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

[User]
ELI5: (1961/Kennedy proposes a man on the moon... 8 years later, Armstrong walks on the moon. As of 2016, China is projected to have a man on the moon by 2036.) Why is it taking so long to achieve manned lunar flights in an age where space technology and safety efforts are so much more advanced?

Kennedy proposed getting a man on the moon and back to Congress in 1961. Eight years later, in 1969, Neil Armstrong and crew landed not the moon and returned, following with several trips to and back made in a short period of time after, before the Apollo program ended in 1972.

This appeared to be a good system of getting people to and back from the moon with the technology that was available at that time. It appears the only reason these missions were stopped were due to financial cuts and issues of the like.

How is it now that with China preparing a lunar mission for some time now, with an estimated departure date of 2036. Why is it taking so long? The time of its vague announcement in 2016 to projected fruition is basically 20 years. Double the time that 60s era computers and astronautical scientists needed then.

The technology and safety efforts that sent the men to the moon in the 60s and 70s could have only been perfected, fine tuned, and strengthened at this point. (This may be inaccurate, but I've been told many times that a modern day calculator has more processing power then the Apollo computers did...) I know finance is a huge factor, but is it really the only factor? And is it even a factor for a superpower like China?

Safety is important and needed, but travel anywhere is not without its risks. Money is important and needed to fund projects like this, but there are still funds sending rovers and rockets into the cosmos gathering information and such. So whats to stop anyone from funding missions that can actually equip passengers again? It appears from a civilian perspective that 90 percent of the scientific ground work has already been laid, but you'd think with these time lines that they are starting from scratch.

[Assistant]
The US threw an absolutely astronomical amount of money and resources at rocket technology in the 1950's and 60's. It was, by far, the highest priority in US defense R&D for a decade or more.

A space program isn't something you can buy off the shelf, even in 2018. Just building up the institutional knowledge takes decades. The technical challenges are also huge. Remember that China did not produce its first domestically manufactured ball point pen until 2017 because they didn't have the technical capability.

Manufacturing is hard. Manufacturing a moon rocket is incredibly hard.


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

[User] ELI5: When species get brought back from the brink of extinction there has to be a lot of inbreeding. How high is the risk that mutated features will change or derail the species?

[Assistant] Mutations occur randomly, but if one had a mutation it would become more prevalent in the population as a whole. That being said if it survived the extinction event long enough to breed it's unlikely that the mutation would seriously effect the species. The bigger problem would be a lack of genetic diversity. The species would be much more vulnerable to certain forms of diseases because they wouldn't be dissimilar enough to provide an effective buffer of immune individuals if a disease outbreak took place. This is actually a problem with cheetahs, they have trouble with viral infections because genetically they aren't very diverse.


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

[User] ELI5: How do companies like Delta, the airline company, and Delta, the faucet company, not run into any trademark and/or brand issues since they both have the same name?

[Assistant]
There are 45 classes of trademarks, including goods like:

* Class 10  Medical, Dental Instruments and Apparatus
* Class 11  Appliances, Lighting, Heating, Sanitary Installations
* Class 12  Vehicles

and services like

* Class 36  Insurance, Financial
* Class 37  Construction, Repair, Cleaning

When you register a trademark, it's only within a certain class, or sometimes within 2 or 3 classes.

Someone can have the same name for a business as long as it's in a different class.


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

[User]
How were forest fires contained 150 years ago, especially in remote areas like the west?

It seems like if there was a fire back then in say, what is now Idaho, it would burn down the entire western US and there would be no way to stop it.

[Assistant]
Well, in short they weren't contained. Only natural obstacles like cliffs, rivers, sparse vegetation, wetlands, rain, and the fact that the wind doesn't blow in all four directions at once, limited the forest fires.

That would be the case today as well, but we have put suburbs and towns everywhere so we simply can't let fires go the way the wind blows them anymore. Fires weren't a big problem back then because there simply wasn't that much human property in the way of the fires. In 1850 there was only about 23 million people in the US. If you took a thousand long steps in one direction, and then turned right 90 degrees and went a thousand more steps, and then did it twice more, the square area you would have walked around would be shared by you and just one more person in 1850. Today you will share it with 30 people. So any random area there's a fire, its 1600% more property that the fire will destroy, that is why fires are a problem now, not then.

PS: Though it should be noted that towns did burn to the ground back then because of forest fires. It was just far less likely to happen because towns were smaller, fewer and farther apart.

PPS: Oh, and people tended to use the trees near a town to build the town, so there was usually open barren area around towns to protect against forest fires. At worst some crops around the town, that they could burn away before the forest fire arrived. The forest fire brings extra wind because of the movement of the hot air upwards, so if you do a small burning of some fields of crops there's little of that and the wind doesn't make the fires jump across the road to your buildings. Whereas when the forest fire arrives the wind gusts will make the fire skip from the crops to the buildings across the road. They did not normally keep trees as pets close by their suburb for it to look nice and be a huge forest-fire hazard. But we do today.


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

[User] [Doctor Who] Can we still consider Dalek and Sontaran as civilizations despite their apparent lack of complex culture and single mindedness?

[Assistant] Yes, because they still had to get to that point, daleks and sontarans didnt spontaneously appear. They have a culture, rules, "ethics and morals" and goals. They had architecture, engineering, technology and other unique aspects, as well as language and in the case of the sontaran war chants, music of a sort.


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

[User]
[Batman Arkhamverse] The Arkham series takes place in the US, right? So why does everyone use the metric system?

Batman measures distances in meters and even if you want to say it's because he's a scientist, even the thugs say "it's 10 below." It's not quite as cold as 10 below 0 in the Fahrenheit scale, based on when he searched for Mr. Freeze, so it's safe to assume they mean -10C.

[Assistant] First off the official units of measurement for the US government is metric. All our documents and design drawings for official use are done in metric and often carry imperial equivalents when the detailer is kind. The thugs commenting on it being "10 below" are not taking and reporting accurate temperatures they are speaking figuratively.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Does the average imperial citizen know about Lord Vader's amazing pod racing record?

[Assistant]
Amazing?! He won one race and retired. Hardly a feat when they happen every year.

I'd be more interested in that rumor that he is the hero who cleared out the Jedi cultist out of their temple right after the clone wars. Those guys were raising savage murderous children and he took them all on his own.


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

[User] [Bloodborne, The Witcher] I'm a young new Witcher and want to try my skills out in a New environment, I heard of a town plagued by beast, what challenges can I expect here?

[Assistant]
Death, limbo and rebirth over and over and over again.

Also at the end of the day, you won't achieve squat. You'll either stop entering the dream in favor of the waking world, end up stuck in the dream until someone else takes your place or maybe, just maybe you'll become something else.


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

[User]
CMV: Being old is not an excuse to not use technology

I work in law, and I am 29 years old.  Very often over my career I've heard that "older" people can't be expected to know how to use Microsoft Word, email, Google, or other websites or technology.  I find this to be a pretty poor excuse.  Frankly I think it is mostly laziness and entitlement that causes this demographic to avoid use of these technologies.

Let's say that an employee is 60 years old, and started working in an office setting at the age of 25.  That is **35 years** of experience in office settings and, to my mind, 35 years of experience with the exact technologies that these people complain about.

Google debuted in 1998, **24 years ago**.

Lotus Notes email software came out in 1989, **33 years ago**.

Microsoft Word was introduced in 1983, **39 years ago**.

These employees have literally had 2-3 decades to get used to this technology and yet they act as though they came up in an era when all you could do was write with a quill and ink by candlelight.

