the defectives are stored up, and sent back in one big shipment to the factory. The cost of shipping an item to China on a boat is lower than you might think, often only $1-2. The factory can then re-use the parts. This saves us money and also saves some waste. It's not a very efficient process, I admit, but we're not throwing everything DIRECTLY into the garbage. When it's sent back in near-new (cosmetically speaking) condition, it gets re-sold as "refurbished" or "open box" / "scratch-n-dent" or "B-stock". When it's sent back in cosmetically new condition (no scratches or whatever) it gets cleaned up and sold as "refurbished". We keep spare boxes for the 'refurbished' units that need new packaging, but unless we know for a fact a return is unused, (i.e. all film still on it, bags still sealed) we will not re-sell it as "new". Basically we get extras with a shipment from China and use them as needed. If we get a unit back in perfect condition, and we believe it is 100% un-used, (functionally and cosmetically), we may re-sell it as new. A box that's going to be shipped via UPS or something doesn't need to look perfect, since everyone knows UPS is going to mess it up on the way regardless. Can't speak to other manufacturers' practices, but this is what we do. Our products are around $300 so it's well worth it for us to put a little work into testing and re-packaging. It might take one of our employees 15 minutes, which is only $5 worth of labor or so, much better than trashing a $250 (used) unit. So, we are the manufacturer, and most of our sales are through Amazon. We bear all the costs of re-packaging and refurbishing. As far as I know, there are no laws on this beyond standard false advertising laws. There are firms that you can outsource this work to, look up "reverse logistics" if you want to read more about it. Retailers sometimes bear the cost of returns, it depends on the industry, product, and sometimes reason for return. More typically the manufacturer is responsible for a large portion of returns, and they build this into their cost structure from the beginning, since they'll typically know the usual defect / return rate and just add that percentage to their wholesale price. | 4 |
98x0om | Biology | How are things n% water? How is the human body like 70%/80% IIRC water? How is a cucumber like 95% water? I can understand with liquids or wet things but how is the water content of a banana or piece of muscle or bone calculated? How do water molecules just seem to be incorporated into everything? Why water? What purpose does it serve? | Heat it until the water evaporates, check its mass before and after and calculate the percentage | 1 |
5q5buo | Engineering | will the imminent arrival of mass produced lab grown meat change the vegan perspective of meat eating. | As a rule, serious vegans don't eat food that was produced by animals, even if they ae (largely) unharmed - no milk or cheese, some don't wear wool, eggs are out. For them, animal exploitation is the line they draw. So how will that apply to lab meat? Hard to say. It does come from a cell line extracted from an animal, so some will be opposed to it. Others will consider a one-time, painless extraction to be a small price to pay for potentially tons of cruelty - free, death-free food. We'll have to see. | 3 |
6zf8c9 | Repost | Why were the European Colonists not ravaged by American disease unlike the Native Americans who were ravaged by European/African disease? | Cow, pig, horse, sheep, goat, chicken, duck, camel, pigeon. All of these animals had been domesticated in the Old World and most of them were also carriers of disease. Most of the deadly diseases come from animals, a disease does NOT want to kill its host, unless it thinks its host is a totally different animal, in which case, oops. Compared to that plethora of animal diversity in an Old World backyard, they had just the llama in the New World. Yeah, go figure. The Old World children contracted the diseases when they were small and resilient to the high temperature fevers the diseases subjected them to, making them immune from future attacks via immune system memory. When the Old World people came about, they brought the animals with them as well, as well as numerous other articles made out of those animals. We're also talking about a period of time where people in the Old World didn't bathe out of fear of catching some waterborne disease. | 22 |
8dqys5 | Other | Why is the term "Patient Zero" instead of "Patient One?" | It is a misunderstanding. The term comes from research on the early transmission of AIDS. One of the early vectors was Canadian flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas, who in studies was referred to as Patient O ("oh", not "zero"). Journalists got it wrong, thinking the more interesting sounding Patient 0 was some sort of technical term and started using it as instead. The term stuck and now it is part of the language. | 2 |
bs7rzj | Biology | Ocean phytoplankton and algae produce 70-80% of the earths atmospheric oxygen. Why is tree conservation for oxygen so popular over ocean conservation then? | Besides converting CO2 into oxygen, trees also store carbon. The process that has O2 as a byproduct is so that the tree has sugar to have energy. This takes the C from CO2 out of the atmosphere and into the wood or other structures of the tree. | 13 |
74m0e3 | Culture | Why did avocados become so popular all of a sudden? | The push for “healthy fat” which usually only includes avocados. Some people dont trust or like salmon and olive oil isn’t a food so much as something you out on food. | 9 |
lm7qtm | Engineering | How do solid pipes made out of metal burst during winter? | When water turns to ice, it expands. The force with which it does so is strong enough to burst pipes open, even thick metal ones. | 8 |
