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

[User]
[Star Wars] Has there ever been a Sith turn to the light side?

I'm not counting Asajj Ventress here as she's a nightsister who was first raised by a jedi or someone like Quinlan Vos who was a jedi who flirted with the dark side. I'm talking anyone who was born and raised by Sith who had a Mitchell and Webb "are we the bad guys? " moment and decided to turn to the light side?

[Assistant]
Darth Gravid, in an effort to further develop the Grand Plan, began to turn towards the Light in order to learn more of the Force.

However, this ended with him going completely insane and destroying a lot of collected Sith stuff (setting the Grand Plan back by decades if not centuries) before his apprentice killed him. Hes regarded as a complete FUBAR of a Sith by everyone after him, and his apprentice as a hero to the Order.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the shortest day of the year (solstice) the first day of winter and not the middle of winter?

Logically it seems like it should be the middle. Days have been getting slowly shorter and colder, then after the solstice they start to get longer again, so shouldn't they also be getting warmer?

[Assistant] The coldest parts of winter don't coincide with the shortest days. The ground and the oceans actually hold onto the heat from summer pretty well, so the coldest bits of winter don't happen for awhile.


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

[User] [DC Comics] what exactly was the Crisis and why are the universes now separated into pre and post crisis?

[Assistant]
There used to be infinite Earths. There aren't anymore, thanks to a dude named the Anti-Monitor who went through and wiped out all of them. (Or seemingly so, about twenty years later they revealed that there were actually *fifty-two* Earths left, not just the one, and now they've found even more than that.)

But, yeah, the Crisis was when the Anti-Monitor went through and started wiping out all of reality. The Earth that remained was dubbed New Earth and the timeline that came from it was drastically different from the more familiar Earth-1 or Earth-2, with many characters having different histories, powers, and personalities.

So that's why there's a split. A dude killed almost everyone and what remained was a totally different timeline.


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

[User]
What's the most efficient way to gain working knowledge of a discipline?

Aside from actually doing a degree in a field, how should I go about learning the important theories/methods etc. of a field? I'm thinking social sciences - anthropology, sociology, cultural studies etc.

[Assistant]
Work your way in. Start with popular books, then more advanced books on more specific aspects, then technical texts, then review articles on specialized sub-topics, then individual research articles.

That's probably faster than taking MOOCs.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are credit/debit cards with chips more secure than others when most card readers have a "Bypass PIN" option that allows the transaction to go through without any additional verification? It seems to me that this is less secure than an old chipless card that at least requires a PIN.

EDIT: After having it pointed out that the chip has nothing to do with the PIN, I guess my real question is: Why do some card readers offer a "Bypass PIN" option on debit transactions? Isn't this completely unsecure?

[Assistant]
It's about replicating the card, not about paying with a legit card. The traditional magnetic strip on the card is just a dumb data storage. It has some data that can be read, and that's it. But that also means that the whole information that makes your card "yours" is sent around in every payment, making impersonation a lot easier.

A chip on the other hand can do some calculation. That enables a so-called "challenge-response" authentication: the reader generates a question for the chip, and the chip combines the quesiton with its internal data to make an answer, and only sends the answer. The actual chip data is never sent, and therefore it's much harder to make counterfeits.


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

[User]
ELI5:Would it be possible for humans to live on a completely different sleep/daily life cycle?

What I'm trying to ask is if it would be possible to adjust to say, a 32 or 36 hour "day" cycle. For example, stay awake 24 hours, then sleep 8 or 12 hours, wake up and repeat. Disregarding all responsibilities and stuff like that, would it be possible to adjust to this kind of life style? Or is human nature/a necessity to get sleep after a certain amount of time?

[Assistant]
It's not only possible, it's well documented and experimented.

There are many cases of people taking strange sleep cycles for extended periods.

Trans oceanic sailors for example (the ones by themselves). They're  responsible 24/7 and the ship requires constant attention, so they adopt a cycle of 30-40 minutes of sleep for every 1-3 hours of being awake. This can be maintained for weeks or even months, but almost all revert back to a more normal schedule when they can.

Most people have a "natural" cycle longer than 24, usually 26-32 hours. The asleep/awake ratio hangs between 1:2 and 1:3 (you're awake 2-3 times as long as you sleep).

You see people start to slip when a day/night (circadian) rhythm isn't needed or possible (space explorers, miners, those near the poles). Many experiments have been done, almost all indicate a natural "longer than 24 hour" cycle.


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

[User]
[Stephen King] Do any of the books make big news on a national or international level?

Some books could be easily covered up, but some seem like a big deal that would be covered on national or even international news. Do the characters of one book know of the events of another book?

[Assistant]
Books like The Mist and The Stand obviously do, but the others are hard to answer.

IT doesnt make national news, because in 11/22/63 the protagonist visits Derry and meets two of the characters from IT (and even kind of vibes on the monster). Given how exhaustively that character would have researched the local history if any of the major events from IT had made national, or even regional, news he likely would have mentioned it. Instead we just get his vague impression that the town is sick.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who, The Girl In The Fireplace]What would have happened if The Doctor took Madame de Pompadour?

The clockwork people were only after her, would they have broken if he'd taken her before she was 'complete'?

[Assistant]
They wanted her for her "parts". The Doctor did not let them take her at all, complete or otherwise.

And their logic was rather tortured. They wanted her because "We are the same". Translation: They had the same name. The vessel was called The Madame de Pompadour. They believed she was not "complete" because she hadn't reached a certain age yet, which was the age they were.

Either way, they may have believed they "needed" her, but there were better ways to repair their vessel, ones that didn't involve killing people and harvesting their organs.


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

[User]
[Anchorman/Daredevil] Could Ron Burgundy have continued his blind training?

So we all know Ron started off a little rough. But in just a short time he goes from rubbing his shin to drawing lifelike pictures and even picking up a shark blind. Showing incredible potential.

If someone like Stick or Murdock came by could they have furthered his training and made him San DiAgo's superhero?

[Assistant] Ron Burgundy is a warrior at his core. He once made passionate, yet gentle and heterosexual love with Bruce Lee. Not only would he have learned to see as a Devil, he would develop his own techniques and used his trusty jazz flute to bounce the notes off of walls and other surfaces to 'see' further.


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

[User] ELI5 Why do children not react to cold like adults do???!? Example could be kids at the beach loving the freezing water on a cloudy day, whereas an adult is physically hurting in the same temp. water.

[Assistant]
Children are way more active than adults, for one. More active = more heat. Two, *feeling* cold is not the same thing as *being* cold. Our sensation of warmth isn't the same thing as temperature, in other words.

Best example: touch a fluffy blanket in your room. Then touch a piece of metal in your room. The metal *feels* colder, but it's literally the same temperature (room temperature). What you really *feel* is the transference of heat energy away from your body. Children may actually not feel like they are cold because compared to all the heat their activity is generating, the sensation of the heat leaving their body may feel kinda nice comparatively. But that doesn't mean their body is not actually cold (temperature-wise).


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

[User] [Avengers: Endgame] A lack of Pym Particles was one of the reasons for why the Time Heist was planned the way it was. How might things have been planned out differently if they had an unlimited supply?

[Assistant] The only reason the Avengers went back to directly after the battle of New York is because there were three stones there. They probably would have chosen much less risky targets if they had the luxury to do so. In that case, they would have targeted the stones when they were most secluded or vulnerable, and done an individual trip for each stone with a carefully selected team for each location.


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

[User]
CMV, The perfect shit does not exist.

According to a friend of mine, a perfect shit is when poop slides so smoothly and clean through your ass that there is no need to wipe your butt.

I hold the theory that in order to identify a shit that does not require wiping you have to wipe your butt and look at the clean paper. However, doing this means the shit was not perfect after all because it entailed wiping.

So it is kind of like a paradox (or a catch 22 if you will). There is such a thing as a perfect shit, but if you set to ascertain its presence it ceases to be perfect. Rendering shit perfection to only exist on a hypothetical level.

One might argue that if you feel what you perceive as a possible perfect shit, you can refrain from wiping your butt. This kind of makes sense but no one would be completely certain their shit was a perfect one, and besides, who would be brave enough to risk it?

[Assistant]
Ah, but perfection (AKA a 'no-wiper') is only a catch 22 if you're sitting on the toilet wiping.

If you were to, hypothetically, go directly from the toilet to the shower and check with a finger right before scrubbing yourself clean with hot water anyways... Well, no bravery required and you don't ruin your perfect no-wiper by wiping.


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

[User]
[Grand Theft Auto] So what are all the cities/towns we know about?

There's Los Santos, San Fierro, Las Venturas, Liberty City, Vice City.

There's also Fort Zancudo, Fort Carson, there's Whetstone, and Blueberry

But what else is out there in the United Archipelago of America?

[Assistant]
Worth noting that there are three distinct universes in the GTA world - the 2D universe, which is just GTA 1, GTA 2, and the GTA London duology (1961/1969); the 3D universe, which is the GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas/Liberty City Stories/Vice City Stories games as well as GTA Advance; and the HD universe, which is GTA IV and its expansions, GTA Chinatown Wars, and GTA V. Not all locations are consistent throughout the different universes.

