[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] If someone cut your brain out would you still be thinking for a few seconds before death?

[Assistant]
There is at least some anecdotal evidence that in the event of beheading, consciousness sometimes remains for several seconds before exsanguination and lack of oxygen cause the brain (or perhaps the mind) to lapse into insensibility.

 In  "A History of the Guillotine" (B&N, 1993) author Alister Kershaw describes an informal experiment carried out by French physician Dr. Gabriel Beaurieux in 1905. After attending the guillotine execution of a convicted murder named Languille, Dr. Beaurieux wrote:

"the eyelids and lips ... worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds."
Dr. Beaurieux lifted the detached head by its ears, (Languille had had his head shaved) called out his name and said that Languille's eyelids "slowly lifted up, without any spasmodic contraction" and that "his pupils focused themselves". This reaction was observed twice, but the third time Beaurieux spoke, he got no response.

There is also an account, perhaps apocryphal, that after her beheading, the executioner of Charlotte Corday (she who murdered Marat) observed her eyes blinking and moving to look at him, and her mouth attempting to form words.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How/why is it that teeth grinding or pressure points in your bite can cause gum recession?

I really don't get it - the surfaces are not touching each other.

I want to make sure my dentist isn't just giving me the hard upsell, because my finger is on the button and I may get the damn Invisaligns.

Help me, dentists/orthodontists/periodontists!

[Assistant] Just retired after 42 years doing general dentistry. One mechanic of gum recession is when people grind their teeth at night the teeth flex a little like trees in the wind. Just at the gumline on a tooth is the CEJ - the cemento-enamel junction. Its where the enamel of the tooth stops and the root begins. The fibers of the gum that seal the gum above the bone insert into the cementum layer of the root just below the CEJ. The attachment fibers that seal to the root help maintain the height of the gum at normal levels. Flexing of the tooth under grinding can make a V-shaped defect in the root at CEJ that looks like a bite was taken out of the root right at the edge of the enamel. Guess What:  the notch makes it impossible for attachment fibers to attach to the cementum on the root, and subsequently the gum has no place to sit on. The gum recedes and exposes a characteristic V-shaped notch called an abfraction lesion. Therefore: visible gum recession. Note:  this is a different mechanism of recession than the gum loss of Periodontal Disease, which is chronic infection caused by not cleaning well on a long-term basis. Now send me your Blue Cross number and birthdate.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] How did Tui's death result in a total eclipse?

When Zhao kills Tui, the moon spirit, he caused the complete disappearance of the moon. We see moments earlier that capturing Tui in a bag caused the moon to turn red.

But how does that happen? The moon is a celestial body presumably composed of materials that comprise earth. How would a spirit (or even fish) dying cause the moon to vanish completely?

[Assistant] That's true of our world, not the Avatar world. In Avatar, things like the moon are, in fact, spirits and things like the laws of sympathy apply - harming or capturing one aspect of them can affect another. The moon is not a celestial body made of rock, but a spirit made of spirit things that just happens to look similar to our rock-based moon here and has a similar effect upon the tides.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is antimatter and what is the significance of the recent discovery?

[Assistant]
Antimatter is Matter with inverse charged sub atomic particles. So in normal matter, electrons are negatively charged and protons positively. In antimatter electrons are called positrons and are positively charged and Protons are Antiprotons and are negatively charged. Apart from that antimatter is behaving not so different from matter.

If you mix antimatter with matter things get a little more crazy. Matter and antimatter annihilate each other. In this process all their mass is turned to energy. If you would bring 1 g of antimatter hydrogen in contact with 1 g of hydrogen the resulting annihilation would set free 362 TJ energy or roughly 90 kT TNT.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do they manufacture batteries so that they give off power?

[Assistant] So power (in this case) = electrons moving from on place to another. So they take one compound that really wants electrons and another compound that has a lot of electrons to give away and they connect them in such a way that if you hook up the positive and negative ends, electrons flow to the first compound from the second.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why does our weight fluctuate so much during the day?

[Assistant]
You are constantly adding and taking away.  You drink fluids and eat foods.  You urinate and defecate.  You exhale water vapor.  If you drink 16 oz of water, you just gained a pound.

You are building and breaking down muscle and fat as well.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
The question about the age of the Earth lead me to wondering how we figured out the half lives of some of these isotopes?

Another post here about how we find out about the age of the Earth lead me to questioning how we figured out the half lives of some of these super long decaying isotopes, that will not decay during our life times or haven't decayed during even the entirety of the existance of our understanding of science.  Like how did we come to know that this element will decay into this other element in like a quintillion years?  I know we know mathematically but like how does one figure this out?

[Assistant]
You measure the decay over a given time period and extrapolate from that.
Of course, for super long half life isotopes only a tiny % of atoms will decay in a practical timescale but we are assisted by the fact that there are many billions of atoms in a sample and a tiny % of a huge number is still a big enough number to work with.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5:Modern Militia Purposes?

What do modern militias do? I'm referring to state militias, but not the National Guard. Are they just for natural disaster relief?

[Assistant]
The are a remnant of an earlier time.  The truth is they aren't all that important, but many states feel strongly about maintaining their right to have one (Which is the true point of the 2nd Amendment).

In theory, in the event of an invasion or the like they would join the fight.  The thing is, that is also what the National Guard and the regular military is for.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is the difference between psychopath and a sociopath?

[Assistant]
Okay, so you have two friends, Little Johnny and Little Suzy.

Little Johnny has been a bad little boy all his life, setting little girls' hair on fire, hurting neighborhood pets, and playing mean tricks on the other kids.  There was this one time when Little Johnny picked up a little kid and threw him off the monkey bars.  The little kid broke his leg in three places, and Little Johnny made fun of the little boy, even as the teachers dragged him away to detention.  Little Johnny is always getting in trouble, but he can't stop doing bad things, because in his mind, they *aren't* bad things.  Little Johnny's just doing what makes him happy, even if what makes him happy is awful.  Little Johnny is psychopathic.  He doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.

Little Suzy is a different story.  Little Suzy is beautiful and popular, and everyone wants to play with her...unless she doesn't like them.  If little Suzy doesn't like someone, bad things happen to them.  There was this one time that a little girl who beat Little Suzy in a beauty contest.  The next day, she fell off the swings and broke her arm.  Little Suzy was the one who was pushing the little girl in the swings, but she cried and cried and swore it was an accident, and because she is always sucking up to the teachers, they believed her.  When no one was looking, Little Suzy laughed to herself at how silly the little girl looked with her bone sticking out of her arm.  Little Suzy is a sociopath.  She knows the difference between right and wrong.  She just doesn't care.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do shows have different directors for each episode? Wouldnt it have more continuity with hiring just one for the whole series?

[Assistant]
It takes a lot of work to direct filmed entertainment. Even very prolific film directors will make about 1 feature film a year. A series of television is 5-10 times longer but needs to be produced over the same timespan. There are some economies of scale - you don't have to put as much work into assembling the creative team, building sets, etc. as if you were making 5 separate movies, but it would still be an incredible amount of work for a single director.

Instead, TV shows will often have a "creator" or "showrunner" who meets with the directors to ensure a unified vision. This preserves the "auteur" model where a single person will stand in for a massive creative team in the public consciousness (e.g. Vince Gilligan with Breaking Bad), just now that team also includes episode-to-episode directors.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
The whole "Too Much Sodium in our Diet" thing is a myth

I will admit right up front that I have done nothing more than anecdotal research on this topic. News outlets are constantly telling their audience that there is too much sodium in our diet. People need to cut down on salt. But this is rarely, if ever, followed by any consequences for problem.

I remember reading that people with high blood pressure can have that exacerbated by too much salt. However, the salt did not cause the condition. I do not believe that sodium levels for people without hypertension needs to be monitored. Without causality, isn't the hype on high sodium unwarranted or at lease over-inflated?

Can anyone tell me a problem directly caused by higher than recommended sodium intake?

[Assistant]
Too much salt can raise your blood pressure, which puts you at increased risk of health problems such as heart disease and stroke.

Our first world diets are increasingly unhealthy as demonstrated with the obesity epidemic. There are arguments as to what the ideal diet actually is (fat vs sugar etc) however there are clear links between increased sodium levels and potential for strokes and heart disease.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why are dialects of English so similar even though English has a global spread while dialects of other languages (like German or Chinese) are so different they can be considered different languages, even though they're in one small geographic area?

[Assistant] Long story short: English's spread happened closer to the advent of technologies like film and radio that helped standardize pronunciation across time and space. This was only furthered by the "superpower" status that English enjoyed after World War II, where most films were in English, which served to quash or slow down divergence in pronunciation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Transformers] Are the Cybertronians properly scaled to their vehicle forms?

If a real vehicle has the ability to twist itself around and transform into a massive humanoid robotic alien, would there even be enough components within said vehicle to form one? Same goes the other way around. Would there be enough space in a vehicle to hold every the entire body of a huge Cybertronian?

