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

[User]
Eli5 why did the Bronze Age happen before the Iron Age?

I would have thought that with bronze being an alloy it would have been more difficult to work with than iron, so why was it the first to become widely used?

[Assistant]
Places started with copper

Copper is soft, workable, and melts into a liquid at temperatures achievable by a wood fire(1100 C)

Iron is hard and does not melt into a liquid in a normal wood fired kiln, it only melts if you get it up to 1500C.  You need a special charcoal fired bloomery to process iron ore so you first need a good source of iron ore *and* charcoal.

Tin, similar to copper, will completely melt so all it takes is for someone to mix the two and discover that bronze is *wayyy* harder than copper making it much better suited for weapons.


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

[User] ELI5: How does sleep affect muscle growth?

[Assistant] A certain sleep stage increases production of growth hormones, which promotes muscle growth. Also, adequte rest after working allows the body to repair the used muscles and consequently increases volume and strength.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why does Redskull have a face that is red and shaped like a skull?

I Have been wondering this. Why is Redskulls face red and shaped like a skull? Secondly if his face is a skull, how is he even alive?

[Assistant]
1) He had a rather bad case of "uncompleted super soldier serum injection" that made him break out turning his face red. That nasty buisness also made the cartilage in his face dissolve, drawing us his skin, and removing his nose.

2) As for how he is alive, well, thats just mean. He's in prime condition! One could say, he's superhuman.


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

[User]
CMV: The pardoning power of the U.S. President should not extend to those who have not yet been convicted of a crime.

Some of the most controversial pardons issued by Presidents in recent history (including the pardoning of Richard Nixon and a number of pardons issued by Donald Trump) were to people who were not yet tried and convicted of a crime.

The unilateral and unchecked pardoning power of a U.S. President is already controversial yet I can see the benefits of it in general. However the power to preemptively pardon people who havent even been tried or convicted is extremely dangerous specifically because not all the evidence obtained has been made public. Its possible that the details of the crimes committed were far more heinous than what had been brought to light so far.

It also makes it far too easy for a President to issue blanket pardons to associates they themselves had ordered to break the law which would eliminate the possibility that they would ever be held accountable for their actions.

Lastly, our judicial system is based on the premise of innocent until proven guilty. Pardons by definition can only apply to someone guilty of a crime. Thus the preemptive pardon is at direct odds with the most important bastion of our entire judicial system. The preemptive pardon presumes guilt rather than innocence.

Its my view that Presidential pardons should only be issued to people who were tried and found guilty of a crime and should *not* apply to anyone who is merely *suspected* of a crime.

[Assistant] What about Lincoln pardoning the Confederates?  Carter pardoning the draft dodgers?  Seems to me those were pretty crucial things that required pardoning people who'd never been charged with anything.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is nutrition such a difficult topic to research?

There is a massive amount of conflicting research/information on nutrition out there. Eggs are great for us, eggs are clogging our arteries, eating carbs is good and gives us energy, carbs make us lethargic and fat. As someone who, after years of treating their body like crap, wants to make an effort and eat things that are good for me, it seems impossible because at this point I feel like whatever arbitrary statement about food you take (like, eating 1/2 green apple increases your metabolism but only on Tuesdays and Fridays), you will find some type of research "confirming" it. Why is it so hard to have concrete research/evidence of what is good for our bodies and what isn't, at least generally? Isn't it science? How are we supposed to know what to eat??

[Assistant]
Ethics - Researchers can't lock people up and force them to eat certain foods.  So researchers have to rely on willful compliance, which is difficult for most people.

Money - Human research is expensive.

Conflicts of interest - Food is a big business, and businesses do not like threats to their profits.  So they are more than happy to finance research of questionable quality in the name of profits.

Time Scale - Some issues relating to diet take years to manifest.  And on such a long time scale, there are many other potential contributing factors which must be rule out.

Difficulty - Science is hard and new tools & techniques emerge which help researchers do and explore more than they ever could.  This drives a lot of the findings that "turns the field on its head."   Communicating scientific findings to layman is also very difficult.


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

[User]
When I bleed, why isn't my blood at 98.6 degF?

I understand that it'll cool really quickly from exposure, but even if I'm using my finger to apply pressure against a wound it still wont be particularly hot.

[Assistant] 98.6 deg F should not feel hot. It should feel slightly warm to neutral. If you have a good thermometer you can test this yourself. Prepare a cup of 98.6 degree water and stick your finger in it. It will feel slightly warm (your fingers are a few degrees colder than your core body temperature, so 98.6 will feel slightly warm rather than neutral). But now remove your finger and see how warm your wet finger feels. It will feel neutral to slightly cold. This is because the thin layer of water rapidly cools and because of evaporative cooling (the reason why we perspire and why being wet makes you cold).


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

[User]
Why is the energy of a given wavelength of light determined by the wavelength itself rather than the height of the wave?

It seems to make more intuitive sense if the height of the wave would determine the energy it contains, but that's not the case. It would also seem to make sense that in a given time period, the overall energy would be higher with shorter wavelengths, because the waves are coming faster. I just don't understand why, for example, a wave of blue light is inherently more energetic than a wave of red light based solely on the wavelength.

[Assistant]
The energy of a wave is not determined by the wavelength.

The energy of the photons that make up the wave does depend on the wavelength.

If the photon flux is greater, the power of the wave is increased, and at the same time if you consider the wave from the classical perspective, the amplitude of the wave is also increased.

In the classical view, it is exactly the amplitude of the wave that determines the energy.


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

[User] ELI5: For every US dollar owned by someone, is there a physical banknote somewhere to back it up?

[Assistant]
Ok, apparently people want me to elaborate.

US banks are allowed to do what is called "fractional reserve banking". This means that, if a thousand people have a thousand dollars at the bank, the bank does not actually have a million dollars there. They have some *percentage* of that (I don't remember the exact amount, but it's around 20%), and the rest of it the bank loans out to other people.

So you see how this happens. If a million dollars of physical currency is deposited into the bank, the depositors have a million dollars, *and* people taking out loans from the bank have $800,000. So there's that much more money around than there are actual banknotes to back it up.


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

[User]
ELI5:Is it possible that something (nothing in particular) we consider "true" in math could not be true

For example, what if we found out 6^0 (6 to the 0th power) does not actually equal 1? How would that affect what we know about mathematics? Is this question even feasible?

[Assistant]
There's a difference here between math and science.

In science, we make observations about the world and try to find equations that help us explain and predict what will happen. If we discovered tomorrow that gravity is twice as strong if you stand inside a giant magnet, that would totally cause scientists to revisit everything they know about gravity and magnetism. That's not very likely to happen, but surprising discoveries on a smaller scale do happen all the time in science, and the theories have to change to accommodate those new discoveries.

In math, though, mathematicians clearly define what they mean by a number, what they mean by raising a power, and so on. Everything we know in math we know for certain because it's either been defined that way, or proven to be that way. Math doesn't change based on observations of the world, math stays what it is, and we change the mathematical equations we use to explain the world.

So nobody could ever discover that 6^0 is not 1, because it's been defined that any number to the power of zero is 1. It didn't have to be defined that way, but it makes more sense than any other possible value.

Occasionally there have been cases where mathematicians believed something to be true but hadn't proven it, and it later turns out to be false. Occasionally they even believe something has been proven, but this is far less likely because there are a lot of smart mathematicians out there and an incorrect proof doesn't usually last long.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Could Dumbledore have been an unregistered animagus?

I've been toying with this idea for a while.

He was the transfiguration teacher at hogwarts before becoming headmaster, so he must have understood the concept at a theoretical level at least.

He was an exceptionally powerful wizard and dedicated academic. I can't see him wanting to leave any branch of magic unstudied, except on the grounds that it is too dark.

He always seemed to have a contingency plan and was prepared for any turn of events (e.g. being able to escape being arrested). Being an animagus seems like a trick he would like to have up his sleeve.

Thoughts?

[Assistant]
Could he? Sure he could. Lots of things are conceivable, specially when it comes to Dumbledore.

Is there any evidence, no matter how circumstantial, that he was an Animagus, unregistered to boot? No.


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

[User]
Could a fusion reactor use any element with an atomic number lower than Iron as a source of fuel?

So I was reading about fusion reactions in stars. They can fuse elements up to iron and release energy. Iron and above can be fused but they absorb energy.

This got me wondering. We are experimenting with the development of fusion reactors and using different hydrogen isotopes to do this (hope I got this correct).

However, once these reactors are up, running and well understood could we use any element with an atomic number below iron as a source of fuel for these reactors?

[Assistant] In principle you can use any exothermic fusion reactions. But the Coulomb barrier increases with atomic number, so its harder to fulfill the Lawson criterion with heavier elements. Hydrogen has the lowest possible Z, and its very abundant.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Why did the Machines need physical space? With a virtualised conciousness, wouldn't it have been easier to build a Matrix-style simulation for themselves?

We're told that The Matrix exists to keep humans as a power source now that the sky is scorched, but wouldn't it have been easier to simply build a simulation for the machines to live in instead?

