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

[User]
[MCU] Obligatory Endgame spoiler warning about Captain America

Seriously. Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet. Don't do it.

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...Alright, we good?

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How much more powerful does Captain America become from wielding Mjolnir?

According to the enchantment Odin put on it in Thor 1, "Whosoever wields this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the powers of Thor." Obviously the lightning control counted, but what about other things? Like most Asgardians, Thor is significantly faster, stronger, and more durable than the average human, and seems to best Cap in those regards throughout the movies too. Did the hammer give him those power-ups too, or does the enchantment ignore those since those are traits every Asgardian has? Does he just become Captain America with lightning powers, or does that include every single one of Thor's abilities that are superior to the individual wielding it? If it does include them, then do they stack with Cap's previous enhancements? For instance, lets say Cap is 3x as strong as a normal person, and Thor is 4x. Would Mjolnir's boost just bump him up to Thor's 4x, or would they stack to 7x? Does Thor's physical condition have any impact on it? Thor hasn't had a fight in half a decade by the time Cap lifts the hammer, is the boost he gets there less than it would've been if he had lifted it when Thor was at his peak? Does Cap keep the powers when not holding Mjolnir so long as he remains worthy, or would he lose them if he spent long enough without wielding the hammer?

I appreciate any answers! ~~NoobMaster69 sends his regards.~~

[Assistant] Most likely he doesn't possess all the powers of Thor, or if he does, he doesn't know how to to use them. One of the main things Thor is able to do with Mjolnir is fly, but Steve never does this, which leads me to believe he either can't do it, or doesn't feel equipped to do it.


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

[User]
[What We Do In The Shadows] Was Nandor a vampire when he was part of the Ottoman empire?

Nandor says that he was born in southern Iran in 1262. The Ottoman empire wasn't formally established until 1299, and at that point it only really had a foothold in Anatolia. Nandor appears at most to be early 40s when he "died". So he would've had to have served the Ottoman empire as a vampire. Especially considering that he and his army supposedly destroyed what would become Nadja's village in Greece.

Then again, Nandor and his roommates are very clearly not the most intelligent vampires around. Is it possible that he is misremembering history and that he was a soldier for the Mongols, and not the Ottomans?

[Assistant]
I think you might actually be on to something here. Nandor does mention that he was from Southern Iran, and the Salghurid dynasty which pre-dated the Ottoman Empire did fall under the Mongol empire roughly around the time Nandor would have been a human.

Getting the two empires he fought for mixed up would certainly be in character for Nandor.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do they sell blu-ray and dvd in the same pack?

I'm looking to buy a series but the only option is to buy a blu-ray and dvd combo pack.  I haven't got a blu-ray player so I won't buy it but I got me thinking, other than a marketing ploy us there a reason why they sell both together? .
I mean the blu-ray has everything the dvd has so why have both in the same pack?

[Assistant] Making the actual discs is very very cheap. It's so cheap that it's cheaper to just pack and sell both the BR and the DVD discs together, rather than making two separate production and distribution lines for the BR and the DVD.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] The Kobayashi Maru is a pointless test if you decide not to engage

Suppose I'm doing the Kobayashi Maru test. I decide not to save the merchant ship. Maybe I say that we must remain true to the Neutral Zone agreement. Maybe I say that civilian vessels should understand the risks that come with doing business in the Neutral Zone. Whatever reason, I do nothing.

Hooray, that was the most pointless test ever! You just sit and don't do anything. They say the test is supposed to judge how you act in an unwinnable situation, but what's the point of it if you decide not to rescue the Kobayashi Maru?

[Assistant]
And at the same time, you just put treaty enforcement ahead of saving lives. Congrats on your new desk job, you will never captain a star ship.

If you choose not to rescue the ship, you show a lack of drive and willingness to take risks, particularly in the preservation of lives. Remember what happened when Picard rewrote his little fight as a cadet?

Whatever the outcome, the test is one of character, not of the ability to make decisions under fire. Whatever you choose gives results.


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

[User] [String theory] If energy is simply vibrating 1-dimensional points, what powers these vibrations?

[Assistant]
Whoa, there's a lot of words in this question. Energy is energy, it's just a conserved number that doesn't have a physical realization, string theory doesn't change that in any way. But let's talk about particles first in order for you to understand what exactly string theory is about.

In string theory, particles are modes of vibrations of tiny strings. Think of a guitar, if you strum one of the strings you will produce a very rich spectrum of harmonics. This spectrum is characterized by a set of integers  that are the multiples of the fundamental harmonic. Or in other words, once you strum a string, you can produce a "zero mode", which is the fundamental, or you can produce a mode that has twice the frequency, or 3 times the frequency... and so on.

A string in string theory is very similar. It has a spectrum, but this spectrum is what you associate with particles. Each particle carries a mass that is the frequency of its associated harmonic. If you strum this string very lightly, you will produce a "zero mode", in case it exists. If you strum it harder, you will produce an excitation of the first harmonic... etc etc. But in order for you to produce this first harmonic excitation, you need to give the string a minimum energy, and this threshold energy is the mass. Whatever excess energy you give, will result in moving the string around, which is kinetic energy. But notice that once you give energy for the string to produce this first harmonic, it won't lose this vibrational energy since there is no friction. It will just keep on oscillating forever or until this mode decays through some interaction. So in a sense, you just need to power the initial vibration (which is, give the energy to create the particle), and then if the particle is stable, it will vibrate forever.

If you're a distant observer, you won't really observe the tiny string. What you will observe is that if you collide some particles, sometimes the decay result will be a light particle, sometimes it will be slightly heavier, and even slightly heavier, so on... you can observe the "spectrum" of the particles and check that it matches what you calculated from the spectrum of the string.


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

[User]
Why do other people's excrement's smell worse than my own?

Why do other people's excrement's smell worse than my own?

I'm fine with the smell of my own excrement, but when i'm sitting on a toilet and someone forgot to flush it stinks like crazy. Why?

[Assistant]
Its just because while you are shitting, the stink rises gradually and you get accustomed.

Try this: After you finish your job, don't flush. Go and smell some perfume. Now come back and put your head in the pot. Surprise!


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

[User] ELI5 Why can we hear a voice and then copy it (to some degree of success) and how come we can read a sentence in Morgan Freemans voice even if we never heard him say the words in it?

[Assistant]
Because everything we perceive is really a construct of our mind. We don't perceive reality in the first place, we interpret it from various sensations. Our brain is incredible good at imagining things since it literally does this all day long. So, your initial perception of Morgan Freeman was based off the signals your brain got from your eyes, ears, etc. Now that it has that image, it doesn't actually need real input to simulate it in your head.

TL;DR: Your brain always interprets reality and can fake it easily.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why are MRI machine so loud?

Whenever I take an MRI there are always a ton of weird sounds and lots of noise. Why and where do they come from?

[Assistant]
An MRI scanner contains a huge magnet. However, to make images, it has to alter the magnetic field.

If you couldn't alter the magnetic field, you could only "see" 1 pixel. So to make an image, you need to warp the magnetic field to focus on a different region and then change the focus, so you get multiple pixels (actually, it's more complicated than that, but that's good enough for ELI5).

So, to warp the magnetic field in a controlled way, you need an electromagnet.  Two magnets may attract or repel, depending on their alignment, so the controllable electromagnet gets attracted or repelled from the main magnet.

This is exactly what happens in a loudspeaker. You have a permanent magnet, and an electromagnet. The electromagnet is connected to the loudspeaker cone, and the force on the electromagnet gets transmitted to the cone.

In an MRI scanner, the electromagnet isn't connected to a cone, but because the forces on it are so huge (many tons) that it actually causes vibrations through the whole body of the scanner and magnet, so effectively the whole body of the scanner acts like a giant loudspeaker.

You get different sounds according to what particular type of scan is being performed. Some scans are down a row of pixels at a time, then there is a rest period of a second or so, so that the magnetization of the tissue being scanned can reset - these give a clunk...clunk...clunk.. sound, as there is a strong vibration as the magnetic field is warped to start a line. Some scans need to be done much faster, to the magnetic field is swept backwards and forwards without a rest period, this causes a beeping sound, as the warp magnets get a sine wave signal.


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

[User]
Why do we itch?

Whats happening in our bodies when we get that really deep itch that we cant get? Is it a misfiring nerve? (Im not asking about the itch you can get rid of by scratching - I mean when you scratch and scratch and theres no relief)

[Assistant] The underlying cause of an itch, believe it or not, is not too well understood. While typically a stimulus will cause you to react and itch, It will probably be due to a reason. Constant itching can be due to irritated skin from a toxin or other reagent that causes a stimulus. In our bodies we have whats called tonic and phasic receptors. A phasic receptor is a receptor that will respond to a stimulus and adapt if is a constant stimulus. (Like our shirts constantly touching us, but we ignore it eventually) A tonic receptor will respond as long as the stimulus persists. Pain and itch come from the same type of receptor, where it will continue to signal until the stimulus stops (tonic).


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when a double yolk hatches? Do you get twins?

[Assistant]
Could in theory become two very runty chicks if they made it, in practice they'll unfortunately likely die as not enough space and nutrients to support both of them.