"But just because a technology *debuted* decades ago doesn't mean everyone immediately learned how to use it.  Adaptation takes time."  Correct, and it's been decades of time for that to happen.

"Even if someone knew how to use Word in the 80's or 90's, there's been a lot of updates to the technology since then."  In my experience as someone who started using Word at the age of 7 or 8, no update has been so huge that it completely changed how to use it.  It takes a few days to get used to and is doable by any reasonably intelligent person.

"People late in their careers don't want to bother with sending emails and writing documents, that's grunt work for newbies and assistants."  Sure, and for this reason I'm always happy to help.  I honestly find it much more respectable to be told, "I don't have time to write this email, you do it for me," then "I just don't know how to use email cause I'm too old."  EDIT: Getting a lot of arguments to the effect of this but saying that this sort of thing is my job as an assistant, not the senior's job.  My point here is that a) idk what age has to do with it, you can just tell me what you need done and I'll handle, but perhaps more importantly b) sometimes (not always but sometimes) the high-billing, no free time, VIP lawyer folks would save loads of time by knowing how to do certain things than spending the time to tell me what they need, check it over, ask questions, and then finally have it be done.  It is not more efficient to ask me \*every time\* you need to make text bold, for example.

"This is a strawman argument, everyone knows that older people love technology and use it all the time."  Ok.

EDIT: Your hypothetical white-collar exec who grew up in a coal mine and never saw a computer until the age of 50, who never learned to read, and who has relied on secretaries to feed him prime rib by hand ever since he started as a junior in the field yesterday, does not apply to this topic.

EDIT #2: seeing a lot of the same answers which I address in the main post, so Im going to stop replying at this point unless your comment is especially smart or especially dumb.

EDIT #3: at this point all the new comments are from people clearly not reading the post so I will only be responding to intelligent comments (not that this edit will be read).

[Assistant]
Do you know what the Google, Microsoft Word or E-Mail of your particular generation will be?

Is it already there?

There is a lot of stuff out there you might know about or you haven't bothered to try to understand yet. You might find parts of it dumb, useless, or you expect them to fade away quickly so you don't use it. Maybe Discord. Tiktok. NFTs. Or generative neural networks. Maybe these, yeah. They have huge potential and might be a thing people are going to use on a daily basis, and they might be able to do many things we can't even think of right now.

Meanwhile the stuff you know continues to be used, by people who are like you. Why change? Why implementing a whole new thing when you are busy maintaining what is already there? You have *just finished* writing tutorials and documentation for the system you got 5 years ago, why change again now?

At some point something will leave you behind and you will have a hard time catching up. And a hard time to see the point in catching up, too. Or maybe you will, but others might not, and then we hear a new generation complain how the old people "fail to use X even though X started to exist in the 20ies already!"


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

[User] ELI5: if Cheetah extinction is considered inevitable due to lack of genetic diversity, then wouldn't any animal who reached low populations be doomed for extinction for same reason?

[Assistant]
Yes,  there is a minimum population below which it is impossible to recover without external aid.

On a related note,  there is a minimum birth rate for a country.  Below that rate the country's population will collapse.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Why didn't Aragorn enlist the help of the Dead Army sooner?

During the council of Elrond everyone was focused on destroying the ring but why didn't they focus on clearing a path for the destruction of the ring? Surely Elrond would've been ok with the reforging of Narsil for the reason of enlisting the Dead Men of Dunharrow and Aragorn couldn't object to assuming his role as Isildur's heir if it meant peace for Middle Earth. Sauron would definitely not be expecting that plan of attack and most of his army would be caught off guard. Saruman would fall shortly after if the armies of Rohan and Gondor united to fight his uruk-hai.

[Assistant]
The Army of the Dead was cursed for not following Isildur into the final battle, so they only owe Aragorn one final battle.

Also anyone who tried walking into Dunharrow before Aragorn did was slaughtered by the angry dead, there was no indication they would even be willing to redeem themselves. They were just as likely to muder Aragorn in vengeance of Isildur's curse as to try and redeem themselves.


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

[User]
What role does automata theory play in computer science?

How does it relate to computer science in a general and day to day sense? I dont understand what it does.

Thank you.

[Assistant] It is used mainly on the theory side. Automata are a good way to describe an algorithm for a computational problem in a mathematical way, which is useful for proving theorems about the algorithms relative to the computational problem. For example, are they guaranteed to finish? What are the bounds on memory? What grammars are needed to solve the problem? Etc.


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

[User]
If I were to get enough viruses in a small space to be able to see them without a microscope, what would it look like?

How different would it look for different viruses? What color would it be?

[Assistant] White goo. Back in college we had to filter seawater for microbes and that's what we came up with. White goo which turned out to be billions of bacterium, single cell doo dads, and various microscopic muck all in a big giant coffee filter the size of a damn laundry basket. EDIT--NEVER DRINK OCEAN WATER Edit 2 -crabs actually start out microscopic, floating around as plankton, until they get fat enough for gravity to affect them and they sink down to the bottom. So when you see a big giant ass king crab? That is a damn microplankton that has become Godzilla sized over its age.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Had Luke ever been off of Tatooine before the events of ANH?

While he definitely is a small town kid whose world is very small he also seems a bit cavalier about going to Alderaan, hiring a pilot, and calling the Falcon a "piece of junk" when he may never have been that close to a ship before. Had Owen saved up his credits to take the family to Disney Planet or South of the Quasar one year, sparking a calling in Luke to leave the Outer Rim someday, or did he know enough about the workings of the Galaxy from books and/or the HoloNet?

[Assistant]
I mean, he was technically born many light years away from Tatooine, and was transported there as an infant.

But in the spirit of your question, no he never left the planet. Owen (and of course Obi Wan) went to great pains to shield Luke from the wider world and his monster of a father. In Owen's mind, it was perfectly acceptable to try and keep Luke "realistic" by having his time filled with tedious farm work and always finding excuses to keep Luke tied to the farm even as his friends left for the Imperial Academy. Anything Luke would have "really" learned about the galaxy at large would have come from gossip he heard from his friends, as well as any traders or pilots he overheard when he managed to leave his adoptive parent's home. So he would have known a thing or two even without leaving his homeworld. Though the knowledge would have been skewed by his youthful arrogance and exuberance.


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

[User]
[Dragon Ball Z] If Gohan trained with Vegeta over the seven year gap, how would their personalities have changed?

Thinking back on the time that Gohan trained with Piccolo. By the time they had gotten to the saiyans, they changed a lot with each other's influences. Gohan had become tougher in the wilderness, going from running for his life from seeing a T-Rex to not even being phased by it and seeing it's tail as dinner. On the other hand, Piccolo had gone from disliking him to dying for him. They became the best of friends. Gohan had the ability to touch his heart in one year.

So how would seven years of being around Vegeta have changed them both? Already a guarantee they would both be a lot stronger. Vegeta goes from training alone to having a strong sparring partner who pushes him to his limit, and Gohan has an elite warrior schooling him on his fighting abilities, leading him to become a stronger, smarter, ruthless, and more efficient fighter. But we're focused on the personality aspect here.

Having someone like Gohan can be a positive influence on Vegeta's life the same way with Piccolo. With a lot more time , Vegeta can be more open and less bitter. Seeing Gohan as a young half-saiyan who wants to push himself would give Vegeta a sense of pride in him, instead of disappointment. And this new attitude would extend towards his family as well. Whatever resentment he felt towards Goku's sacrifice would be almost washed away by focusing on training with Gohan.