Some of them seem happy enough to exist as Programs, or are there 2 groups of Machines, Real World Machines and Programs, both working together towards a common goal?

[Assistant]
The humans - while supressed - were a formidable adversary for the machines both during and after the war. Humans think differently and dangerously at unpredictable moments.

The machines need to maintain a dominant presence in order to keep the balance in order. They had to be both dominant in the physical space and in the matrix space to protect their interests and ensure their survivability.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do creatures that sit in the baking sun all day, like lizards, not get skin cancers?

[Assistant]
Skin cancer is caused by UV damage to skin cells.  Specifically (and not really ELI5) UV light causes damage to the DNA of the skin cells, which, when un repaired, can cause the cells to replicate uncontrolled and result in cancer.

So, how do you prevent this?  The easiest way is to shield the skin cells from the UV light.  You can do this with sunscreen, a hat, etc.  Or you can produce more pigments in the skin.  Lizards do both.  The scales shade the underlying skin from the UV light, and their skin is full of melanin, a dark pigment that acts to absorb the UV light before it can damage the DNA.


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

[User] ELI5: What about salt water fish prevents them from "breathing" fresh water?

[Assistant]
It's not about breathing, it's about homeostasis. Saltwater fish have to constantly excrete salt from their bodies in order to maintain the electrolyte balance necessary for life. Put them in fresh water and they won't stop; they'll keep pumping salt out of their bodies until they die from lack of sodium.

Similarly, put a freshwater fish in salt water and they'll die from too much salt.


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

[User] [Matrix Trilogy] why do the APU's use chain guns that need reloading when they could outfit them with the plasma cannons that seemingly don't need it?

[Assistant]
Plasma cannons have serious overheating issues, and need considerable down-time and frequent maintenance after use. Those rugged APU chain guns are basically always operational. If you're not sure when the robots are going to come knocking, you're going to want as many units fully operational as possible.

They are also terrifically power-hungry. They need to either be hooked up to a generator or a huge power supply. Hooked up to an APU's battery, they'd suck it dry in a few shots. Or you could use an over-sized battery for the APU, but the extra weight would make its every move less efficient and more draining.

Plasma cannons are hard to make. It's likely that Zion doesn't have the manufacturing capability to make new plasma cannons. Like the hovercrafts, they're all left over from before & during the robot revolution. They can weld together more chain guns, and melt scrap down into more ammunition.


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

[User] ELI5: How do shells form? Why are there so many types? Why do all the curly shells curl in the same direction?

[Assistant] Mollusks like snails and clams have very delicate bodies, so they need protection from the elements and predators. As mollusks develop in the sea, their mantle tissue absorbs salt and chemicals. They secrete calcium carbonate, which hardens on the outside of their bodies, creating a hard shell. The shell stays attached to the mollusk but it is not actually part of its living body because it is made of minerals, not mollusk cells (unlike most animal structures). The mollusk continues to take in salt and chemicals from the sea and secrete calcium carbonate, which makes its shell grow even bigger. When a mollusk dies it discards its shell, which eventually washes up on the shore. This is how seashells end up on the beach.


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

[User]
[Jungle Book] Why does everybody tolerate Shere Khan's existence?

He's an evil dick, who kills for fun.  *Everybody* hates him.  And yet, an entire wolf pack won't try to kill him?  He's an ambush predator, and just by watching him fight you can see that he *sucks* at open combat.  An entire pack of wolves should have **no** problem taking him out.  Hell, they could even team up with some ~~of nature's Abrams Tanks~~ rhinos, who I'm *sure* would be perfectly cool with helping take down the jungle's biggest dick head.

[Assistant]
I don't think it's a question about "tolerating" so much as "not wanting to die." Shere Khan, as you state in your question, is "an evil dick, who kills for fun." He's a strong, powerful, deadly killer with a trail of bodies behind him. Sure, a wolfpack could try to attack him, but tigers are a few times the size of a wolf and will definitely take a few wolves with him. For the wolves, it's not worth the risk to try to take them out. Besides, as a pack, if they lose a few key members, they lose a ton of hunting capacity, which means the rest of the pack might starve. If they lose some wolves and *don't* kill Shere Khan, they're easy pickings.

As for rhinos, they're big and resilient, but Shere Khan is too agile for them. Rhinos are strong defenders; thick hides and big horns are great deterrents, but they don't make it easy to kill a tiger. A rhino is more likely to disrupt a wolfpack's organization than to contribute to killing a tiger.

What it boils down to is that Shere Khan is strong enough (or at least, *projects* strength enough) that the animals don't think it's worth it to try to kill him. Shere Khan will kill them back, and these animals don't want to be heroes. As long as Shere Khan is targeting mostly not-wolves, the wolves are going to see the risk as not worth the attempt. Same for all the animals.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes ripples, after throwing an object in water, to expand? What determines when they will lose enough energy to dissipate?

[Assistant]
When the object enters the water, it pushes the water out of the way. It pushes as much water out of the way as the object is big. The only place for the water to go when it gets pushed is up, which is the splash that we see when the object enters.

Gravity pulls all that water back down, but it can't go down because there is more water in the way below it, so it starts to go sideways. This is the ripple you see. The water ripple spreads out in all directions across the surface.

As these ripples spread further and further away from the splash they take up more and more area of the surface of the pool. Because only as much water as the object was big was pushed up to make the ripple, the ripple gets shorter and shorter as it spreads out over more area. When the water is all together it makes a big pile, but the pile gets shorter and shorter as you try to spread that same amount of water over bigger and bigger areas.

Eventually, the water spreads out over such a large area that you can't even see the ripple any more. As the ripple moves around it also has to push against air that's in the way, but this is a lot easier than pushing the water out of the way so you don't see it as much. But the more air the ripple pushes out of the way, the slower it moves. After a long time, the air slows the ripple down so much that it stops and the pool surface is flat again.


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

[User]
If an enormous amount of (earth) air enclosed in an air tight container was launched into space, then released when it was far from our atmosphere, what would happen to the air in the vacuum of space?

Where would the molecules go? Are they influenced by gravitational pulls?

[Assistant]
Depends how far they were from earth before they were released, but straight off the bat they would dissipate to a point where the individual molecules would be spread out quite evenly in the vacuum of space. As they bump into each other due to their natural momentum and heat, they will continually push themselves apart until far enough away to no longer affect each other.

At that point the only forces left to act on them would be planetary and stellar gravitational forces. For a planet the small size of earth, it doesn't take going too far (relatively) before the strength of gravity falls off enough to become insignificant, but even at their small size, the molecules would continue to orbit the earth if they were released starting from a stable orbit such as the distances and speeds at which satellites and space stations orbit.

Eventually, if close enough to the earth, their orbits would 'decay' and they would return to earth. The decay being caused by random interactions with other cosmic debris, and once close enough to the earth, the upper atmosphere. Even though they say space is a "vacuum" it isn't entirely empty. For instance, helium atoms at the upper atmosphere are sometimes knocked loose by cosmic radiation. Such an atom impacting a molecule/atom of the air could be enough to send it back to earth.

The other possibility, is that if released far enough away from earth, the air would just continue to rotate the sun until it hits something.


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

[User]
Age of Earth based on radioactive decay

The age of Earth has been calculated to be about 4.5b years, based on radioactive decay of long half life radioactive elements, such as uranium (the ratio between the uranium and the elements it decayed in found in the same ore).

This is all nice, but there is a problem: Earth is/was not capable of nuclear fusion, so that uranium had to come from a very big star, that exploded and threw its 'guts' all over the galaxy. I would assume that the uranium found in a local ore deposit (say an uranium mine) came from the same star.

So my problem is this:
Shouldn't we subtract from the age of Earth the period it took for that uranium to get to here? And we don't know from what star it came, so how can we know the age of Earth with enough precision?

[Assistant]
No.

The uranium was indeed a product of a supernova. However, radiometric dating is carried out on individual mineral crystals. The reason for this is that they are closed systems; the atoms which were trapped in the lattice to start with should still be there however many billions of years later.  When we use radiometric dating we measure the ratio of daughter, parent and a stable isotope in the mineral, and are therefore able to work out how much of the daughter has been produced through decay, and therefore how long it has taken.

Although the daughter isotope is being produced throughout nature, the daughter and parent are different elements, and therefore behave differently chemically. This means they get partitioned from one another.  Because individual mineral crystals prevent the removal of the daughter isotope, we have a closed system and therefore a functional clock.


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

[User]
Eli5. Why do we need to have an empty stomach for anaesthetic or surgery?

So, I've had a few surgeries in my time, and also a few minor procedures that just require a small bit of anaesthetic, and every time, I have to not eat for X amount of hour before hand. Why so?
I imagine if people are routinely being asked to do this, there must be a reason.
Does food in the stomach decrease the affects of the anaesthetic or something?