Also, just to clear this up: double yolk eggs happen naturally in about 1 in 1000 eggs, there's nothing genetically engineered about them.


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

[User]
[DC] Why didn't the Guardians just give Superman the Green Lantern Ring?

He fills all of the qualifications and then some. Plus if a yellow lantern weakened his ring he would still be Superman.

[Assistant]
Because he does not fullfill the requirements.

Being all goody and morally is a nice start but the basic and most important quality for a Green Lantern is the ability to overcome fear.

Superman as a demi-god never faces true fear, he knows deep down after a life of fighting and testing his powers and heaving powerful allies on top that he will defeat the thread before him.

He never tasted true, unadulterated, willpower-robbing, hope shattering **FEAR** and this is the kind of fear you have to overcome by yourself to be considered a candidate for the Green Lantern Corps.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] With his supreme instincts and knowledge of the force, would Emperor Palpatine have been a decent pilot?

I.e. would he have made a difference in the first Death Star I battle, or the space Battle of Endor?

[Assistant]
Probably could have been, had he put his mind to it.
That said, what the Battle of Yavin or the Battle of Endor needed wasn't one more really great pilot.  The Emperor's battle meditation was far more effective than anything he could have done as a starfighter pilot.
If he couldn't win the day doing what he was doing, he certainly couldn't have won the day in the cockpit of a TIE fighter.


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

[User]
Is there any way to accurately test/verify the age of a living bonsai tree?

I have heard of carbon dating on dead things, but never anything about living things. In bonsai i hear claims all the time that trees are "X" years old, and want to know. Is there any way to verify those claims scientifically?

[Assistant]
Yes. You have to drill through it/kill it/sample it.

But anything substantial enough to test will be a pretty big chunk out of that tiny tree.

The closest you can really get is estimating it based on price and what you know about the person.


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

[User]
In quantum entanglement, how do we know that the entangled particle pair do in fact "interact" over a distance, and wasn't just aligned when they first interacted?

I don't know anything about this really, except for what I've learned from watching clips on youtube and reading wikipedia. But I'm sort of stuck with this question, and can't find an answer. It says everywhere that the attribute of the second particle measured is always opposite to the first one, almost no matter how close together in time the measurements are made, and how far apart they are in distance.

Sounds to me like they were aligned oppositely the whole time, after interacting with each other the first time. How do we prove this is not the case?

[Assistant]
This is addressed by a result known as Bell's theorem.

In short, Bell's theorem proves the following. Suppose you build a theory in which particles' observable properties or attributes really do have definite values at all times (call this assumption R, for "realism"), and that nothing that takes place at one region of space can instantaneously affect the results of a measurement at some distant region of space (call this assumption L, for "locality").

Bell showed that, assuming these two results, the degree of correlation between the outcomes of two distant measurements of systems whose states were prepared in the same place is bounded by a certain number.  So if your suspicion is true, and one can say the spins were aligned oppositely the whole time (that is if R is a good assumption), and assumption L holds, then when we actually carry out this experiment we should see correlations that do not exceed this certain bound.

However, a quantum-mechanical calculation of the results of this experiment predict a degree of correlation that exceeds that for the above case, when R and L hold. So if we do the experiment, and find that the correlation exceeds Bell's bound, then one of the assumptions (R,L) must be false, favouring the view of quantum mechanics, where things just don't have definite properties before measurement.

Finally, many such measurements have been carried out, and it is found that Bell's bound is exceeded, favouring the standard quantum mechanical view. However, two things should be noted:

1) many of these experiments have minor loopholes, and so don't technically show completely that the assumptions (R,L) taken together fail

2) even if the violation of Bell's bound is experimentally shown without any loopholes, we may still drop ONE of the assumptions (R,L) and have a theory consistent with quantum mechanics. For example, we can drop the locality assumption, L, and build a theory that satisfies realism R, which means that things do really have objective attributes before measurement, and still agree with the predictions of quantum mechanics. Such theories exist, the Bohm-de Broglie "causal interpretation" of quantum mechanics being one such notable example. In this interpretation of quantum mechanics, causal influences really do travel instantaneously. At this point, it is a matter of taste which interpretation one chooses.


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

[User] [Korra] Why.. Why didn't Tarloc simply murder the avatar gang? He blood bends people. Just give everyone an anurism. Seriously. Why didn't he?

[Assistant]
That level of fine control is often beyond benders. Bloodbending tends to be a broad-stroke power; it's not smooth or specific or natural. They're only pushing and pulling mass-quantities of blood in general directions.

Maybe the technique will be possible someday, but not yet. Thousands of years of bending culture and nobody until Toph Bei Fong realized that metal bending was possible.


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

[User] [Aliens] Is there any animal I could implant using a Facehugger (eg: Koala or Penguin) that would result in a Xenomorph passive or tame enough to become an exotic pet?

[Assistant]
No.  The alien adopts some physical traits from the host oranism, but its own hyper-predatory drive to kill and reproduce isn't really effected.  An alien hatched from Mother Theresa would be just as deadly as one hatched from Jeffery Dahmer.

Edit: fuck, alright, replace Theresa with Ghandi if you like.  Or Mr. Rogers.


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

[User] ELI5- How do Sea Monkeys come to life from a packet?

[Assistant] Sea monkeys are actually brine shrimp. The eggs they lay can dry out and remain viable for years. The stuff you pour into the water are the eggs and when exposed to salt water the eggs hatch and the shrimp start growing.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some things burn while other things melt?

[Assistant]
Melting is a state change in the absence of chemical reaction. In brief, heat up a solid enough and it will become a liquid, and heat it up more and it will become a gas. However, this means that the material isn't exposed to anything else that can cause a chemical reaction.

That "anything else" is, most of the time, oxygen. Atmospheric oxygen is very volatile and molecules of it can be broken down for more energy. You know how you'll often see oxygen written as O2? That's because the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms bonded together, and it's because of this bond that it can break apart, release energy, and then the atoms combine with other nearby materials to make new materials. That's the chemical reaction. So, if you heat up the material, and it's the sort of thing that oxygen can bind to, then you get a chain reaction where the oxygen molecule breaks apart, binds to the heated material, releases that energy in the form of more heat, so more oxygen breaks apart and binds, and so on, which is how things burn.

When you're heating ice, it's never hot enough to get the oxygen to do its thing and the ice just melts. When you're heating iron, the oxygen can't really bind all that well to the iron in that case, and the iron melts. You might see some burning of material on or around the iron as it melts, but not the iron itself. When you're heating wood, the oxygen can bind to the wood, breaking down the cellulose and other components of wood and make ash, releasing its extra energy in the process, and the wood burns. This is also why things don't normally burn underwater, too; there isn't enough free oxygen to keep a chain reaction going. However, as you can tell by boiling food, those chemical reactions can still occur with its own materials, transforming raw food into cooked food.

Incidentally, this property of oxygen is why breathing is important, too. We use this break-apart-for-energy technique to stay alive, in a whole bunch of other, different chemical reactions.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do India and China have such massive populations? How did that happen?

[Assistant]
The Ganges and Yangtze rivers are very fertile (and destructive) due to periodic flooding off the Himalayas.

Even today Egypt has a higher population than Germany and the Nile river only floods a bit except at the very end.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do rockets look like they're going so slow?

The speed needed to beat gravity is so fast but when you watch a rocket launch the rockets look like they're going so slow.

[Assistant]
an object going 100 mph, 20 feet away crosses your entire  field of vision in a few fractions of a second.   this makes you think "wow, that was fast".

a rocket, going 11,200 km/h ..  (escape velocity), several dozen miles away, doesn't appear to be moving that quickly, because it's moving a much much smaller fraction of your field of view.

it only appears to be going slowly because you can only watch it launch from miles away.   if you were stood next to it, you'd be thinking "wow, that's fast".   (presumably right before you though "wow, that's noisey" and "why am i on fire")


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

[User]
Is procreation a violation of Kant's categorical imperative, since parents are treating their children as a means to an ends?

I understand this lies on the admittedly loaded presumption that parents only have children for their own sake and hopes of fulfilment. But this egoist claim would seem to be a more plausible explanation for our drive to procreate than another such intuition which would assert that we only have kids for the sake of kids.

[Assistant]
This might help:

> And hence, in the practical relation, it is quite a correct and even a necessary idea to regard the act of generation as a process by which a person is brought without his consent into the world and placed in it by the responsible free will of others. This act, therefore, attaches an obligation to the parents to make their children- as far as their power goes- contented with the condition thus acquired. Hence parents cannot regard their child as, in a manner, a thing of their own making; for a being endowed with freedom cannot be so regarded. Nor, consequently, have they a right to destroy it as if it were their own property, or even to leave it to chance; because they have brought a being into the world who becomes in fact a citizen of the world, and they have placed that being in a state which they cannot be left to treat with indifference, even according to the natural conceptions of right.

*The Science of Right* (1790)


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

[User]
ELI5: Whats is the difference between a sales tax and VAT (value added tax)

ELI5: A politician in the UK has just said that he wants to remove the VAT system and replace with a new sales tax. What is the difference between the two and what would be the benefit of scrapping VAT for a sales tax?