I'm also aware that the sizes differ with every adaptation so that's a factor to also consider.

[Assistant]
Depends on where in the franchise you are. Generation 1 was notoriously inconsistent with sizes and mass. Soundwave was one of the largest "regular" sized Deceptions (depicted as being in the 50ft range) and yet could transform into a walkman no more than about 6 inches across and being light enough to be picked up by human hands. Simarly Megatron shrank when he transformed into a handgun, albeit one too large for human hands. In The 1986 movie Astrotrain is able to hold a dozen or more wounded and escaping comrades in his hold despite not being much larger than they are in robot form.

The Bayformers movies, for all their faults, do a better job in keeping the mass similar, without noticeable shrinking. If a Deception transforms into a toaster or a remote control toy car then the robot form is no larger than a house cat or a toddler. Similarly if the robot becomes a firetruck then the robot is considerably larger.

In the 1996 Beast Wars Megatron takes the form of a Tyrannosaurus (or similar) but he is a miniature version, rather than shrinking down. However, when Ravage shows up in season 2 he appears to be a 6ft anthropomorphic panther whose secondary mode is still a 4" cassette tape.

In short it varies from iteration to iteration and there's no real solid answer.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Eli5 fluoroantimonic acid ph

What is the Ph of this super acid? And what makes this acid so much stronger than any other acid? How much stronger is it than stomach acid?

[Assistant]
pH is kind of a useless way to talk about acidity because it depends on the concentration of the acid in its solution. A better metric is called pKa. Without getting into detail, the more negative the pKa is, the stronger an acid is. And it's a logarithmic scale (meaning that if something has a pKa that's higher by 1, then it's actually 10 times more acidic. Higher by 2, then 100x more acidic etc.). The pKa of stomach acid (HCl) is -6.3. The pKa of fluoroantimonic acid is -25. So it's about 19 pKa points more acidic, or 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 (ten quintillion) times more acidic than stomach acid.

The reason is because you have a positively charged fluorine. Now, fluorine really  *really*  likes electrons. In fact, more so than any other atom. Electrons are negatively charged, so if we've got a positively charged fluorine, that means we robbed it of electrons. And it really,  *really*  **really**  wants them back. An acid is really defined as anything that wants to take electrons, and the strength of an acid is ultimately defined as how badly it wants those electrons. Since positively charged fluorine really  *really*  **really**  wants those electrons, it is an incredibly strong acid.

EDIT: Since there seems to be some questions regarding why we're even talking about positively charged fluorines, I'll explain that here. The antimony part of fluoroantimonic acid comes from the addition of SbF5 (antimony pentafluoride) to twice as much HF. SbF5 is strong enough to rip the fluoride from HF, leaving H+. But remember, we've got only half as much SbF5 as HF, so the extra HF is left with the job of taking on the orphaned H+ ions. This leaves you with SbF6- and H2F+, which is fluoroantimonic acid.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What about "dry clean only" clothes makes them dry clean only?

And what's the danger of washing them in a traditional manner?

[Assistant]
It's the best way to take care of a garment. Synthetic fibers such as poly, rayon, silk (most silk is synthetic) can get damaged and lose color. I've seen nice bright colored synthetic fiber blouses significantly lose color and texture after just one wet wash.

tldr; to prevent color and texture loss.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELIF: Water is transparent but a stream of water has shadow.

I was waiting for the bus and I realized that the fountain upwards stream had shadow, but since water is transparent how is this possible?

[Assistant]
Mostly, this depends on the shape of the water.

When light moves from air to water or back, it bends (refracts) based on the angle it hits the water or air. Because a stream of water is round, the light bounces away from the stream when passing through it, leaving a shadow where the light didn't end up.

This is why the bottom of a pool is not in shadow: the light hits the top of the pool mostly straight, and so continues to the bottom. If it is refracted, it is all bends the same direction, so you still get an even amount of light at the bottom.

Similarly, if you have ever seen a waterbug, or other lightweight object floating on the surface of a pool, you will notice they create round shadows where they touch the water. This is because they make "dents" in the water which bend the light away and leave a dark spot.

The opposite effect happens with light from air to glass: a magnifying glass concentrates the light by bending it inward.

TL;DR: light bends when it hits the water. If the shape of the water is round or curved, all the light bends away from the water, leaving a shadow.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Among Us] Who gives a shit if the towels are left unfolded?

It's implied we're doing the tasks to get the ship/station in working order. And they do mostly seem important- recalibrating power, get data, steering, etc. So that's fair enough.

Then on the Airship, we have "polish ruby", "Dress mannequin", "make burger", and "pick up towels".

There is a *murderous shapeshifting alien* *monster* rampaging through the ship. I think I can justify the towels being left on the floor while we sort that out. We can tidy up after the evil alien is gone, you know.

Why are we delaying our escape/arrival/rescue whatever until the place is tidy? Why is this anyone's priority at the moment?

[Assistant]
It's very clearly spelled out here:

> A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you  daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

- *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Super Powers]How do shape shifters change their clothes when the only thing that changes is their physical body? (X-post)

[Assistant] Depends on the shapeshifter. In animorphs, they were able to actually use skin tight clothing in the transformation, and then be wearing it after. Odo from DS9 was almost always naked, his clothes were part of him. Some shapeshifters are able to convert their mass to clothing temporarily, as well, allowing them to change their clothes and even take off jackets and things. All in all, it depends on their unique abilities.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[ATLA/Korra] Does Earthbending decompress/compress rocks or leave voids underground?

I am an earthbender and I do a common move which makes a rock pillar come up. Does this mean that there is a void left somewhere several feet underground beneath the rock I've raised up. Is it a vacuum; or is it filled with air? Does the suction make the rock want to slide back into place. Or is the rock being decompressed. IIRC in the finale of ATLA we see Aang compress boulders into smaller rocks, presumably without altering their overall mass meaning the rocks were made of super-compressed material, so theoretically rock could be decompressed and made to have a more porus or lightweight molecular/material structure. I know there are other in-universe explanations as to why bending doesnt kill people but lightweight spongy pumice like rocks being earthbent could be part of that explanations.

[Assistant]
One possibility, kind of a middle ground between the two theories: maybe the extra rock molecules are taken from a larger surrounding area? Rather than the moved rock being, say, half as dense as normal, instead all the connected rocks within 30 feet or so become slightly denser.

That being said, the idea of lightweight rocks would certainly explain how people are able to get hit by earthbender attacks and not die instantly.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: The differences between a nation, a state, and a nation-state.

As many times as I've had this explained, it never sticks. I'm unashamed to ask for a simple explanation. Knowledge is power!

Thank you.

[Assistant]
A nation is a group of people with several factors in common like land inhabited, religion, ethnicity, language, or culture.

A state is the government over an area of land

A nation-state is a state that governs an area that primarily consists of one nation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How does Boron's ability to absorb neutrons work and does absorbing neutrons affect the atom?

Boron is often used in nuclear reactors because of its ability to absorb neutrons. How can Boron do this without becoming super heavy or otherwise changing itself?

[Assistant]
The boron **does** change. It undergoes neutron capture reactions. Neutron capture looks like:

^(A)X + n -> ^(A+1)X + .

That means that the nucleus is transmuted to a heavier isotope of the same element, and a gamma ray is released.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Terminator] What powers the T-1000?

[Assistant]
While a T-1000 is made of liquid metal, it still requires discrete parts for systems like sensors, powerplants, computation rtc. While these parts would normally be large and centralized in another model, the T-1000 uses thousands of miniature systems and disperses them throughout it's liquid metal frame in a network.

The actual powerplant for a T-1000 is a 'network' of thousands of cell-sized fission generators, which work  in tandem to keep a current running through the liquid metal frame. (This is how it keeps it's shape.) This powerplant system  is somewhat weaker than that of other models, and the T-1000 has to forego luxuries like the built-in weapons used the the T-X models for instance.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Superhero Fiction] When executives of evil corporations are planning their underhanded moneymaking scheme that endangers hundreds of innocent lives, how does the fact that a superhero lives in that city never come up in the business meetings?

Why not choose a different location without a superhero?

[Assistant]
Most evil business execs in comics have a serious ego issue.  Why does Lex Luthor keep trying even though Superman stops his schemes?  Because Lex Luthor thinks that he's so much smarter than Supes that it'll work this time!

In Gotham, why would a businessman think that Batman will investigate his white collar crimes? Batman spends all day beating up on muggers, he won't check that businessman's tax filings!

Pretty much, first time offenders think that the superhero won't notice them. Multi-time offenders are typically either insane or so ego-centric that they somehow think they'll get away with it.  And sometimes they're right.  As a reader we expect the superhero to win every time, but in-universe you know that Batman will fail eventually.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [general] How much blood would a vampire be able to drink without killing you?