All three universes also reference real-world cities, and in fact the 2D universe GTA London titles take place in, well, London, as well as Manchester. Plenty of other real-world locations are mentioned in most of the titles.

Bullworth from *Bully* and Carcer City and Cottonmouth, Florida from the *Manhunt* series are also present, with the latter being in both the 3D and HD universes.

So as to main locations, we've got the obvious ones you already covered - San Andreas was a city by itself in the 2D universe, and split into the tri-city complex of Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas in the 3D universe, and further separated in the HD universe as both San Fierro and Las Venturas have been mentioned but not seen as of yet. In the 2D universe, there were also the smaller towns of Palomino Creek, Montgomery, Dillimore, Blueberry, Angel Pine, El Quebrados, Bayside, Las Barrancas, Fort Carson, Las Payasadas, Valle Ocultado, and two ghost towns: Aldea Malvada and Las Brujas. In the 3D universe these locations are absent, but instead we see Chumash, Paleto Bay, and Sandy Shores.

Liberty City appeared all the way back in GTA 1, where it was joined by New Guernsey's Guernsey City, Fort Law, Schlechberg, Hackenslash, and Eaglewood, but in the HD universe there's no references to New Guernsey, instead we see Alderney and the Carraways.

We also know of the town of Ludendorff, in North Yankton thanks to GTA V, and "Capital City," though we don't know if it's supposed to be a replacement for Washington DC or for Albany, New York.

Despite what many think, however - the Red Dead Redemption titles are not part of the greater Rockstar/GTA universes, except possibly as fictional stories.


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

[User]
[DC] Is Alfred ever afraid of Batman?

We see in Mask Of The Phantasm, a scene were Alfred is genuinely scared when Bruce put on his suit. Even though he knows who Batman is, is he still afraid of him? Does Alfred recognize how dangerous The Batman is? Do the theatrics work on him every once and awhile?

[Assistant]
Not in a traditional sense.
He's been Bruce's guardian and has been for years by then.
He thinks batman is dangerous to who is essentially his son.

If your deeply traumatized son put on a leather suit and started beating up criminals you'd be scared of what could happen to him.

What if he gets hurt too bad?

What if stiches and a sling won't be enough?

What if something makes him more unstable?

He may have been spooked a time or two, but he's more afraid of what Batman is to his son. An incredibly dangerous and unhealthy coping mechanism.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Are AT-ATs practical troop transportation? Why or why not?

[Assistant]
Like many things, it depends on the circumstances.  AT-AT's are built, like much of the Empire's war machine, with intimidation in mind, as much as practicality.  Simply as a troop delivery mechanism, there are certainly methods of moving troops faster or moving more of them to any given location.  There's very little, however, than can take a heavier pounding than an AT-AT, and the sheer mental impact of several 20-meter tall monstrosities descending on a defended position shouldn't be underestimated.  It has relatively heavy forward armament, and can deliver 40-50 armored troops.

Is it the MOST practical troop transport?  No.  It's not particularly fast compared to some, it has no armament anywhere but directly forward, and if they operate without air cover, they are vulnerable to damage or entanglement around the legs.  When it comes to an assault, properly supported, they are pretty damn formidable, and add a hell of a punch against a entrenched position.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the legalities for private companies to hire people to drive around cities with LPR (License Plate Recognition) readers, which scan every car that goes by, and report cars that are 'flagged' to recollection, police, etc?

[Assistant]
I did a ride along with police in Arizona a few years ago, they already had cameras on their police vehicles that automatically scanned every license plate and flagged vehicles driving around them so they could pull them over.

I don't know about the legalities, but that technology has already existed for years.


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

[User] ELI5: what are externalities and why are they so important in everyday life?

[Assistant]
It's a catch all term for any variable that are not included in a given system. They are external to it.

Classic exemple, the "cost" to society of producing CO2 was never taken into account. It was free, "external" to the decision making process, so no one had any incentive to even monitor it, even less try to reduce it.

Compare to the cost of energy, that is "part" of the economic equation: all economic actors will try to optimize it or reduce it.

If you want an efficient market that take into account CO2, you need to make this externality, "internal" which is the goal of things like CO2 allocations and CO2 markets. That's not that easy.


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

[User] Are black holes hot?

[Assistant]
No, they are really cold. Any black hole more massive than the moon is colder than the cosmic microwave background. Hypothetical smaller black holes could get very hot, but we know of no mechanism that will produce black holes below ~twice the mass of the sun. However if we wait a very very long time then the existing black holes will shrink and heat up.

However, the accretion disks of matter swirling around black holes get very, very hot.


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

[User]
Would Nietzsche approve of antidepressants?

He is known to have suffered greatly and yet he believes suffering to lead to greatness. Would he approve of antidepressants or just think of them as a crutch?

[Assistant]
What a bizarre question.

It's virtually impossible to answer, since Nietzsche lacked anything like appropriate context to understand depression or psychoactive medication. There's no indication Nietzsche distrusted the medicine of his day, however, and the irritating preteens who have answered you thus far badly misunderstand both Nietzsche and mental health.


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

[User] ELI5: Binary. How are a bunch of 0s and 1s able to make everything I know and love?

[Assistant]
At the lowest level (almost), binary logic runs due to the actions of transistors. Transistors in digital logic circuits are used mostly as switches. You want the transistors to be either all the way OFF (no current flow) or all the way ON (lots of current flow). And you can use the output of one transistor to control the input of other transistors, so you can construct a complicated circuit by wiring them up in certain ways.

Using just a few transistors, you can build very simple logic circuits to implement binary digital logic (called "Boolean" logic after the guy who invented it). It turns out that you can build any digital logic function with a combination of just a few simple circuit types, such as AND/OR/NOT (you can actually do everything with just one, but no one really does that). By combining those simple circuits, more complicated circuits can be made (such as an adder, a multiplexer, etc.). You can use those circuits to make even more complicated ones. Like a CPU.

It's like if you had a bunch of little Lego blocks, and you could use those to make larger Lego blocks, and you could then use those to make even larger Lego blocks, and so on.

The different parts of the PC have different functions, with the CPU acting kind of as the main brain and control center. It gets program instructions and data sent from the hard disc to the memory and then to it, manipulates the data as dictated by the stream of instructions, and sends data out to where it is needed.  And that stream of instructions are computer programs (or an operating system, or a BIOS) that are just instructions encoded in binary form. They are also built up in a hierarchical manner, like building Legos with Legos.   Likewise, the communications between the chips in a PC (and between PCs via the internet) are also built up in layers, with simple things made into more complicated protocols, which are then made into more complicated communications.

The programs do things to manipulate the input/output devices of the computer. For example, they will display an image on the computer screen, which is simply an area divided up into very small pixels, each made up of three colors, and each color assigned a brightness.  This is essentially an array of numbers, and computers are good at doing things with numbers. Other things can also be represented with numbers, such as sounds. Basically, if you can find a way to represent something as a number, you can make a computer manipulate it.

**TL;DR** - Legos.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why is it that the common interpretation of a heart is  rather than the actual shape of a heart

Idk whether this is the kind of question you ask on here but I was wondering

Edit: Thanks so much for the great answers guys!!

[Assistant]
There is no one explanation really. Some stories suggest it's modelled after the shapely behind of a woman. Two buttocks descending into the point of the vulva.

Other stories point out that the seedpod of a plant that used to be employed as a contraceptive drug looks like a heart. So an association with sex led to an association with love.

The same shape shows up even earlier with an association to fertility rather than love. Often intended to depict plant leaves rather than a human heart (as the seat of emotions).

At any rate, there isn't one correct answer. Just a bunch of theories.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why cant gravity be blocked or dampened?

If something is inbetween two objects how do the particles know there is something bigger behind the object it needs to attract to?

[Assistant]
The other explanations here are not really getting at the heart of your question (which isn't any different for gravity - other forces do the same thing).

Your error is in going "this is a solid object and nothing can go through it". But what you think of as "solid objects" are not completely impenetrable. As an everyday example, light has absolutely no trouble going through glass.

[EDITED to clarify: this part is here to explain to OP how their idea of 'solid' is inaccurate. It's not directly about how forces can go through things] ~~'Solid' objects don't fill up all the space in the region they occupy (in fact, they're not even *close* to filling up all the available space). They seem solid on human scales because electrons repel one another, so once two atoms get even somewhat close, they're pushed apart by the repulsion of the electrons in each atom.~~

On an even more fundamental level, fields (like the electromagnetic field or, if you set aside some of the weirder aspects of relativity for a sec, the gravitational field) aren't different things from the physical objects around you. Objects are "made of" these fields, in the same way that a wave in the ocean is made of water. What we think of as a particle is just a place where these fields take on different values from other parts of the field, in the same way that a wave is just a place where the water is a little bit higher. And so your question becomes, roughly, "how can water travel through a wave?".

If this seems strange, well, it is. There's a reason it took fifty years and some very surprising experiments for the most brilliant minds in physics to figure it out.


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

[User] It seems that infectious diseases that kill too quickly never have a chance to spread. How often are people the first and only (or among very few) to die of a novel but short lived infectious disease?