How I think Gohan could change. Let's face it, he'd be much more different with a new father figure having a big influence on him. Canon Gohan was mainly surrounded by his family. Ox King, Goten, and Chi-Chi. I believe having an strong alpha male like Vegeta around him a lot, his attitude would rub off on him. During those developing years, he can become cockyish but confident in himself. Canon-Gohan would stutter and flinch at a dirty look from Video. This Gohan wouldn't even flinch, and would call her out on it.

What do you guys think? If their personalities were different like I said above, how would it have affected the dynamics in the Bus saga?

[Assistant]
Canon Gohan would **never** spend seven years training with Vegeta.

DBZ Vegeta is, for all intents and purposes, an arrogant asshole who used every single chance he had to screw the other characters up until the second half of the very last arc in the series. There's just no way Gohan would tolerate his stupidity for seven years.

If Gohan wanted to continue training he would just have done so with Piccolo, his true mentor and best friend. Piccolo changed his ways while training Gohan because *he knew* that Gohan and the Z-Fighters were the true good guys. Vegeta never accepted that. He lived under the illusion that everyone around him was wrong and he was right.

Still, if it *had* happened, their personalities would have remained the same. Gohan would never be influenced by Vegeta's vile nature (neither one of his father figures was able to make him enjoy fighting). And canon Vegeta spent those seven years training with his own son, Gohan couldn't do better than Baby Trunks did to change his character.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is ticket scalping, for the most part, illegal but reselling things on ebay for profit is perfectly fine?

For example: People have been snatching up the new Nintendo 3DS XL and trying to mark them up on ebay for $100+ profit. How is this okay but reselling my tickets to Van Halen is supposedly "wrong"
And when scalping tickets is permitted, its usually limited to selling for the ticket price or less, with strong restrictions on profiting off of them.

[Assistant]
In some cases, you aren't buying a "ticket", you are leasing a seat.

In the agreement you sign when you buy the ticket, in some cases, may say you can't resell the tickets publicly and either must turn them over to the ticket seller or can only sell it on a specific website.


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

[User] [lotr] What were all the dwarves doing during the war of the ring?

[Assistant] The biggest kingdom of Dwarves, at the Lonely Mountain, was besieged by a larger army than the one that attacked Minas Tirith. They stood with the Men of Dale to throw back a huge Easterling army. It's said that if they'd failed, the victory at Pelennor Fields would've been meaningless, as the city would've just been totally circled by the Easterling army.


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

[User]
[Terminator] What sort of myth surrounds the mysterious gunman who wiped out a police station?

I'm pretty sure the Police Station shootout in The Terminator has to have become well-known to every cop in the country. And certainly the mysterious long gunman himself must have became an infamous figure... the guy killed around 30 cops without getting a scratch, then just completely vanished without a trace...

...until he showed up *again* a decade later, then walked through a hail of submachinegun fire and casually capped a half-dozen SWAT-members in the knee caps.

My question is, what do the LAPD think of the Terminator? Is he some kind of mythical cop-killing boogieman? And has *anyone* come up with the crazy idea that maybe this dude isn't human? Sure, wiping out an entire Police station could have been rationalized as the him being an ex-special forces operator with insane luck doped up on a cocktail of narcotics that allow him to ignore pain. (and maybe the reason they didn't find him afterward because he later died of his wounds in some hidden bunker)

But then a decade later he shows up and pulls similar shit *again*, and at least six SWAT-officers saw him just stroll through a hail of gunfire without apparent injury. Someone *has* to have started thinking *we're dealing with some kind of alien here!*.

[Assistant]
In *The Sarah Connor Chronicles* an FBI agent tells Sarah that there are people in the FBI who have come to believe her story about time travelling robots, simply because of the cumulative evidence including the police station massacre.

Of course, he may have been lying to get her to talk. She certainly seemed to think so.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are some bacteria normal in some parts of the body, but become dangerous when moved to other parts?

[Assistant]
The digestive system and skin have evolved to interface with the outside world, and the outside world contains a bunch of pathogens, so they're quite resistant to disease.  They renew cells at a high rate, and produce acids and enzymes that keep bacterial growth under control, among other countermeasures.

Most internal organs are more vulnerable than that, because they only interface with other internal parts of the body that the skin and digestive system have already filtered harmful stuff out of.  For this reason, they haven't evolved to be resistant in the same way.

An analogy:  Putting gut bacteria in the brain is like delivering a big pile of explosives to the parking lot of the head office of a large chemical supply company.  They'd be in trouble.  They don't have the knowledge, equipment, or facilities to safely handle and store explosives.  This stuff belongs in a secure warehouse, not in the office parking lot!  It would cause chaos.  They'd have to evacuate the building, call security so nobody steals the explosives, and find experts to transport them safely to somewhere with people who can handle them.  The head office has evolved to be in contact by telephone and internet with the warehouse that handles explosives, not to directly handle explosives themselves.


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

[User]
[TWD] What are the best weapons for surviving in the Walking Dead universe?

* By best, I mainly mean in terms of practicality, reliability, and versatility.
* Weapon categories to consider; melee, sidearm, main weapon, suppressed weapon.

[Assistant]
Strategy.

The Roman and Greek phalanxes staved off whole columns of armed warriors who were motivated to kill them. They would make mincemeat of zombies.

Add in cavalry, firearms and modern weapons as a multiplier and very quickly the old ways could save mankind.

As to the weapons? Armor, spear, shortsword and shield, horses, ranged weapon of choice.


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

[User]
[Batman Begins] Bruce has problems killing prisoner yet massacres whole League of Shadows with no problems at all?

How is it different to kill them but not the prisoner who was a murderer?

[Assistant]
It's sketchy, but he didn't kill any of them directly. Even the fake Ra's al-Ghul was killed by a falling roof when he went to finish Bruce off.

The rest of them - they're trained ninjas with fully-functional common sense. They should have been able to clear out of a burning building without difficulty.

The real problem is the prisoner he refused to kill, who was then stuck in a burning building with no ninja training and no knowledge of where the exit was.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is a flame made of?

Tonight I spent hours looking at my open fire (I don't have a TV) and I wondered what a flame really is and how it comes to be.

[Assistant] Really really hot gases, hot enough that they're giving out visible light. It is believed that the heat tears apart electrons from their atoms in the flame, resulting in a plasma state, but this is still widely debated.


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

[User] ELI5: What promotes a better immune system, being sick and recovering (with or without medication) frequently or avoiding being sick as much as possible?

[Assistant]
One important note here is that being "sick" and preparing your immune system are not the same thing.

Someone working outdoors, getting occasional scrapes and breathing in pollen and detritus is giving his immune system a workout (to oversimplify) and someone trapping themselves in a sterile climate controlled room is not.

The adventurous person is more likely to encounter pathogens, and one or more of them might be of a dangerous enough variety that they get sick. The person hiding from germs isn't as likely to encounter pathogens, but could get very sick from pathogens that the adventurous person's body would fight off before they noticed any symptoms.

Their is no "what is better" because life is too dynamic and circumstantial.


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

[User] Is alan watts well respected amongst academics?

[Assistant]
A number of people in academic philosophy might credit Alan Watts as an original inspiration to getting into philosophy but typically they report feeling that they've 'outgrown him' as they study further into the subject.

Watts is best known for bringing ideas from eastern philosophy to western audiences, not really for any original contributions to philosophy.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] If one human light side force user and another human dark side force user don't get killed, what is their life span?