[Assistant] Well, bloodbanks, where i live, let you donate 500ml of blood in a sitting. Then they wont let you donate for another 6 months. However ive heard that missing blood gets replaced rather quickly. Google tells me it will take up to 2 months to be back to pre-donation blood value (not just the fluid but also iron, hemoglobin, etc levels). So half a liter every 2 months per 'volunteer'. Which means for your own blood farm youd best have 60 to 70 people if your conditiin requires a lot of sustenance.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why are cooling towers shaped the way they are?

Power plants or large factorys all have the same shape of their cooling tower. The radius is smaller in the middle and widing up on top again. Whats the reason we dont use the same radius everywhere or it only gets smaller higher up.

[Assistant] The broad base is to support the structure, as you go up, the radius gets smaller to allow for a faster flow of vapour out of the tower (warm vapour will tend to go upwards and by reducing the area, you force it to go faster). On the top of the tower, you have the mixing between the vapour and the cold outside air. You would want this mixing to be as best as possible so increasing the radius a bit helps with this.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[ELI5] Globalisation

What it is, why are some people against it, advantages and disadvantages. Thanks in advance.

[Assistant]
Globalization, broadly speaking, is the movement of the international economy to a freer market, or a market with less trade barriers.

This has several implications. One of them being it increases the profits of specialization. Specialization is a concept in economy that describes a method of production for an economy, where one concentrates on producing something they excel at (e.g., oil) in return for things they need but can't produce themselves (e.g., weapons, food, consumer products). We all do this to a degree, and specialization is what moved us out of the middle ages into the modern economy. A doctor specializes in the skill of healing, and he trades his skills and services in return for things he otherwise can't produce himself (a house, his car, the milk he drinks). If a doctor had to be self-sufficient, he would also have to own farmland, acquire machinery, gain access to materials, and learn the knowledge required to manipulate them.

However, too much specialization can be bad too. For example, an island nation in the Pacific has a particular soil type that is most excellent in producing coffee. So they start to specialize in the coffee trade. As they discover there is money to be earned in coffee, and as they receive money from the coffee they are selling, this nation decides to expand their coffee industry. Soon, the coffee industry may become so big it accounts for 50% of the nation's GDP (the amount of products they produce). This becomes dangerous, because if a natural disaster occurs, and their coffee crop is wiped out, the entire nation's economy will collapse, and its people can now no longer afford food, nor do they have the means to grow it themselves.

Of course, countries never fully specialize in their most profitable crop/product because of things such as trade barriers. These can be natural, such as the cost of shipping food across an ocean, or be artificial, such as a government imposing import tariffs (they tax goods coming in from overseas). So, even though U.S. might be able to produce rice at $1/ton, after the costs of transport + tariffs, this cost may now rise to $2/ton. If our imaginary nation can produce rice at $1.5/ton, it's not as efficient as the U.S., but it's still cheaper. Therefore, because of things like trade barriers, nations won't fully specialize. Now, you can see what might happen if these trade barriers are removed. In a real world example, the U.S. signed a treaty with the Mexico that removed trade tariffs. As a result, many Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods because they couldn't produce as cheaply as American agricultural corporations could. To summarize, globalization, or the reduction of trade barriers give incentives for nations to further specialize. This further specialization creates more exposure for the national economy to crisis and mishaps.

This leads into the second major implication. As trade barriers are lowered, the competitiveness of companies overseas are increased. Remember, the rice farmer on our imaginary pacific island nation is 'protected' by the trade barrier. With it, his $1.5/ton rice is competing with $2/ton import rice. Without it, he is competing with $1/ton import rice. Although this means the islander inhabitants get to buy cheaper rice, this also drives out local rice farmers and lead them to rely upon foreign rice suppliers. In the real world, the implications are that mutli-national corporations and conglomerates are given more power and more access in local markets. Due to their vast scale, they are able to outproduce everyone else, and thus do so at a lower price (this is know as the economy of scale). Although the local population are now given access to cheaper products, they loose power and become dependent on a foreign entity.

There are many other factors at play here, but these are the main ones in very dumbed down terms.

EDIT: grammar and spelling.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Batman: The Three Jokers] What the hell is going on with the ending? SPOILERS

I am quite confused.

So... the Joker's wife and kid never died?

If I'm reading the panels right, Batman, as perhaps Matches Malloy, gives his wife cash to flee town?

Which ultimately causes more damage than good. I mean, I hate domestic violence, of course, as does any sane man, but the Killing Joke doesn't indicate a particularly violent family, though, that whole thing of the Joker as the narrator of his story tends to cast doubt on anything like that.

I'm real confused. How the hell did Joker, with his enormous talent for ferreting out secrets, not track down his wife, and SON, heir to the Joker empire?

Who were the other two jokers? What of their origins?

More questions were brought up than answers, and I'm looking for answers.

[Assistant]
In order:

1. Yes, this was a abusive family. Its a retcon, but its established here that the Joker was abusive. Perhaps he warped his own memories in the killing joke. The family faked their death to escape him. Their abuser later turning into the Joker didn't exactly inspire them to change their mind about it.
2. The joker simply doesn't care about his old life very much, and only sometimes remembers he even had a family, and when he does he thinks they're dead. While he might well be able to track them down if he tried, why would he ever bother?
3. The other two jokers were just random people turned into new jokers by the first joker. Its ambiguous which one was the real one, but the other two were created by the first joker to help with his crusade. Their origins don't matter, really. They're gone now. Only the Joker remains.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: If the common cold tends to be a different virus each time(hence why you can't necessarily prevent it), why do you have nearly the same symptoms each time?

[Assistant]
The symptoms are not the specific effects of the virus, the symptoms are the feelings caused by your bodys physical defenses. There may be a thousand different viruses out there that could be attacking you at any given time, but your immune system only really knows a dozen defense tactics. When a new virus comes in, the body tries what it knows...

Can we cook this one off? (Fever)

Does it go away if we secrete fluids to flush it out? (Mucous)

Do we need to rush more blood cells to the infected area? (Inflammation)

Its getting into the airways, lets try to force it out. (Coughing)

The immune response itself causes the bulk of the symptoms, not the virus.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Are we bound to get cancer if we don't die from something else before that?

If I don't get a heart attack, or die by komodo dragon bite, will I eventually get cancer?

[Assistant]
Pretty much yes.

Cancer is an unavoidable consequence of evolution.

A multicellular organism is a colony of cells that work in concert for one common goal. As we have evolved our cells have developed mechanisms to make sure all the cells divide and grow as complying members of the whole. Still, an individual cell that mutates (mutations happen all the time) to grow out of this control will do so!

The control systems have evolved to reduce the risk of cancers until they no longer posed significant selective pressure on reproductive success.

Generally though, because of evolution, as you live longer the chance of getting cancer approaches 1. That being said, there is no reason why we should not be able to push this back a lot further.

=)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: how is it that generic (store brands) are able to produce an entire store worth of items for significantly cheaper than individual name brands?

[Assistant]
They aren't making it cheaper, they're selling it cheaper.  The store can do this because there is no middle man taking their cut and requiring profit above manufacture (more profit per sale for the retailer).

Example: Product "A" is made at a factory. The cost is $0.05 per unit. The company who markets Product "A" then sells this item to the retailer for $1.00 per unit. Then the retailer in turn sells it for $1.79.

Product "B" is made at the same factory. The cost is $0.10 per unit. This item goes straight to the retailer and is sold for $1.25 per unit.

Product "A" nets the retailer $0.79 margin.
Product "B" nets the retailer $1.15 margin.

Additionally, they don't have to advertise and can ride off the success of the name brands, so the margin comes with a higher profit, as the majority of their overhead is storage space and carrying costs.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How do I cite Chinese names written as 1 English name?

I'm currently writing a research paper. My question is general so it doesn't really apply to only my country.

Let's say I have a name **Li Sunxiaojun**. Native Chinese speakers can tell this Chinese name has 4 characters. In that case, should I cite this name as it appears on the paper **Li, S.** or should I cite it as I know the name is supposed to sound: **Li, S. X. J.** (i.e. in Chinese form)?

Edit: Thanks for all the comments! In case anyone has the same question and comes back to this post, the best way (imo) is to go online and search for citations to see how the paper is usually cited. With that being said, I would say one can generally follow the English rule of thumb (as confirmed by many comments below). In other words, if it is spelled as one word in English, just treat it as one word.

[Assistant] You should cite the English transliteration as it appears elsewhere, for which only one character is used for the given name. Some journals also provide an option to add the Chinese (or Japanese or Korean) name, but this is generally only used for authors, not citations. The most important thing is that the DOI is correct and links to the right paper.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[X-Men] Why arent there more clones of Wolverine?