[Assistant] When you're intubated, the airway tools can hit your gag reflex and you can vomit. With the paralysers in your larynx, the mechanisms to stop things going in your airway aren't working properly, so that vomit can go into your lungs. You can't suction lungs properly, so the patient can end up with pneumonia and other serious lung infections.


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

[User] [Borderlands] Why was Marcus driving a bus?

[Assistant]
As with everything related to Marcus, the answer is Money. Marcus has several independent ventures going on on Pandora. He'll do anything to make a few bucks. So whenever he has to drive anywhere, he picks up hitchhikers on the way. For a small fee, of course.

And if you're willing to give a little more credit to his intelligence/ foresight.... Well, nothing jump starts an armsdealer's revenue stream quite like a Vault hunter. If he happens to find a couple while he's out on a drive, why not take them back to his little corner of the market?


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

[User]
[ATLA] Why didn't Zhao let Aang get killed when he captured Aang?

Zhao cites that the Avatar would just be reborn but why does that matter? Wouldn't killing the Avatar be the better strategy since the Fire Nation just needs to run out the clock until the comet arrives? And a newborn Avatar wouldn't be able to stop the Fire Nation. Plus total Fire Nation domination would make it easier to prevent the training of the new Avatar and there would be no airbending teachers.

This is in the episode Blue Spirit in season 1 where Zuko rescues Aang and gets shot by the archers.

[Assistant]
At the time, there was no plan to genocide the world. They were still looking to control it.

Killing Aang had a lot of variables that could get in the way. The Norther Water Tribe was still standing strong so the next Avatar would have a 33% chance of either being born into a well fortified kingdom, a swamp or a small, still unconquered village.

10-15 years with no Avatar to get in your way sounds pretty sweet but that's also 10-15 years of possibly not knowing the location of the guy who could potentially ruin everything. And the Avatar is more than just some person who can control all the elements, they're also a symbol for people to rally behind.

Opposed to just keeping Aang locked up in a cell somewhere and not having to deal with the Avatar for a few decades.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and all that.


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

[User]
ELI5 : What does hardware-based platform mean in programming?

How does hardware based platform work and how does it differ from platforms that are independent from the underlying hardware like Java?

[Assistant]
It means the program you are creating is targeting a specific piece of hardware, and won't work on anything else \*.

For example if you're making a PS4 game, that game will only work on a PS4. If you want to make it work on Xbox, you have to replace some of the code with Xbox specific stuff, and recompile it for Xbox.

Compare that to Java, where a Java program can work on different types of hardware as long as they have a version of the Java runtime. It can run on a standard x86 based PC, but it would also work on a machine which has a different type of CPU and/or OS. The Java Runtime handles all the stuff that's necessary to interface with the hardware and OS, instead of your program doing it. You don't need to make separate versions for those platforms.

\* Unless that other hardware has specifically been designed to support software for an older platform, e.g. PS5 will run PS4 games.


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

[User]
what does it mean for the universe to have a shape?

Ive read different articles discussing theories of the shape of the universe but I cant wrap my mind around all of the jargon explaining what that means and why its important to study. help!

[Assistant]
This is a question that arises out of mathematical topology and geometry, but has relevance to astronomy, cosmology, and our understanding of how the universe works.

Imagine a group of 2-d people who live on a 2-d surface. There are certain properties about different surfaces that have meaningful consequences for those people.

For example, suppose the 2-d people lived on the surface of a sphere. If a 2-d person starts walking along the equator and never changes direction, they will eventually come back to exactly where they started. This cannot occur if the 2-d people live on a different type of surface. If they lived on a flat, infinite sheet (such as a Cartesian plane), then they would start walking in any direction and they would never come back to where they started. There are other models too- such as a torus (a doughnut shape). If our 2-d people lived on the surface of a doughnut, then they could walk in a straight line and come back to where they started, and it would even be possible for two people to walk in a straight line and never cross paths- something that you can't do on a sphere.

This is actually already relevant to astronomy. It is known that some stars and galaxies appear at two different places in the night sky. One plausible explanation is that we live in a "sphere," and that the light from such a galaxy had circled the universe so we see multiple copies of the same galaxy here at Earth. (The real explanation is gravitational lensing, however.)

Suppose our 2-d people live long enough to develop mathematics and topology, and they understand the difference between living on a flat plane, a ball, or a torus. Now they want to know what type of shape they live on. Well- it's not easy for them. We have the benefit of an "extrinsic" view of their world and we can consider "extrinsic" properties- in particular, we are 3-d people and can see how their 2-d surface is embedded in 3-d, so we can easily just look say that this is a ball versus a flat surface. Instead, the 2-d people have to develop some measure of "intrinsic" properties of such surfaces. For example, a really smart 2-d person named Riemann might realize that if you live on the surface of a ball, it's possible to draw triangles whose angles sum to greater than 180 degrees. Imagine you start walking at the equator and go 1/4th the distance around the ball, then make a 90 degree turn left and walk another 1/4th distance to the north pole, then make another 90 degree turn left and walk back to where you started. You have just traced out a triangle on the surface of the ball whose internal angles are each 90 degrees. This is impossible on a flat surface, so the 2-d people can actually cleverly measure and start to rule out what kind of surface they live on.

Now you see where this is going! Imagine that we are 3-d people (we are) who can be thought of as living on a 3-d surface that is embedded in some larger 4-d space. It is hard for us to visualize, because we are not used to thinking of ourselves as living on a 3-d surface, but that is the equivalent situation. Just like the 2-d people, we can come up with intrinsic measures of different types of 3-d surfaces, and start thinking about how to rule out different kinds of 3-d surfaces that we might inhabit.

If you are interested in reading more, a great introduction to the topic is *The Shape of Space* by Jeffrey Weeks. You can also see that author give talks on Youtube if you search.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do digital downloads of games cost the same amount as a hard copy?

[Assistant] Because if they were cheaper, people would have much less reason to buy a hard copy.  There'd be no real reason to pay people to manufacture them, ship them, or sell them.  The people who own those businesses want to stay in business, so video game developers are careful not to screw them over.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some credit card readers tell you to insert and remove your card as quickly as possible and others tell you to leave it in for several seconds?

[Assistant]
The ones that want you to go fast are reading the swipe strip.

The ones that want you to hold it are reading the chip.

Chip is more secure and the rest of the world has been using it for years.

America is currently catching up with the new tech, but there's a lot of POS out there that don't read chips.


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

[User]
[Marvel] What if a Sentinel comes across a super-powered individual who isn't a mutant?

Let's say that a sentinel is attacking a mutant parade, which Thor is attending (due to free food or something). What happens?

[Assistant] Usually Semtinels have the ability to detect the mutan gene specifically and aren't looking for super powers, so they would leave Thor alone and go after the guy who looks like a chicken or something.


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

[User]
ELI5: What happens when you remove a brain tumour? What grows in its place, if anything?

I started thinking about tumours and realised I have no idea what happens to the body when you remove them, especially somewhere like the brain.

[Assistant]
Well two things are possible...

One, you removed all the tumor cells (harder than you think). Nothing grows there. The brain of an adult doesn't grow under normal conditions.

Two, you didn't get all the cancer cells. A tumor will eventually recur there.


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

[User]
[Lovecraft Mythos] Some questions on the King in Yellow.

As I understand it, the King in Yellow is a play which acts as a summoning ritual for. . . something.

* How does the play function as a ritual?

* What is the play actually about? Does it have a consistent story?

* What happens when the ritual is complete?

[Assistant]
* How does anything function as a ritual? Man performs actions that individually have no substance, grant no power. Taken together, these minuscule, impossible to understand threads begin to weave a tapestry that serves as a portal for unfathomable creatures to enter "our" world.

* Sure, where you're typically going to see a play have an opening and a resolution, the King in Yellow deals in more typica shallow themes, such as l and st. Once once you st k and tr    damn yourself to the abyss beyond, woe betide what is left of your wretched soul and leave you sobbing and broken at the feet of the true nature of reality. Whereupon the play begins to truely touch on the madness of the incomprehensible, to summon things best not gazed upon, to entice beings from beyond the stars. They are drawn forth by the siren song of man's desire to know what he should not, and he shall pay dearly for his indiscretions.

Completing the ritual extinguishes mere sanity for a chip in the barrier, a great many must give their all to make room for him.

He.

The King in Yellow.

For your own protection, your brain can never fully understand the play. If you've seen it, you lose your mind and despair in the certainty that the greater universe is malevolent to a degree your little lizard brain cannot begin to fathom.


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

[User] ELI5 : Why do we get some kind of negative vibes when we are around certain people?

[Assistant]
It's an instinct that is supposed to protect us.  The specifics on what it is protecting us from can vary from one situation to another.

On a very primitive level, a person who is unhappy or unpleasant may be unhappy because of a disease.  Diseases can be contagious, so our instincts tell us to avoid them.

On a more social level, think of it in terms of individuals within a primitive tribe.  The people who are unhappy are likely to be the ones with poor access to resources, and therefore probably have less useful talents, and therefore there is less reason to learn from them or spend time around them.  So our instincts tell us not to.