I'm curious because both Yoda and Dooku are extremely old but Yoda isn't human so he doesn't abide by our rules. If the human Light Side user and the human Dark Side user are equally powerful, would they have the same life span? I say Light Side and Dark Side so it doesn't have to be all about the Jedi and Sith.

[Assistant] This can vary incredibly. Humans already can have significantly longer lifespans than IRL (in Legends, one human senator is said to be 190 and still pretty healthy). Whether or not the Force can extend one's lifespan past the average is... well, frankly not expanded upon very well. We *do* know that using the dark side extensively can seriously fuck up a person's body, however, but on the other hand there are dark side techniques that can extend the lifespan at the expense of others.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why did Jango Fett's head not fall out of its helmet after Mace Windu killed him?

[Assistant]
Same reason your head won't just fall out of a motorcycle helmet. It fits really well.

Edit: Looking at it again, that sounds needlessly gruesome so:
Same reason your motorcycle helmet won't just slip off your head. It's a tight-fitting helmet.


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

[User]
Why are straight males turned on by lesbian sex?

I know that it's a generalization and not all straight males are, but I think it's safe to say the vast majority of straight males, in the Western world at least, do find various sex acts by two women erotic.  Even just kissing.  And while some straight females feel the same about gay male sex, it's no where near as common.  So does anyone have a scientific explanation for this?  It seems counter-intuitive from the standpoint of passing on one's genes.

[Assistant] If you are going to answer this question, answer it with ***science***. Human sexuality is a well researched field with published experimental results. Layman speculation etc, is verbotten on askscience, we want scientific answers to these questions.


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

[User] If I dug down to the Earth-Moon barycenter undergound and stood in its exact area, would anything interesting occur?

[Assistant]
You would probably melt.

Assuming you find a way around that though... no. Nothing particularly exciting would happen. Remember, the moon revolves around the earth, so you'd only be at the actual barycenter for that moment when the Moon is in just the right spot.


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

[User] ELI5: I have recently been able to smell what I ate in my urine. Is there something wrong with me or did I gain a superpower?

[Assistant]
That's not abnormal - the most common example is with Asparagus. Certain chemicals or chemical byproducts created when your body breaks down a certain food can make its way to the kidney, and is expelled in Urine, which causes the smell.

Try drinking more water, this should help as well - dark yellow/orange urine is a sign that you aren't drinking enough water.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some surgeries take as long as 24 hours or more to perform? What are the reasons why it make take more than a few hours?

[Assistant]
How many things have to be done, and how complicated they are.

The deeper you get the more dire it is that things have to be done right, as well as; often you have to tear things apart to get to the main surgery, then do a bunch of other surgeries to put everything else back together as well when you're done with what you tore all the other shit apart to get to.

Very complicated surgeries, like brain surgery, take a whole lot of careful calculations, special precision tools, and equipment. These all take time to calculate and use.

That and also, different medications have to often be administered for various different surgeries, sometimes in the middle of them, and they can take varying levels of time to reach full effect before the surgeon can proceed.

Also, sometimes in surgery you have to delivery pace it instead of doing it in one shot, so the body doesn't have a meltdown and die.


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

[User]
[MARVEL] [Spider-man] does Spider-Mans web dissolve?

Im not big on the comics, but Spider-Man has always been one of my favorite superheroes. Ive read in multiple sources, that his web does dissolve, but I was playing the Insomniac game, and he had backpacks webbed up from when he was in high school. Ive also read the the ps4 Insomniac game is considered canon. Can Spider-Mans web actually last that long? Or was this a mistake by Insomniac?

[Assistant] His web normally dissolves, which is why the top half of Manhatten isn't sticky. But he can make different varieties, so it's not unfeasible that he can make a permanent webbing when he wants to web things for extra long storage.


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

[User]
Why aren't the bows of submarines pointy??

Wouldn't a pointed bow cut through the water better?

[Assistant]
Rounded shapes are far better able to withstand extreme pressure without breaking, which is a huge factor for a ship that relies upon being able to lurk deep under the waves.  If a submarine needs to crash dive and their hull isn't able to take the strain, the whole ship could implode violently and reduce itself to twisted metal and a thin organic paste that used to be the crew.

You could build on a cosmetic outer shell, but that brings you to the main point:

Speed is a useful attribute, but Submarines are VASTLY more concerned with being as silent as possible.  For subs, unnecessary noise of ANY form directly equals ***death***.  Their hull shapes are the end result of immense amounts of design work and testing to produce the quietest ship possible, and a rounded hull that slips smoothly and *quietly* through the water must presumably be the best way to go.


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

[User]
CMV: Lab Grown Meat Is A Good Option For Vegans

The Japanese have demonstrated the viability of lab grown meats recently, replicating the taste and texture of steak from nutrients supplied to cultured flesh.

With the acceptance of meatless products like the faux sausage in Starbucks meatless breakfast sandwich and BurgerKings Impossible burger, meatatarians have shown a willingness to accept that as long as the product satisfies their requirements for taste and texture they will buy it.

It seems equally reasonable that vegans would find a sustainable lab grown product would be acceptable particularly as they often state that  they enjoy the taste of some meat products but that they abstain for moral reasons.  Given that both hydroponic vegetables, fruits, and now  lab cultured meats are grown from raw (non-animal) sources, perhaps vegans and vegetarians can reintroduce a tasty food source rich in B12 back into their diet.

Edit: I confess to not really understanding what Deltas are and what to do with/about them.  If someone would be so kind as to explain, there are folks here raising really good points but I dont know if that applies to this sub or how (colour me embarrassed)

Edit2: The B12 observation was an aside (and I will admit to a small crass attempt at marketing my position.). I realize that B12 is available in numerous ways.  Ignore the comment please as it is completely peripheral to the ethical issue behind this CMV.

[Assistant]
Not all vegans enjoy the taste of meat. I, for one, have nightmares about eating meat.
Lab grown meat can still have much higher energy or water costs in comparison to vegetables and pulses, so for environmental/moral reasons, many will still abstain from lab grown meat.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do we care if species go extinct?

Hard to elaborate. Why do we care if species go extinct? There are so many species and natural order states that the only rule is survival, right? So if a species can't survive why does it matter?

[Assistant]
Once a specie go extinct, it will NEVER come back.

**Earth** is the **only** planet that we know of that has millions of animals of different kinds, who live and thrive here. If animals were to go extinct all the time, we would kill out the planet, we are literally deleting beautiful animals of different kinds from the universe because they most likely dont exist in the same "version" on any other planet in another galaxy (if there is other life).

This is the **one** and **only** planet that has the species of animals that we have (Most likely).

And also it can dramatically impact the food chain, will also leads to more species going extinct.


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

[User]
I just started reading William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith and I have some questions.

- Firstly, what does Dr. Craig mean by "properly basic"
- Secondly, what does he mean that the evidence for Christianity being true is 'self-authenticating'.

Apologies if you need more clarification and I cannot provide it, as I left the book at home!