Logan had a top tier healing power and endurance which makes him a perfect soldier. In X-Men Origin, Stryker persuaded him to join the Weapon X program. They must have taken a lot of his dna samples during the experiment.

In the movie Logan, we saw that Alkali managed to produce 2 clones of Logan. So, why stop at 2? Why not produce more Laura or X24?

[Assistant]
So, the fundamental problem is surprisingly realistic- comic-book style supersoldiers are a stupid idea, and the whole weapon X program proves why. Essentially, the problem with creating a being that a conventional army can't fight is that *you're a conventional army.*

So in the films, you have three clones, two of whom went rogue and caused massive damage to the organisation, and also now an new generation of mutants who hate you. In the comics its even worse- there are dozens of clones and supersoldiers, almost *all* of whom are rogue.

Essentially, organisations the produce clones of wolverine don't last long enough to produce many of them- they tend to collapse shortly after producing the first clone of wolverine, in clone-of-wolverine related circumstances.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: If it were possible to fly a space craft into the sun without becoming a giant burnt marshmallow... would the ship crash on the surface, or pass through because it made of gas?

Was thinking about this the other day for some random reason. I know the sun is made of gas, but at its center is it still gas? How dense would it be? Just the sheer size of the star must effect the components it is made of in some ways, right?

[Assistant]
The outer layers of the sun are only about as dense as water, so if you could manage to build a ship that was capable of withstanding the heat, moving through that wouldn't be too much of a problem.  However, as you pressed further into the sun, it gets more dense, up to 150 grams per cubic centimeter in the center, which is almost 20 times denser than steel.

That being said, the core of the sun, while dense, is still made of gas (albeit in a plasmic state), so it might be possible to push through it.  It would be like trying to sail through super-dense, extremely hot Jell-O.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What exactly is happening when someone uses skin lotion/moisturizer?

I guess Im asking how skin cells interact with the chemicals in the lotion and where those chemicals go once theyre absorbed.

[Assistant]
While the answer depends on several factors (including what's getting applied to the skin, where on the body it's being applied, what vehicle (or topical agent type - think cream, lotion, ointment, foam, etc) is being used, and what the composition/active ingredient(s) are in that vehicle), let's start with the basics and move from there.

If we're talking about things applied for the purpose of moisturizing, the goal is less about direct hydration and more about preventing excess water loss. Preventing water loss from the skin is super important: in fact, it's a primary function of the stratum corneum, the topmost layer of skin that is made of protein-rich cells that have lost their nuclei (colloquially referred to as "dead skin cells"). You can think of these cells as the 'bricks' of our skin: holding them together like 'mortar' is a lipid-rich layer full of things like ceramides, sphingolipids, and more.

On the daily, we run into tons of stuff that can disrupt either the bricks or the mortar of this layer: dry weather, friction, caustic topicals or agents, skin diseases, you name it. When the barrier's weakened, there's more points through which water can exit this skin. This escape, called 'transepidermal water loss (TEWL)', is ultimately what results in dry skin.

By applying moisturizing agents, you're essentially putting an external 'mortar' on the stratum corneum: this decreases TEWL, and helps to 'rehydrate' skin by making sure excess water isn't lost to the environment.

As for 'chemical absorption', it all depends on the properties of those chemicals. The rate-limiting step for absorption from the skin is the stratum corneum: if something has a hard time passing through a lipid-rich environment, it's not going to pass through here so easily. Meanwhile, if you're trying to treat a condition that starts deeper down in the skin, having agents that can readily diffuse through the skin's top layers to exert their effect would be ideal.

Hope this helps!


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
NSF Retaliation Complaint

Throwaway for legal reasons.

I was recently the victim of harassment and discrimination by my PhD advisor. I went through the university's mediation process, partly because I was told I would not be allowed to complete my degree if I requested a formal investigation. At the end of the investigation, the university assigned me a new advisor but took no other action. The university retaliated against me in a serious way (no details for anonymity, sorry). My former advisor continues to retaliate against me and impede my graduation and career prospects. My department is aware but has chosen not to take any action.

When I mentioned reporting the original discrimination to the NSF, I was told that I would face disciplinary action by the university if I made a report to an outside agency because I "chose" informal mediation.

1) *Does anyone have experience filing a civil rights complaint with a federal funding agency?* What was the process like and long did it take? Was the complainant able to continue with their degree/career unimpeded or did the institution use some kind of protocol to "ice" the complainant?
2) *What kinds of remedies or actions does the NSF take in these sorts of cases (details are sparse, I know)?* Was there oversight of the university's reporting mechanism, college/department, or alleged aggressor? Was the agency able to stipulate disciplinary action, such as removal from oversight or administrative positions? Was the complainant compensated for any damages?

[Assistant] Consult with a lawyer. This is beyond the scope of this sub. There could be title ix implications and a whole host of other issues related to this, but we don't know because you can't share enough info.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Hey Askscience, how do anesthetics work?

What is it about their molecular structure that allows them to dull pain receptors? Do they trigger the release of other chemicals in the body to do so?

[Assistant]
I assume you mean general anarsthetics, and the truth is that we don't really have a clear answer. Anaesthics are very unusual in being a widely used and effective drug where we do not really understand the mechanism of action. What is interesting is that compounds that are structurally completely unrelated can have anesthetic properties; for example thiopentone is a barbiturate and causes anesthesia, but so does xenon which is a noble gas.
Its likely there are several different mechanisms operating.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5:What makes a "bad school" bad?

What makes a "bad school" bad?  I know schools are funded on property taxes and all teachers need the same education and continuing ed to become teachers, so what specifically makes a school bad?  Is it factors outside of the school, like parental involvement?

I used to think people saying an elementary or high school was "bad" was a disguised way of saying there are a lot of minorities at it.  Is this accurate?

[Assistant]
There are several factors, but a lot of it boils down to money.

A school in a poor community might not get the same funding as a school in a rich community, as property taxes will be lower. This has far reaching consequences, as underfunded staff and underfed students will not perform at a higher level.

A school in a bad part of town will have more trouble recruiting the best teachers. Nicer schools are more likely to get the best teachers applying to work there, and may be able to offer them better benefits or a nicer working environment.

A school with a bad reputation will drive away the best students. Parents ate picky when moving to an area, and will buy a house in a better district if possible.

Parental involvement is a possibility, though the differences between a parent population that works constantly and a parent population that is absent/apathetic is trivial. Both types of parenting will show up at any school.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why aren't obese people's muscles stronger than average, considering they carry around so much weight every day?

I am sure there's some wrong with my thinking, and I'd like to understand what. I think it is a fact that the more you exercise a muscle, the stronger it becomes. Let's assume we have one obese person, and one person of healthy weight. Both of them walk 1h per day over the same distance. Since the obese person carries around so much more extra weight, can't we assume they are straining (training?) their leg muscles more by the additional effort required, making them stronger in the process?

[Assistant]
They generally are.  For pretty much exactly the reason you said.

Maybe you're conflating muscle definition (i.e. the muscles you see on body builders) with muscle strength.  A quick look at Olympic weightlifters will show you where strength actually lies.  None of them look like bodybuilders.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [The Incredibles] Was Syndrome not afraid of the consequences of shooting down a government plane?

[Assistant]
Syndrome probably thought he could get away with it - maybe he believed his technology was sophisticated enough that no one would pin the attack on him, or that he had enough political clout to have any investigation quashed or redirected.

Similarly, he probably also thought he could get away with having his robot attack a major city, then flying in to "save" the day. He was wrong there, and he very well may have been wrong on the issue of getting away with shooting down a government plane too.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Does the number of wounds on a human affect how quickly each individual wound heals? Why or why not?

I cut my hand recently and though about this. Is the work all local to the wound site, or is there some other component supplied by my body at large?

Say there are two scenarios, scenario 1 is that a person falls and scrapes their hand. Scenario 2 is that the person falls and scrapes their hand in the same way, but also get numerous (but separate) cuts and bruises. Does the hand wound heal at the same rate in scenario 1 and 2?

Thanks. This has been bugging me all day.

[Assistant]
Hey, i am a future wound specialist(it isnt a specialization yet, but it soon will be and i have taken part in the founding  charter to get it as a specialization(my real specialization is just primary, but i spend a lot of time doing woundcare)

theoretically, they should heal at the same time as long as they are both equally exposed to whatever microbes are around, equally exposed to the sane conditions. Now, the big part of this is that, as you get older, your body may start to change, perhaps you end up with vascular problems in your legs, so your back wound will heal quickly, but a leg wound will end up being a chronic wound due to vascular insufficiency. So, they would not heal at the same rate. If you have nerve damage, like diabetics with neuropathy, you cant feel the pressure points of your body, so you dont naturally shift around like normal people do to avoid pressure ulcers, so this could cause prolonged damage as the wound is trying to heal, thus slowing it way down, well, really, making it nearly impossible to heal. again, this is because of a vascular insufficiency caused by the pressure. If this doesnt adequately answer your question, just let me know.