There is also the issue that people with difficulty in their lives may be more likely to behave aggressively than those who are healthy and prosperous.  Our instincts tell us to be wary around them for this reason as well.

Not all of these things will necessarily be relevant today or in all circumstances, but our instincts are very old and mostly focused on helping us survive, which is not always the same as being nice.


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

[User] [Starwars] What's behind the name 'Vader?' Did Palpatine just make it up on the spot when he gave it to Anakin or is there a story behind it?

[Assistant] All of the Sith names have not-so-subtle connotations. Darth [In]Sidious, Tyrannus, Maul. Vader is likely a shortening of "Invader" -- Anakin invaded the Jedi order and was turned into its greatest enemy.


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

[User] ELI5: How much faster will the Earth need to travel in outer space so we will actually "feel" it? What will we feel if the Earth starts to travel 10x times faster in outer space?

[Assistant]
We wouldn't feel it. We feel changes in motion, like speeding up and slowing down. But if you're cruising along at a steady speed, like in a car or a plane, you feel like you aren't moving at all. (The only reason why you "feel it" in those vehicles is because of vibrations on the road or the vibrations of air buffeting the plane.)

In fact, the idea of relativity goes so far to prove that whether or not something is even moving at all depends on where you stand. In a train, the seats don't appear to be moving. But from the outside, the seats are moving very fast. There is no objective, better way to judge speed. Everything is relative.

Of course, if the earth were moving faster it couldn't stay in its current orbit and we'd certainly notice the difference in sunlight!


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

[User]
ELI5: How does water get stuck in your ear?

I know this may seem like a stupid question but how are we able to go underwater without the same stuck feeling occurring?

[Assistant]
The stuck feeling generally occurs when we get a pocket of water sitting in our ear canal thats being held there by surface tension. In other words, theres a layer of water thats bonded together and acting as a wall that prevents the other water from escaping. This often happens when we quickly exit a larger body of water or quickly tip our head and the outflow of liquid gets bottlenecked someplace. When we manage to break that surface tension, we feel the water flow out our ear.

When were in a pool, water is more or less hanging out in our ears, and our entire head stabilizes to the underwater pressure. There cant be a wall formed by surface tension, because theres no air in the ear canal for it to wall off water from.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball] How the hell did Cell build such a nice arena for the Cell Games?

I realize he probably just blasted some rock out of a mountain, but it looks so pristine. It's like master craftsmanship. Tiled floors, pillars, and everything.

edit: thanks or all the replies. I'm not an avid watcher so I'd assumed it just happened offscreen.

[Assistant] So there seems to be a few types of power in dragon ball, ki which is sort of everyone's bread and butter, but there is also magic and psionic power as well. Since cell is sort of an amalgam it makes sense that he would have the ability to use magic and psionic power as well. So he used a combination of essentially telekinesis and magic to build a sweet arena.


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

[User]
CMV:Apex Legends (and maybe other BR games) are too random to be considered competitive

There are two main reasons to this:

1) It's basically an FFA match meaning that on handful of occasions when one firefight concludes with a more skillful team, another random squad can pop in and slaughter the damaged squad from the previous firefight which can frustrate opponents.

2) RNG and coincidences. This does somewhat tie into my first point, but this is biggest issue. Hot drops are the best example where you could get a mozambique and your enemy gets a peacekeeper.

These are just the major issues, but I would like to see people's perspectives as well...

[Assistant] Plenty of random games are competitive. Take Poker for example. The catch is that you can't base the results on a single match. You have to play a series to figure out the best players. In a single game, a bad player can get lucky and beat a good player. But after 10 or 100 games, the better player will have the better record.


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

[User]
[Community] How many of Greendale's shortcomings can be attributed solely to Dean Pelton?

Or is he basically a product of the school since no sane man could work there?

[Assistant] Dean Pelton retains his position because he's willing to cover up anything.  We think he's personally to blame for everything because he's the public face of the campus, but really he's a perpetually-falling fall guy.  He takes the blame for the executive board's mistakes and sits on the campus's big secrets.  For example, remember how he was willing to cover up the the first Chang dynasty.  The board keeps him on because he'll take the heat, all of it.  It makes the Dean too valuable to fire, and it keeps attention away from the board, meaning that they never get implicated and lose their positions either.  It's a symbiosis of mutually-supportive administrative incompetence that keeps Greendale what it is.


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

[User] How is having mRNA injected through a vaccine different to consuming an animal or plant? Do we not consume mRNA each time we eat?

[Assistant]
The difference is that genetic material from what we eat doesnt get into our cells intact. RNA is inherently unstable and there are RNAses to chop up anything left. Even if a stray strand was imported intact, it would be unlikely to be in a form that would be read and expressed since there are important sequences that help them bind to ribosomes and other cofactors.

In contrast, the vaccine mRNA is packaged in carefully designed lipid bubbles that allow it to safely enter cells where it can be read. The mRNA itself is also modified to make it more stable/evade some of our defense mechanisms and also engineered so that it produces really strong expression.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is your nose and forehead (generally) a lot more OILIER than other parts of your body?

[Assistant]
Two reasons.

1. It's where we keep our stuff. A chapped face means you can't effectively see, eat, breathe, whatever. The sebaceous oils help provide a bit of protection against the elements.

2. As we're social animals, our faces require more lubrication to do all the subtle facial gestures we do to convey emotion. By having more sebaceous glands in the 'T-zone', it can (via gravity) keep our whole face flexible.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] (spoilers) How was Neo able to manifest some of his abilities outside of The Matrix in the real world?

I understand that *inside* The Matrix, Neo, being The One, has extraordinary superhuman abilities because he's no longer subject to the constraints and limitations that The Matrix places on humans and most programs, whether they're bluepills **or** redpills, which allows him to manipulate his interactions with the Matrix.

This allows him to perform extraordinary feats such as dodge bullets with ease, stop them in mid-air with telekinesis, run and fly at thousands of miles an hour, and strike with enough force to break bones with as little effort as it would take a normal person to snap a twig.

But at the end of The Matrix Reloaded, and during his journey to The Machine City in Matrix Revolutions, he manifests some of these powers *outside* of The Matrix in the real world. He uses what seems to be telekinesis to stop Sentinels just a few feet in front of him, and then somehow disables them, although he then passes out from overexertion. While comatose aboard The Hammer, he was somehow able to be plugged in without needing a physical connection, which seemed unfathomable to everyone aboard except Morpheus and Trinity. Later on his journey to the Machine City, he uses his powers to simultaneously detonate thousands of guided bombs launched in their path, and his injuries to his eyes blinds him to his normal vision, but allows him to see Agent Smith inside Bane, the Machines, and everything the Machines built in some sort of burning gold.

How is Neo able to do *any* of these things outside of The Matrix? What allows him to do these things in the real world?

EDIT: You'd be surprised how often I come across people that have never seen iconic and/or popular movies that have been out for over a decade. It's such a problem that I always have to be extra careful for spoiling stuff, thus the spoiler tag. It's honestly astounding how many people have never seen movies like The Godfather, Scarface, **The Matrix**, Avatar, you name it, I definitely know people that have never seen it but don't want it spoiled.

[Assistant]
Wi-fi. He connected to the Matrix wirelessly, the machines were all connected through it because it's easier to coordinate everything through a massive network you already have than to build a second one(in fact, the machine network might have been used for the Matrix instead of vice versa.) And Neo could see Smith because Ban had to be receiving the same wi-fi signal so that Smith could be using him.

We never see him exceed human abilities or stop bullets. The one examples of him using his power is when he shuts down the Sentinels and exploding the robot bombs early, both of which can be explained by him hacking the actual machine.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly does shifting my car into D3 do?

In my automatic car, what exactly is D3? How is it different from D?

[Assistant] It's for driving in the mountains.  D will allow your car to go into the highest gear... your car may not have enough power to maintain a consistent speed in this gear, so it will drop into a lower gear to get back up to speed.  This cycle can be annoying.  D3 prevents you from going to the highest gear.  Additionally, when going down a hill, shifting into D3 will use a lower gear for more effective engine breaking.


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

[User]
[Diablo 3] If all humans are nephalem, why am I the only one doing any fighting? Why isn't everyone pitching in with crazy powers?

Seriously, it's like that Smokey the Bear guy: "Only you can prevent forest fires!"

Well how about you get off your fat bear ass and HELP me?

[Assistant]
The same reason humanity didn't instantly get a power boost when Tyrael destroyed the World Stone that was limiting their power. It takes time, roughly a generation for the first few.

You're the vanguard. The rest will follow in time.


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

[User]
[DC] Why is Superman considered the most powerful person on Earth when a lot of characters can supposedly beat him?

More specifically, Im talking about Captain Atom, Martian Manhunter and Shazam

Edit: Thanks for the great answers!

[Assistant] Because those characters aren't guaranteed to beat him.  Martian Manhunter \*can\* win against Superman.  But Superman \*can\* win against Martian Manhunter.  Same with the others.  But Superman was the first, so he got the title.