[Assistant]
VAT is paid at each stage of production by the people "adding value" to the product.  So you start with a raw material, you make it into something (say a flat sheet of metal), you charge VAT on your part of the job.  The next company who takes \*that\* and turns it into, say, a metal pole does the same for the work \*they\* did to it.

At each stage, you pay VAT on the product you bought, and charge VAT on the product you sold so the only tax you're actually paying is on what \*value\* you added to the product.

A sales tax is, quite literally, just an end-tax on the final product.

This means that sales taxes are paid by the consumer, and the "other" tax along the way is not collected but is "paid" because of the higher prices charged by each person along the way because they can, and limited only by what the consumer spends.

VAT is difficult and expensive to administer and audit, sales tax is easier.  VAT taxes everyone involved with a product along the chain.  Sales tax charges the final customer (which affects demand, no doubt, but that's about it).  VAT is charged on imported goods, etc. too so you can't just make things cheaply in Europe and out-compete local businesses while only paying tax once in the end country, sales tax isn't (though there may be other import duties).

Basically, sales tax is a lazy tax that misses the big picture of employment in the country you're in, local industry, complete taxation of every stage in the process, etc.  VAT is more complex but helps to even the tax burden among all producers along the chain and encourages you to not just produce things cheaply abroad and claim that you added a ton of value to a particular good for performing a simple action (if you get given cheap materials, then do little to them, but charge a fortune to the next guy up the chain for your end result, you have a \*ton\* of VAT collected, almost none given out, and the difference has to go back to the taxman - basically the more you pretend what value you added, the more VAT you have to pay).

Gove is an idiot trying to distract from political finger-pointing in his direction by gaining the support of "big business" who don't want to have to pay or administer VAT, and gain support from "the little man" who just sees a "20%" figure on everything he buys.  Gove knows perfectly well that those people don't care/realise that a sales tax of even a lesser percentage means that the country ends up taking less tax and encourages losing jobs, shipping manufacturing abroad, and cutting corners, in an unregulated environment which favours profiteering and inflating the prices of products.

It's literally a distraction technique because the news for the last two days has been about him doing cocaine.


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

[User]
How does electricity know the path of least resistance before it gets to its destination?

I have a very basic knowledge of electricity, but I'm puzzled by how and why a current takes the path of least resistance. Why does lightning differentiate between striking a metal tower versus the ground 20 feet away?

[Assistant]
Others have addressed your second question (about lightning). Let me address your first question: electrical flow in a conductor.

> a current takes the path of least resistance

That's an over-simplification that us electrical engineers make, and state as fact, when that's not actually what happens.

Current flows through all conductive paths between two points with a voltage differential, in varying amounts. The question is not "where does the current flow?" but "how much current flows in each path"?

Once you ask the right question, then the answer becomes clear: a lot of current flows more easily along the path of least resistance, a bit less in the adjacent path, and so forth, until you get to the extreme edges, where, yes, some current does flow, but not enough for us to consider in our analysis.

For an analogy, think of the classic image of metal filings between the two poles of a magnet; they are not lined up in a thin line between the poles ("the path of least reluctance"), but instead are spread out in a ellipsoidal area between and even around the poles.

For another analogy, think of a stream. It's not that all the water flows in the top and middle of the stream. Yes, more water flows there, but water flows in the entire cross section of the stream, just less so along the edges, because of higher resistance there.

You don't ask "how does a water molecule know where the flow is easiest?". The water molecule doesn't "decide" where to flow. It just flows slower or faster based on the resistance to the flow it happens to encounter where it happens to have ended up.

By the way, the path of highest current flow is not necessarily the one of least resistance: with AC, most current flows in the path of least impedance, which may have more resistance, but less inductance.

Search also for "skin effect".


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

[User]
Why didn't all the dead trees burn during the Carboniferous?

What I think I know:

* There was extra high oxygen, increasing as the trees absorbed CO2 and didn't burn
* Microbes and insects hadn't learned to eat lignin, so trees didn't decompose.
* Some trees burned and turned into charcoal in Pennsylvania.

Obviously dead trees didn't just stack up in piles like cordwood for 50 million years. How long would you have to go without a fire before trees could be fully weathered away or buried in swamp or dirt? Is that plausible, when only fifty years of fire prevention in the US has led to huge fires? Why didn't all the trees burn and coral take over instead?

[Assistant]
Neil DeGrasse Tyson touches on this in the remake of Cosmos from last year - but the gist is:

* trees in the carboniferous period made extensive use of lignin, and had bark to wood ratios of between 8 to 1 and 20 to 1 (vs modern trees, with ratios of below 1 to 4 on average)
* the bark was between 38% and 58% lignin, which is insoluble and was at the time indigestible by bacteria or other organisms
* since the carboniferous period experienced lower sea levels than the previous Devonian period, lowland swamps and wetlands became more prevalent which resulted in many of these trees being preserved in the muddy swamps and bogs for fossilization
* due to higher O2 levels in the atmosphere (about 35% vs 21% today), many paleontologists agree that small wildfires would have been more common - but a single sparked fire wouldn't mean the destruction of the earth's entire supply of trees. The reason that wildfires burn so large and out of control today is actually in part due to human fire prevention - healthy forests rely on detritus on the forest floor burning away periodically, to make room for new plant life or even to trigger certain seeds to germinate. Because of human fire prevention, forests stack up much more debris on the forest floor than normal, and so when a fire is eventually sparked, it burns much more out of control than would have happened naturally.
* it's also important to note that coal isn't the result of burnt trees, it's the result of dead plant matter transformed into peat, lignite, and coal under pressure and over millions of years. The reason we have coal is precisely because a lot of trees died and were preserved rather than having been burned or broken down by fungi and bacteria.
* there is also evidence to suggest that large swathes of coal deposits from carboniferous period trees were ignited by and contributed to the extinction event known as the Great Dying, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which ultimately was responsible for killing off about 96% of all species on earth at the time.

TL;DR: there were wildfires that would have destroyed some plant life, as well as larger events like the P-Tr extinction event that destroyed even more plant life, but ultimately coal deposits from carboniferous plant life were large enough and widespread enough throughout North America and Europe that many deposits lasted long enough to be discovered by humans and used for fuel.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] Yesterday I found a Batarang on the ground on my way to work. How much does one of these things go for?

I figure there's got to be some collectors or something. Is it worth selling on ebay? Times are tough here in Gotham with bourgeoisie fat cats like Bruce Wayne getting all up in everyone's business. With Batman being so cool and such an inspiration, I almost feel bad wanting to sell it. But I need the cash.

[Assistant]
Good luck selling it anywhere besides the black market if you want a good price. Everything left behind by Batman is considered evidence in the case against him since he's a vigilante. Anything that's found is seized by the Gotham City Police Department.

I just wonder how large the evidence locker for Batman alone is.


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

[User]
Why is the unemployment rate in European countries, such as UK and Germany, still so low?

It currently stands at 3.9% for UK and 3.5% for Germany which seems very low considering the COVID-19 impacts.

[Assistant]
Germany has a program called "Kurzarbeit" (short work). The way this works is that the employee receives reduced hours and the State pays 60% of the lost wages. So an employee put on 50% time would receive 80% of their typical wage.

This program gives a number of benefits.

* Germany doesn't have at-will employment. Firing workers is more difficult than in the US. Alternatively, getting one's company to be part of the Kurzarbeit program is quite easy.
* There's no benefit to the company to lay off an employee; the company can just put them at 0 time, and the State will pay them 60% of the wage. Then, when the company is able to rev up, they can ease that person back up to 100%.
* There's no downside to the employee. The employee remains in all the normal programs (healthcare, paying into pension, etc.) while still drawing a paycheck. In fact, many employees loved working a fraction of the time while receiving most of their monthly paycheck.

Germany also had a larger per capita bailout program than the US did.


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

[User]
ELI5: Can you get to a point where it's not possible to get better at a skill? As in genetic cap or something?

I heard people say things like "if you aren't getting better, you reached your skill level" I really don't find this makes sense, can someone explain it to me?

[Assistant]
your body (and also your brain) is only capable of some things. Imagine you start lifting weights. You train, go to the gym, and get better at it as your muscles build up. You take adequate trainings and change your diet to help the process. At some point, you will reach a limit. Your muscles can't grow eternally and your skeleton isn't made from titanium so even if your muscles can keep up, your bone structure probably can't.

With your brain it is similar. You are limited by what is possible, and what is given to you. You can't really change how intelligent you are, how fast you learn and how much time you need to spend WITHOUT studying to give your brain time to adequately process the information. You are limited by hours in a day that you can actually use to study, and you are limited by your capabilities. At some point, you might have to study 500 hours to get a 0.1 point increase at a test (hypothetical example).


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

[User]
ELI5: Can life we haven't yet found, perhaps extraterrestrial, be made up of something other than DNA and cells?

Or does life in any form require DNA? Or is it not possible to know yet?

[Assistant]
Life as we know it requires several things, including the ability to use energy, replicate, grow, etc.