Bottom line, in a perfect environment and specimen, they would heal at the same rate. edit: but i have to say, realistically, no, no wounds heal the same on your body, there are just too many variables. Your vascular system isnt perfectly symmetrical, the environment of locations is different(too moist or too dry will make a wound take longer to heal), and microbes can stunt the healing. In a practical answer, no, they wont heak the same, but theoretically they could if the conditions were uniform. Sorry, at first i thought we were talking theoretically, but upon reading the question again, i think you were asking for a practical answer, so i just editted to include both.

Now, some parts of the body heal at faster rates, inside of your mouth etc, but i figure that wasnt what you were asking about.

Your body doesnt really prioritize wounds effectively, it is all about the right conditions. Just because a wound is around doesnt mean that the body naturally diverts enough blood flow to the wound, we have to synthetically do that with something called negative pressure treatment.

Edit: Also, i should specify that all of this is from the context of an integumentary wound.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] How can Verizon legally still claim to have the fastest home internet service when Google Fiber is clearly much faster? How isn't that considered false advertising?

[Assistant]
Do you have a link to one of their ads?

It's likely it has some sort of clarification in small text near the bottom.

It probably refers to "nationwide" service, since google is only in a couple cities, it's not exactly a competitor.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Norway gave $1bn to Brasil for essentially nothing. How is this any different if Brasil suddenly decided to print $1bn of money?

How come this money from Norway is good money, but if Brasil printed it by themselves it would cause inflation?

[Assistant] Say there are X reais in the world. Most of the reais are held by Brazilians, Brazilian companies, and the Brazilian government, but there are many other governments, foreign corporations, and individuals that hold reais. In this case, Norway is giving Brazil some of their reais and therefore X is not increasing. If Brazil printed reais, then X would increase, causing inflation.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 - Why I'm connected to a billion torrent seeders, only 5 will *actually* connect, and I still only get 30kbps sometimes...

[Assistant]
"Connected" means that you're aware of the existence of those seeders, but not that they are transmitting data to you. The seeders might be "busy" uploading to other users at full capacity, and have no spare bandwidth to send to you.

Many bittorrent clients also try to keep track of "reputation" of peers, and if you're a new to a torrent, they may only tentatively upload a little bit to you, and then wait and observe whether you then re-share that data to other peers. These clients will upload in preference to people who share well, as opposed to those who don't share much.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why are barns painted red?

At least with the American ones, just about every barn I've seen is painted that same dark red. Is it culture, superstition, availability, all of the above?

[Assistant]
Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil - a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime.

The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly.

(Today, linseed oil is sold in most home-improvement stores as a wood sealant).

As for the red, there are two predominant theories:

* Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.

* Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.

Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.

As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, **red paint was the most inexpensive to buy**.

Red was the color of favor **until whitewash became cheaper**, at which point white barns began to spring up.

Today, the color of barns can vary, often depending on how the barns are used.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: how do some websites prevent you from using the back button to leave the page?

Often when Im googling something Ill go to a few pages, so Ill click a link, and then use the back button to return to the search results and find another link. But sometimes the back button just reloads the page, and even tapping it multiple times doesnt work. How and why do some websites do this? Surely it should be my browser thats controlling if it goes back or not, rather than the website its on?

[Assistant]
The website can use a "filler" (not sure if there's a term for it) page in between pages that automatically forwards to another page. Instead of going from Page A to B (the desired page), it goes from A to C ("filler" page), which executes a script to automatically redirect you to B. So when you try to back out from B, you hit C instead, which pushes you back to B.

Usually, if you hold down on the back button, it'll bring up a list of previous pages in the sequence they were visited. You can usually see the redirect page in that list.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
When to just shut up?

Hello All,

So I'm curious if anyone else has felt as though they have had to do this. In some lab meetings, interactions with other students, and when meeting with certain professors I find myself just shutting up and listening (even though I have ideas and information that could help the lab/student etc.). I just don't want to come off or be labeled as a "know it all" or an ass if I'm going to be in close quarters with these people for another four years.

I'm in a situation now where I have information about an issue that could really help two students (that I am 100% sure of but it is information I KNOW they do not want to hear). Do you just keep quiet until you really know people or actually try and help out? I feel very guilty not telling them but don't want to start things off on a bad note.

Academia is such a wacky environment...