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

[User]
CMV: People who say 'If you didn't vote, then you have no right to complain' are wrong

I don't vote in elections - crudely put, I believe the system is corrupt, money is power, and that those who aren't already corrupt will be ground down/out by the powers that be. This isn't something I'm really up to debate, but if you think my belief here is pertinent to your reply, that's fine.

My first, and think most concrete argument, is that my right to complain can't be really given or taken away. I can complain about anything at anytime.

But that's a douche argument; what people are saying is that because I had the opportunity to influence a decision, but decided not to, I have no right to complain about the outcome.

I still don't agree with that. Here's why:

1. In a vote for elections, my influence is essentially negligible. I've had little to no say in most of the things leading up to it, and my one vote is almost certainly unlikely to matter in the end.

2. My lack of vote has no tangible relationship to the validity of my complaint. Say me and two friends order pizza, they ask me what I want and I say nothing, so they order a pepperoni pizza. Let's say the pizza arrives, and it's objectively a bad pizza (if such a thing can even exist) - it's soggy, it's under cooked, they forgot the pepperoni, yadda yadda. Now, if I say 'This pizza sucks', and they say, 'well you could have had a say' - it doesn't matter. The pizza still sucks. Furthermore, I could have voted for something else, but be outvoted by the other two, and the pizza would still suck.

3. The 'you could have voted' is used as a means to get around criticism/complaints. Me voting or not has nothing to do with whether something is good or bad right now - especially with my 1. argument. This holds especially true if the person using this argument is defending a party he voted for, because, by his own logic, he'd have to admit that his vote caused the outcome.

4. There are multitudes of situations in real life in which I have a say/don't have a say, and can complain about. What makes voting any different?

5. Sometimes, there's no one you want to vote for. If you walked into a shop and saw nothing you want to buy, would you still buy something?

These are the main beliefs I have here. I've met a fair share of people, some who I consider close friends, to believe that the 'didn't vote/can't complain' argument is valid. What am I missing?

[Assistant]
If all the people who claimed "voting doesn't matter" just stopped complaining and participated in the electoral process today, the landscape of democracy would be vastly different.

In short, people who are trying to make a difference aren't much interested in the opinions of people who aren't.


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] How would Ramsay react to an absolute masochist?

Ramsay seems to get his jollies in torturing and flaying people, and watching them as they squeal in pain and horror at what he's doing to them.

But, how would he react to somebody that either really enjoys what he's doing to them, or somebody who enjoys pain to such an extent that whatever Ramsay does to them is positively boring to them.

Basically, how would be react to torturing a Slaaneshi cultist?

[Assistant]
He'd probably just kill them quickly to spite them. Ramsay doesn't fuck around, and he only plays games when he's winning.

If a masochist started begging for the torture, Ramsay would most likely just flay his family alive, forcing him to watch, then kill him quickly and feed him to his dogs.

Ramsay isn't a sadist, he's a monster.


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

[User]
ELI5 In space, how do foods go down to astronauts' stomachs and stay there?

Since there is no gravity how is it possible that food go down to the stomach, always wondered..

[Assistant]
The peristaltic movements (I hope it's correctly written in English) is what pushes the food to the stomach (yes it basically pushes). Not the gravity.
That's why you're able to eat being upside down (don't recommend with liquids it will probably go up to your nose because gravity).
And also astronaut food is prepared for gravity 0 occasions.

Edit: pushes, not punches.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does NASA still have signal with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2?

This thing (Voyager 1) was launched in 1977. Seems like a pretty dark time for that kind of signal-reaching technology, but it's STILL surviving. When will we lose signal with it? I'm just so fascinated by the fact that this thing is so old but still seems futuristic, to this day, in my opinion. The fact that they built this thing and it's so far away at such an incredible speed.

[Assistant]
It doesn't take futuristic technology to have such long-range communication. Voyagers were designed from the start to have enough radio power to communicate from interplanetary space, and their RTG will last for maybe another decade. On the receiving end, we're using gigantic radiotelescopes of the Deep Space Network. We have been able to continuously upgrade *those*, especially during the *Galileo* fiasco when a very fancy Jupiter mission failed to deploy its high-gain antenna dish, so to salvage the mission the groundside systems were dramatically overhauled.

That's ultimately the trick. We can use better and bigger groundside arrays - Russia has an old 600 m dish, for example, and that's before we start with synthetic apertures that allow you to combine dishes on different sides of the planet - to both receive the weakening signal, and to send signals of sufficient strength to be received.


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

[User]
[Cinematic Hobbit] Why aren't people rocking around with Dragon Plate armour?

Everyone, even the elves, claim that Smaug's hide is impenetrable by all but black arrows. After his defeat, and the defeat of any of the great northern wyrms, why don't people sell and where dragon scales? Even as the centrepiece of a breastplate they would be invaluable.

We know that they must be lightweight enough seeing as there are thousands on a flying creature, and they stand up to molten metals, axes, and basically everything else thrown at them.

[Assistant]
Normally a dragon can take many hundreds of years to develop their incredibly strong scaly hides, Smaug is not that old, but he is certainly the largest active or living dragon in Middle Earth.  Smaug's armor is strong because he has been resting on the gold and gems of the treasure horde for many years, those gems have fused to his scales.

Dragons are also relatively rare, compared to the multitudes of orcs, trolls and evil men that plague the free peoples, so the chances of meeting with a dragon and even having an opportunity to kill it would be pretty remote.  Most of the dragons were killed or driven off ages ago during the War of Wrath.

You're better off buying mithril armor if it is available and you can afford it.  For most day to day combat, steel works just fine.


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

[User] [LOTR] If you put the one ring on a silmaril, would it purge the evil from the ring, or destroy it?

[Assistant] Probably neither. The Silmaril burned Carcharoth and Morgoth, but there's no indication of it harming objects. Even if it did, Sauron is significantly more powerful than Carcharoth and would presumably not have the significant portion of his life force that is in the Ring destroyed. The Silmarils harming impure wielders isn't really its main purpose and is basically just a side effect.


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

[User] ELI5: How do people sense that a situation or person feels "off"?

[Assistant]
There's two levels in a person's perception. There's the stuff you outright notice and the stuff that you don't quite consciously realize. Examples of the latter for situations might include a slight breeze that your skin feels but that you don't really notice or a curtain that's slightly out of kilter compared to the last time you were in a room and it makes a different pattern that indicates someone might have been in there. Examples with respect to people might be someone who changes the nature of their eye contact or someone who's a little twitchy and you're not aware of a reason why they should be, or when someone gives you direction to do something and it just doesn't seem to make immediate logical sense.

Whether you directly notice it and consciously evaluate it, or it's a collection of not-quite-directly-observed little things that add up to a perception that makes you a little antsy, those types of things can make you get the feeling that something's "off".


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

[User] ELI5: Why do so many concert venues charge an extra couple of dollars for people who are under 21?

[Assistant]
Alcohol sales count for a huge amount of the expected revenue for shows, young kids are sometimes taxed more for not being able to contribute to the bottom line.

If they had sold that ticket to someone of age, it's a safer bet they will be spending more money at the venue than someone under 21.


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

[User] Is it true that every prime number is 6k+1 or 6k-1 , where k is a natural >1?

[Assistant]
There are two exceptions: 2 and 3. For primes bigger than or equal to 5, observe that, if they were of the form 6k+2= 2(3k+1), they would be multiples of two and hence not prime. If they were of the form 6k+3=3(2k+1), they would be multiples of three and hence not prime. With 6k+4 you once again have a multiple of two.

The only remaining possibilities are 6k+1 and 6k+5.


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

[User]
Can Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy be read and fully understood in 8 weeks?

Before I explain more about the question, I will explain some of my background: I am a freshman studying in a liberal arts university. As we students approach the end of Q2, we must select from 1 to 3 courses for Q3 and convince our faculty advisor to follow through with that plan. As I have decided to select only 1 course for Q3 (to spend time learning other stuffs, which includes philosophy), my advisor has requested that I select one introduction-to-philosophy text and spent every week of Q3 reading each chapter and send a response paper to show him that I have understood it (I want to major in philosophy btw.)

Many people say that Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy is a very good introduction text into philosophy, so I have selected it (I have put off reading it for months.) But now skimming back the book a bit, I become a little hesitant, as the difficulty seems a bit too much for me. There are 15 chapters, and each of them is quite hard. It should be said here that I do have basic understanding of philosophy, particularly from the Enlightment onwards. Russell's text seems to discuss figures from Rationalism, Empiricism and Idealism. But still, I am not too sure if the text is too tough for a university freshman.

I intent to spend the spring break to read and write beforehand some response papers so as to finish the book in time. Do you have any suggestions for me? Should I even change it to another text?