[Assistant] Craig introduces that term in the context of talking about Plantinga's attack on theological rationalism. Plantinga's argument is that "God exists" is part of the foundation of reasoning, and not something that demands a basis of further evidence or justification. In other words, this notion is "properly basic". Presumably, this is the source of disagreement between the evidentialists and their detractors. Evidentialists will want to assert that only propositions which are either self-evident or incorrigible can be rightfully called properly basic, foundational truths, while Plantinga argues that under some appropriate circumstances, other sorts of propositions can be properly basic, and that one of those circumstances is that we have a natural, innate, God given capacity to simply *know* that God exists. The upshot is that belief in God is a deliverance of reason, and not a matter of fideistic epistemology, but importantly, belief in God is not merely rational, but because this proposition is properly basic, it is simply known. For this argument to work, the appropriate circumstances do need to hold up; a person's cognitive faculties need to be working in the appropriate way as God intended. Craig extends this understanding of circumstance to say that it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that supplies the appropriate circumstances for the proper basicality of this belief. In this extended sense, central truths of the Gospel are "self-authenticating" as the testimony of the Holy Spirit (Plantinga arrives at this position, too.)


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

[User]
[MCU] Why doesnt the government assist superheroes?

Why us it that, SHEILD aside, we never really see any involvement from the government when it comes to catching supervillians?

[Assistant]
In The First Avenger, the government fund Erskines experiments to create an army of super soldiers.  The government arent shy about wanting to take Tonys Ironman tech and are actively investigating The Mandarin in IM3 (hampered by Killian having the Vice President on his payroll). The government are aware of the Mjolnir anomaly and are investigating in Thor. The cops and Feds are all over Scott/Hank in both Antman films. Spidey messes up the Feds ferry bust. The army are hunting and engaging with the Hulk. The government(ish) fire a nuke at New York to cauterise Lokis invasion. The government (or Hydra) are hunting Cap in Winter Soldier. Civil War is predicated on global governmental reaction to enhanced individuals.

Governments are clearly doing a lot but being ready to deal with new, crazy bad guys at a moments notice is asking a lot.

Much of the time, the heroes are a lot more visible than the villains and arent always easy to discern whether theyre good or bad. As new villains pop up, its unlikely theyll be prepared (tough to transition from your plan to arrest a guy with electric whips to then deal with an eight foot tall purple alien looking for magic cosmic jewels).


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

[User] How does a Ponzi scheme work? (LI5)

[Assistant]
Schemer convinces Group A to give money to him, in return he promises that in X months they'll make a huge profit.

Later,

Schemer convinces Group B to give money to him, in return he promises that in X months they'll make a huge profit.

Group A is paid huge profits from all the money that Group B gave in.  Group A now puts MORE money in, and tells others that Schemer is trustworthy and a good deal.

Schemer convinces Group C to give money to him, in return he promises that in X months they'll make a huge profit.

Group B is paid huge profits from all the money that Group C gave in AND the money from Group A.  Group B now puts MORE money in, and tells others that Schemer is trustworthy and a good deal.

Eventually more groups are added, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M and so on...

At a certain point there is a HUGE POOL of money that the schemer is holding.  He then keeps all of it and disappears.


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly is radiation? Why is it dangerous?

Also, if someone could explain why nuclear reactions give off so much radiation, that would be great.

[Assistant]
Radiation is defined as waves or particles emitted from an atom as it moves from a higher energy state to a lower energy state. This comes in several forms: heat, light, beta (+/-), alpha, gamma, electron, proton.

Radiation is dangerous because of the high energy with which the particles are emitted. These particles can penetrate the skin and enter the body, where they can damage cells and lead to cancer and other defects.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come just keeping food/drinks in our mouth isn't satisfactory enjoyment wise?

Most of us are fortunate enough to not just eat/drink for survival, but also for enjoyment. We taste food and beverages the moment they enter our mouths, and we can taste/chew/feel texture/etc.. but still we dont quite feel satisfied until we actually swallow.

For example: no matter how much you enjoy your favorite drink, you cant just take one sip and keep it in your mouth forever.

[Assistant]
If you hold food in your mouth, the experience changes. Potatoes chips get wet. Salt dissolves.  Carbohydrates turn sweet. Cold drinks get warm. Fizz leaves the soda. Smells lose intensity (due to saturation) So quite literally the taste changes if you hold it in your mouth.

Im not sure that holding something in your mouth is as unsatisfactory as it is awkward. You cant talk, cant eat more, and you have to fight your instinct to swallow.

You have a sensation of being full that comes in part from literally having a full stomach. But that is only part of it.  Satisfaction with a meal depends on many things.. such as cravings, nutrition, special body needs, individual preferences, the time since you last ate, dehydration/ thirst is a big one.

In short, swallowing is part of a a complete, satisfying experience.


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

[User]
[Hallmark / Lifetime movies] How many tiny monarchical countries exist in Europe, and why do so many of their royal bloodlines include random Americans who happen to inherit the throne?

Why is it that the rightful heirs to the throne are always scattered somewhere in America? Isn't there a closer, more logical heir within the kingdom? Also, why specifically Americans?

How many of these tiny countries are there? What kept these regions fragmented for so long, instead of having been inevitably conquered by larger nations centuries ago? Lastly, where does the royal family's money come from if the countries are so small?

[Assistant]
Remember that before the time of great empires and kingdoms, most of Europe existed in individual city-states that were largely self-governing. These individual kingdoms are likely holdouts from that era that, for some reason or another, were never absorbed into a greater whole.

As for why some heirs are American, its possible that WWI caused many of the countries royal families to seek refuge in America. Or, as in the case of Anastasia, they were ousted by some sort of revolution and had to go into hiding.

It may also be that only 1-2 movies exist in the same universe at a time, and what were seeing are multiple universes, each with its own vaguely European city-state with an American heir. That could be why the plots are so similar. History is playing out in almost the same way in each universe, the only real difference being the names of the countries.


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

[User]
[The Walking Dead] What does the navy look like?

So, it strikes me that the navy would be pretty well off in such an event. Sure, the land-based military is fucked, but by the time it starts to effect the navy, the basic rules of what's going on will be well established. So...

What does the various naval militaries look like? Are they doing okay, relatively?

Do they know about what's up with deaths, bites, etcetera?

Can they fare okay in the new world?

Sure, they need fuel.

What about nuclear military subs?

[Assistant]
The issue with TWD zombies is that once someone dies, they turn. So once people start dying of starvation or other natural causes, you now have a ship full of zombies.

In TWD, it's not the bite that turns you, it's the infection from the bite that kills you, then you turn because you already have the virus inside you.


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

[User] Is climate change the biggest market failure in history?

[Assistant]
If we assume the costs of climate change (which are large) are not internalized into market prices (which they are not), then yes climate change is the largest market failure in history.

This is also contingent on climate scientists and economists being correct in their forecasts of the costs of climate change.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are Baseball teams forced to play so many games compared to other sports?

MLB - 162 Games

NBA - 82 Games

MLS - 34 Games

NFL - 16 Games

Compared to other sports they play almost double of the next closest sport. Why is that?

Edit: 162 games, not 164 (sorry)

[Assistant]
Baseball requires more games to determine which is the better team. A *very* good baseball team only wins 65% of thier games.
Also, as others have mentioned, baseball is less grueling than many other sports, so they can play almost every day.


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

[User]
If defibrillators have a very specific purpose, why do most buildings have one?

I read it on reddit that defibrilators are NOT used to restart a heart, but to normalize the person's heartbeat.

If that's the case why can I find one in many buildings around the city? If paramedics are coming, they're going to have one anyway.

[Assistant] Long story short, the sooner the response time to a cardiac event, the better. If a person has a cardiac event and another person around is able to administer the AED then the treatment begins and the paramedics take over upon arrival.


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

[User]
[General] Circular hammers vs square hammers

This one is pretty simple. Why are some famous fictional hammers, like Mario's, circular, and why are some, like Thor's, square? Is one better than the other? Do they have advantages and disadvantages?