[Assistant]
There are *way* too many potential factors in play to answer this question with the level of vagueness you've kept in your post. Shutting up is often useful. Saying something is also often useful. And - in general - *nobody likes unsolicited advice*. People are even less likely to respond well if they do not have any pre-existing relationship with you, do not trust your understanding of the issue, and/or had a desire to handle it themselves in some specific way.

~~~~~

If you want better advice:

What is your relationship with those students?

Did they share their issue with you directly?

Is this a science issue? Relationship issue? Something else?

If you are not social friends, do you have any sort of acknowledged seniority or expertise that will lend value to your thoughts/advice and allow you to speak as an authority?

Do your thoughts on their issue come from experience?


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do Magic Erasers (those little sponge-block things made by many companies including Mr. Clean) work?

[Assistant]
They are abrasive (like steel wool or sandpaper), just a very fine grit. Their amazing cleaning comes from physically scraping dirt off on a very small scale.

As an aside, Magic Erasers are way overpriced, you can buy the exact same sponges in bags of like 100 for a few dollars on Amazon (or other online retailer). Search "melamine sponge".


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: If Pluto is not a planet because it "has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects, how can Earth, Juptier, Saturn, etc be considered a planet?

 Pluto is not a planet because it only meets two of the three IAU criteria to be considered a planet.

I'm not clear on the interpretation of "having to clear its neighboring region of other objects. Earth has a moon. Is that not considered an object in a neighboring region?

Jupiter has tons of moons.

Saturn has an entire ring.

Can someone ELI5 how it works?

[Assistant] Cleared the neighborhood means that the planet has to be the dominant gravitational body in their orbit around the sun.  This means that the planet has to cruise its orbit while consuming or slinging away smaller objects in its orbital path.  Pluto is only .007 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit.  Earth, in contrast, has 1.7 million times the mass of the other objects in its orbit.  Pluto simply isnt big enough to clear its neighborhood properly.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why didn't the leak in the ISS vent all the air immediately?

I assumed that because there's no air in space, and lots in the ISS, it would shoot out incredibly fast. Is my assumption just plain wrong or is there more at play?

[Assistant]
The mass flow rate is related to the differential pressure and the geometry of the opening. In this case the differential pressure is low (14.7 psi) and the opening was fairly small.

Catastrophic failure can occur if the jet velocity has enough energy to make the opening larger by wearing away or deflecting the material.  In that case you have a chain reaction.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Spider-Man/Marvel] In-universe about 10 years have passed since Spider-Man first came onto the scene. After so many years of consistently being an overall good guy to NY how is JJ's crusade against him believed by anyone, let alone a majority?

[Assistant]
There are still people who believe that Obama is a Muslim terrorist who tried to destroy America with Ebola and socialism.

Unfortunately, fake news works on far too many people.  Say something loud enough and often enough and someone will buy into it.

(See also: climate change and Big Oil's disinformation campaign).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Does the human brain (or the brain of any mammal, for that matter) perform Fourier Transform to decompose various sounds we/mammals hear everyday?

In many of my signal analysis and other engineering classes, we have to perform Fourier Transforms to analyze specific time domain problems in its frequency domain and decompose respective signals. These problems got me wondering whether our or a mammals brain decomposes various sounds that heard everyday. For instance, if were talking with a friend in a public space, how does our brain know which sounds to filter out (other people talking in the vicinity) and which sounds not to filter out (sound of a friends voice). Is this mechanism simply the brain performing Fourier Transforms instantaneously or is it simply a biological mechanism?

[Assistant]
The translation from soundwaves in the air to signals in the brain happens in the cochlea. This is a little organ in your ear with the biophysical property that higher frequencies make the nearby end resonate while lower frequency waves vibrate the far end. Different locations along the cochlea have different little hairs that send electrical signals to the brain once they are mechanically activated. The brain therefore receives a (slightly noisy) Fourier transform of the sound.

Filtering out sounds is a very non-trivial task, of which it has not been totally figured out yet how the brain manages. This is known in the literature as the cocktail party problem. Partially the answer is based on the familiarity of certain sounds, partially it uses our stereo hearing and outer ear shape to filter out locations. Even with this information, building a machine that filters out everything but the person next to you at a cocktail party is extremely difficult.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Mobile gaming will never have games for hardcore gamers

Since I've had a smartphone, I've looked for a game I can enjoy and feel rewarded for spending my time in. However, I have yet to find a game that is enjoyable, rewards a time investment, and doesn't ask for my wallet. While I haven't given up on my search, I feel mobile gaming will never reach the more hardcore levels that we see PC and console gaming at now. All the games that get the closest teens to be mobile ports of already existing games, such as Hearthstone. And while these can certainly be considered hardcore, they tend to work much better on PC. As a bit of a game developer (I've made a couple small games), I would love to create such a game but don't see how the mobile platform allows for that.

I apologise if I'm not completely clear, first time doing this. I will be on and off intermittently all day, so I'm sorry if there is a bit of a delay in answering.

[Assistant]
Okay, so you're using the term "hardcore" quite a bit, which is something of a moving target since we can't know precisely what you mean by it. It will be frustrating for us to point to examples of games that we feel are "hardcore" only to have you reply along the lines of "that's not hardcore, hardcore means *this* thing" when you haven't fleshed out the definition we're working with.

That said, I'll assume it to mean that the game is *competitive*, offers players a positive relationship between performance and skill, and has a control scheme that does not by-and-large impede execution.

With this in mind, I'd point to *Hearthstone* and *PUBG mobile*, both of which are (1) competitive, (2) responsive, (3) skill-based, and (4) able to be played without spending a penny.

>And while these can certainly be considered hardcore, they tend to work much better on PC.

This is a truism, given that phones have less processing power and room for a user interface. This is just a fact that games will play better on PC.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Do animals 'workout'? I'm not talking about weight lifting like humans do, but do they do forms of exercise just for the sake of improving themselves in anyway?

I've been wondering if animals have ever been observed training their bodies. This could mean an animal running to practice it's stride, a monkey continually slamming a heavy stick like a human swings a hammer, etc.

[Assistant]
Multiple animals engage in play, eg, cats pouncing on leaves, or dogs picking play fights with pack-mates, and many more.

They wouldn't be consciously aware that they're, say, burning off calories to stave off heart and knee trouble, but it still has the effect of honing skills they'll need in earnest later.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 why plastic dish ware tends to not dry after a wash cycle in the dishwasher.

[Assistant]
The interfacial tension between water and plasticware is higher than for either glass or ceramic.  In other words, water sticks better to plastic.

Surfactants are the main components of rinse-aids.  Their job is to reduce surface tension within the water, so water tends to form thinner drops on dishware.  Rinse-aids lead to faster drying and much less noticeable spots, but theyre only marginally effective on plastic.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5, why are the spacesuits are still as bulky as when human went to space for the very first time? Although weve came along way with technology and materials.

[Assistant]
They are still in an extreme environment. Radiation, instant 400ish degree temperature swings, and obviously vacuum.

The life support systems alone to handle that need to be very reliable and redundant. That's inevitably bulky. The suit has to be as flexible as possible to allow the astronaut to work, but it also has to be relatively rigid, otherwise it would just be a balloon.

Flight suits have gotten smaller, but from a mission and funding perspective, there hasn't be a giant incentive to produce a completely new generation of suit. They're being studied/tested now, but until there's an actual mission that requires their increased capabilities, they aren't the highest priority.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Famtasy] How do dragons breathe fire?

[Assistant] In Reign of Fire the Dragons have two separate glands on either sides of the interior of their mouth that house chemicals, when sprayed out and mixed they become extremely combustible akin to napalm.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: When someone loses weight after exercising & dieting for several months, what is lost and how?

[Assistant]
1) **What is lost?**

Your blood cells are built to connect to, and transport, Oxygen (O*_2_*) and Carbon Dioxide (CO*_2_*).

They transport oxygen to from your lungs to your cells, and take carbon dioxide from your cells to your lungs. That carbon atom is what your body excretes when it burns energy.

2) **How?**

 That's *much* more complicated. Basically, if you eat more calories than your body uses then they're stored as fat. If you eat fewer calories than your body uses, your body will start to digest itself in order to make up the difference in energy needed.

Which cells your body digests depends on *a lot* of factors. For overweight people fat will be lost if the muscles are continually exerted, whereas fat and muscle cells will be lost without some exercise; either way the scale will show a lower number.
For obese people, only fat will be lost at first due to the extreme unnecessary fat reserves.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why do two stroke gasoline engines have to use mixed fuel? Why aren't they designed with a separate oil system?

The main problem with two stroke engines is that they do not burn cleanly, thus restricting their use to small applications despite their high power to weight. I do not understand why they must have the fuel be the lubricant instead of having separate oil and fuel like 4 stroke engines.

[Assistant]
Two-stroke engines can have a separate fuel and lubrication systems.  This is common in marine 2-stroke diesel engines. (Marine 2-stroke diesels also aren't small.)

The lubricant-in-fuel thing does make for a simple engine.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Terminator] Despite the odds against them, how did the resistance won against the machines that forced Skynet to send terminators back in time to change history?

[Assistant] A lot of humans survived judgement day,  and skynet didnt have that many resources either from the start. Remember, it also nuked all the logistical things that it needed (and those it didnt nuke had living humans that now can fight back)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How stable are USB thumbdrives for long-term storage?

If I get a high-quality USB thumbdrive and put some files on it, will they still be there if I don't touch the drive for 5-10 years?  Does the memory lose charge over time and eventually corrupt data?  Should I plug it in to refresh the data every few months?

[Assistant] Not very.  FLASH memory works by essentially placing some electrons on an insulated island of material through quantum tunnelling and then "trapping" them there.  However, there is some probability that they can tunnel off, and thus the stored charge does leak out over time.  How long it takes for enough charge to leak off that a "read" can't tell the difference (signal to noise wise) depend on the manufacturer and specifications but 10 years is definitely in the danger zone.   There's also a stress degradation issue but that probably doesn't apply here.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV:I don't understand the need for hate crime laws

Let me start by saying that I am liberal and in a protected class, so I don't feel unsympathetic to victims of hate crimes. What I don't understand (and after discussing it with a friend now realize that I have never really understood) is why a similar crime against a protected group should be punished in a different way. Maybe it is because I don't believe in the preventive nature of increased punishment, but to me it is sufficient that the crime is punished, and if the horrific nature of the crime merits increased punishment it should merit that punishment across the board, regardless of who the victim is.