[Assistant] Yeah, it's a pretty short and simple book. On the other hand though, it is quite literally about what the title says, ie the problems of philosophy. It doesn't really present any of the theoretical or historical development, so there's a lot of context missing. It's less an introduction to philosophy so much as an introduction to some debates in philosophy. I'd ask for clarification on what is meant by an "introductory text" since that may not qualify. They may want a book on the thought of important philosophers, for example Anthony Kenny's books on the history of western philosophy, rather than an introduction to some topics in philosophy.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Who is a better pilot, Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?

[Assistant]
I'd say Luke is better in raw skill. He obviously has a huge boost with Force intuition.

But Han is the ballsier of the two. While that isn't skill, it can factor into reputation making him a great pilot.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do humans recall numbers like their SSN # or an old phone number after not thinking about them for months or years?

I just had to insert my SSN for a form, and it came back to me instantly. How is that possible when I forget so many other facts and numbers from both before and after learning that one? It's not just that the SSN is so important that I know I can't forget it; I, for whatever reason, also remember the phone number of a girl from my hometown in 3rd grade. Can't for the life of me recall my own license plate after years of having it.

[Assistant] The way we remmember things is with connections between the neurons. The more we do something the stronger the connections become and the easier the task gets. That's why you can be 50 and still be able to ride a bike. If you had to put in a phone number a lot then you still will be able to remmember it after big amounts of time.


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

[User]
What is space made of?

That is to say, is the concept of field in physics merely one of intuitional convenience? Fields strike me as almost the same as aether. A magnetic field permeates space, but without relying on intuition, what is space? Is it merely that which contains fields?

[Assistant]
The problem is the question.

Space is nothing, by itself.

With the dimension of time, it become a 4D "fabric"

fabric is just the idea that space and time is connected so that waves pass through it, and can affect each other. A means of seeing something that isn't necessarily there that isn't detectable by humans, except in our Newtonian world.

There may be some kinda of universe structure that determines the speed of light, maybe it's relative to the size the universe if it isn't unlimited.

Light and other particles/waves is just a distortion, the twisting of space over time

There isn't a means of knowing what the reality really is so with any science intuition is key, as you get smaller and smaller it gets harder and harder to make sense of any of it, as ideas and or theories start compounding.


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

[User] ELI5 - Why is it that England pays the same taxes as Scotland but Scotland get more benefits such as free prescriptions and free university fees?

[Assistant]
The free prescriptions and free university fees are provided by the Scottish Government. This naturally has no jurisdiction in England, so those laws don't apply there.

The Scottish Parliament gets its money as a lump sum from the central UK goverment, and its then up to the Executive of the Scottish government to decide how to spend that. The current Scottish government has decided it will use some of that money to provide free prescriptions and free university places, rather than spend the money on other things.


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

[User]
ELI5 - If i see the moon during the day, does that mean that people on the other side of the world can't see it at their night?

Does the moon have a set 'thing' like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or does it do whatever it wants? Just appearing and disappearing all willy nilly like.

[Assistant] It still rises in the east and sets in the west, but since it orbits us, the window in which it's visible changes throughout the course of a month. And yes, when we see it, those on the other side of the world cannot (much like the sun).


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

[User]
CMV: Media coverage of Trump should focus less on him or his administration themselves.

There's been lots of media coverage over Trump's hair blowing off of his head recently, which is childish and wrong. Instead of focusing on attacking Trump or his administration, the media should focus more on the consequences, facts, etc. of what his administration does. This would mean less focusing on Trump's comments, and more on how his comments are affecting people, for example. So maybe they could report more on uptick in hate crimes or racism, and how that might be linked to Trump's words and actions, instead of simply alleging that he's racist by repeating his comments and overanalyzing them. The news should be a neutral, safe space where people can simply learn about the world.

[Assistant] If you do not focus on him personally, and do not focus on what his administration is doing then there is nothing else for you to report on. You also cannot report on any action the Executive Branch of the government is doing because that is his administration.


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

[User] How does scent processing work? Specifically, if I become nose blind to something (say a strong air freshener), will it still help mask another strong odor entering the space?

[Assistant] Nose blindness is just the process of habituation, meaning your brain no longer chooses to acknowledge a stimulus because of its constant presence and instead uses its resources to detect novel stimuli. This happens with all of our senses. It's why you can't taste the inside of your mouth and why you don't notice that you can in fact see your own nose. It's more important for survival that you can notice something novel rather than wasting time noticing something that is always there and therefore probably not a threat to you. So because a new/stronger odor is a new stimulus your brain would notice that it is new and could be threatening and therefore more important that you know it's there.


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

[User] ELI5: Why Scaring People feels so rewarding?

[Assistant]
**TL;DR: Power.**

A big part of our social structure is based on one person having power over other people. Most of us either want to lead, are jealous of the leader, or understand we're not the right person to be that leader.

We see this in a lot of other animals like horses and sheep. The large-and-in-charge 'stallion' or 'ram' gets the girls and leads the pack by showing their power.

Scaring someone - making them react in a startled way - shows you have some power over them, and gives you a little jolt of satisfaction when you do it. Applies just as much when we're young and just figuring things out as when we're older.


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

[User] ELIF: what exactly happens when you lose your voice?

[Assistant] Basically if you had a cold before you lost your voice then it was a viral infection. This leads to swelling of your vocal cords so they can't open and close properly. Also if you lost it because you were yelling too much then you need to give your throat some rest. Continued use of your throat while it's healing can do a lot more damage.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Why are there hidden mage covens?

You have this really nice castle/school, far off in the north(ish) where no one can bother you, that you can get in *for free* and all you really have to deal with is the occasional snide remark from a Nord. . .why is anyone hanging around a dank, stanky dungeon learning to summon wolves?

[Assistant]
They're not in the schools because they were probably rejected or expelled from one of the real schools for any number of reasons.

They're out in the wilderness because the non-magical towns probably have laws against practicing magic without some kind of license and there are probably barriers to gaining such a license.


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

[User]
[The Purge] During the purge what happens at US -Canadian border towns divided in two by the border such as Stanstead, Quebec and Derby Line, Vermont?

The town listed above have streets and even buildings like a library cut completely in half by the US - Canada border.

Other areas worth considering are Point Roberts, Washington and Campobello Island, New Brunswick

For Stanstead and Derby Line is just half of the essentially one town plunged into anarchy (Granted I doubt Derby Line would be too affected by the purge aside from some thefts and maybe 1 or 2 murders) while the other goes about business as usual?

[Assistant]
Considering how The NFFA are a totalitarian regime, it's entirely possible they annexed those towns fully into the US- or the opposite happened.

Assuming that *didn't* happen, likely there would be a physical barrier in place that separates the two areas with only the American side allowed to do any purging.


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

[User] [MCU] Why did Wanda face no consequences for causing Hulks rampage, but almost got arrested after trying to stop Crossbones?

[Assistant]
Nobody aside from the Avengers knew Wanda caused Hulk's rampage.  Hulk took all the blame for that one, and a recurring theme with the Hulk is you can't really punish him, he'll just break out of whatever prison you build for him.

With Crossbones, the entire international community saw that Wanda is the one who fucked up.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does a car having a larger engine capacity mean it's more powerful?

It confuses me... I thought a car having a 2 Litre engine would mean it holds 2 Litres of petrol.. But why would holding more petrol make it faster?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, it's just been playing on my mind recently!

EDIT : Wow so many amazing responses, shows that Reddit is an incredible place full of incredible people, thankyou everyone :)

[Assistant]
Not a stupid question, that's the point of this sub.

That volume is not a measurement of how much petrol it holds in the tank, but the space inside of the cylinders. The cylinders are where the pistons compress the fuel mist and then the fuel is ignited. The more space in the cylinders, the more fuel you can spray inside and then explode, and it can explode into a larger volume, meaning it pushes more on the piston, which in turn moves the wheels.


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

[User]
CMV: Commas should be outside of quotation marks, not inside

I live in the US and I was taught to write a quote like this:

*Your Uncle Jack is a pervert, said the horse.*

This makes no sense. The quotation marks are being used to denote the exact words spoken by the horse. In comparison, the comma is being used as a tool in the larger sentence to add a pause/break between the quote and the remainder of the sentence. If you read the sentence literally, you would think the comma was actually part of the quote.

Clearly, it should be written like this:

*Your Uncle Jack is a pervert, said the horse.*

Edit: Essentially, I am arguing that the punctuation inside the quotation marks should not affect the punctuation outside of the quotation marks. Your words and the direct quote should each be discreet pieces of the larger sentence.

[Assistant]
In the sentence you use as an example,

>Your Uncle Jack is a pervert, said the horse.

the comma is taking the place of the period at the end of the sentence "Your Uncle Jack is a pervert," spoken by the horse. As such, it belongs within the quotes, since the period it replaces was originally part of the quote.


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

[User] [Marvel] Do characters with heightened regenerative abilities (such as Wolverine or Deadpool) need to sleep less, since sleep is a regenerative process?

[Assistant] Sleep has physical benefits for sure, but it's much more important for psychological regeneration. Wolverine and DP need to let their subconscious process things just like anyone else - maybe even more so.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come male body builders penises/testicles shrink but female body builders clits grow like penises?