[Assistant]
Circular ones are for fixing things. No sharp edges, made to not hurt people accidentally. Mario does not use this correctly.

Square hammers are war-hammers, made so that even a near miss will do damage.

They do the same amount of damage if you hit directly on. The square one does more damage on a glancing blow (though Mario is good enough that all of his attacks hit perfectly square on). Round hammers are easier to find, though.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] "It's over Anakin, I have the high ground" Instead of trying to jump over Obi Wan, what could Anakin have done differently?

If there was no way to beat Obi Wan, how could Anakin have surrendered?

[Assistant] Continue the fight normally. Having the high ground isn't an automatic win, it's just a slight advantage. He only lost because he let himself be goaded into trying to take back the high ground immediately with a risky move.


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

[User]
[MCU] [Doctor Strange] Does the public know that Stephen Strange is just out there doing superhero stuff?

Dr. Stephen Strange was a renowned neurosurgeon who was so famous in the scientific community that he managed to catch HYDRA's eye before he even had superpowers. His costume involves no disguise, he literally calls himself Doctor Strange. So if anyone recognized him on the street, what would that be like? Does he bother to hide his identity at all or is it well known that the once neurosurgeon is now a superhero? Is it like a Tony Stark situation?

[Assistant]
Strange keeps a really low profile outside of big, crazy shit like Kaecilius and Ebony Maws incursions, and even then people were only able to actually see him during the latter battle. People dont really have the presence of mind to get a bead on him when theres another alien invasion happening, this is 2012 all over again, oh God!

To the world, Stephen Strange went crazy and left for India in search of... essential oils, or something.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why do certain cultures consistently own in certain chains and establishments?

For example: Nail salons and dry cleaners often are staffed by asian individuals and Dunkin Donuts and 711 often have Indian staff. Not trying to be offensive when asking this question.

[Assistant]
The reasoning behind it is mostly that people's families and friends help them get established when they move to a new country. Say you have an uncle with a couple convenience stores, maybe he'll give you a job in one. After a while maybe you save some money and buy a store of your own because you have lots of experience running one now, and an uncle who can help you find a good one to buy.

A few years later you have a few stores, and your wife's cousin emigrates, so you set him up with a job managing one of your stores, and the cycle repeats.


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

[User]
CMV: Peloton should have a pause option.

Here I am, on a thirty minute ride.  Doing great, heart's pumping, music's pumping, brrring - someone's calling.  I gotta take the call, fine, gotta turn off the music and stop pedaling.  Three minutes later I'm back but now I have two options.  Start again from the beginning or pick up three more minutes in, as if this were a live performance.  We have the technology, let me pick up where I paused it.  Or even rewind a couple minutes from where I left off to warm back up.

I know this messes with the leaderboard if I can get a high score by taking big breaks between sprints.  So just disable the score if I pause.

CMV.  Why is this infeasible or why shouldn't it be permitted?  Just seems like it would be so useful and easy to implement.

[Assistant] The lack of a pause option works as motivation to the user.  It feels more real if there is no option to stop.  Even if it was just the leaderboard it still affects personal records and people would use this as an excuse to not do a full workout without feeling like they are quitting.  Ultimately it cheapens the experience and reduces results which hurts the company image.  They want it to have the feel of a real class so you take it as seriously as a real class.  You wouldnt step out of a real class to take a call unless it was very important and they want you to treat this the same way.


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

[User] Do galaxies orbit other galaxies?

[Assistant]
Yes, they do.  Locally, our Milky Way has nearly 60 dwarf satellites within a million l.y.  The brightest and most famous of the are the Large and Small Clouds of Magellan.  But not all of these nearby objects are confirmed to be gravitationally bound to, and therefore truly in orbit about the vastly larger Milky Way, but at least several dozen of them are.

The environment around the nearby Andromeda Galaxy is similar, with dozens of dwarf elliptical galaxies in orbit around what is the largest Galaxy in the Local Group.


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

[User] ELI5:If DNA copying errors are random occurences, why do some diseases that are known to be caused by gene mutations can reoccur in their offsprings at a random point in their life?

[Assistant]
There are two types of mutations: germline and somatic.

> **Germline:** passed to the offspring at birth.

> **Somatic:** occurs *de novo* in the organism through mutation.

Only somatic mutations are "random".  Diseases arising from somatic mutations are almost exclusively cancers.  Germline mutations are inherited.  The manifestation of heritable disease from germline mutations is called the disease's **penetrance**.  Penetrance basically refers to the total fraction of people with the disease relative to the fraction with the mutation.

Many diseases are penetrant at birth (i.e. effects of the mutation are seen at birth).  Examples of diseases penetrant at birth include sickle cell, cystic fibrosis, congenital dwarfism, etc.  Other diseases' penetrance is **age dependent**.  Age-dependent penetrance means effects are only seen at a specific age.  The poster child of age-dependent penetrance is Huntington's disease.

So, to answer in brief, most mutations that cause disease are not copy errors they are inherited.  Despite this, just because a known detrimental mutation is present doesn't mean it is phenotypically expressed at birth, it may require a certain age or condition to appear.


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

[User]
CMV: The United States would have turned out very differently if its initial gun laws had been different.

Canada and the United States are a little bit like a "twins separated at birth" study.  There are many similarities in their formation.  They were both initially inhabited by indigenous peoples, mostly from the same original group.  They were both colonies.  Canada was a colony of Britain and France and the U.S. was a colony of Britain, France, Spain and Russia but for both of them, the major influencing mother country was Britain.  They both gained independence, developed similar laws, spoke mostly English, explored and spread across their respective land masses and participated in many of the same large events (gold rush, world wars, etc.)  In spite of all this, they have turned out to be two very different cultures.

In the United States, firearms had few restrictions from the beginning.  They started out with 69 Indian wars where they conquered and subdued the indigenous population.  They had enough guns to revolt against Britain and win their independence.  They spread across their land mass with the gun becoming the power.  There were actually gun fights in the streets in some western towns.  As they continued on their growth to become the world power, they were constantly involved in wars.  Since 1776, there has only been 17 years where the U.S. was not involved in a war.

In Canada, the first major controlling European influence was the Hudson's Bay Company, a company based on the fur trade.  As the indigenous people were necessary in this business, their policy became, "Don't shoot your customers." (tic) Canada had zero Indian wars.  They definitely weren't nice to the indigenous people but they didn't have wars.  Almost immediately after becoming a nation, Canada develop the RCMP which spread across the country.  Revolvers were banned in Canada so that there could be no dramatic street shootouts.  Canada did not have enough military might to mount a revolt against Britain so they negotiated a settlement for independence instead.

There are obviously many other influences that plotted the course of each country but, it seems to me that had the United States started with the same gun limitations as Canada, they would have turned out very differently.

[Assistant]
You are attempting to distill national differences down to a single item.

Here is a list of why they are different:

- One fought a revolution for independence, the other did not

- One has a strong widespread agricultural climate (southern US) which bred significant use of slave labor - the other does not.

- One has a largely inhabitable landmass while the other does not. Canada's northern reaches, while inhabited by people, have nowhere near the population density of the US nor the climate to sustain a large population.

- One is roughly 10x the population of the other. (California has more people that Canada)

- One has vastly different social safety nets that than other

- One has vastly different history of treatment of African Americans

- In the early/mid 20th century, one turned into a global superpower which continues today. The other did not. Arguably, Canada has had to bend to the will of the US in this time.

- In the early days of both countries - meaningful gun laws did not exist. It was not until much much later that gun laws got stricter

Sorry but no, gun laws are not the reason the US and Canada differ.