DNA (and RNA) are the only information encoding molecules known to us, but some proteins can perform self replication directly without needing DNA/RNA and hypothetical cell *ancestors* could have existed long before DNA (replicating lipid bubbles are one such theory). Complex life will likely need something to act as information storage and replication but it doesn't have to be DNA. RNA itself is interestign because given sufficient peptides RNA can replicate all by itself without all the extra baggage of a "cell"

Non-DNA based life is only theoretical at this point, but there is no reason all of the requirements for life "as we know it" could not be met with some sort of crystaline, sulphorous, ammonia, or who knows what else.


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

[User]
[Halloween]What does Michael Myers get out of killing, if anything?

Michael Myers doesn't seem to be a revenge killer, the way that fellow silent masked murderer Jason Voorhees is, but Michael, due to never being seen without his mask, doesn't seem derive pleasure from it the way Freddy Krueger or Chucky do. Michael doesn't laugh at their pain or fear, he makes his kills mostly relatively quick, and as mentioned above, he never seems to smile at his handiwork, or may be does. So what exactly does Michael get from his slaughter fests?

[Assistant]
Depends on which timeline you're looking at. In most hes simply a machine without a soul. He gets from point A to point B and kills anything and anybody that gets in his way. There's no malice or joy in it. Just trying to get home and killing anyone that keeps him from getting there.

In another hes a being possessed by evil to kill as many as possible. He doesn't enjoy it because he's an instrument for another evil thing.

And in one hes just a sociopath. He doesn't feel anything for anyone and kills simply to be left alone and left to do whatever it is he feels like doing.


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

[User] ELI5: How are Hiroshima and Nagasaki habitable?

[Assistant]
The bombs were detonated half a kilometer high up in the air to maximize the shockwave and blast patterns. So most of the "fallout" would have blown away from the blast site.

Second, the bombs were small. This isn't like a nuclear core meltdown where there's tons of primary and secondary radioactive dust and material. This was just a few kilograms of fissionable material that vaporized, and since it occurred over such a wide area the radiation hazard declined fairly rapidly.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do people scream when theyre frightened?

Im genuinely curious about this because it seems like every time I see footage from a disaster, shooting, etc. All you can hear is screaming when, in all honesty, it would be disadvantageous to do so (specifically in regards to aforementioned shootings) since that would draw more attention to ones self.

[Assistant] It's an alarm system. It ensures everyone is paying attention, and any and all friendlies or neutrals can hear and either move to help or secure themselves. It's not a rational reaction, it's an instinctual one.


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

[User]
[MHA] Why is All For One so damaged in the present day?

All Might said there were quirks that halt aging, and thanks to Recovery Girl we know healing factor quirks exist. So why didn't All for One just steal a healing factor and an agelessness quirk?

[Assistant]
Most healing quirks like Recovery Girls don't actually fix the wounds. They just rapidly increase the rate at which the body heals, which is why Deku can't keep breaking his arms. They don't get reset to perfect, they just are naturally healing at a sped up rate. With the damage to both All Might and AfO after that fight, it's frankly a miracle either of them are still alive, let alone walking around. All Might lost most of his digestive tract for gods sake. AfO was durable enough to survive, but with severe injuries. Over time he healed up naturally, but the damage was so extensive he wouldn't ever be the same without a regeneration quirk. However he didn't discover the regeneration quirk used in the USJ Nomu until he was mostly healed, so regeneration would only restore him at best to the point he was when he first acquired the quirk. They touch on this a bit when first introducing AfO in the anime and manga.

The short answer is such a quirk wasn't found until it's use was inconsequential for his major injuries. The nature of the other quirks in his toolbox, especially the agelessness quirk, can only be guessed at for now, as no one but him know what they do at this point.


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

[User] [Torchwood] Where was the Doctor during the events of Miracle Day? What happened to his companions (specifically the Ponds and Sarah Jane's gang)?

[Assistant] Perhaps because the event was so Capt Jack centered, intervention would result in the Doctor encountering Capt Jack, something the TARDIS hates as he is an impossible thing (and maybe by extension all humans impossible things, due to the events of the day).  If we believe that the TARDIS chooses where the doctor needs to be, it simply sorta steers him away from this event.


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

[User]
CMV: Getting a tax refund is not a good thing and people should file their taxes differently if they are receiving gigantic returns

In my opinion, getting a tax refund just means you gave the government an interest free loan. People are always saying "Oh I got $4k in taxes how great is that" but in actuality you could have had an extra $75 each paycheck if you are paid weekly, thats approx $300 a month lost to overpaying the government.

Even if you didn;t need an additional $300 a month, you could have invested that money in literally any other way and you would get more return on it, resulting in more overall money.

I file my taxes in a way that I owe about $100-$200 this way Im the one getting the loan.  Am I the crazy one here?

[Assistant]
The kind of financially illiterate people that do this instead of some kind of actual savings account face considerable *risks* using your approach, though...

Because messing incorrectly with your W-4 form is one of them more common ways people get hit with audits and fines... because it's one of the more common forms of *tax fraud* as well.

So yeah, ideally... but if you're just going to put it in savings anyway, or invest it *safely*, it's not really much of a difference, because rates of return are historically poor the last couple of decades (and not looking to head higher soon).

So as a way to "save up for a night on the town" or something, it's really not that bad a choice. Perfect? No, but easy and safe.


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

[User] Why does certain metal such as metal shelves and the metal lip on microwavable soup cans not cause sparks when microwaved?

[Assistant]
Metals in a microwave only spark when they are pointy. That's because the metal is acting like an antenna, the microwaves inducing an electrical potential in the metal. If the metal has a pointy edge, that electric potential can exceed the dialectric breakdown threshold for air, resulting in sparks (non-pointy objects spread the charge around, which means the voltage at any point is too low to cause arcing.)

Smooth metallic objects are not at risk of this arcing. Forks, in particular, have a tendency to spark, while spoons generally will not. Note that in any case you shouldn't stick metal objects of any kind in unless they are known to be microwave safe, but not all metal objects are hazardous.


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

[User] Eli5: why do things in space orbit other things in horizontal planes? Why is everything in our solar system essentially in a flat plane?

[Assistant] As a solar system comes together from gas and dust, it forms a disc shape called an *accretion disc*. Anything going too slow will "fall" into the star, anything going too fast will spin away. Gravity causes the diffuse stuff to start forming into a spiral and it's the residual spinning of that disc shape of dust and gas that led to turning orbits. When things form into solid planets, they can later be knocked around or nudged into other angles.


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

[User] [Star Trek 2009] Was the canyon that young James Kirk crashes the sports car into a quarry or part of the scar from when the Xindi attacked Earth?

[Assistant] It was a quarry. Riverside Quarry outside of the city of Riverside, Iowa, to be specific. The scar from the Xindi attack is a few hundred kilometers to the south east, in Florida and stretching over 4000km down to Venezuela.


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

[User] What happens to a virus if the host that it lives in dies? Does it decompose with the body?

[Assistant]
Most viruses don't last long after the death of the host - minutes to hours scale. They require living cells to sustain themselves and with the death of the host and decomposition it's similar to their survival time on any other inanimate object.

A few animal viruses can persist for a very long time in rendered products like sausage - like African swine fever and classical swine fever - it's just one reason you're asked if you have any animal products when crossing international borders.


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

[User]
Why didn't the Vikings unleash apocalyptic plagues in the new world centuries before Columbus?

So it's pretty generally accepted that the arrival of Columbus and subsequent European expeditions at the Caribbean fringes of North America in the late 15th and early 16th centuries brought smallpox and other diseases for which the natives of the new world were woefully unprepared. From that touchpoint, a shock wave of epidemics spread throughout the continent, devastating native populations, with the European settlers moving in behind it and taking over the land.

It's also becoming more widely accepted that the Norse made contact with the fringes of North America starting around the 10th century and continuing for quite some time, including at least short-term settlements if not permanent ones. They clearly had contact with the natives as well.

So why the Spaniards' germs and not the Norse ones?

[Assistant]
To understand this you need to understand the nature of epidemic diseases and the Viking voyages of exploration (as opposed to the later ones of Columbus).

Epidemic diseases in general do not persist well in small isolated populations.  They tend to spread rapidly, making everyone immune or dead.

The Vikings did not sail directly from Norway to North America.  Their ships probably weren't up to the task of making the crossing all at once, at least not reliably. Instead, they colonized Iceland, and a small group colonized Greenland, and a subgroup of that group went to North America.  The population living on Iceland was fairly small, and the number living on Greenland was very small.  As a result, it would have been quite difficult for a disease to make it all the way across.  Some ship would have had to carry the disease to Iceland, where it would have had to persist in the population long enough for someone infected to get around to sailing to Greenland (and not die on the way), where it would have had to persist in that population long enough for someone to sail over to North America, where some unlucky native would have had to catch it and spread it from his tribe off of Newfoundland and out into the rest of the continent.   That's a lot of low probability events, especially since ships did not pass all that frequently to Greenland or even at times Iceland.  Contrast this with Columbus et. al.  leaving from populated, disease-ridden cities in Europe and sailing right over to the Americas.  All you need in that case is a sick sailor to make the passing.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What's profanity like in the Empire?

So, where does Nerf-herder lie on the sliding scale of profanity?

What if I really want to insult someone, what do I call them in basic?

[Assistant]
Nerfherder is a real profession. It's used as an insult by Alderaan high society. It's like calling someone a "peon" or "useless."