I'm not sure if they're all using the same hormones or steroids or whatever, maybe someone can enlighten me :)

[Assistant]
Because when men use anabolic steroids they are consuming an external testosterone supplement. Because a man is getting testosterone without use of his own testes they shut down production to minimal levels. *Use it or lose it*. So when they cycle off there is a chance your natural test producers won't power up properly and begin adequate production to fend of the female sex hormones floating in your system. (Estrogen is the primary and most well known)

* Penile atrophy, dick shrinkage, isn't common; testicular atrophy, ball shrinkage, is common.

* bitch tits, gynecomastia, also occurs because of this hormone imbalance.

In women it is somewhat the opposite. They have testosterone flowing in their system, just as men have some estrogen. However they consume a large quantity and it ends leading to male sexual traits to manifest. Such as clitoral enlargement (the clitoris and penis, to generalize greatly, the same thing. A man's penis starts as a clitoris in utero).

Also there is conflicting evidence as to how often these *serious* side-effects occur. Many men who cycle properly do not see any negative effects.


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

[User]
CMV: In the song "You're so vain", I think this song is about 'him'

In the song "You're so vain" by Carly Simon, she says "You're so vain / You probably think this song is about you". She's implying the song isn't about him but because he's so vain, he'll make it all about himself. Yet, I'd think he wouldn't be wrong claiming that this song is indeed about him.

It's not like she's singing about something vague like heartbreak, and he's bringing it back to himself (e.g. "yeah I broke that girl's heart so bad she made a song about me"). The topic of the song isn't vague. It's basically "I met this dude and he was so vain, what a dick". The whole song is literally dedicated to saying how vain he is, but doing so, she's explicitly talking about him. No doubt about that.

If the song isn't about him, who is it about? Don't tell me "vanity as a whole" because vanity's got a face in that song, and that face is him. So yes, I'd be happy to hear your arguments for why this song probably isn't about him.

[Assistant]
Carly Simon has acknowledged that "you're so vain" is written about *three* specific people, not one. The song is exaggerating the specific characteristics of the person described as "so vain", making them an almost archetype of rich vanity. While the details are specific, they aren't real or concrete enough that anybody can be sure it was about them.

This means that while the song might be referring to specific acts by specific people, it is still written ambiguously enough that *several* people she had interacted with might, falsely, think the song was about them. While none of them might specifically have the apricot scarf and the winning horse and the private jet to see an eclipse, all of them have done enough things close enough to that they probably think they're important enough to get the song written about them. So it's somehow both about a few specific people *and* about all the people who "probably think the song is about them", because those people still see themselves as unique even though they can be described with another person's vain acts and not notice.


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

[User]
[DBZ/Super] Whos the God of Destruction for Universe 7 in Trunkss timeline?

The third DLC for Kakarot confirms that both Shin and Kibito died when they stopped Dabura and Babidi from reviving Majin Buu. So if Shins dead, that means Beerus is dead, which means that in the years between Trunks beating Dabura and Zamasu and Black murdering all the other Gods, Universe 7 doesnt have a Supreme Kai or Destroyer.

[Assistant]
That is correct. There is no Hakaishin or Kaioshin in Trunks' timeline. That is why Goku Black chooses his timeline for his ideal Utopia as there are no Hakaishin to stop him.

Angel's go inert without their Hakaishin being active apparently, so Blacl was free to set up shop undetected in Universe 7 and then kill the Kaioshin of the other 12 universes, allowing those Hakaishin to die as well. Leaving him unimpeded and the only gods left being himself, literally.

So in short there is no Hakaishin. It was Beerus but he died when Shin died, and was never replaced.


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

[User]
Is it true that stress causes acne? And if so how and why?

I've always wondered if "stress acne" is caused by an increase in oil production due to stress or if it is as simple as the human neurotics of touching your face during a stressful situation (or picking your zits) causes breakouts when you are stressed out.  If a typical zit is due to a clogged pore then how do you get more than normal clogged pores during stress? Is it a hormonal thing? etc, etc?

[Assistant] When the body gets stressed it starts to synthesize corticosteroids from the adrenal cortex.  The main stress hormone is cortisol which enters the blood stream, downregulates your immune response and can exacerbate acne.


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

[User]
CMV: Drug dealers who have people overdose from using their products should NOT be charged with murder.

I have been seeing and hearing a lot of stories where DAs are charging drug dealers with murder after someone unfortunately overdoses on their product(s). While obviously these are not morally good people and deserve prosecution to the fullest extent for drug distribution, I feel these murder charges are an overreach of the law. My heart goes out to people with addiction as I understand the complexity of it, but that said, no one forced them to buy and use drugs from this particular person.  Buying unregulated black market drugs is obviously a very risky proposition, as is using alone in large doses, especially of an unknown substance. Although the dealers may share some blame when people OD they certainly did not murder them.

[Assistant]
There are multiple different "kinds" of murder in the United States.  For this specific argument, the drug dealers would be guilty of Second Degree murder, which is a non-premeditated killing committed with malice aforethought.

Malice aforethought is defined as gross recklessness showing lack of care for human life.  In this case, selling someone a chemical which you _know_ they are going to ingest and you _know_ can (and often does) lead to overdoes deaths would be lack of care for human life.  The chemical, when used as intended, causes death.


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

[User]
[Naruto] Why does Kakashi always wear his mask?

(SPOILERS FOR NARUTO AND NARUTO: SHIPPUDEN)

We can see him wearing his mask from a very young age in flashbacks with seemingly no explanation, going as far back as when he first enrolled in the Ninja Academy. We know he doesn't have any sort of scar on his mouth because of that one filler where we got to see it.

[Assistant]
So... He does take it off sometimes, and the girls went squeal when he did. The practical reasons are that it protects him from a lot of stuff and people don't know what he looks like. He does indeed go in disguise on several occasions and all he has to do is dress different and not wear his mask because nobody knows what he looks like.

In the Rock Lee spinoff he claims it's to prevent his bloody noses because he's always reading porn.


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

[User] How does the cosmic microwave background persist? Why hasn't it been distorted and destroyed by new sources of energy pumping into space?

[Assistant] The universe is largely transparent. Sure, some parts of the radiation have been absorbed, and there is a bit of new emission at this wavelength range, but overall it is not a large effect and it can be taken into account.


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

[User]
Is there a good counterpart to Zinns people's history of U.S.?

I'm currently reading Howard Zinns a people's history of the U.S. And I'm looking for a conservative counterpart to read with it. Any ideas?

[Assistant] I think Zinn's work is supposed to be a counterpart itself, a sort of response to orthodox/mainstream historical work. It's been awhile since I've read it, but he might even call out some other works or historians... So, maybe check those out?


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

[User] How long does it take my heart (on average) to circulate all the blood in my body?

[Assistant] 70ml heart volume, 72bpm = 5040ml per minute. This conveniently is approximately the total blood volume of a human giving us the answer of one minute. Obviously this varies hugely depending on heart rate and could vary slightly based on your personal cardiac output : total blood volume ratio.


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

[User] ELI5:how come hitting your head really hard knocks you unconscious?

[Assistant]
Your brain isn't really supported by anything, it just floats in some fluid inside your skull. When you hit your head hard enough, your brain moves due to the inertia of the blow, and can actually hit the bone surrounding it. This can cause bruising, swelling, and even bleeding, all of which can impair function. Loss of consciousness is a sign of concussion, meaning there is brain damage.

Side note - if someone loses consciousness due to a head injury, they should *always* see a doctor immediately, even if they wake up and feel fine.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do we know what the milky way looks like as a whole if we are inside of it?

This may sound dumb, but I've always wondered how we have pictures of the milky way galaxy from what looks like the outside even though we are inside of it. Are these pictures just artist renditions of what we think it looks like or is there something I'm missing?

[Assistant] We know how far away every star is from us, and in what direction. Plug all these values into a big computer program and it will estimate the shape of the galaxy. Most of the pictures you've seen are an artist's imagining.


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

[User]
CMV: There is no grand meaning to life.

Before you jump to conclusions, i do think that people can easily create some type of meaning in their life. What i don't think exists is some type of grand meaning to life and a purpose you where born into. Everything is random and every living thing has complete free will. The only purpose any person creates is just a creation of their own consciousness. As a species any purpose or goal we move toward is just a creation of our combined consciousness. This doesn't mean I don't believe in a type of god I just think every form of life has free will with no pre determined meaning or destiny.

[Assistant] Isn't creating your own individual purpose in life a grand and wonderful thing? That seems amazing! What if we all had some set purpose assigned to us like a roomba. Instead, we are thinking collections of used up star dust realizing our unique place in the universe. What could be grander than being an individual?


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

[User] ELI5: Why shouldn't I drink water in Mexico?

[Assistant] Mexico doesn't have the same quality control on water that most other countries have.  Because of this, their water often has little "bugs" living in it that will upset your stomach.  When you drink water or eat foods containing these "bugs" your body cannot process them right because your body isn't used to them.  Your body tries to deal with this causing you to throw it up or by pooping a lot.