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

[User]
How does a spider know to bite you, and that you are not just an inanimate object?

How does the spider know you are not just a part of it's "world," or a piece of background? Like, do they bite random things if they feel they are in danger or if it's moving and startles it?

[Assistant]
You generally don't get bitten by a spider unless it feels threatened by you.  It won't just walk along and bite you while you are sleeping and immobile.

People are large warm objects that move about, so they are clearly not part of the world or background.  Spiders are a lot like snakes in regard to what they bite, if they can get away from it they will, if they have to bite they will, but some species often dry bite when defending and save their venom for food later.


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

[User] [LotR] Why doesn't the chain disappear when Frodo is wearing the ring as a collar?

[Assistant]
Invisibility is due to the person wearing the ring being shifted (partly) into the wraith-world - the spirit world.

This can happen with living beings, since they have a presence in the spirit world anyway - their own spirit.

The chain has no spirit, and therefore no presence in the spirit world. It can't shift there.


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

[User] ELI5: How come, during summer, I can set my thermostat to 68F and still feel good, while during Winter, the same setting is too cold?

[Assistant]
Radiation.

In summer, the walls are warm, so you do not radiate heat to them very effectively - a lot is radiated right back. In winter, heat you radiate to the walls is lost, as little will radiate back, so you need a higher air temperature to compensate.


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

[User] Will the state ever wither away? If so, how would that happen? What can an ordinary citizen do to dismantle it?

[Assistant]
Here's a quote that's relevant, although it's from the left-wing anarchist Gustav Landauer:

> The State is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.


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

[User]
[MCU] what would happen is I ran through a sling ring portal from the back?

Would I be able to pass through? If I ran through from the back and someone ran through the front at the same time would we collide?

[Assistant]
It works both ways. Front of portal A connects with the back of portal B, front of portal B connects with the back of portal A.

If two people ran at the same portal from opposite sides, they'd miss and just appear on both sides of the second portal.


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

[User] Why is the rabies virus contagious between humans and animals, but very rarely contagious between humans and humans?

[Assistant] The virus is present in human saliva, but people with rabies tend not to bite, and medical personnel take precautions to avoid exposure to saliva of patients known to be infected. People tend to hit and kick when angry or frightened instead of biting. If our primary defense was biting, like raccoons and dogs, transmission from one human to another might be more common. As it is, rabies is sometimes transmitted from one person to another through organ transplantation, but there are no clearly established cases of human-to-human transmission through saliva.


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

[User] ELI5: If Caffeine just blocks adenosine in the brain from making you feel sleepy, how is it a stimulant for the central nervous system?

[Assistant] well caffeine antagonises the adenosine receptors. Adenosine being a neurotransmitter that in increased quantities when you get fatigued over the course of a day. By stopping the action of adenosine you essentially prevent its depressive action thus creating a stimulating effect.


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

[User]
CMV: The recent shunning of the confederate flag is not due to some sudden revelation of the horrors it represents.

Suddenly, it has become popular for companies to halt sales of their flags and for organizations to remove flags from their premises. There are thousands of political organizations and churches, along with Walmart, Amazon, Sears, and eBay, that are jumping on this moral bandwagon even though we've known about the historical implications of the confederate flag for over 150 years.

These are not actions done out of nobility, or they would have rejected the flags before the craze had taken place. Corporations that stop sale of the flag are acting opportunistically. They see this as an opportunity to present their company in a good light.

[Assistant]
A lot of time it takes an event to trigger a change.

Let's say there is an overweight person who doesn't care about their health. Now they have probably known the dangers of being overweight and unhealthy for years but didn't care. Then one day some stranger makes a joke about, "that whale over there". This could hurt them so much they turn their life around and get healthier. Now you could argue, they only lost the weight to make sure nobody makes fun of them and doesn't really care about the health benefits.

So back to the flag issue, yes people have known it's history for awhile and could have stopped selling years ago. But it wasn't until the recent event in SC that causes the companies to look internally and say, "this isn't right that we sell this flag".


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

[User]
Dissertation without primary research? (curious how this works)

Hey gang,

I've been talking to a friend a lot about her dissertation (psychology). She's spent years creating research, gathering data, etc. and is putting it all together as you do.

This has led me to wonder how other disciplines deal with dissertations. I studied English and Theater for Undergrad and Business for Grad. I've never been exposed to research the way my psych friend has.

Do PhD candidates in these disciplines do primary research for their dissertations? How would this research differ/compare to the kinds of studies social scientists do?

If I were to ever decide to pursue a PhD, how could I build the necessary research skills to be effective? For example, I'm aware of IRB's, but have never done one...or designed a study. I've plenty of experience hitting the [digital] stacks to find research and write papers, but it's not the same.

Thanks!

[Assistant]
The dissertation is always original research or original theorizing. The nature of research obviously differs from one field to the next--in psychology, gathering original data is pretty much universal. In sociology and political science, it's not uncommon for dissertations to report secondary analyses of existing data sets. For something like English or theater, the research may be focused on applying theories about text or audience to a body of work, extending an existing theory in light of such an application, or something along those lines. In addition, there is an emerging field called the "digital humanities" in which data analytic tools are applied to understand how audiences respond to media texts. It's kind of a sexy research area right now--lots of universities are hiring one or two digital humanities people, and they are in somewhat short supply.

If you entered a PhD program, you would take classes that exposed you to relevant theories and research methods in whatever discipline you choose. As for the details of IRBs, study design, and data collection--you would tend to learn these things by working with your advisor on her or his research, then collaborating on your research ideas.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can unicode, which uses 16 bits to represent the characters in its set, represent so many languages with only 65,000 characters?

I don't understand how unicode can represent so many languages with 65,000 characters. Unless, each language has a separate unicode set for the characters. But if that's the case, isn't it a waste to use Unicode for English? It only has 26 letters.

[Assistant]
Unicode doesn't use 16 bits for each character. Each character is represented as a unique number (a code point) which can take up to 21 bits (so that's over a million characters). The actual number of bits used in a piece of text depends on the encoding. In, UTF-8, one of the most common encodings, every character is encoded with between 1 and 4 bytes depending on how much is needed to represent the code point.

Edit: `s/billion/million/`


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

[User] ELI5: Rogue waves.

[Assistant]
Water is moving in waves everywhere, all the time. Most of the time it just looks like it sloshes.

But when by some chance a lot of waves get into a groove and start waving at the same time, suddenly all that sloshing from those waves becomes one Bigger wave. That is the rogue wave.
It has beat the system of an individual wave surviving and lifting itself up by its bootstraps, and they are overcome with a wave of red communistic ideals, and fuck shit up, together, before realizing they don't get enough benefit out of it individually and returning to their primal wave ways.

Don't worry or say anything about that f word though, kid. You'll learn when you're older.


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

[User]
CMV: Fetuses are human beings, viable or not.

I'm pro-choice. Despite my dislike of abortions (I don't know if anyone really *likes* abortions), I believe they are necessary and crucial for many reasons and situations. However, I can't be convinced that fetuses are not people/human beings; embryos being a different story. I've even heard people say that a baby isn't alive until it's born. I don't get that either.

Maybe I'm seeing it from an emotional point of view, but in my opinion a fetus is alive (it's growing, changing) and it is a human being.

So, please give me a different perspective to help my tiny mind make sense of this.

EDIT: I'm going to pick this up tomorrow. I am up way past my bedtime, but I do want to answer more of your comments and converse further. I'm seeing a whole new side of this subject. It makes things clearer for me. Thank you!