[Assistant]
There are several avian influenza viruses that have a high mortality rate in humans, but that transmit very poorly between humans.  Viruses like H5N1, H5N6, H7N9 have killed thousands of people worldwide, each time because of a direct contact with an infected bird.

However, the lack of transmission is probably not because the virus kills too quickly, but more because of the way it infects. Its believed that these viruses are much better at infecting deep in the lungs than in the nose and throat, so on the one hand they cause severe pneumonia and lung damage, but on the other they dont shed large amounts of virus in outgoing breaths.


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

[User] [The Office] How does Michael get away with using company time to make everyone apart of his shenanigans?

[Assistant]
Fun fact, most people who work a 9-5 office job don't actually spend 8 hours in the day working. They'll take a few hours worth of work and spread it out throughout the day to make it seem like 8 hours. Basically everyone does this to some degree, with variations in how they waste time in the middle. (screwing around on the internet, talking about their cats, smoke breaks, etc) Contractors call it padding estimates, HR calls it wellness breaks. Everyone knows about it, and as long as the work gets done nobody is bothered by it.

Employees at the Scranton branch don't get to do this. When they have actual deadlines and deliverables they have to spend as much time as they can working because it's entirely possible that Michael will get back from lunch and decide to re-arrange everyone's desks, or that they're all spending the rest of the day playing board games. They can't plan out their time, so they have to be as productive as possible with the time they have. (except for top tier slackers like Jim)

From the corporate perspective, the Scranton branch is incredibly productive *because* of Michael's shenanigans. They haven't figured out what is actually contributing to that success, and every attempt to do so has left them even more clueless. They don't mess with him because they don't want to mess with his success.


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

[User]
CMV: Thomas Lane should receive a lighter sentence due to his actions

Considering the actions of Lane despite being a rookie officer subordinate to Chauvin, I believe Lane should receive a much lighter sentence compared to the other two officers on trial with him.

Lane asked Chauvin three times if Floyd should be rolled over to his side or repositioned in concern for his health and persisted despite being the only officer to speak up. Chauvin dismissed these concerns reassured that he would be fine. Lane also volunteered to ride along in the ambulance and assisted with CPR.

It is easy to watch the video and say what he should have done in **hindsight**. Lane absolutely could have done more, but he did not know at the time that Floyd was going to die. I believe almost anyone else in his position would have done the same or less. If Lane had physically intervened, *maybe* Floyd would be alive and this would have never made the news, but Lane would have been hit with severe retribution, likely losing his job for assaulting a superior officer, and Chauvin would still be on the police force.

The fact that he was a rookie, that Chauvin was a superior officer (and a training officer) he was subordinate to, and that his peers did not share his dissent do not necessarily serve as an excuse for his actions or inactions, but are important factors in considering what any other reasonable person would do in his shoes in the heat of the moment.

Finally, Lane should receive more slack than the other two officers to send a message that speaking up at the very least will be a better result than not doing anything besides following orders. It could be said that a message still needs to be sent that no one would be able to escape consequences, but this can still be achieved by applying a sentence somewhere in between acquittal and that of the other two cops.

[Assistant] Why should he receive a sentence at all?  Based on what you said he tried to prevent the felony that Chauvin was committing.  Unsuccessfully, but trying to stop it is the opposite of being a part of it.


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

[User]
ELI5: How is magnesium, an easily flammable metal used in flares, used to make products such as car parts and computer casings?

Wouldn't it be inherently unsafe to make things from a metal that burns with an extremely hot, hard-to-extinguish flame?

[Assistant]
Sort of, it's certainly a tradeoff.  But you can't just strike a match to a large magnesium block and set it aflame, it has to heat up to 900 F, which is very difficult to do for a substantial block of metal that conducts heat very well and is typically connected to other metal pieces that can act as heat sinks.

So magnesium is actually quite safe, and it's really only a problem once a fire has already begun to rage (typically the fuel tank is ruptured as well).  For vehicles this is a reasonable tradeoff because most of the time occupants can exit, but you definitely wouldn't want to have a magnesium structure in a building.


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

[User] What happens during a hypoglycemic episode? (Symptoms, brain function, etc)

[Assistant]
There are two main mechanisms behind the symptoms of hypoglycaemia; the first resulting from the body's attempts to restore glucose balance, the second being directly caused by the lack of glucose supplied to the brain (neuroglycopenia).

Glucose-sensitive neurons are constantly monitoring the levels of glucose in the blood, and changes in the glucose level causes changes in the rate that these neurons generate impulses, feeding back information about glucose levels to the brain. Normal glucose levels can usually be maintained by altering the rate of secretion of the hormone glucagon from the pancreas, but excessive hypoglycaemia results in increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, releasing the hormones adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine) into the blood. This is what causes some of the common initial symptoms of hypoglycaemia; sweating, tremors, rapid heart rate, bounding pulse; as the body puts itself into what is basically a 'survival' mode. Patients that are prone to hypoglycaemic episodes often rely on these symptoms to warn them of their low glucose levels while they're still able to do something about it, but they can become desensitised in some cases.

As glucose levels continue to fall, the brain loses its supply of energy. Compared with other tissues, the brain has difficulty readily utilising proteins and fats to produce the energy needed for cell functions, and is much more reliant on a consistent level of glucose being maintained in the blood. Neurons maintain their ability to conduct electrical impulses by maintaining specific, highly-regulated levels of ions (Na^(+), K^(+), Ca^(2+)) both inside and outside the cell via ion channels and pumps. Without glucose to provide energy, the neurons can no longer maintain the correct ion levels and lose their ability to generate or carry nerve impulses, causing deficits in whatever function those neurons usually carry out. The effects of neuroglycopenia can vary widely between individuals depending on which parts of the brain are affected first, but can include drowsiness, confusion, loss of coordination, dysfunctional speech, changes in senses and behavioural changes. As the glucose levels drop further, communication between the different areas of the brain becomes impaired and symptoms progress through to loss of consciousness and coma.

Restoring glucose levels will often rapidly resolve even patients that have fallen into a hypoglycaemic coma, but extended and/or repeated episodes of hypoglycaemia can result in permanent damage to the brain.

Sources: Oxford Textbook of Medicine 5e (Ch. 13.11.2), Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology 13e (pp. 794, 998-999)


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

[User] Are stars the only natural nuclear fusion users in the universe?

[Assistant] Basically, anything massive enough that fusion occurs due to gravitational collapse is more or less the effective definition of a star (if you leave out stellar remnants like white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes). There is no other way than gravitational collapse of a gigantic amount of matter that creates enough heat and pressure for fusion to occur naturally (which is why the current approach to man made fusion is to heat a plasma much further than it would be in the core of a star to compensate for the lack of pressure).


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

[User]
ELI5: how animals swallow other live (or dying) animals and dont *usually* have any issues?

Watching a video of an eagle swallowing a snake whole promoted this question, but Ive always wondered it. I just dont get how animals can swallow something that has sharp teeth, a stinger, fangs, claws, etc. live and it not damage them on the way down. Is it stomach acid? Something else Im not factoring in?

[Assistant] An animal which is being swallowed in general quickly suffocates and dies, because there is almost no air inside the predators stomach. Or else it gets crushed to death by the predators jaws. That said, sometimes a predator can certainly be damaged by the prey.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What is the point in locking doors in Hogwarts, when unlocking doors is taught to students fairly early in the education?

Title question, based on Order of the Phoenix when the gang breaks into an office to use the Floo network.

[Assistant]
What's the point of locking doors when most locks can just be picked?
I always assumed that the trio only knew the spell because Hermione was very enthusiastic about learning things that were not necessarily in the curriculum.


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

[User]
[MCU/Marvel general] What can I do with all the infinity stones other than destroying everyone and everything?

The stones by themselves individually are powerful...and sure I can create anything I want with the Reality stone, maybe go back in time a few seconds to prevent some embarrassing moments with the Time Stone. Teleport with the space stone, etc. and so on.

But what can I do with them collectively? It seems that you can simply just...destroy people (Thanos), bring them back to life (Hulk) and destroy planets, galaxies and planets (Infinity Ultron). Is there anything like...actually beneficial I can do with them all together? Are the possibilities really "infinite"? Like would I need all the stones to make myself famous or something? Or just the reality stone?

[Assistant]
In the Multiverse that contains Earth-616, if you get all six of them, you are effectively omnipotent and can do literally anything in that particular universe. You could turn the oceans into chocolate, make everyone into clowns, decide that gravity only works on Tuesdays, and Tuesdays only happen when you feel like it. You could make everyone immortal, or have people grow butterfly wings that let them fly unless they ever say a lie.

That's the sort of power the full collection of all six Infinity Gems could do.

Now, the universe got altered after the events of Secret Wars, and the Infinity Gems reformed as the Infinity Stones. They work a bit differently now, and the power of one stone can be amplified by having a specific second stone that properly resonates with it. And if you have all six, they form an infinite feedback loop where each stone powers up another and you gain that same level of infinite power.

Basically, having just one stone makes you incredibly powerful. Having more puts you closer to being a God.

How they work in the multiverse that contains Earth-199999 (commonly nicknamed the MCU) remains uncertain.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly happens in my body when I don't eat for a day (or more)?