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

[User]
[Dragonball Z] What has happened with the Freeza empire ever since Lord Freeza's death?

Ever since Freeza and his highest ranking men were killed by the Super Saiyan what has changed with his empire? Did a new dictator take over in the power vacuum? What about all the conquered planets? I never really payed attention to these events when they happened so I'd like to know what has changed.

[Assistant]
Absolute chaos. Freeza was a tyrant, but like most tyrants who are in power for a long time, he at least kept order. The initial period after his death was a complete fracture in basic societal order for an entire generation. Warlords, former lieutenants with considerable powers under Freeza and Coola, all vied for control while ruthlessly subjugating those they controlled. Unlike Freeza, they had no interest in control and order, just their own self-interest. Millions died and billions suffered.

After a generation, factions of resistance organized and were able to start overthrowing some of the weaker warlords, gaining the freedom of their subjects who in turn quickly joined the rebellion.While most of the super-powered individuals were power-hungry warlords, some were of conscience and joined the rebellion. This snowballed into a galactic civil war. The rebellion was so powerful that warlords were forced to set aside their differences and unite as an oligarchical empire to fight the more democratic rebellion. Eventually, the rebellion won. They decided to dash the war from the history books. The elected leaders of the rebel factions all met on Courscant and signed the Galactic Constitution, establishing a Galactic Senate. Those with special powers who had fought with the rebels founded the Jedi Order and swore to defend the Galactic Republic.

Of course, this was all a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.


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

[User]
How do you know when to cite?

I I know they always say to cite whenever you use someone elses ideas but what if its a subject that I already knew about because Ive read about it long before writing my paper? Wouldnt that be using someone elses ideas too?

[Assistant] Rule #1. When in doubt cite. Example. You may know what the term globalization means by general learning and past experience, however when defining/referencing it in a paper you should cite a reputable source that describes/defines it well.


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

[User]
What are some good econ papers for beginners?

I have a friend who told me I should read some econ papers if I wanted to know if I should pursue a degree in Economics, however, I am unfamiliar with where to get them and what are some good ones for people who haven't read them at all, or even if I should be reading them. Can someone help me?

[Assistant] What part of economics would interest you? Do you like calculations, markets, individual decision making, history, politics, development? Economics is very diverse but if you would specify we could send you some over.


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

[User] [DC] Are Kryptonians and humans related? Do we share a a common ancestor in the past?

[Assistant]
The two species are completely unrelated in most continuities. There's a handful where they're one and the same, separated only by time, but none where they are linked by a common ancestor.

The DC Universes have a Life Entity, billions of years old, and Narrative and Ideas are an actual in-universe convention, which helps explain why so many species look so similar.


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

[User]
[Batman] What exactly are/were Batmans years of operation?

Batman, when he was a child, watched his loving parents being shot in front of him. What year was this? And between what years did Batman operate and fight crime in Gotham City?

[Assistant]
His parents were killed roughly fifteen years prior to his first outing as Batman, and his active career as Batman will (or did) span approximately forty years.

It is always Now, in Gotham. When exactly Now is, is highly variable.


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

[User] If you have a dimmable lightbulb and always turned it to partial brightness, would it last longer than a lightbulb always turned to full brightness?

[Assistant]
Yes, for an incandescent bulb the lifetime has been estimated to be a function of the reciprocal of the 13th power of ~~current~~ voltage. The hotter the filament, the more tungsten evaporates from the filament.  At half level you've got a lifetime bulb.

Other types of bulbs also last longer when dimmed for different reasons.

Edit: changed current to voltage.


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

[User]
[Casper the movie] Where was Casper's dad?

It seems like everyone else was turning into ghosts, almost at will.  The Ghostly Trio even planned to make the dad into a ghost, and they know what's up.

Casper's dad definitely had unfinished business.  Dude was so obsessed with bringing back his son he was declared legallyinsaneafter he built  the Lazarus.

Seems like if he'd been around he could have made more of the fuel for the machine and saved everyone.

[Assistant] He was declared legally insane then committed and received years of treatment. Eventually he was convinced that his son's "ghost" was simply a grief fuelled hallucination and moved past his grief enough that it didn't hold him back when he passed.


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

[User]
[Marvel]Stan lee's cameo's

Anyone here who has an explanation for stan lee's appearance in a lot of marvel movies?

[Assistant] There are many powerful beings in the multiverse. At the top of these is the living tribunal, a being with absolute control over all reality in the multiverse. There is only one above him, One Above All. The creator of the multiverse and the most powerful being imaginable. And if this being wants to have a series of cameos in the lives and struggles of various heroes, who's going to stop him?


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

[User]
ELI5: How was marijuana legalized in Washington D.C when it is federal land?

As I understand , Washington D.C is the property of the federal government and subjected directly to it's jurisdiction. If the federal stance on marijuana is still that it is illegal, how then did voters in D.C legalize it? I could see this making sense if it was outside of D.C in Maryland, but within the city limits I would have thought the government would control such a vote?

[Assistant] The federal government may choose to get involved and overrule the D.C. voters. Whether the Congress will get involved is currently an open question. The politics of marijuana right now may see the Congress look the other way to avoid coming down definitively on a controversial issue.


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

[User] I just read that silver is the most conductive metal. So why do so many electrical connectors use gold?

[Assistant]
Silver is also very reactive. It combines with oxygen in the air and turns a kind of brown. The word for this is tarnishing.

A tarnished silver surface does not conduct electricity. That means that connections to silver are not as reliable as other conductors.

Gold does not tarnish, so its connections are always good.

A better conductor that does not connect is not as good as a lesser conductor that stays connected.


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

[User]
ELI5: in genetics, how do the concepts of dominance and recessiveness translate into biochemical terms?

In a heterozygote, the dominant allele will be expressed in preference to the recessive allele. How does this work biochemically in the cell? Would it be that only the dominant allele is transcribed, or simply that the dominant allele is transcribed more than the recessive allele?

Additionally, after reading about X-inactivation, I am confused as to how this process can exist alongside sex-linked diseases. For instance, if I understand correctly, the gene for Hemophilia is located on the X-chromosome, and because females have two X chromosomes, the existence of a recessive disease-causing allele on one X-chromosome can be masked by the existence of a dominant allele on the other X-chromosome. However, if X-inactivation is a random process, then wouldn't some cells end up expressing the recessive allele while others end up expressing the dominant allele? What effect would this have on the organism as a whole, in terms of the pathology of Hemophilia and other sex-linked diseases?

Thank you! I'm not confident as to whether I understand these concepts correctly, so it would be great if someone could correct me if I'm wrong.

[Assistant]
Dominant vs Recessive: Suppose your cell needs to make 30 things called "A" to do some function and that each working allele 'B' produces 50 of A, while each non-working allele 'b' produces no A. So, a cell with BB or Bb alleles will still be able to make enough A to do its function, while a cell with bb alleles will not make enough A.

Using haemophilia as an X-linked example: haemophilia is caused when cells don't have the working gene needed to produce a clotting factor, causing blood to be thin while bleeding. X-inactivation causes half of female cells to have the working gene, and half to have the non-functional gene. However, the amount of clotting factor produced by the functional cells is still enough to clot the blood, so hemophilia is not seen in females.

This is a VERY basic explanation and there are exceptions but this is a general rule. Let me know if you have questions.


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

[User] ELI5: When laying in bed, what provokes the need to roll onto one specific side?

[Assistant]
Well do you mean the first position you roll into after laying down or the constant change in sleeping positions?

 The latter is, biologically speaking, the need of your body to feel comfortable to prevent pressure ulcers (lat. Pl. Dekubiti). And to remain concious of your own body.
Since sleeping phases are in relation a long period of lying down, your body has to constantly remind itself where it begins and ends.

Also to prevent certain nerve or bloodvessel from being surpressed too long (everyone knows the feeling after a body part fell asleep, because of missing proper bloodcirculation).

And our instinct kicks in from time to time to roll onto the other side for hearing in that directions if predators sneak up on us.

Do you need sources with that?

If you meant the first position you roll into instinctively after laying down, it usually comes with habits from your childhood and wether you're left or right handed, though that is a thesis which is not properly researched.

I hope this helped.

Grammar and spelling errors may be eaten.


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

[User]
Iodine tablets not necessary for aged 40+ after a nuclear accident?

People below age 40 should take iodine supplements in the event of a nuclear accident. To block iodine 131 absorption in the thyroid. Yet older people shouldn't do it, because they have a lower chance of developing cancer in the thyroid and have an increased risk of negative side effects.

The wiki page for this type of cancer says it most commonly occurs between the age 35 and 65. How is this not a contradiction? Doesn't this mean they have an even higher chance?

[Assistant] Most of the cancer which usually occurs between 35 and 65 is not due to radioactive fallout. Children are more likely to develop thyroid problems when exposed to radioactive fallout containing iodine-131, and are less likely to develop it otherwise.