The word "kriff" would be analogous to the English curse "fuck." So, motherkriffer would work.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that after an argument with your partner is settled, a lot of time, both partners feel emotionally closer and sexually more attracted to each other?

[Assistant]
Because she is sexy when she is mad.

If the argument is of an intensely personal matter, the ability to openly communicate feelings you normally wouldn't is the definition of intimacy. Most people aren't ready to 'go there' until it has gotten so stressed that you end up in an argument and you absolutely have to 'get there'.


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

[User] What happens if we mix vaccines of two different diseases and inject It in our body? Are we going to develop antibodies of the two diseases?

[Assistant]
Yes. The MMR vaccine and DTaP vaccine each induce antibody production against three different agents. MMR for measles, mumps, and rubella. DTaP for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.

To be technically precise, the antibodies induced by the tetanus portion of DTaP works against the toxin, not the causative organism. The rest are effective against the organisms themselves.


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

[User]
[MCU] Could Wakandan technology have healed Doctor Strange's hands?

Shuri had no issues healing Everett Ross from what would have likely been permanent paralysis. If the events of Black Panther took place before Strange's accident and Wakanda was known to posses such tech, would he have become a sorcerer in the first place?

The same goes for Extremis. I'm sure the government confiscated all the remaining samples after the events of Iron Man 3, but could its regenerative properties have healed him as well?

[Assistant]
If we take Strange's word as truth and not just arrogance or desperation, *he* could have healed his own hand using the tools at his disposal as an American surgeon. Or rather, a surgeon with his level of skill. And wakandan medicine is much more advanced than what he had to work with.

Granted, he's not exactly an unbiased source. But it seems likely compared to some of the other feats we've seen from Wakandan medical tech.


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

[User]
[Ed Edd n Eddy] What is the value of a quarter?

Throughout the series I notice that the kids treat 25 cents like it's a lot of money, like they literally will tear apart an entire sidewalk in order to get a single quarter, or the kids will hound the Eds in order to get their quarters back as if the quarter is their soul. Now the time period of Ed Edd n Eddy is very ambiguous, like there is tv, but no video games, and the phones are all old fashioned, also the Quarters can buy huge Jawbreakers the size of Basketballs. This leads to my question, what is the value of a Quarter in Ed Edd n Eddy?

[Assistant] About 25 cents. It's implied the show is set in the 70s or 80s based of the creator's own childhood and various references seen in the show. 25 cents may not seem like a lot now but back then 25 cents was enough to get a child sized amount of candy.


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

[User]
[Stargate] So, in SG-1, in season 1 the Jaffa armor seems to be pretty tough. Six jaffa or so are able to abduct a soldier and shrug off rounds. In every other season, they are extremely weak. Why?

The way I've internalized it is basically 1 or 2 things, or both.

1. The armored Jaffa in the beginning of the first season are Serpent Guard, so they'd probably have tougher armor,. All his other plebs can die en masse for all he cares, but he needs pretty strong armor on the people who actually watch him, and
2. The P-90, which isn't used in that scene but is the main weapon used by SG-1 later, was specifically designed as an armor-piercing PDW for non-combat troops during the Cold War. It was one of many created so that, if a war ever kicked off, troops that do things like logistics or other things far from the front lines would be able to defend themselves against Soviet paratroopers, who would likely wear body armor and use light vehicles. Ergp, we could assume that impacted it.

Plus, every other weapon could just be using armor-piercing rounds, whereas the troops in the first scene were in the middle of a mostly unused facility in the middle of the U.S. - They probably weren't issued armor-piercing rounds, and .223/5.56 is notably a small round anyway.

[Assistant]
The Jaffa used in season 1 were apophis' best troops. He was absolutely not taking any chances with the world that no one knew about that suddenly showed up thousands of years after vanishing and killed the most powerful system lord with a small team of soldiers. His own forces would have needed a massive army and likely would have failed accomplishing a similar feat.

The soldiers guarding the decommissioned stargate facility were packing weaker rifles and ammunition that are fine for guard duty but worthless against armored targets. In later episodes and seasons they switched to more powerful rounds and specialty ammo meant to punch through armored targets at close range as a counter to Jaffa tactics.

Later Jaffa encountered are weakened by years of civil wars and goauld overconfidence. They're still deadly threats but rarely wear full armor outside of ceremonial positions. Many of these Jaffa have armor and tactics focused on fighting other Jaffa and energy based weapons. The projectile weapons of earth are able to break through the armor at weak points and more accurately hit the unarmored body parts that staff weapons and zats are unable to accurately hit.

And finally there's the possibility that apophis allowed his Jaffa to use personal shields for their early missions. He felt the potential risk of earth was worth giving access to technology normally reserved for goauld exclusively. He later revokes this access to prevent traitor jaffa or the sg soldiers from acquiring the technology for themselves. Given the extremely territorial and secretive nature of the Goauld his shield technology wasn't known to other system lords until later after his deaths and defeats and acquired by rival lords unable to mass produce the devices for their jaffa.


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

[User]
Why do people continue to hold false beliefs even when presented with overwhelming evidence of the contrary?

For example, why do people continue believing that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the government? Or why do some people believe in conspiracy theories regarding a one world totalitarian government controlled by a small group of people (e.g. illuminati, elders of zion, jesuits)?

[Assistant]
Others have mentioned cognitive biases that contribute to this, but essentially we dont necessarily hold our beliefs because we acquired them through rational consideration. Many beliefs are tied up with a certain worldview (research shows that if someone believes any given conspiracy theory, they're more likely to believe any other one--the content almost doesn't matter; look up work by Brotherton or Lewandowsky). Beliefs are also emotional and cultural--they allow us to self-identify as part of a group, or as a certain kind of person. Challenging these kinds of beliefs with evidence doesn't do anything except threaten how a person sees themselves.  Festinger wrote about this as cognitive dissonance, where when experience conflicts with an important belief we will discount the evidence to protect ourselves. He famously observed this amongst members of a doomsday cult--after their doomsday had passed uneventfully. He wrote about that in When Prophecy Fails.

Basically, evidence doesn't change beliefs that aren't held because of evidence.


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

[User] [The Shawshank Redemption]At the time the film is set cons often used cigarets as currency and consequently were very good at hiding them. That being the case isn't having them work with tar yards away from disinterested guards, kind of really dangerous?

[Assistant] Guards are aware that smokes are the prison's form of currency. They will even used smokes to pay a prisoner to do... less scrupulous activities. You get an example of this when a guard in Phoenix pays a prisoner to exact revenge on Lloyd Heinreid in The Stand (as it's a Stephen King book as well, the same rules most likely apply)


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

[User] ELI5: If the smell from something can reach your nose, does that mean that you are being exposed to bacteria from that thing?

[Assistant]
Not necessarily, and in fact, not usually.

Our noses are sensitive and only a small number of airborne molecules  can give it enough information to "smell" something. We can smell forest fires from miles away as an example.

But light molecules like that are very very easy to carry around in the air. Bacteria are composed of billions of those molecules jammed into an organism, and they aren't. And most of them are not designed to be removed from a surface and blown around anyway - they transmit around more by touch or by being carried around on dust or in raindrops or sneeze particles or on the feet of flies or stuff like that.

So the odds that you're breathing bacteria from that dead skunk on the side of the road that you've just driven by are very slim unless you go right up to it and breathe in a big nostril-ful.  (You could try it if you wanted.)


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

[User] ELI5: Why did the Icelandic PM want to dissolve parliament?

[Assistant]
Dissolving Parliament would mean that there is no Parliament to hold a vote of no confidence in the PM; it would also mean snap elections to elect a new Parliament, and give the PM an opportunity to continue to govern if his party managed to win them.

As it is, the Icelandic President refused the request and the PM walked before he was pushed.


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

[User]
After the COVID vaccine is out will we still need to social distance and wear masks?

Oxford said that by the end of 2020 there will be millions of doses of the vaccine available to the public. With all of those doses out and millions more coming in the following months, when will all of the restrictions be lifted and we can return to normal life?

Edit: Wow, I was not expecting this to blow up like it did. Thank you mysterious redditor for the gold!

[Assistant] Yes. It will take a long time for the vaccine to deploy, especially to countries that have poorer economies and inadequate healthcare systems.  In addition, if travel is less restricted, community transmission will continue to be a risk. Nobody really knows when the right time to open up will be.


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

[User] How does one rogue hair grow abnormally longer than all of the others?

[Assistant]
It's similar to moles growing "larger and faster" than the rest of the skin.
It's believed to be that the hair stem cells (cells at the base of your follicle that secrete keratin) in these follicles are just over active somehow. They're probably not cancer precursors, but do behave weirdly (like different color, and fast growth).


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

[User] How does a boomerang work?

[Assistant] Aerodynamics!  A boomerang is basically two wings joined together at their root at an angle, facing opposite directions.  When it is thrown, it rotates around its center of gravity which is offset from its center of lift, this causes it to bank in one direction.  Just like in a plane, if you bank in one direction long enough, you make a complete 180, and that's how boomerangs come back to you.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do beer companies advertise so much? Is it really necessary for them to spend that much on commercials? I could never see another beer commercial for the rest of my life, I'm still going to remember to buy beer.