[Assistant]
Low blood sugar levels trigger the release of glucose, stored as glycogen in muscles and liver. Fat is broken down to undergo oxidation for further energy requirements. If the fasting goes on for long enough, there is a significant breakdown of muscle to supply amino acids for energy. As the starvation continues, the muscle breakdown slows and fat breakdown accelerates. Large amounts of what are known as ketone bodies are now supplying a large component of your energy.

As a side note, diabetics who don't control their sugar with insulin will observe the same cascade as above since they aren't able to take in the glucose they are eating. That is why some diabetics will present to the hospital with what is known as diabetic ketoacidosis, where their body has been brought to the point where it has to run off these ketone bodies which eventually have dramatic effects on that person's physiology.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly are the differences between PDF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and other file types and what they mean.

[Assistant]
PDF: Portable Document Format, developed by Adobe is a document format not an image format. It is nowadays a widely acceptable format for distributing documents. In theory you can only view a pdf document and not edit its text, so it's good practice for an organisation or in your office to distribute documents this way.

JPEG: it's an image format, it reduces image size, best for storing photos on your computer or the web.
PNG: Portable Network Format, its main difference with jpeg it's that it's suitable for non-photographic images like logos, cartoons and generally images you design on a computer not photos.

TIFF: when you scan an image in your computer you naturally save your file in this format. TIFF does not compress file size like JPEG or PNG. Some cameras also give you the option to save as TIFF. You do that if you want the best quality possible for your image and want to print to large paper size like A3 or greater.


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

[User] Eli5 these 2 questions. How does/did dial up internet work? Why and how did making a phone call affect the internet connection?

[Assistant]
It was literally like making a phone call. One computer to another.

The sender would convert 1s and 0s into analogue noise as if talking and the computer at the other end would covert them back into 1s and 0s again.

You can only make one phone call at a time.

If you picked up the phone while an internet call was in place. The background noise from the phone mic added to conversation. Therefore this would confuse a computer when listening as it failed to understand the extra noise. So it would freak out and disconnect.

History: the first modems; you had to place a phone handset onto a mic and speaker and manually dial a phone number on the phone for the computer.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Is it possible to not get caught up in the Jedi, Sith, Light, and Dark dichotomy and each group's philosophy and just use whatever force power I want? Is the Light and Dark side of the force even "real" to begin with?

I think both groups have some valid points. But I do not like either group and would much prefer to be left alone by both. I also do not want to adopt either side's philosophy. I just want to use whichever power I want, Light or Dark. For example, I think Force Lightning and force chocking is cool, but so is lifting an X-wing from a swamp. Is it possible?

Also, does the divide between the Force even exist? Or is it something the Jedi and the Sith have made up to suit their philosophy?

[Assistant]
The divide does not exist, no, but not in the way you wish.

There are just the Force, and a cancer upon said Force who usually are called the "Dark Side"

And no, there aren't a safe amount of cancer to have.


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

[User] When a photon enters an optically dense medium (n>1) does the photons energy decrease? If so where does it go?

[Assistant]
When light enters a material, the frequency of the wave does not change.  The energy of a photon is E=hf (where h is planck's constant and f is the frequency), so the energy also stays the same.

What about wavelength?  Well, the wavelength of an optical signal is related to the frequency and the speed of the wave :
(wavelength)(frequency)=(speed of light in the material).

In materials, the speed of light is slower than *c*.  Since the frequency does not change, the wavelength must change accordingly.  In fact, the change in wavelength is proportional to the refractive index:

(wavelength in vacuum)=(wavelength in material)/(n, the refractive index)


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

[User]
Is there any evidence space actually curves in the presence of gravity and isn't just a field effect like magnetism?

If space is empty how can nothing curve?

Do they actually mean a fabric like the aether curving?

[Assistant]
To play the devil's advocate, the "curvature of the space-time" is a very abstract concept. Claiming that the space itself curves has a very specific meaning that cannot be extrapolated intuitively.

We describe how particles move by putting them on top of a "background geometry" and calculating the shortest paths between two points. Gravitation changes this background over which they propagate, and this we can actually show, accepting given general relativity as the "right theory" for gravity. But one can also understand this "curvature of the background metric" as just lots of interactions.

EDIT: Yes, we can understand gravity as a field effect just like EM. There are some technical problems, but up to linear level, things are exactly the same. The problem is that gravitational charge is actually energy, or in big lingo, the "stress-energy-tensor". The EM fields do not carry charge, so there isn't a "self-feeding", while in gravity, the gravitational field itself has energy, so gravity creates more gravity, which makes the theory infinitely more complicated to be described in the same language as EM. But it can be done, and as long as the energies are low, gravity is just like a complicated EM.


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

[User]
[W40K] Does the Orc's gestalt psychic field apply to things that are not theirs?

For example, If I'm on a red motorbike driving down the highway and a pack of Orc's see me, will I go faster?

[Assistant]
Its very possible there is a point in a 40k novel (Forget which one atm) where a space marine is being swarmed by a ton of orks and is out of ammo and options. In desperation he grabs a shoota off a nearby ork corpse pulls the trigger and *Click* the POS doesnt work.

Until a charging boy crests the hill to close with him and out of options he tried again, the ork having seen the shoota believes it will work and the marine starts blowing away orks.


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

[User] Can 10 individual 5-watt speakers create as many decibels of sound as one 50-watt speaker?

[Assistant] In simplistic terms, yes. Speaker coupling can yield a decibel gain but individual driver efficiencies and the enclosure design will also come in to play. The principle is that you can get an overall db gain by aligning the drivers in a plane. This is why sound reinforcement systems use arrays of aligned drivers.


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

[User]
[Superheroes] How do certain superheroes make money?

Nova (Richard Rider) worked at Marvel Burger in his 1999 series.

Namor sold underwater treasures and owned a company named Oracle.

Superman works at the Daily Planet.

Daredevil works as a lawyer

Any other examples?

[Assistant]
Wonder Woman has had several jobs over the years. Ranging from having a secret identity and working for the US military, a mod clothing boutique owner, a UN translator, a UN special agent, an astronaut, and a special agent for the DEO. She's also been a full-time ambassador, a Taco Whiz minimum wage worker, and antiquities expert at a museum.

Green Lantern Hal Jordan has been a test pilot, an insurance claims adjuster, a toy salesman, a trucker, and a charter pilot.

Peter Parker has been a photographer for the Daily Bugle, a science teacher at a high school, a researcher at a high tech laboratory, and a start up CEO.

Steve Rogers, during times that he had a secret identity, worked as a commercial artist, notably at one point being the artist of the Captain America comic, and often getting frustrated that the writers didn't take more of his input about Captain America's dialogue and personality. He was also at one point assigned to illustrate a comic about one of Rick Jones' time travel adventures, but had to bow out once he realized that Rick Jones was present for the death of Bucky, being unable to actually force himself to draw that, requiring a second artist to complete the comic. (This was before Cap learned that Bucky survived and became the Winter Soldier.)

Superman once abused time travel to see what would happen if he tried a different secret identity than Clark Kent, and worked as a radio DJ instead, before going back in time to restore things to their natural order after seeing that his life wouldn't be that much better as a DJ.

Alan Scott, the 1940s Green Lantern, started his career as an engineer, designing a new form of bridge for trains, but then got a job as a radio show host, then later took over running the radio station entirely and built a broadcasting empire.

Jen Walters, the She-Hulk, often works as a lawyer.


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

[User]
ELI5: Can someone help me understand how all the different television channels are transmitted to a television?

Are all the hundreds of channels being transmitted all at once single optic cables and we just select a frequency to tune into? That just seems ridiculous with the amount of information that needs to be transmitted.

[Assistant]
Fiber (or fibre) optic television service works very differently to traditional cable television services, so it's important to clarify which one you're talking about.

With traditional cable television systems, the copper cable that comes into your home is shared with your neighbors. The cable company allocates different frequencies to different television channels and carries the data streams for all television channels on the same cable simultaneously to everyone in the neighborhood.

When you want to watch a particular channel, you use a tuning device (aka a 'tuner') to select specific frequencies and demodulate the signal to recover the original data stream for that particular television channel broadcast. Other frequency bands are reserved for other types of data communications (e.g. internet connections and phone services).

Fiber optic television services work very differently. Typically speaking, they operate on Internet Protocol (IP), hence why these services are often called IPTV services. This basically means every device (including your television / set-top box) is assigned a unique IP address as part of a data/computer network and when you want to watch a particular channel, your television / set-top box sends a request to the IPTV server for the data stream of that channel.

After authenticating, a copy of the data stream for that television channel is sent back from the server through the fiber optic cable into the home where it is routed (as data packets) to the television set-top box that requested the stream whereby the video stream gets decoded and is displayed for viewing.

IPTV services are more complicated though because they typically (although not always) use multi-casting protocols to improve distribution efficiency. This means that instead of, for example, sending individual copies of a television channel stream from the server to you and your neighbor (who is also watching the same channel), the service provider instead sends one stream to your local neighborhood node and then that neigborhood node then sends individual copies of the stream to your house and your neighbor's house. This reduces the amount of bandwidth required to deliver the stream between the service provider's main routing facilities and smaller regional areas like neighborhoods.