5z0f8g | Biology | If pain is the human body's way of preventing further damage, why does scratching get interpreted as a 'good' sensation, when it is destroying cells? | Kinda drunk, but IIRC "itch" is coded in your neurons by nociceptors, which are your pain receptors. So, I think what I'm saying is that scratching an itch feels good despite your body thinking it's pain. And, in fact, those itches and discomforts that make you move would turn into painful problems if you did not move or shift positions. So there. All of you should get off of reddit and have a drink, then tell your family you love them. | 14 |
k5khxy | Engineering | what exactly do engineers do as a profession? | Why doesn't your car explode when you turn on the ignition? Why doesn't a bridge fall down when you walk over it? Why doesn't your oven burst into flames when you cook? Engineers. More than any other profession engineers let you interact with hundreds of potentially dangerous machines and systems every day and do so safely. | 8 |
lhq7qb | Economics | How do politicians get rich off of privatization? | * Own stock in Some Company that does X. * Pass legislation privatizing X. Award the contact for X to Some Company. * Stock price skyrockets now that the company effectively controls X. * Sell your shares; now you're rich. & #x200B; * Pass legislation privatizing X. Award the contact for X to Some Company. * Retire at the end of your term. * Get hired by Some Company as a "consultant" with a ridiculous salary. Use your contacts to push for even more things to become Some Company's responsibility. * Continue to get richer every year. | 3 |
c8dwcz | Culture | Why are there so many sign languages? | Historically, sign languages evolved with less communication between people of different areas. For example, Australian sign language (auslan) is similar to British Sign Language because Australia was primarily a british colony so the deaf people brought their sign language with them. Over time, language changed, new signs were needed but back then there was no skype or way for people from different areas to sign with each other (without travelling really far). So different dialects developed organically (often with schools for the deaf being the hub for change) and Auslan became further removed from BSL. There are even regional differences within Auslan, with a lot of signs for things like colours being different between different states.I don't know how ASL developed though, but perhaps it's due to the types of first settlers and the level of signing the few deaf people brought with them and then they made up the rest as they went along. You can't sign to your family back in the motherland in your letters, you use the written language which is thus slower to change. Edit: people have said ASL has french roots, which would mean that the first signers in what is now the USA had learned french sign language (whether fluently or not) and then it evolved from there. Imagine a group of people marooned (essentially forever) on an island and a couple of people speak french, but one of them is french canadian and the other is from france and they have to make it work as a common language, while teaching new people their common language. I don't know if I explained that well. | 4 |
mzsrmj | Economics | Why can’t you spend dirty money like regular, untraceable cash? Why does it have to be put into a bank? In other words, why does the money have to be laundered? Couldn’t you just pay for everything using physical cash? | As others have said, it’s tough to spend cash on big ticket items without raising the eyebrows of the tax man. In most cases you could manage purchases up to an OK car if you’re lucky, along with day to day purchases, but even for things like bills it’s tough to pay cash if you aren’t going into the physical store every month. Buy a house with cash and you’re ripe for a tax audit. TLDR; Anything that would be actually worth using large sums of illegal cash on are gonna have the tax man come knockin’ and you’re a tax audit waiting to happen. | 61 |
aknpb9 | Biology | Why do so many people get heart attacks while mowing lawns? | Because it is a somewhat strenuous activity that a large portion of the population has to do. | 6 |
5u2qpr | Other | If illegal immigrants in the United States have constitutional rights, can they also bear arms? | While many whip themselves into a lather, over the mistaken notion that illegal aliens are essentially given all the same rights and privileges as citizens, under our Constitution, it is important to point out that their guaranteed rights are not exactly the same as citizenship: Their protections stem from Section One, of the Fourteenth Amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive **any person** of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to **any person within its jurisdiction** the equal protection of the laws." | 5 |
nyb007 | Other | How does an executive order carry the weight of law? I'm flying today and see and hear the announcement that refusing to wear a mask is a violation of federal law. This is in accordance to the Feb. Executive order requiring face masks on all public transport. Without getting into the facemask debate, how is it possible to prosecute someone under "federal law" for an executive order that wasn't passed through the legislative process? | Executive Orders are issued based on the bounds set in law. It is frequently politically argued that EOs go beyond the law that it claims allows it. However, it is rare that an EO is found to be unconstitutional through either the judicial or legislative process. Most laws provide enough flexibility that the fight against EOs usually fail. | 4 |