[Assistant] The beer companies want you to buy their brand of beer specifically, not just whatever beer strikes your fancy that day. Maybe you have a brand and always buy the same, but even that status has to be maintained. If you prefer Bud Light and have drunk it for years and have no intent of changing, but they stopped advertising while Coors Light did not, you might eventually try some Coors just because their commercials were so funny/cool/sexy/neat.


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

[User] [Hellraiser-Ghostbusters] If the Ghostbusters were called to the home of someone who unknowingly solved an arcane puzzle box and is now being pursued by the Cenobites, would Dr. Venkman, Egon, Ray, and Winston be able to use their proton packs to trap Pinhead and his friends?

[Assistant]
Cenobites are not ghosts, they're demons or something of that nature.  They are supernatural entities from another plane of existence, true, but they appear to have corporeal bodies, not ectoplasm.  There's no guarantee the proton packs would work the same way.  They might still be useful as a distraction, but considering the whole weird sadomasochistic vibe of the cenobites, perhaps not the same kind of distraction the Ghostbusters are used to (with the possible exception of that freaky horndog Venkman).

The proton packs didn't really work on Gozer either, at least not in the traditional way, that was just a lucky coincidence that deliberate misuse of unlicensed nuclear accelerators can cause catastrophic effects for whatever universe it happens in, and Gozer happened to be operating from another universe with a convenient open portal...

All that said, the Ghostbusters have a **LOT** of paranormal reference material, and they're smart and willing to try very strange things if the evidence supports them.  So even if their standard countermeasures don't work against Cenobites, there's a good chance they could come up with something effective.  The fact that the Cenobites are physically present in a way that ghosts are not might even make things easier.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Sheev actually speciesist, or was that just a great way to gain power through sowing fear?

I know the separatists were also industrial/economic giants, was  speciesism the easiest way to dismantle them?

[Assistant]
More than anything, Palpatine was pragmatic and opportunist. He wouldn't reject somebody useful to him just because they weren't human. His Sith master was non-human (Legends?), as was his first Sith apprentice, his closest advisors in the Senate, and later one of his most trusted admirals.

Palpatine let the Empire become xenophobic because he thought it was useful to his goals, nothing more.


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

[User]
ELI5: what is a director/maestro doing with his hands?

Everybody has his sheet of music, so what is he doing?

[Assistant]
In the most basic sense... you have a group of 40 people that all need to start playing their instruments at the same second. Without the director, they'd basically never know when to start, or the start of the song would ve extremely choppy as people are trying to catch up or figure out when to start. Unless someone yelled out "ok start" and then began playing. The director is that role.

And then, the director keeps tempo and signals coming changes in music. Again, if he wasn't there, you wouldn't know how fast or slow to play. You'd need to just hope that someone is staying on beat and that you can follow them. The director centralizes that. He is leading. Not some random person who should be focused on playing their music.


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

[User]
[MCU] Are there two infinity gauntlets, and if so, why? Aren't there only six stones?

Dumb question time!  I read a glimpse of something which suggests that the gauntlet in Thanos's possession is not the same one as the gauntlet seen in Odin's vault.  If that is so, why would there be two, when ostensibly there are only enough gems to fill one?

[Assistant]
Apparently Thanos has an empty left, while the one in Odin's treasure room is an empty right.

Presumably there's something (what?) about the infinity gems that makes a gauntlet the best way to contain/combine them? I've never heard anything to that effect, but the most direct explanation is that other powerful beings have had the Infinity Gauntlet plan over the millennia, and Odin stopped one of the earlier attempts. (Or even *made* one of the earlier attempts!)

We do see how Ronan putting the stone in a weapon was dangerous because that weapon could still be destroyed, so... you could say that lines up with the need to keep the stones close by wearing them as opposed to holding them?


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

[User]
[Marvel] Does Galactus only ever have one herald at any given point?

My previous understanding was that Galactus had several heralds at the same time to seek out planets to consume, but upon further reading it seems as if theres only one true herald at a time.  Even if individuals retain their cosmic powers they are not true servants nor are they considered a herald of Galactus.

Is this right or am I misinterpreting it?  To me, it would made more sense if he had multiple heralds searching the universe simultaneously rather than just one.

[Assistant]
He only has one at a time.

Assuming the herald is doing a good job, a single planet every Earth week or so is enough to keep Galactus nourished and a top-tier cosmic entity.

The reason why there are so many former heralds running around is that most of them usually end up regretting their activity or not being competent enough, and Galactus is a cool enough guy to let them keep their powers after they have been discharged.


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

[User] ELI5: why do things hurt more when the temperature is low (e.g., getting hit in the face with a ball)?

[Assistant] You have little things in your dermis (second layer of your skin) called "thermoreceptors", which is a mechanism that is specialized in detecting temperature.  You have a much greater density of cold receptors than hot ones.  A cold environment causes less blood flow to your skin for obvious reasons, and causes these thermoreceptors to become more sensitive.  Past a certain threshold, this is interpreted as pain.  When you smack your hand, or in your case hit in the face, when it's cold outside, your hand was already sensitive to the temperature, and you just added on the sensory shock of hurting it.  Your brain then is receiving inputs from two different sensors simultaneously, and interprets it as increased pain.


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

[User]
ELI5: The US Treasury has stellar creditworthiness, but it seems to always pay its debts by incurring more debt. So if paying debt with debt is no big deal, then why couldn't Greece do the same thing? Why did they have to default?

I'm an economics major but international finance fries my brain like an egg. Please help me understand.

[Assistant]
Because Greece would be a *state* in the US, and especially in the US Economy.

The US incurs huge amounts of debt, but has the economy to cover its costs.  Basically, the US is a guy who borrows $10million and makes $8million a year... and Greece is the guy who makes $50,000 and owes $2.5million.

Nobody would lend more money to Greece... they were already wobbling.  The US is a lot stronger of an economy, so people are more than happy to keep throwing money at it.


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

[User] If we observe a star X light years away, does that mean theres nothing inbetween here and there obstructing our view?

[Assistant]
There can be stuff in between, it just can't be enough to completely block out the star. We will often see stars as being "reddened" because of the dust and gas in our line of sight that blocks out part of the light. Stars can also be partially eclipsed by a planet moving in front of them, but planets are much smaller than stars and only block out a small fraction of a stars' light.

But yeah, generally space is very very empty, and you usually have a clean line of sight to most objects. The biggest issue is the dust and gas within the Milky Way - when we look straight along the plane of the Milky Way disc, we're looking through the thickest part of the disc, and all that dust and gas adds up and blocks out much of our own galaxy.


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

[User] ELI5: how does mesh wifi work and how is it different from old school extenders?

[Assistant]
Wi-Fi devices like phones have a sort of tunnel vision to them. When you connect to a network, what your device is really doing is connecting to one specific access point that's emitting a Wi-Fi signal. Once your device has locked-on, it has a death grip on that signal. It WILL NOT let go of *that specific* access point until you either force it to disconnect, or the signal genuinely goes to zero and stays there for some time. While it's locked-on like this, your device will flat-out ignore every other access point in the vicinity, even if there are other ones nearby with stronger signals that it could switch to.

When you put an old school extender on your network, what you're really doing is putting a second access point on your network. That way, when your phone looks up and sees the Wi-Fi networks, it will see two separate signals--one from the original access point, and one from the extender. You pick whichever one has the best signal and now your phone is locked-on.

Let's say you are in the extender's range when you connect. Now your phone is locked onto the extender. But then you move about your house or office or whatever and now the signal to the extender is not so good. But the signal to the other one is great now! Your phone should switch over, right? WRONG. It's *locked-on*. Absolutely dead set on maintaining that death grip on the bad signal, unless you command your phone to drop it and switch over to the other one.

What a mesh system does differently is it essentially makes all the extenders wear funny masks that make them look exactly like the original access point, in a way that your device can't tell them apart. When you connect to one of them, they mutter amongst themselves and decide who is physically closest to you, and whichever one gets selected will reach out to your device and establish a connection. Then, as you roam about the area and go in and out of the ranges of all the mesh extenders, they silently and seamlessly hand over the job of talking you your device, as they can detect who is the closest to you at any given time.

Essentially, mesh systems work the way you probably *expected* extenders to work all along.


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

[User] [LOTR] What Happened to Erebor after the battle? did anyone take over? What happened to the remaining Dwarves and what happened to the treasure?

[Assistant]
With the deaths of Thorin, Fili and Kili, Dain inherits the throne.  The Dwarves resettle Erebor and Men resettle Dale under the rule of Bard.

During the War of the Ring both cities are seiged. Although they eventually beat back the attackers, Dain and Brand (Bard's grandson and current king of Dale) die.


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

[User]
What stops fruits & veg like tomatoes from cooking on the plant during hot days?

If I put a tomato in the oven at around 30 degress celsius for 10-12 hours, it will become somewhat mushy and the skin might separate from the insides. It will be cooking and never return to the state it was before I placed it in the oven.

Why doesn't the tomato cook on the plant during a hot day? and how is the tomato "normal" again when I check the plant later, on a cooler day?

[Assistant]
Damage is done to the plant from the heat on hot days, the difference is that when the fruit is still on the plant it has the opportunity to repair itself.