Also, yes, you're right that in a traditional cable provider setup, the TV streams do take up tons of bandwidth. Each channel can take anywhere from 5-20 Mbps of bandwidth on average and since all channel streams are carried simultaneously, that means that there may be well over a gigabit worth of bandwidth on the cable dedicated just to TV alone. If cable companies re-built there infrastructure to work on an on-demand system like IPTV, then lots of bandwidth could be repurposed for other uses (e.g. faster internet speeds).


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

[User]
Why do paler people burn instead of tan?

If more melanin is produced during sun exposure, and more melanin makes you darker. What's the cause of the Redness caused by sun burns? Why does it seem that some people never tan only burn?

[Assistant]
The redness is _erythema_, a manifestation of inflammation. Another manifestation is pain and swelling, and the desquamation (peeling) that often results. The melanin-creating response to sun exposure takes more time than UV damage resulting in sunburn.

Another thing to consider is that many fair people are red-headed; they tend to produce more _pheomelanin_, which is lighter and pinker, than _eumelanin_, which is dark brown. Pheomelanin provides less protection than eumelanin.


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

[User]
ELI5: Perfect silicon spheres were developed to redefine the kilogram because the platinum kilogram was changing in weight even in extremely strictly controlled physical conditions. If dust can ruin the platinum kilogram, why are people allowed to touch the silicon version?

How is it that the sphere doesn't become 'contaminated' with extra atoms from skin, clothes or even breath? Or is it just that these contaminants are very easy to clean off afterwards?

[Assistant]
Not sure about silicon spheres, but the kilogram is now defined in terms of fundamental constants rather than a lump of something.

The definition is in terms of the Planck constant, the speed of light and the atomic transition frequency.

A lump of something is simpler, but as you note, is prone to changing over time.


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

[User]
[Marvel] If Matt Murdock (Daredevil) is within Kilgrave's range and hears him say 'Everyone kill yourselves.' Would he be affected?

I figure he would be, but you never know with every little ability and loop hole.

[Assistant]
Kilgrave's power is through pheromones. It takes extraordinary will to disobey a command given in his range, and only a very small number of people could do so - one of the only ones to ever do so is Victor Von Doom.

So if Kilgrave were to give an order to commit suicide and Matt was in range, he'd certainly try to do so.


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

[User]
(Marvel Universe) How often is Galactus actually genuinely beaten and stymied by various heroes, and how often does he just indulge them because he wants an excuse to show mercy?

Most Galactus confrontations seem to be able to be interpreted either way.

Galactus is so powerful and so evolved beyond human existence that he could stop or even wipe from reality most superheroes with a thought.  But he does't.  When he comes to devour Earth (or some another world) and heroes show up to try and stop him, he engages them, talks with them, allows them to argue and plead, fight his minions, bash up his machines, etc.  Like he allows any excuse at a delay in consuming a world because ultimately he's reluctant to do so.  And if they can come up with a way to repulse or neutralize him, even if its something completely half-assed, it seems like he just lets them have their way so he doesn't have to go through with it.

I mean, there are some encounters where he's undeniably genuinely beaten, but a lot of the others it just seems he's indulging the superheroes at his whim.  Is it because he wants to show mercy but can't without an excuse?

Or maybe there's some other motivation at work?

[Assistant]
Galactus is very rarely actually defeated. He doesn't need an excuse to show mercy and usually won't, but he'll give it if it's asked for. (As long as it requires no extra effort on his account.) For instance, he once attacked a space-capable world that was trying to evacuate. Nova Prime asked him to wait until everyone had moved off, and he did. (Granted, this also depends on his Herald at the time. The Surfer is willing to argue for mercy. Stardust, who is in love with Galactus and views being devoured by him as a religious experience, will kill all who flee.)

Part of the reason he lets Earth heroes have their own way is that, so often, they're more trouble than they're worth. It would expend too much energy to fight them. Keep in mind that VERY few planets have fought him off successfully. The only two that can truly make that claim are Earth and Galador. Earth has managed it multiple times, but still less than half a dozen. Galador managed to trick Galactus into attempting to eat a poisonous planet, the Dire Wraith homeworld.


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

[User] [/r/hfy] What exactly is it about humanity that makes us so much better than any other alien species?

[Assistant] I think in the best HFY stories we aren't necessarily "the best" or better universally than all other aliens, just that we have one or two features that lead to us having a unique advantage, but that are overlooked by the galactic community at large because they're unconventional.


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

[User]
Hi, are there non-lattice solids? My physics textbook mentions most solids are in a crystal lattice.

Are there non-lattice solids?

[Assistant] To the answers given here (glass), I'd like to add polymers. It's a completely different type of solid material in the way it's made  from interconnected long chains of repeating molecules. While some polymers do crystallize, it's a very different type of crystal from what you would find in metals or elemental cristals, and a lot simply remain amorphous.


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

[User] [WH40k] Can a follower of Chaos switch patrons? If not, why not?

[Assistant]
Yes, they can, but it's rather difficult to do the further down the line you are.

Remember that the Chaos Gods aren't concious in the way we understand. They are totally bound to their spheres of power and incapable of thinking or acting outside of them. Mortals, on the other hand, are free agents who can act how ever they durned well want.

The problem lies in the Path of Glory. The further you are (IE the more Gift's you've received) the more in tune you are with your patron. It's harder to go back a step (without becoming a Spawn) than it is to progress further. Once you reach Daemonhood, you are totally suffused with the power of your patron god and can't change. You're still free to act of your own accord, but your daemonic essence is that of whatever god(s) blessed you.

It is far easier, however, for a follower of Chaos Undivided to turn to the worship and dedication of a single patron.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist] So aside from military/fighting - what is Alchemy used for?

Most of the Alchemists we see in the series are military men and women - Mustang creates fire, Armstrong shoots rocks, Ed and Al smack people with pillars of earth - but what are the other uses of Alchemy? How do they work?

I think we saw someone (might of been Ed actually) use Alchemy to fix a radio, how does that work? Does that mean everything is assembled with Alchemy or are there still electricians/factories around?

[Assistant]
There's plenty of occupations still around, because alchemy hasn't been shown to be as precise as human craftsmanship, which is why Ed still goes to Winry to get his arm fixed as opposed to just trying to use alchemy. To justify the radio part, they still had enough broad pieces to just reassemble it, so that's all Alphonse did.

Alchemy has a lot of uses outside of fighting, like Shou Tucker, the Life Alchemist. And just like Zhou Tucker, the state alchemists have to do some sort of thesis of their discoveries in order to renew their State Alchemist status, which was why Tucker was so desperate to find a finding for his research.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are humans naturally psychologically damaged by taking another human's life, or killing most things?

[Assistant] It largely depends on *empathy*, the ability to imagine an outside perspective combined with personal experience. Most people understand and consider that other people, and other creatures, have lives and (at least) instinctive goals if not necessarily goals on a conscious level as we understand that. This can make us hesitant to wound or kill, and often remorseful if we do hurt or kill an animal or another person. That said, there are exceptions, people whose brains work differently, such that they don't feel empathy nor remorse when they hurt or kill.


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

[User]
[Avatar: TLA/TLoK] What happens in the 10-15 year period between Avatars?

Meaning the time after the Avatar dies and before the new one has been found. Is the world just in constant danger? What if a major crisis occurs and no Avatar has been found/trained yet? Why wouldn't baddies who know the only person powerful enough to stop them is the Avatar just try to hold off their plans until this period?

[Assistant]
Perhaps the previous Avatar attempts to settle things before their death. It's not like said baddies have a clock that ticks down to when the Avatar is going to die. Nor does the Avatar for that matter, everyone's just doing their best. A criminal could potentially set something up during the "no-Avatar" period, but even without the Avatar, you could get four masters of each element to nearly accomplish the same thing.

If there is a predicted threat coming up however, such as the Fire Nation plotting something, the Avatar may be told they are the Avatar earlier than usual.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What do people on Tatooine do for work?

According to the Old Republic there's a bit of a neat cycle with Tatooine, a corporation will find out it's lousy with metal and set up a neat little mining operation, then it turns out that the metal is all messed up and rusts so easy it's worthless for any serious use, then the corporation gives up and leaves leaving the planet to the Jawas and sand people, skip forward 80-100 years later and another corporation finds out about this little planet in the outer rim with huge metal deposits...

By the time of Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War what were people doing on Tatooine? Luke was a moisture farmer but was it economically viable to try to squeeze drops of water out of the atmosphere when literal ocean worlds exist? Naboo should be filthy rich if a little tap water is that valuable.

[Assistant]
It is about transport. It costs credits to transport water across the galaxy not to mention dangerous. Probably not profitable. SW seems to have abundant energy and on a planet like Tatoonie with a limited resource like water, it is more economically viable to harvest water than transport it.

To answer your larger question, jobs. There are doctors, bureaucrats, musicians, bartenders, taxi drivers, bounty hunters, etc. it is likely that you end up doing what your father was doing given the lack of visible social systems. Or you could join the Imperial Academy. It is after all a free ticket off planet and much easier than spending the harvest or teleporting yourself off this rock.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why 24p is preferred when 30p/48p/60p are technically better?