91z1ra | Economics | Why are farmers struggling financially when there are more people than ever before to feed, people eat more on average than ever before, we know more about the science of agriculture than ever before, and there is more advanced machinery for planting / harvesting than ever before? | Saw this on Facebook recently: > “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” > — John F. Kennedy It comes down to this: food production is a complex system and the way money is divided depends mainly on who has more options. If there are only 2-3 companies that hundreds of farmers can buy seed from, then those companies don't have to fight hard to keep prices high. This applies to grain buyers, equipment sellers, etc. If farmers consolidated into mega farms or strengthened their union they might be able to exert enough pressure to make more money. | 3 |
66lu19 | Culture | Why do students in America have to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day? I'm about to graduate from high school and it recently occurred to me that for over 12 years now I've stood up at the the start of every weekday morning and recited the Pledge but I've never questioned why we do it. Why do we say it? Do we even *have* to say it? If not, why aren't we told that we don't have to say it? Sorry about the extra questions, I just think it's strange that I'm an adult and I don't understand something that I've been doing for most of my life. | Like any other school practice, it's because the people running the school think it's a good idea. When the Pledge of Allegiance was invented, school children were encouraged to recite it because it was thought this instilled a sense of patriotism and a better understanding of what America stands for. At times, it's been thought to defend against ideologies that most people are opposed to. For instance, the pledge was changed to say "one nation *under God*" as a symbolic rejection of Communism. Although not a lot of attention is paid to the content of the pledge in depth, many people argue that the use of symbols and habits actually is *intended* to have largely unconscious effects. They are not intellectual, the way you might read essays of the Founding Fathers, but work on a more subtle level. > Do we even have to say it? The First Amendment protects those with a religious or conscientious objection to saying the pledge from being forced to say it in a public school setting, per several Supreme Court cases. > If not, why aren't we told that we don't have to say it? The whole point is that it's a mass activity, in which people dedicate themselves to the same purpose together. | 5 |
j3k38s | Chemistry | What makes some materials good at absorbing radiation? For example, why do we wear a lead apron when getting x-rays? Bonus question- do these materials reach an absorption limit over repeated use? | Lead is extremely dense in part because the high number of protons in each atom creates an attractive force that keeps the electrons in tight and close. Then lots of lead atoms can be packed in together without their electrons repulsing each other further away. When a gamma ray or x-ray hits solid lead, there's a very good chance that it will hit an electron in the tightly packed mass, and then that electron absorbs the energy. The electron may ultimately emit the energy back out as light at a different wavelength, or have enough energy to escape the atom and flow to another atom as electric current. I do believe lead is slowly degraded from exposure to radiation, but as far as I know, you'd throw away the lead apron first because of the outer surface becoming too dirty or damaged to be hygienic, not because the lead has ceased to work. | 2 |
nnc7ue | Biology | What is the worst case scenario for a pro fighter who gets hit with a low blow? Can someone tell me what serious injuries can occur when you see someone get hit below the belt? I'm a guy and I've been hit there before a few times, even thrown up from the pain, but never with the force that a pro mma fighter, boxer, etc can hit with. Can a more knowledgeable person please tell me what the worse case scenario is male or female to severe trauma to the goods? Can you actually lose them? Thanks in advance! | Either a burst femoral artery or a testicular torsion. A burst femoral artery could kill you in seconds if you bleed out under your skin. A testicular torsion generally just leads to loss of the testicle if not remedied in time. Also a crushed testicle, crushed vesicles, or a permanently misaligned pelvis if you damage the pelvic junction. Src: asked a 10th Dan black belt | 2 |
mnnfa7 | Economics | Why is insulin patent allowed to keep updating to keep original patent running out? | "Insulin" is not one thing. Not all "insulins" are alike. Old-fashioned, "basic insulin" is available for a very small fee. However, when compared to the health benefits of more modern types of insulin (Novolog, Humalog) "basic insulin" may not be as effective for some patients, or may need patients to keep a more demanding regimen (which many are not capable of) so doctors often prescribe more modern insulins, which are still under patent. And it gets even more complex than that. You can get a generic version of Humalog much cheaper (insulin lispro) than Humalog itself. But many pharmacies still just dole out the more expensive one - because the US medical billing system is unbelievably broken and not fit for purpose. | 3 |
5x3zx4 | Engineering | How do tanks turn? | When a car turns on the road the inside wheels will turn slower than the outside (When the car is fitted with a differential). This also applies to tracked vehicles, the inside track will turn slower, stop or even reverse to counter the movement of the outside track. | 2 |