e: Thank you to everyone for the discourse in this thread, I'm replying as quickly as possible to people but you've all been great and given me a lot to think about!

[Assistant]
Some crimes have an increased severity when viewed in the context of hate toward a certain group.  For example, if you set a fire in someone's yard, you can be charged with destruction of property (assuming it doesn't burn the house down or something).

If you instead light a cross in a black person's yard and stand across the street wearing KKK garb, then one could easily argue that you've actually done more than simply set a small fire.  Something that isn't tangible.  You've intimidated a family into fearing for their lives.  And that's only true because of the context in which you committed a crime which was otherwise just setting a little fire to some wood.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Dune] Are there regular joes who work 40-50 hour weeks, hang out drinking with their buds, and go to their kids' sporting matches or is all of humanity depraved backstabbing sybarites?

[Assistant]
Yes, countless billions of them.

From the Butlerian Jihad until the Fremen Crusades, the galaxy was under an enforced peace. What little warfare was allowed was strictly regulated to legitimate military targets and noble families. Although there was little social mobility (the faufraluches system governed the complex class system in most of the Imperium), there was also stability. Quality of life varied significantly (Giede Prime was mostly oppressed, impoverished masses), but most rulers preferred to keep their grip on power firm but not excessively cruel. As long as you didn't disrupt the established political order and paid your taxes, you were almost certain to be left mostly alone in most planets - in fact, there isn't much participation in politics at all except for the very few with the blood or wealth to be so. Of course, at that point you'd have to either be a small fish or a backstabbing sybarite to survive in the cutthroat and clandestine politics endemic to the Imperium.

As for what their lives were like:

We know that there was a vast middle class in the Imperium, defined by being able to eat small quantities of melange with at least one meal a day. In *Dune*, there are some snippets of conversation from regular House Atreides troopers that are what regular joes might say - bitching about their housing, cracking jokes, ribbing each other. Arrakkeen has countless merchants, factory workers, house servants, beggars, and other poor-to-middle-class people who are just going about their day. There's entertainment - brothels and beer halls are specifically mentioned.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: How do bookmakers calculate odds in play? Like how do they decide what odds to give on a certain person to score or an event to happen in such quick time?

[Assistant]
Vegas has the sharpest minds coming up with the best statistical models that cover every facet of every single event that occurs in competition.

Even with that, it's all about getting money to be as 50/50 as possible. Sportsbooks earn on the juice. If one side is getting too much action, they will hedge by revising the odds to incentivize bettors to drop money on the other side.

Accurately forecasting the probability of potential outcomes isn't even close to as important as getting money to come in 50/50.

You can make a living (or at least a nice side income) as a sports bettor if you can come up with a model that *can* somewhat accurate predict probabilities and use that to take advantage of inefficient lines (which 100% do exist because vegas isn't trying to predict outcomes but get 50/50 action).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Ghost Rider Movies] Why does the Rider change his mind about the Curse?

The original film ends with the Rider deciding to keep his curse in order to use it against the Devil. However, right at the beggining of the sequel, he wants to get rid of it. Why? What made him change his mind?

[Assistant]
Probably realizing how unstable the Ghost Rider actually is. He is compelled to punish the wicked constantly. And in the modern world there are just too many sinners to keep it under control.

In the past you might run off to a remote place and live as a hermit, but the modern world is a lot more crowded and a lot more interconnected.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[LOTR] Did Sauron have a good chance of conquering middle earth without forging the rings?

In the end the Ring was his downfall, and it seems risky to split off a part of yourself. Would he still have been able to conquer middle earth, and it would have just taken him longer?

[Assistant]
Even *with* the rings, he lost to the Last Alliance.

He always had the *chance* to conquer Middle-Earth, but without the One Ring he'd have been as killable as any other Maia taking a physical form. And without the Nine, and specifically the Witch King, the Third Age would have been very different. Arnor probably never falls. Which means when he eventually re-emerges in Mordor,  Gondor will never stand alone. So, it makes things a lot harder for him at every step.

And even once he is defeated, things are better for the world at large. Nobody relied on the Three for their nations to exist, so there's no sudden decline of the elves. Saruman never betrayed the White Council out of desire for the One Ring. Hobbits can carry on not caring about the worries of the world.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV translating place names is pointless and causes unnecessary confusion

It is common practice to translate names of places, cities and countries instead of using the original names or the names the country chose for them. It is harmless most of the times like Berlin/berlijn or London/Londres (but this also makes it really pointless). But it can get very confusing with examples such as Kln/Cologne, Pays-Bas/Netherlands or even the weird Deutschland/Germany confusion. I live in Europe and since there are so many languages present at any given moment, it can get really confusing if everyone is familiar with their own languages version of place name. And just smth dumb that annoys me, it takes up too much space on signs. But anyway, I really haven't come across any good or any argument FOR doing this. So I think it's unnecessarily confusing and really pointless.

[Assistant] There are valid linguistic and historical reasons for why place names are translated. If a place name features sounds or spellings that someone who speaks a foreign language could easily mispronounce, the translation of that place name will usually do something to fix that, like in your first 2 examples. In the examples where the translated place name is completely different, the translated names almost always have a historical reason for being that way. The reason that Germany has so many different names in European languages (as an example) is due to this reason; the name for Germany in each language group was adopted at a different time in history and based on different words, either from German or the other language itself. This is particularly the case for Germany as the country has existed in so many different forms over millennia, but happens with lots of other places too. And once a translated name becomes the official name for a place in a certain language, it becomes hard to change it. This is why these odd translated names stick around when more logical ones are available. They may cause confusion, but it is not unnecessary confusion, as it makes sense for linguistic or historical reasons.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5 How do slipstreams work?

What is a slipstream and how do they work? Is there an ideal distance behind another car you should stay to get the maximum benefits? Is there a distance where it actually becomes a hinderance? If there is a crosswind does it destroy any chances of a slipstream?

[Assistant]
When something moves through air, it leaves an empty space behind it. New air moves to fill that space, which is the phenomenon you're calling a slipstream.

If it's a very large object moving quickly, like an 18 wheeler going down the highway, there can be a lot of air moving in behind it, and if you're close enough, you can be pulled along with the air.

The ideal distance will vary depending on the size and speed involved, but it's generally a bad idea because you need to be an unsafe distance from them. You're basically tailgating them.

A cross wind would have an effect, because the point of lowest air pressure behind the truck would move, but again, not really worth considering because you'd have to be right up their ass.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[TTGL] (Major spoilers for end of series) So, did team Dai-Gurren doom the universe? (Major spoilers for end of series)

The Anti-Spirals' message seemed pretty rational (in the show's universe), the thought of infinite expansion leading to the consumption of everything due to the inherent nature of spiral beings and their intrinsic coding. By destroying the Antispirals, did Simon and the crew inadvertently doom all of existence to nothingness (in the distant future)? Sure, Rossieu's regime claims to be working with this pan universe UN type thing to stop it, but how would they even go about that? The only solution would be to change what makes Spiral beings spiral. In kicking rationality to the curb, did Simon rush helix kind headfirst into oblivion? Given the power of the anti spiral, being left alive with Lordgenome as a vassal could be seen as a sign of empathy. It would have been just as easy destroying all traces of spiral life.

[Assistant]
Maybe. But not if the Spirals play their cards right.

Simon at the end did something phenomenally important: he walked away. He could have brought Nia back, or all of those who had died. Coming down from TTGL, he was a god in all but name. But, he chose not to. He had seen Kamina and Kittan, and realized that he had to move on, heading towards tomorrow.

When he walked away, he showed all of his followers how to handle their power. By refusing to alter reality or lead humanity forever, he was demonstrating how to prevent the Spiral Nemesis. Those with the most spiral energy must also be willing to let go of the power that it brings, or else they will have the ability to end the universe.

Every generation this same risk will occur, as new heroes rise up and find the power of the gods within themselves. But, standing above them all is Simon the Digger, who walked away. He believed that the Spiral races could be trusted to choose for themselves to prevent the Spiral Nemesis, something the anti-Spirals never thought possible. He believed in the Spirals who believed in him, and his memory will keep them drilling through to tomorrow.

PS: Also, Viral is immortal, can't use Spiral Energy, and likely more than willing to smack down anybody who starts talking about "ultimate power." Carrot and Stick: best approach.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why is it that some parts of the ocean are clear as glass, some is really blue, and some is like cloudy green?

[Assistant] The blue color of water is actually intrinsic to water molecules themselves. Vibrational transitions in the molecules have a weak absorption for red light, so the reflected light appears blue. Filtered/clear water will have a natural blue tint. It's very weak though, so there has to be a large volume for the blue color to be apparent. That's why oceans appear blue while a glass of water will appear clear. Keeping this in mind, the deeper the body of water, the stronger the blue color and the darker the water will appear. Bodies of water that do not appear blue have their natural color altered by things like sediment, algae, and micro organisms. These "impurities" can also cause the water to be cloudy as opposed to its natural clear state.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [The Boys] In a deleted scene from The Boys, Homelander is in space watching the earth. How durable would he have to be to survive being in space like that? What implication does that say about his power?

[Assistant]
Mostly it could just be that he can survive for a while without oxygen.

What's really interesting is that he can see. Water will instantly start boiling in a vacuum, and all those little bubbles will make it hard to see. So either he has some way to compress the water on his eyes, or he waited for them to dry out completely.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5:What makes VLC able to play virtually any format and others players cant?

[Assistant] Sheer force of will and engineering. The VLC devs have put a lot of time and effort into making sure they use the right codecs at the right time for the right reasons. The result is a good media player.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Combustion requires heat, oxigen and fuel. With that said, could I put out a fire if I threw fuel, lets say gasoline, that is cold enough?

[Assistant] Depending on the conditions, you could put out a fire with cold gasoline because it is less volatile the colder it gets. The fumes of gasoline are what is ignited and burned, not the actual liquid. Gasoline in a liquid state is much less combustible than its gaseous state. But the conditions would have to be right in order to do this. Pour straight gasoline over a fire would aerate the liquid causing it to combust. It would need to be extremely cold, poured from the side over the base of the fire, done with minimal splashing so it does not aerate, and done quickly so the temperature is not raised and become more volatile.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How do I contact a potential Masters thesis supervisor?