I recently got a little more into video now that I own a nice camera, and am wondering why 24p is the preferred format when 30/48/60p offer better motion and don't require pulldown to broadcast at 60hz. Is it entirely an aesthetic preference? Is it because people don't like change? Does it have something to do with the "uncanny valley?"

Also, as a subquestion, why is it that cameras that can shoot 30p can't also shoot in 24p if it's 6fps less and therefore technically feasible?

[Assistant]
Because movie goers don't like it. The higher frame rates are what television and (more importantly) home video cameras usually use, and the general public has started to associate the look of those higher frame-rates with "cheaper production", whereas the look of 24fps is associated with the big-budget quality of major motion pictures.

Seriously.


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

[User]
[DC comics]How does Batman think he could defeat a corrupted superhero with 'preparation'?

I've always asked to myself that. For example, when he 'defeated' Superman in that Comic, he didn't 'defeat' Superman, he just abused Kal's morality and did whatever he could do with dirty tactics, but would he beat a ***REALLY*** corrupted Superman? He would just glass the planet from orbit if he becomes evil, so how would Batman defeat a character like that? Or Flash who moves millions of times faster than light? Or Diana? He's still a human, a peak human but still human, pretty sure if one of the JL members go rampage he will be the first to die being speedblitzed or lobotomized by those guys with enough power to nuke planets.

[Assistant]
He *wouldn't* defeat them in those scenarios.

Superman, Wonder woman, or Flash could rip his head clean off before the photons even reached Batmans eyes. They could kill him faster than physically possible for him to respond. Batman is infinitely outmatched and *needs* to exploit character weaknesses to even stand a chance.

So if they took his intelligence into account and acted spontaneously they would all stomp him into the ground and there's nothing he could physically do to stop them.


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

[User] How long could a submarine and its crew survive in space?

[Assistant]
Not very long at all. While they certainly have sufficient oxygen, CO2 scrubbers, power, and the hull will most likely be able to hold sufficient atmospheric pressure to keep the crew alive for a week or more, nuclear subs ultimately dump their reactor heat into the water. Without that water, they'll be cooked alive in a matter of hours.

Edit:  No, the freezing temperatures of space won't solve the problem. Think about a thermos. A thermos uses a vacuum layer between the inner container and the outer shell. This vacuum layer prevents loss of heat through conduction. A submarine in space would function the same way. You're basically living inside a thermos with a nuclear reactor for a roommate.

Spacecraft are designed to cool themselves by radiative heat transfer. They can't cool by conduction because aside from the propellants they dump overboard, there is no matter to conduct the heat to.


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

[User] eli5 Why is it tradition for only the bride to wear white during a wedding?

[Assistant]
The tradition for the bride to wear white is simply because Queen Victoria wore white to her wedding, and it became the standard. Some people made up some bullshit about how it symbolizes the bride's purity.

Since it became standard, it has become common courtesy for wedding guests not to wear white, so they won't steal the bride's spotlight.


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

[User]
[40k] What is life like for a human in Tau civilization?

What jobs do they have? What recreational activities are available to them? Restaurants? Plays? Bars and clubs? What is dating like?

How do they get education? How easily can they enlist for service?

[Assistant]
Not much different from life in the Imperium. Maybe not as overtly brutal, but the Tau do treat humans as second class citizens.

In Dawn of War, it's a Gue'Vesa (Tau-allied human) archaeologist who wakes up the Necrons.

>How easily can they enlist for service?

Fairly easily. Humans are tougher and faster than Tau. Just don't expect to reach a high rank.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] I'm sick of big city life on Corruscant, I want to start a life on some remote planet, how would I do this?

I've been living my whole life on the upper levels of Corruscant. It's not too bad, foods great, folks are friendly enough if a bit snobby but I'm getting tired of seeing the same spires day in and day-out. I was thinking I wanted to start over, make a new life for myself, just a simple one.

I've got a decent amount of savings and my own ship, not a big one - just enough for me and a bit of cargo for essentials. If I wanted to set up my own colony, do I need to apply for anything or can I just find a random planet and set-up shop there?

[Assistant]
The universe is a big place. How remote do you want to go?

Its entirely possible to put down on a planet with no affiliation with the republic or any form of organized government. Just a feral world where you can put down wherever you like. Problem is the other people who might visit that planet are not the best at following rules or not killing you and your family and raiding your shit.

There are worlds that fall under the dominion of the republic or the first order or the empire or the [insert local authority]. Then  you would basically go through immigration apply for a spot and depending on the planet might have some taxes or good you have to send to keep your quiet life quiet.

Basically what are you looking for?


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

[User] If the Earth was shrunken down to the size of a marble but still had the same mass, would it form a black hole? How much mass would a marble need to have to form a black hole?

[Assistant]
We don't exactly know how big a black hole is. The math says it has zero volume (a singularity), but we don't know what happens to the physics in these situations. What we do know is, given a certain amount of mass, how big the radius is of the sphere that encompasses the region from which light can't escape.

This radius is called the Schwarzschild radius and it is given by the expression 2 G M / c^2 (G = Gravitational constant, M = mass, c = speed of light). If the object is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius, then it's a black hole.

Plugging in the numbers for Earth gives a value of 8.8 mm. This is around the size of a large marble.


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

[User] If I rotate a cup of tea, does the water rotate with it or stays like it was?

[Assistant] The water will be pulled along by the side of the cup, spinning it and creating a vortex in the liquid. It will not spin all at once like a solid object would; the outside will spin first, and spinning will slowly propagate inward. It is also not likely that it will 'line up' with the cup in the same way when you stop spinning it.


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

[User] [Toy Story] In terms of survivability, would it be better to be a more fabric based toy like Woody, Jessie and Bullseye due to easy repairs or would heavy duty plastic like Buzz win through?

[Assistant] Plastic or something durable obviously. Woody only was fixed because he was a collectors item any other toy would have been discarded when damaged. And its not like they could fix themselves, having your broken toys magically repair damaged limbs would be noticeable and terrifying. Also how long would you want to exist as a toy? Think about what would have happend if the chicken man's plan had worked. Woody and the gang would have had to endure an eternity (from a toys perspective) of existence trapped in a display not being played with, not fulfilling there one and only reason for living. The life of a toy is a sad short one, they are destined to be cherished then forgotten and discarded(or exploded with fire crackers).


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

[User]
Has there been any follow ups to the commercial child porn stars of the 60's and 70's?

During the 1960s and 1970s relatively large scale adult film producers such as Color Climax Corporation and other scandinavian and german porn distributors made a large amount of then legal child porn. This involved children that legally part took in sexual acts with adults. Is there any research or other sources done on what happened to these children in their adulthood or how this experience affected their lives?

[Assistant] Between 1971 and 1979 the company produced 36 or more 10-minute films for its Lolita series. These films featured young girls, mainly with men, but sometimes with women or other children. The participating girls were mainly between the ages of 7 and 11 years; however, some were younger. Titles included Incest Family, Pre-Teen Sex, Sucking Daddy, and Child Love.


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

[User]
[Biology] How do heavy seasonal allergies affect the strength of the immune system against bacterial and viral infection?

Do the extra white blood cells and other immune cells bolster the body against other infection or are they wasted overzealously attacking the allergen.

[Assistant] In short, heavy seasonal allergies do not affect the strength of the immune system against bacterial/viral infections. These two processes are handled a bit differently by the body. Allergies are a type of hypersensitivity reaction mediated by antibody immunoglobulin E (IgE). Viruses and bacteria are handled by B lymphocytes and antibodies, in addition to the body's other innate and adaptive immunity systems.


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

[User] [Pokemon] Have the team rocket trio ever done some good deeds?

[Assistant] Kept Charizard from falling asleep after he got beat in the Charariffic Valley, tossed into the water, and told to stay in there all night. He almost fell asleep and would have fallen under water and died when his flame went out. They kept him awake.


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

[User]
ELI5: Would a cell phone work in space?

I understand that temperatures in space would most likely never be ideal for phone use, they are too extreme on either end of the spectrum. I also understand that a phone would never get reception in space.

However, if space did happen to be an ideal temperature, could a phone be used to take pictures and perform other tasks if it was in a vacuum environment?

[Assistant]
The main problem would be heat. Cell phones passively cool themselves via the air, but there's a distinct lack of air in space, so despite the near 0C temperatures in space, without a way to get rid of heat (apart from blackbody radiation), the phone would overheat.

If you could cool it, then it should function.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it so painful to rub salt on a open wound?

[Assistant]
Salt is sodium chloride. Your nerve cells communicate partially using sodium. When a bunch of sodium rushes into a nerve cell, it "fires".

The salt that gets into the wound dissolves (splits into individual sodium and chloride), and because there's so much of it, the sodium rushes into nearby nerve cells, overloading them and causing them to fire.

There are some nerve cells that are specialized to detect pain. Since the nerves that detect pain are constantly sending signals to the brain because they're overloaded with sodium, your brain interprets the constant signal as constant pain.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What did Qui-Gon Jinn and The Council THINK would happen if Anakin "brought balance to the Force"?

I've heard multiple times the (convincing) argument that Anakin DID actually bring balance to the Force by equalizing the number of Jedi and Sith, though I can't imagine this is what all those who talked about him "bringing balance" meant when they talked about his destiny.