Just like you might not expect a severed human hand to heal a burn, neither will severed parts of many organisms.


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

[User] ELI5: How does the body know when to wake up from sleeping?

[Assistant]
We are all subject to a circadian rhythm which dictates our sleep timings. A couple of factors include exposure to light and our body's release of supplement called melatonin.

Many babies, for example, are naturally nocturnal. That is why parents have to sleep train them. After that, they will typically get tired and wake up around the same times each day.

Of course, this circadian rhythm varies depending on the person.

This is also why when you wake up naturally, (as opposed to alarms or other noises) you often feel more rested, no matter how much or little sleep you got.


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

[User] ELI5: Why Napster got sued but UTorrent and others are still fine?

[Assistant]
Napster was one centrally located server whereas utorrent is just an application that you use to connect to any of the millions of torrent tracker servers out there. It's as if there are millions of Napsters out there now instead of just the one. And those DO get shut down, it's just that there's so many of them and when one gets shut down, another 5 pop up to replace it.

On top of that, the uTorrent application is perfectly legal, it's what can be downloaded using it that is illegal.

TL;DR - Decentralization.


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

[User] What would be the consequences for a female Chihuahua if she would get impregnated by a Saint Bernard?

[Assistant] The mother Chihuahua can only supply the Saint Bernard fetus with a finite quantity of nutrients, due to her smaller stomach, smaller digestive tract, etc. Therefore the puppy will be stunted, a runt compared to ordinary Saint Bernard puppies, although at the maximum size of puppies that a Chihuahua can carry. The birth itself might be risky, but not ludicrously out of proportion. The puppy would probably regain a good deal of its normal size if allowed to nurse elsewhere.


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

[User] [Oblivion] I'm strolling around the magic university completing tasks relating to ending Necromancy around Cyrodiil. Following me is my faithful reanimated skeleton, Spooky. Why am I not kicked out of the guild on the spot?

[Assistant] The fact that the creation is undead doesn't change the fact that the summon spells are just plain old conjuration, drawing things from other planes or simply thin air by the power of your magicka. You're not desecrating a corpse or playing with peoples' souls; as far as the Guild is concerned, it's not necromancy at all.


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

[User]
[Predator] I'm just a regular soldier being hunted by a Predator. If I drop my weapons, fall to my knees and beg for mercy, would the Predator let me live?

I'm not a special forces soldier/super badass, I'm just a regular grunt pulling guard duty around the base. So do I have to be holding a weapon and actively fighting against him for the Predator to kill me or can I just surrender and hope he lets me go?

[Assistant]
Have you opened fire yet, or otherwise taken action against them?

If you haven't already made hostile contact with them, there's a decent chance you can ditch your rifle and hotfoot it out of there. If they're an experienced hunter (and they shouldn't be fucking around with Soft Meat if they aren't), and you don't accidentally flee straight into their perch, they'll likely let you go so they can focus on real opponents. Human kills have nothing to do with just getting a skull for the raw pleasure of owning a skull, it's all about *the story*. Humans backed into a corner do *crazy shit*, and that's the whole reason hunting them is worthwhile. No pred wants to point up at a skull on their trophy wall and say "Yeah, bagged that one while he was taking a shit, stabbed him with a spear right through the outhouse wall".

If you've already pulled the trigger? You're probably fucked, since you're counting on the pred to correctly interpret your action as fleeing the scene, versus fleeing to get a bigger gun and ditching your current gun so you can run faster. Perhaps they're feeling generous and let you bolt, perhaps they put a plasma caster round into your back, perhaps they want to gut you so your comrades who held their ground can listen to the sweet, demoralizing sounds of your guts being slowly removed. It's a crapshoot.


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

[User] ELI5: Why have it taken so long to prosecute former Nazi's, that we still see cases popping up today?

[Assistant]
There are a few reasons.  A lot of former Nazis hid their identities and escaped to countries where they were not easy to identify, such as Argentina.  However, the main reason for the recent prosecutions is that Germany changed what had to be proven to convict someone.  Between 1949 and 1985, there were 200,000 investigations and 120,000 indictments of former Nazis in Germany, but less than 7,000 convictions.  Those convictions required that a prosecutor prove a person's role in a specific murder.

The German government changed its policy on Nazi war criminals around the year 2000, allowing prosecutions of Nazis who served in death camps or mobile killing units, based on their service alone, and not their role in any specific murder.  As a result, former Nazis would couldn't be convicted before can be convicted now.

So a number of people who were investigated and cleared are now being prosecuted because of this lower burden of proof.  As far as identifying former Nazis who escaped, that happens at an increasingly less frequent rate because the majority have died at this point.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why does China only have one timezone?

Surely being the size of the US would mean the sunrise and sunset occur at very different times across China.

[Assistant] Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party moved to a single, nation-wide timezone in 1949 to help promote a sense of unity in the country. It does present the problem you pointed out, which is that daylight does not correspond to the same hours everywhere across the country. This is most pronounced in Western China, where there are also separatist populations that still use the local time rather than Beijing time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does fertilizer explode?

[Assistant]
Most fertilizers contain ammonium nitrate.

Ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer that reacts with other combustible materials.

Normally it's fairly safe to have around at normal temperatures.  But when it's heated up to higher temperatures, or exposed to a hot fire, a run-away chain reaction can occur with ammonium nitrate to cause a violent explosion.

It's often used for improvised explosive devices, and for accelerating the reaction of other explosives, such as in some forms of dynamite.


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

[User]
What is the psychology behind the "duck face" phenomenon?

Not its spread through social media, but the impetus to appear this way in the first place.

[Assistant]
Makes cheekbones look more defined, face look thinner, and lips look fuller.

Lots of women (sometimes without realizing) do it to a lesser extent to put emphasis on these features. It probably just got out of hand after a while.


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

[User]
[Star Trek]How strong is the Federation fleet, really?

The only really good view we get of federation multiship combat comes from snippets of Borg battles, combat scenes in Enterprise, and the few episodes of DS9.  In any of the mirror episodes, it seems like the Federation gets its ass handed to it quite regularly by other Alpha Quadrant powers, whether it be Klingon, Romulan, or even the Xindi.  Hell, the Dominion should have taken over the Alpha quadrant, if not for timely interruption by the founders. So my question really is: is the federation really a military force to be reckoned with against other military powers?  Do they actually have an edge on any other super power?  Or is it just a matter of peace due to no one wanting to rock the boat.

[Assistant]
The Federation *fleet* is on par with, or slightly weaker than, most other Alpha Quadrant powers.  They maintain the bare minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves from unexpected hostilities, and devote the rest of their resources to scientific exploration, pleasure, art, etc.

Federation *theoretical military capabilities* are more powerful than every other faction in the alpha quadrant combined.  The other aggressive alpha quadrant powers (Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians), are a fraction of the size of the Federation and don't have *nearly* the technological ability.  They maintain something resembling military parity by devoting the whole of their industrial base to military production.  They sacrifice aesthetics, quality of life, and democratic freedoms to do so.

For example, both the Cardassians and Klingons still use *slaves*.  There's no logistical reason to even need to do so, they just lack so much respect for their citizens lives they they ensure a number of them toil away.

--------------

So, if the Federation were willing to militarize, it would be an unstoppable juggernaut, capable of steamrolling the rest of the quadrant, and standing on equal footing against the Founders.

- It doesn't militarize against the existing powers because that would require compromising Federation values.

- It doesn't successfully militarize against the Founders because it doesn't have quite enough time to succeed.  The entire war takes place over only a few years, and federation planners anticipated being able to drag out any conflict with known enemies by a decade or longer.

- The Borg are a special case.  Federation scientists work exhaustively for innovative, rather than brute force solutions.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between antihistamines and decongestants?

[Assistant]
People sometimes (inaccurately) use them interchangeably but antihistamines are specifically for allergies. Histamines are compounds related to immune system response, and allergies are caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system.

Decongestants are just drugs that treat nasal congestion in the upper respiratory tract, which might be caused by allergies but could be lots of other things too.

If you just look at the labels on the drugs, you'll see the active ingredients are different. Some products might be a combination of the two, but it's just two different drugs mixed together.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why would the U.S. Armed Forces test a missile like the one seen last night so close to a heavy populated city? I understand it was not armed, but they had to know it would be mistaken for a UFO or other threat.

Also, to any ballistic experts or veterans, what kind of missile was that? It's large blue appearance is just odd to me.

[Assistant]
It was a Trident II missile.

The large blue appearance has nothing to do with the type of missile. Rather, it has to do with the time of launch (shortly after sunset, IIRC). High up, the sun was still above the horizon, and lit up the exhaust gasses.


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

[User] If a flying insect hitches a ride on my windshield for a mile or two, does it find its way back home or does it start a new life when it leaves my car?  If the latter, how does it integrate into a new ecosystem?

[Assistant]
Most species of insect don't really have a "home," just wherever they happen to be at the moment.  Spiders and other species that do construct a more permanent burrow will build a new one.

The ecosystem of two miles down the road is probably roughly the same as where you were before, so it'll be fine.


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

[User] ELI5: Tax returns are the return of excess wages that the government in a sense loaned from us. Why aren't we entitled to interest on the excess tax?