I'm applying for a Master of Science program at a university and my admission is dependent on getting a professor at the university to agree to vent supervisor. How do I go about this?

[Assistant]
It starts with a simple email. State who you are, what you're studying, what your research interests are, and ask if they'd be interested in meeting up for a discussion regarding supervision.

Be polite and don't over think it. Good luck.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [X-Men] When Kitty Pryde phases someone into the ground and leaves them there, what happens to the mass that previously existed in that spot?

[Assistant]
as far as i understand it, the two matters are phased together, occypying the same spot. the atoms are probably not fused, but the area is now twice as dense, with the atoms lying next to each other. (im assuming this becasue iirc density can affect her phasing powers)

normally, if done to a human, this is very fatal, since having a rock or something exist inside you will obviously disrupt all the blood flow and other activity there. she did it to the hulk once, phasing his legs into the ground, and he only got out due to his massive healing factor, but it was treated as a rather extremly violent act from her, as she thought it would leave him crippled. and i know in one version (not sure if 616) she phased her hand into wolverines brain, knocking him out, but losing her hand)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why does lactose-free milk taste sweeter than regular milk even though they don't add sugar to it?

[Assistant]
Milk has a special type of sugar in it, called Lactose.

This is the thing that gives regular milk its vaguely sweet taste, and also is what these lactose-intolerant people get 'sick' from.

Most milk companies add "Lactase" to regular milk. Lactase is a special enzyme that breaks down Lactose into two different types of sugars known as glucose and galactose.

The resulting new sugars actually taste sweeter than regular lactose does, hence the flavor difference.

PS. For lots of people, their guts make the lactase already, meaning they have no problems eating dairy products.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Eli5, What is a housing bubble?

[Assistant]
Any kind of economic bubble refers to a situation in which prices are higher than someone would reasonably expect given the intrinsic value of the item in question, in this case housing.

Bubbles are usually fueled by overly optimistic speculation about the future. Because people are believing that prices will just keep going up, speculators jump in and keep buying, increasing demand thereby lowering supply and increasing  price. Pretty soon everyone is talking about how hot this investment is, how prices keep magically rising and everyone is making money. This encourages more and more people to buy now, afraid they will miss out on the opportunity to get a home.

At some point reality steps in and people start selling -- slowly at first, cashing in on profits earned from unusually high prices. As more people sell a panic ensues, and then even more people sell, and the price plummets again. This is the bubble bursting.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [LOTR] Has Thranduil ever actually fought a wyrm as he claims?

[Assistant] It's quite possible. Thranduil is fairly old (having been born sometime before the thousandth year of the Second Age, at which point sources first attest his involvement when he and his father Oropher came to Greenwood, later to be called Mirkwood.) A likely date for it is sometime late in the Third Age, when dragons, perhaps spurred by the earliest stirrings of the Necromancer, attacked the men and dwarves of the North. It's entirely possible that some of these dragons may have troubled Mirkwood, or that Thranduil may have come to the aid of the men or dwarves on some occasions.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: In old cartridge console games, why would an image be frozen onto the screen if the cartridge was removed during play?

I can remember as a kid that if you were playing an N64 or Genesis and, while the game was running, removed the cartridge without turning off the console, the game's present image would be frozen onto the tv screen. How does this happen?

[Assistant]
The graphics processor (if you will) would await commands from the central processor that would be awaiting responses from the cartridge based on the parameters in the rom file.

If the cartridge was all the sudden gone, the processor would move into a hold loop awaiting a response and thus the image would reside as the next set of commands to render (or draw depending on your POV) would never arrive as the processor wouldnt receive a response from the cartridge.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Philosophers who were the "village idiot"?

So while being rather different in their philosophies, I've always seen a similarity between Diogenes and Thoreau in that they were the "village eccentric" in a way, living within a community that seemed both amused and bewildered by their behavior. I've always found this rather funny, and a refreshing change from the idea of a philosopher who lives tucked away in the confines of academia or surrounded by intellectuals. Are there any other philosophers who lived very much among the "common man", in a more traditional community setting?

[Assistant]
Ludwig Wittgenstein, who came from one of the wealthiest famillies in Europe at the time, left academia several times. In between leaving to serve as an officer in WWI and a hospital porter in WWII, he spent some time as a school teacher in villages in rural Austria. Wittgenstein was pretty eccentric in general but probably stood out even more so among the villagers. He was also very demanding and strict on his students, using violence on them if they failed to answer questions correctly. From the Wikipedia:

> To the less able, it seems that he became something of a tyrant. The first two hours of each day were devoted to mathematics, hours that Monk writes some of the pupils recalled years later with horror. They reported that he caned the boys and boxed their ears, and also that he pulled the girls' hair; this was not unusual at the time for boys, but for the villagers he went too far in doing it to the girls too; girls were not expected to understand algebra, much less have their ears boxed over it. The violence apart, Monk writes that he quickly became a village legend, shouting "Krautsalat!" ("coleslaw"  i.e. shredded cabbage) when the headmaster played the piano, and "Nonsense!" when a priest was answering children's questions.

Some years later, in another Austrian town, a 11-year-old schoolboy collapse after Wittgenstein hit him on the head a few times (called the Haidbauer incident). Wittgenstein resigned and never taught again. It's speculated that Wittgenstein's family and wealth helped to cover up the incident.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Is the vapor/steam coming from my cup of hot coffee coming from the liquid in my cup or from the air above it condensing due to heat from that liquid?

Just drinking my coffee and was curious as to which it might be.

[Assistant]
The vapor you are seeing is coming from the interaction between the warm, moist air above the coffee and the colder air of the surroundings.

If you want to think in terms of dew points, warm air can hold more water vapor than cold air.  As that warm, moist air rises it is cooled by interactions with the surrounding air and the amount of water vapor the air can hold decreases.  This leads to a temporary ability to view the water vapor as it starts to condense.  Theoretically it could completely condense and rain down back into your cup, but as that water vapor spreads out and the local concentration decreases it will all go back into the air and you stop seeing the vapor.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Could higher interest rates cause higher inflation?

I understand that raising interest rates to decrease the rate of money supply increase (and therefore demand) aims to reduce inflation.

But could this also cause inflation?

Higher interest rates are also a negative supply shock not just demand. If business loan repayments go up, they will need to take in more cash to pay them. If homeowners mortgage payments go up, they will need a higher wage to pay this.

If this is a greater force than the reduced demand (say because people deplete their savings) could inflation be made worse?

Would it not be more worthwhile to raise interest rates on new lending only?

[Assistant]
No, it doesn't work like that.

> If business loan repayments go up, they will need to take in more cash to pay them.

That increase in costs gives the business no pricing power to increase prices. Many businesses have little to no debt and no reason to raise prices. They will not raise prices because *other* businesses have debts. The businesses with debts must accept the market price.

Businesses that already have pricing power will already be taking advantage of it. They will already have raised prices as high as they possibly can without reducing profits.

> If homeowners mortgage payments go up, they will need a higher wage to pay this.

This is the same as the situation for businesses.  The homeowner's labour does not become more valuable because of the extra debt they must pay. There is not reason for businesses to pay more.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: how are the weight on the first floor of a skyscraper able to hold the weight of over a 100 floors?

[Assistant]
The weight goes through the columns (external and internal) which are connected to the piles below the ground. They pretty much only go through compression (and not tension or bending) and materials such as steel and concrete are extremely strong in compression.

The floors themselves only have to hold what is on that floor itself, it's people, furniture etc.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why is it that during loud concerts you feel the bass in your chest but not the higher notes despite them being the same volume.

[Assistant] The chest is a resonant chamber, which means that it vibrates in response to vibrations at its natural resonant frequency. When you hear a low bass tone, the chest vibrates because it matches this body part's own natural resonant frequency. High notes don't have the same effect because they don't resonate at the same frequency as the chest.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Will we ever run out of iron to make steel?

I've been somewhat paranoid about this recently. Steel is one of the most crucial parts of society and without it the industrial revolution would have ended fairly quickly.

So, if we keep developing and urbanizing as we are now, will we ever run out of iron to make steel?

[Assistant] It's very unlikely as Iron is one of the most abundant elements in most planets as it's one of the most common byproducts of fusion in the massive stars that planets form from after they explode. Earth contains so much Iron, about 1/3 by mass, that we simply can't realistically use it all.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Does the ISS need to constantly make micro course corrections to compensate for the crew's activity in cabin to stay in orbit?

I know the crew can't make the ISS plummet to earth by bouncing around, but do they affect its trajectory enough with their day to day business that the station has to account for their movements?

[Assistant]
1. Nothing they do can affect total torque or momentum of the station.
2. They theoretically could change internal torque distribution (eg. by running in circles) and thus cause the station to start spinning, which could increase drag, and cause some orbital changes. In fact this happens with treadmills there!
3. ISS has CMGs - gyros which can control the torque, so they can counteract spinning and stabilize he station.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why movie review websites, like RottenTomatoes and IMDB, have vastly different scores/ratings for movies when 10's of thousands of people vote? As sample size gets bigger shouldn't they be close to each other?

Every time I go to look up reviews on a movie I got to IMDB and RottenTomatoes. Just last night we looked up reviews for "Looper" and RottenTomatoes out of 104,336 people it got an average of 4.1/5 or 87%. I wen't to IMDB and out of 128,000 it got an average of 7.8/10. What's the cause for such a big difference?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Assistant] I think the answer actually has to do with how the rating systems work on both sites. IMDB takes the average score of all the votes from 1-10. This is a rating of just how good the movie was. On Rottentomatoes however, critics only have 2 options. Fresh or rotten. RT tabulates the percent of reviews considered fresh(watchable). This is more of a rating on how watchable a movie is. Therefor if 10 people gave the movie a 70% then on IMDB the score would be a 7/10 and on RT the score would be 100%.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Would species living off of hydrothermal vents survive if the sun went out?

Or would the earth's core drop in temperature over time?

[Assistant] Earth's core temperature has more to do with radioactivity than sunlight, so yes, they would survive. In fact, they would survive longer without the sun than with it: Solar radiation is slowly increasing, and in about a billion years it will be enough to sterilize the planet. Without the sun, the surface will freeze but the vents should be able to maintain life for several billion years.