Am I missing something? Is this theory of him bringing balance by killing/leading to the death of so many Jedi actually phony? What DID they think it meant to "bring balance to the Force" if not this?

[Assistant] The force is balanced with the elimination of the Sith. The issue is, the Force was imbalanced because of the Sith and they could feel it but they didn't know why. Like when there are symptoms to a disease but no clear way to narrow down the disease.


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

[User]
Is there a correlation between length of the digestive track in a species and it's diet?

I just had a discussion with a vegan friend who said that the length of our digestive track indicates that we evolved on a vegetarian diet, and that carnivores have a much shorter track in comparison to their overall body length.  Basically a longer relative length the more likely you are to be vegetarian.  I would appreciate any insight greatly.

[Assistant]
Yes, ther is a correlation between lenght of the digestive tract and animal's diet. Generally, herbivores have longer intestines, because it takes longer to break down and absorb nutrients from plant cells, than it does from animal's.

EDIT: Your friend is kind of right, but not entirely. Humans seem to be secondarily omnivorous. This means, that our most recent ancestors were primarily herbivorous, but humans evolved to be able to digest meat as well, just like our more distant ancestors. And let's not forget, that large amounts of nutrients absorbed from digested meat might have allowed us to evolve those big brains we have. So without meat, your friend couldn't have evolved to be able to argue that humans evolved to be herbivores ;)


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

[User] ELI5: Why are guns with long barrels like rifles more accurate at long range than handguns?

[Assistant]
Three main reasons:

1. Sight radius: A longer distance between the front and rear sights allows for more precise aim.

2. Stabilization: Most modern firearms stabilize bullets by spinning them with grooves carved into the barrel (rifling). There is a certain minimum distance of rifling required to stabilize a bullet, and it is dependent on a lot of different factors.

3. Velocity: A longer barrel allows more time for the powder charge to fully burn, which means more push for the bullet. Faster bullets have less opportunity to drift off target before they hit.


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

[User]
I believe justice should be blind, and so should juries. CMV

In light of recent controversies involving race in the courts, I have come to the conclusion that justice is not completely blind in our justice system. We all have our own internal biases, whether we are conscious of them or not, and it is possible that these biases can influence the outcome of a case. It is because of this that I think a jury should not be allowed to see the defendant. I believe the facts should be presented to the jury, analysis made by experts, and arguments offered by the lawyers all the while taking care to obscure the identity of the defendant as well as any irrelavent information (race, gender, net worth, etc). Information like this could only be made avaliable to the jury if it directly pertained to the case (e.g. the relative size between the defendant and alleged victim). A blind system like this could bring fair verdicts accross the board and make it more difficult to make a case for the existence of institutionalized racism in the courts. Obviously, implementaion of this would have to be quite intricate, but I believe the core principle remains: juries should be blind to ensure justice is as well.

[Assistant] How would the jury be able to see the subtle facial expressions of the defendant (and presumably the alleged victim too)?  Surely seeing those expressions is helpful in determining who's lying and who's speaking the truth?


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

[User] ELI5: How come when you start thinking about something while reading your eyes can continue reading but you actually have no idea what you just read?

[Assistant]
tl;dr you weren't paying attention.

the long answer is that reading is more than just physically seeing characters on a page/screen, you have to decode those characters into words (which is usually an automatic process), decipher the meaning of those words and join the words together into an understood statement, of which the latter processes aren't taking place at all, because you're busy thinking about something else, same for when we're listening to someone speak but don't have a clue what they said, the hairs in our ears vibrated due to the sound the speaker made, but we weren't paying attention to what the actual meaning of those sounds meant.

this is also why you can not hear someone at first, but a split second later understand what they said, right when you were about to ask what they said, your brain finished processing those sounds into actual meaning because there's basically two levels of hearing, the first is completely automatic, the second is for when you don't subconsciously recognize a word, your subconscious hands it off to your conscious mind asking what it means.

I hope this made sense.


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

[User]
[Star Wars ROTS] So, Anakin knew Palpatine was full of shit, right?

I mean, he was just playing along with his line about the Jedi being traitors? It was Anakin *himself* that revealed to Windu that Sidious had betrayed the Republic by running both sides of the war, then he suddenly starts going along with Palpatine's talk of the Jedi being traitors seeking to destroy the Senate, which...makes absolutely no sense. Was the deal supposed to be "Okay, this is the lie we're going with, let us never speak of this again"? Because, otherwise, Anakin just had selective amnesia.

[Assistant]
After the fight with Mace Windu Anakin is fully aware of what Palpatine is doing. Unfortunately that doesn't help any more because he has already fallen into Palpatines trap. His choices at this point are:

1) Expose Palpatine to the general public.

2) Find some of the surviving Jedi, beg for forgiveness and go into hiding.

3) Play along.

The first option is clearly not going to work, no one will believe him (if he can even find anyone who will listen) and Palpatine will just quietly have him executed.

The second option is obviously the correct one, but it means giving up any hope of extracting the dark side techniques that he thinks he needs to save Padme from Sidious. It also requires that he owns up to what he's done to the organization that he spent the past two movies building resentment towards, which is kind of a bitter pill to swallow.

So what is left is the third option. He knows Palpatines story is a lie, but he is already starting to blame the Jedi for what they "made him do". This combines with his existing resentment for the council, the last hope of saving Padme and a generous amount of cognitive dissonance into a justification that kinda sorta works so long as he is really angry and doesn't take time to look at it more closely.


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

[User] ELI5: How can superdense coding allow for 2 traditional bits to be stored in 1 qubit?

[Assistant] A normal bit can be *either* a zero *or* a one, so you need two bits to hold each value. A quantum bit can be *both* a zero *and* a one (like shrodingers cat being both dead and alive). Unfortunately beyond that, there isn't really an ELI5-able explanation for quantum mechanics.


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

[User]
Could pregnancy possibly delay menopause?

So I have a question that there may not even be an answer to. I doubt there would be any scientific studies on this as there would be too many variables to be able to control the study. But I am curious about what other think.

But let me explain a little better what I mean before answering.

There are a few scientific facts first:
1. When a woman is born she already has all the eggs she will ever have. Women do not produce more so that's it.
2. When a woman is pregnant she (typically) will stop ovulating for the duration of the pregnancy, and may not start again for up to a year after giving birth.

So let's say a woman has 10 healthy to term pregnancies. We can average that out to 18m per pregnancy where she does not ovulate. Over those 10 pregnancies that adds up to 15 years of not ovulating.

So theoretically could that delay her from starting menopause for up to 15 years?

Also please don't come at me over this question. I am being genuine in my curiosity here and just wondering what others opinions might be. And by no means am I planning on having a whole heap of children to try and delay my own menopause. I have 3 children and that is enough for me. This is just a question.

[Assistant]
Most hormonal birth control methods prevents ovulation as well, so this is an easier population to study than the few women that spend a significant percentage of their life pregnant/ breastfeeding.

There are many women who do not ovulate for 10-15 years because of birth control and age of menopause is not affected. However, being on hormonal birth control can mask signs of menopause so may provide the appearance of a delay.


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

[User]
How does adding a neutron to an atom change it so drastically?

For example, how does adding a neutron to deuterium turn it into tritium and make it so dangerous?

[Assistant]
Nuclear stability is a complicated balance between many things. There are around 3000 known nuclides and less than 300 of them are stable.

Nucleons in a nucleus live in bound orbitals similar to how electrons are arranged in atoms, except the interactions between nucleons are a little more complicated than the interactions between electrons, and there is a separate shell structure for protons and neutrons.

Just like atoms with certain numbers of electrons are more favorable than others, nuclei with certain numbers of protons and/or neutrons tend to be more favorable as wel.

Adding a single particle to a closed-shell nucleus can be enough to make the new nucleus unstable. Your example of deuterium and tritium is a counterexample, because the deuteron doesnt have a closed proton or neutron valence shell. The triton has a closed neutron shell, but not a closed proton shell.

However there is another nuclide along the A = 3 isobar that is stable (^(3)He), so the triton can beta decay to it.


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

[User] After you donate blood, considering that it takes like 3-4 weeks to fully replenish the lost red blood cells that carry oxygen, is your endurance/stamina measurably affected afterwards for some time?

[Assistant] Your VO2 max can decrease by up to 15% and time exhaustion drops by up to 19% in the two hours after blood donation. In simpler terms, your blood can't carry as much oxygen (obviously, because there's less blood, lol) and the amount of time it takes for your stamina to wear off drops as well. These effects go away after about a week depending on your body size. (bigger body = more blood in total = less percentage of blood loss = less intense effects)


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

[User]
How did the first STD's originate?

Since virgins don't have STD's and all, where do people get them from? Everyone was a virgin once, after all, so therefore we should technically be STD free.
I know that AIDS comes from the infected blood of a species of primate, but other than that, how in the world did humans end up with such a variety of STD's in the first place?

[Assistant]
The fact people are born virgins doesn't matter, it's what happens after they have sex. Probably the first STD was transmitted by some other means AND could be transferred sexually. If there were 1000 strains of a virus and one could be transmitted two ways instead of one, that strain would have an advantage. Even if it started off as being relatively hard way to get transmitted, eventually at least one strain of at least one disease would mutate to get better at getting transmitted sexually.