[Assistant]
Because you decided to withhold more money than you owed in taxes which is not the government's fault.

And the government makes the laws and they chose not to give you interest - and even if you did it'd probably be at most single-digit dollars.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Do wizards have some form of wizard MMA?

Yes; we know dueling clubs aren't uncommon but quidditch seems to be the only popular sport; and some as interested in sports and dada as Harry would have probably taken note of it.

[Assistant] In the UK it appears they don't. Why should people hone their bodies when magic is enough? If you're in a situation where you don't have your wand against another wizard then you're screwed anyway. It's very unlikely that you'll both be without a wand and even so, wordless magic is still a thing. If you have to prepare to be in that predicament, then apparating is more efficient and practical.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do modern day 'hackers' learn to do what they do best?

It seems everywhere I go you can see news clips about someone who has 'hacked' into a major system or found a new way past some firewall. I know it's not as it's depicted in movies, and programming language is an important pre-requisite, yet nowhere i look can you find a starting point or decent program for someone interested in doing it.

EDIT: Thank you for all of the replies, i appreciate it. Now I've been surfing around some threads and what not, lo and behold i'm learning something bout programming.

[Assistant] How do they learn? Trial and error and spending a lot of time analyzing even the most asinine elements. Looking at what others have built and seeing "patterns" hacking is basically software engineering but in reverse.  So really ANY software class/textbook is a good place to start.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do surface wounds like paper cuts hurt or sting so much, especially compared relatively to other wounds?

[Assistant] The above answers (more nerves on your hands/near the surface) are true but another reason that papercuts specifically hurt so much is because the edges of paper are really ragged microscopically (think Velcro), so when you get a papercut it does more damage to your skin cells than if you nicked yourself with a sharp knife.


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

[User]
Is the Oortcloud (est 0.03 to 3.2 ly) shared with other stars, ex Alpha Centauri (4,36ly) ?

I pictured the oortcloud as a far flung region of stuff loosely affected by the sun. But since it seems to stretch so far out that parts actually are closer to other stars wouldn't that make it shared? Or does it refer to the region of interstellar comets that are affected by our sun? But Doesn't the Alpha Centauri system have a higher mass than our sun shouldn't it be more affected then?

Or doesn't this have to do more with he fact that stars aren't static and are moving relative to each other so that the Oort cloud are "our" comets and they have theirs but since the distances are so huge and we aren't necessarily very close for too long it doesn't matter too much?

[Assistant]
By definition, the outer limit of the Oort cloud is defined by where the gravity of our solar system predominates. It's not a sphere. The competing gravity sources are nearby stars (such as Alpha Centauri), and the whole Milky Way. But the mass of Alpha C is only 0.123 solar masses, so even in that direction you have to go out to 3.23 ly before Alpha C's gravity is stronger.

The question of whether an object is part of the Oort cloud depends on it's distance and dynamics. If it's going fast enough, a close-in object will escape, so it's not part of the cloud.


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

[User] ELI5: Sim City game server problems after release (and previous Diablo 3 problems). Why they just can't buy additional servers at launch and when peak is over cancel them? Everyone's heard about cloud computing, EA hasn't?

[Assistant] These kind of problems aren't necessarily solved by throwing more servers in the mix.  Chances are they have plenty of computing and bandwidth resources to cope with the current demand.  The issue is that with the release of any new system, the first time it is in a real production scenario, bugs and other logistical issues may arise that weren't apparent during more controlled testing.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the price of everything keep going up?

[Assistant]
Central banks, more or less, have control over how much money is in circulation and also have a fairly good idea of the amount of stuff produced and services provided. As such, modest inflation, and thus increasing prices, is a policy choice.

The reason why is that it incentivizes investment (why hold cash instead of spending it or lending it to someone with a productive use for it if it will decline in value over time?) and helps avoid deflation (decreasing prices), which creates a feedback look sapping investment and spending (why spend your money now when it will be worth more later?).


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

[User]
ElI5: What made the big bang occur?

ELI5 What events allowed the big bang to occur. Thanks!

[Assistant]
This one's easy:

We don't know.

ts;dr: It might not even be a valid question, since time probably didn't exist at all, or in any meaningful way like it does now. So the idea of cause and effect can't exist either, without time.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's the difference between Club Soda, Seltzer, Tonic Water, Mineral Water, etc. and what's the purpose of the different kinds of bubbly water?

Question struck me as I was grocery shopping today. I think one of them is great for cleaning stains, one helps settle the stomach, and one is good with Gin, but that's all I got.

[Assistant]
Mineral water, like Perrier, is water from a natural spring that has high mineral content & natural carbonation.

Seltzer and club soda are virtually identical.  Seltzer is *just* carbonated water, soda has a small amount of minerals added.  Most people use them interchangably.

Tonic water is carbonated water with a touch of quinine in it.  Quinine used to be use as a treatment for malaria.  The tonic water you get these days just has enough to flavor it (and make it glow under a black light).  It's often lightly sweetened.

Any clear bubbly water will help you clean out stains.  They're all reasonably OK with upset stomachs.

Tonic you mix with gin.  Pretty much every other liquor gets mixed with soda/seltzer.


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

[User] ELI5:If only 1% of the water in the world is fresh, why do we use it in our toilets?

[Assistant]
Assuming we still want to use water, the alternative would be to use salt water.  And the biggest issue is infrastructure.

You would need 2 sets of plumbing.  One to handle fresh water for sinks, faucets, hoses, etc, and the other for salt water.  This is prohibitively expensive since each house, apartment, pump station, treatment plant, etc. would need to support that.  Also, there would need to be more pipes put in place to pump the saltwater to landlocked areas.


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

[User]
[Spiderman:Homecoming] Isn't Cap a Fugitive?

I was just wondering why we see Captain America videos still being shown in gym classes and even in detention if he is an international fugitive after the events of Civil War.

[Assistant] His fugitive status is top secret. The world doesn't want everyone to panic about the existence of a rogue superpowered team that we have no power to stop. Also, we don't want to deal with the scandal of letting people know about Cap's betrayal.


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

[User]
[WH40K] How powerful is the PDF?

How do they differ from the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard?

Have they ever held out against the enemies of the imperium?

Are there any notable PDF forces?

[Assistant]
They're the primary military force/security on an individual planet. Many Guard regiments recruit from their highest/most experienced ranks.

They can stave off particularly small scale conflicts, like pirate raids or riots, but if an Ork Warband, a Chaos Incursion, or a Tyranid Hive Fleet shows up, they're the first ones to be violently destroyed/eaten/enslaved/sacrificed.

Can't really think of any notable PDFs post-Heresy, but the Prospero Spireguard was a militia/peacekeeping force comprised entirely of normal humans from Prospero, homeworld of the (traitorous) Thousand Sons Legion.


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

[User]
[Deadpool movie] *SPOILERS* A question about Angel

So, we are told that Angel is extremely strong. She can restrain Wade without any real effort before he undergoes his 'awakening.' Right before his escape, he head butts her in the nose, and she recoils in pain, holding her nose. Later, we see her going toe-to-toe with Colossus, of all people, and even getting the better of him. He can hit a *lot* harder than Wade can without doing any real damage to her. So, how is it that she feels pain, or suffers damage, when struck by Wade?

[Assistant] Instinct is a tough thing to overcome. If you spent your whole life being vulnerable to bullets, then you're going to flinch when a gun goes off no matter what mutations you might have. We see this most commonly with immortal beings like vampires who still are known to gasp for air despite not needing to breath. The same situation happened here, Angel recoiled because that's what she was used to for 90% of her life.


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

[User] How does "slingshotting" around a planet or star work? It seems like entering the body's gravity well would require you to expend additional energy to escape it again...

[Assistant]
If you're on a bicycle coasting down a hill, you will accelerate faster and faster.  At the bottom, you will actually go fast enough to go up the next hill just by coasting.  Now, on a bicycle you won't go as high as you started, but in a perfect world without friction and air resistance, you'll go just as high on the next hill as you started on the first.  That's due to the conservation of energy.

In space, there's no friction of wheels on the ground, and no air resistance.  So if an object falls towards a planet, it will go faster and faster, and unless it hits the planet or its atmosphere, it will curve around for a bit and then escape the planet in a new direction.  There's no need to expend additional energy: the speed you gained during the fall is enough to get you out.

So that's a nice way to change direction without using energy, but you can actually gain speed from it.  That's because the planet is moving.  Basically if you shoot around a planet coming towards you, by the time you shoot back you will gain up to twice the speed of the planet.

A simple example to illustrate that is like bouncing a rubber ball on the floor.  You drop the ball and (in a perfect world) it bounces just as high as you dropped it from.  Now imagine that you're bouncing it on a platform that goes up (you are not on the platform, you drop the ball on the platform from above).  The ball will bounce on the platform and gain energy from the platform's motion.  The result is that it will bounce higher than the point you dropped it from.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are genitals darker than the rest of their owner?

... even though they hardly see the sun. Is there a reason genitals receive more pigmentation?

[Assistant] Your genitals have more melanin, which protects against UV radiation. A long time ago, humans and their ancestors didn't wear clothes, so such sensitive parts did need more protection against the sun.