The thing to remember about evolution is the huge numbers involved. Of the thousands (millions?) of diseases, only a few evolve to be sexually transmitted.  Of the thousands (millions?) of strains of STDs, only a few evolve to be really effective STDs. But with each generation (millions) the "best" strain gets improved upon. That modern AIDS virus, for instance, is truly standing on the shoulders of giants.


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

[User]
What does Spinoza exactly mean in 1P34 where he says God's power is his essence itself?

I am not sure if I've got this proposition right. He writes

> For from the necessity alone of God's essence it follows that God is the cause of himself and of all things. Therefore God's power by which he and all things are and act is his essence itself
>

I checked the definitions and the axioms over and over again and I couldn't find his definition of power. If I consider its daily meaning, I understand the means of achieving a goal but how could this be idential to an essence of a substance? I mean, his essence itself can't be power, because then how could he be naturans naturata that is the result of the cause? I think I am thinking too mechanistically but I really can't understand how he goes from "everything happens according to god's essence" to  "god's essence is his power and his power is his essence itself".

[Assistant]
The Latin might help you here:

>*Dei potentia est ipsa ipsius essentia.*

While "power" is a perfectly reasonable translation of *potentia*, remember that this also translates *dunamis* in Aristotle. So Spinoza is actually saying that God's *potency* is the same as his *essence*, i.e. *what God is* is the same thing as *what God can do*, at the same time: *What God can do* is the same as *what God is*, *i.e.* there is nothing God can do that he doesn't do.

Recall that Spinoza denies all unactualized potentiality. No possibilities exist that are unactualized.

Cf. 1p11dem3:

>"To be able not to exist is to lack power, and conversely to be able to exist is to have power."

In Latin:

>*Posse non existere impotentia est, & contra posse existere potentia ist.*

This would have sounded crazy to a scholastic reader, as Spinoza is saying that the "power of non-existence is impotence" and the "power of existence is potency."

This then lets him say:

>For since being able to exist is a power (*posse existere potentia ist*), it follows that the more reality belongs to the nature of a thing, the more 'powers' (*virium*, strength) it has, of itself, to exist. Therefore, an absolutely infinite Being or (*sive*) God, has, of himself, an absolutely infinite power (*potentia*) of existing. For this reason he exists absolutely (i.e. in every possible way).

So then, God's *power* or *potentia* to *be able to exist* is his essence itself (since his essence is *causa sui*).

Then, 1p35 follows: "Whatever we conceive to be in God's power, necessarily exists," because "to be able to not exist" is impotentia, therefore all of God's potentia (which is infinite) is the same as his essentia (what he is) and has no impotentia that could prevent this essence from fully existing.

There might be some dots missing, but the basic move here is to deny that there's any unactualized portion of God's essence.

*Edit:*

It might be worth contrasting this to Leibniz's striving of possibles in *Ultimate Origination*. In a similar manner to their different accounts of the PSR (Spinoza requiring a sufficient reason for non-existence), Spinoza speaks of a "to be able to not to be," that is, a "power" of non-existence called "impotence." Sounds crazy to a Scholastic, but this (like Spinoza's PSR) lets him close off any possibilities outside of the actual modes of substance.


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

[User]
[MCU] Hawkeye show canon

So this question is more of a general meta question combined with a question about a specific character.

My question is are the Marvel Netflix shows canon to the MCU right now. Im asking specifically because in Hawkeye, Kingpins feats of strength are inconsistent with his screen time in Daredevil. In Hawkeye, he ripped a door off its hinges, punched Kate Bishop across a room, and walked off getting rammed by a car like it was nothing. In Daredevil, his greatest feat of strength was punching a hole in a brick pillar and even that hurt him. Thats a huge difference.

[Assistant] According to Vincent D'Onofrio, as far as he's concerned this is the same Kingpin. The Blip, and Ronin's initial rampage, were both extremely disruptive to his operations, leading him to have to become even tougher and more hands-on. Perhaps he was able to get enhancements from the Power Broker.


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

[User]
[GTAV/Online] Who are these deranged billionaires that destroy the city everyday?

It seems like everyday I see two dozen supercars careening across the city blowing up everything in sight.

Who are these people, and what can be done to stop them?

[Assistant]
Ancient Greek philosophers believed that if you took a man and placed him beyond meaningful retaliation, he would inevitably go mad with power, descending into monstrosity. GTA Online is a world where this is proven true.

Improvements in medical technology have led to a state where no one is really killable if they can afford treatment, and degeneration in the state of politics have resulted in a legal system where any crime can be paid with a fine. Without risk of death or incarceration, anyone with the money to pay the bills can be as wild and free as the Old Ones, engaging in any sins their hearts desire. No longer bound by humanity, and no longer assigning any value to any life, they do what they want, to who they want, when they want.

In the short term, arm yourself; it won't put one of these monsters down permanently, but making yourself a harder target than the rest of the sheep may get them to leave you be. Long term, the answer is to A) start a political movement to reinstate proper jail time for crimes or B) start sabotaging hospitals to prevent these maniacs from bouncing back after the 50th time they wrap their supercar around a police barricade. Both have dire peril, since B would likely make you a terrorist in the eyes of the law, and A would put you in the crosshairs of every super-rich maniac who wants to keep their wild way of life alive.


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

[User] [Comics]Do superheros like Spider-Man and Batman enforce their no-kill rule on other superheros that do kill when they have to have to work them?

[Assistant]
Batman does. ALso on heroes he *doesn't* work with. He's very anti-killing.

Others have their no-killing based on a genuine moral stance rather then a trauma reaction, and are slightly more flexible. Generally, it depends on the hero- the Punisher needs to be kept on a tight leash, but if Captain America says someone needs to die then you can assume he has a good reason.

It depends a lot on the Heroes, but generally most of them will try to stop killing, but as long as it was a genuine desperate situation, they'll usually stick to just disapproving.


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

[User]
What causes that "being watched" feeling?

I can understand the likely evolutionary reason for it (your ancestors would have been more likely to survive if they were aware of predators), and I recognize it's often a false alarm, but what explains the times when you actually *do* notice being watched by someone who isn't even in your field of vision? What sense would alert you to that? Have there been any good studies on the subject, considering it's difficult to properly test?

[Assistant]
Basically, when you are in a situation where your brain believes you may be threatened (night time, alone, in a dangerous area) your brain makes you think you are being watched in order to increase your alertness and responsiveness to your environment.

It's a context sensitive response. Sometimes people do happen to be watching you.

Semi-related, your brain is very good at distinguishing between when someone is looking directly at you and when they are looking past you (like directly over your shoulder). This isn't quite what you're asking since if involves actually seeing the other individual, but you might find it interesting.


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

[User]
As coffee grounds are adsorbent, does the process of making coffee remove pollutants (such as PFAS) from water? If so, to what extent compared to charcoal filtering?

The question occurred to me the other day when I noticed that the heavy chemical odor and taste of water in my city isn't detectable (to me) in coffee. I know that heating the water causes some of the treatment chemicals to evaporate out of the water, and that PFAS have a higher boiling point than water and thus are not eliminated via heating, but I'm also wondering how much of the bad stuff gets adsorbed by the coffee grounds. I couldn't find any studies, and the former use of PFAS in disposable coffee cups creates a lot of false-positive google searches. Any thoughts?

[Assistant]
To some extent, passing water through any absorbent material will reduce the amount of pollutants in it, but the extent depends heavily on how porous the filter substrate is and how finely ground it is.

Charcoal filters work by having incredibly high surface area to volume ratios, and the carbon actively bonding with pollutants, so compared to their ability to capture things coffee's effect is negligible.

It's more likely that the reason you don't taste the chemical taste of treated water in your coffee is that the taste of coffee is so strong it masks it.


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

[User]
ELI5:The difference between "president" and "prime minister" and how come certain countries have both.

Why are they some times called prime ministers, and some times president? Is there a real difference to their actual role? And why do countries like Russia and Ukraine have both a president and a prime minister?

[Assistant]
So democratic governments are divided into 3 branches, the legislative (i.e. congress, tasked with writing and passing laws and budgets), the executive (the cabinet and the various governmental agencies like the FBI and FDA, tasked with enforcing the laws) and the judiciary (the Courts, tasked with determining if the laws are constitutional).

The prime minister is the head of the legislative branch, and the president is head the executive branch. Essentially, the prime minister (and congress/senate) determines what the country SHOULD do and how much money it should spend doing it. While the president (along with the governmental agencies under his command) determines HOW they should go about doing what congress ordered. The judges are on the side, trying to decide if the prime minister and the president are allowed to do what they are doing in the first place.

Constitutional Monarchies generally do not have a president, as the executive branch is headed by the king/queen. But as the monarch is purely ceremonial, the usually executive powers devolve to the prime minister.


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

[User] Is there anything interesting in our solar system that is outside of the ecliptic?

[Assistant]
Pluto is probably the most well-known highly inclined object in the Solar System. Its inclination is over 17 degrees.

Ceres is inclined at about 10 degrees. The asteroid Pallas is inclined at almost 35 degrees, and there are a number of less-well-known asteroids of higher inclinations.