[Assistant]
Do you think an acorn is an oak tree?  An acorn will become a tree but no one calls an acorn a tree even though every oak tree began an acorn and every acorn has potential to be become an oak tree.

The majority of people who are pro-choice don't deny that a fetus is alive or that a fetus is a human being at a fetal stage.

I am curious why you feel differently about an embryo.  Can you tell exactly what point an embryo becomes a fetus?  What makes a difference between them?


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

[User]
[The Aristocats] What happened to Edgar after he was mailed to Timbuktu?

Near the end of the movie, Edgar gets kicked into a trunk that is addressed to Timbuktu. The trunk is locked and gets picked up by the postal service. We never see Edgar again.

Could he have got out of the trunk, or would he (or his corpse) eventually have arrived in Timbuktu?

[Assistant]
In the German book adaptation of these events, he is arrested for illegal immigration after arriving in Africa.

But in the real world, I'd imagine after he came to and recovered from the blow to the head he'd have been able to call for help.


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

[User]
Why is the amount of work required to accelerate a body from 10m/s to 20m/s three times the work needed to accelerate a body from 0m/s to 10m/s?

The kinetic energy of a body moving at 10m/s is 50\*mass and the kinetic energy of a body moving at 20m/s is 200\*mass. The work required to accelerate the body from 10 to 20m/s is 200-50=150\*mass, or three times the 0-10 acceleration. This seems really counterintuitive because it would seem that as the body gets faster it is harder to accelerate it further i.e. you would need to do more work. What does the force acting on the body care about the speed at which the object is moving if it just wants to accelerate it another 10m/s? What am I missing here?

(I know that the formulae say that it behaves this way but I just can't grasp it.)

[Assistant]
Say you want to accelerated an object by a certain speed v, you can do that by applying a constant force, for a given time. So, if the body weights 1 kg and you apply a force of 1 N for 10 seconds, the object would speed up 10m/s, independent of the original speed. This is probably why your intuition syas it should be equally 'hard'.
The problem is that the amount of work is not the applied force integrated over time, it is the applied force integrated over distance. So if you apply the same force for the same period of time, speeding from a larger initial speed will take more work becouse the distance travelled is larger (greater speed, equal time -> longer distance).


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

[User]
CMV: Kids would learn more effectively if they were told what the skills they are learning will be useful for.

I liked some subjects in school and didn't like some others. But as an adult I have learnt many different things similar to subjects at school but enjoyed it way more.

If kids were taught how their skills will help them in life I believe it would benefit greatly.

Music - A nice relaxing hobby to unwind. Music can also increase intellegence. I believe there is too much emphasis on strict short forced lessons. E.g. You should be practising for 45 minutes every day. As an adult I pick up the guitar whenever I feel like it and it is way longer than the amount I was forced to as a kid which I couldn't feel I could do.

Maths - Taxes, accounting (for your own or someone else's business, budgeting (for your personal balance), for engineering.

Languages - Provide access to many cultures in your own country, provides access to many cultures whilst travelling for business or pleasure, increase the amount of news sources you can read and receive less sovereign bias. Allows you to make friends with more people. If you even attempt to speak mandarin with someone who it is their first language then they'll atleast be happy for a little bit and feel respected and often leads to friendships. You understand people more as the way language works can affect people's personalities as it restricts the way people can express themselves in different ways.

In order to keep this post fairly short I'll leave it there for the examples.

If you were told this stuff as a kid then fair enough, but I did not hear any of these things even once.

[Assistant]
Can cant possible think that a kid that doesn't give a shit about math will suddenly turn around and care because you told them this will help with taxes.

If they didn't care before they won't care later.


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

[User]
Thinking of life-long health, is it better to avoid germs as much as possible or be exposed to them and strengthen your immune system

Will I be healthier if I always wash my hands, always practice food safety and temperatures to a tee, avoided dirt generally, used disinfectants, etc etc, or would it be better if I just dealt with germs, dirt, bacteria, etc (within reason of course).

[Assistant]
Biologist here. Yes and no, as with all things biology. (EDIT: Bonus gamer analogy TL;DR at the end! EDIT 2: clarified a couple of redundant redundancies.)

Immune challenge is one of the ways our immune system learns how to defend against bacteria, viruses and parasites. We have patches of immunological tissue in our gut and other mucous membrane lined tissue in addition to our lymph nodes, thymus, and spleen. It contains multiple types of immunological cells--those that attack and digest potential threats, and those that "present" antigens derived from those now-broken up threats. Antigen-presenting cells can then activate lymphocytes your body has already created. If one of those lymphocytes recognizes the antigen presented, it's not because it has necessarily seen that antigen before--the body is very good at anticipation, and creates receptors with HIGHLY variable paratopes to match epitopes on the presented antigen. Think of the epitope as the key and the paratope on the lymphocyte receptor as the lock. Genes that encode the proteins that build these receptors undergo a process of recombination that creates many cells, each with receptors that will respond to different things. There is a round of selection that only allows immune cells that don't recognize proteins that are supposed to be there (self-antigens) to hang around, i.e., cells with paratopes that recognize self antigens are destroyed. It doesn't want to waste resources on creating things that will harm the body. That still leaves many cells, each with a paratope that will recognize epitopes of a different antigen--locks waiting for their own special keys--called "naive" because they haven't yet been presented with antigen that matches. When a key fits into a lock, the magic begins. Immature B and T lymphocytes undergo a process of maturation in your lymph nodes, and two things happen: the structure and function of the cell changes, and that cell--it only takes one!--undergoes clonal expansion, a fancy way of saying that that cell reproduces itself many, many times exactly, with receptor paratopes matching the antigen epitope that "unlocked" it. (When you get swollen glands, it's partly because of clonal expansion, it happens that fast and that many times.) Immature T lymphocytes become "killer" T cells that can attack precisely and directly, and immature B lymphocytes become plasma cells that become little factories that make antibodies. (Antibodies, by the way, are just versions of the receptor "locks" that are secreted by plasma cells that can attach themselves to the antigen that unlocked the original naive lymphocyte.) Antibodies coat whatever they lock onto, and then activate other parts of the immune system to help out as well as telling other "naive" immune cells to mature. When the initial response is over, a few activated B and T cells hang around in circulation for years afterward, waiting to be unlocked again so that the immune response happens much, much faster next time--this is how vaccines, which are basically just antigens directly injected into the body, work to give lasting immunity. More challenges that match other types of antigen increase both the circulating antibody (more active plasma cells) and circulating T cells.

There's a balance. If your immune system is constantly under challenge, it doesn't work as well because it's too busy responding. Hygiene is important for this reason, and certain viruses specifically overactivate the immune system so it goes haywire and can't actually do its job. But, if you compulsively avoid sick people or keep everything covered in sanitizer, your body never learns to respond to the antigens in your environment by having those circulating mature lymphocytes and antibodies, increasing the likelihood that you'll *have* to respond to too much at once.

TL; DR: It's like unlocking an achievement and getting a special, specific weapon every time an antigen matches a lymphocyte's receptor. Vaccines are like cheat codes. Hygiene makes sure you only encounter what you can handle at one time and respond appropriately, otherwise it's like mashing the jump button over and over until you fall off a cliff. Oversanitizing is like not playing the game at all and then expecting to beat the final boss without knowing what you're doing.


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

[User] ELI5: The universe is expanding, what is going on at the perimeter?

[Assistant]
Think about an inflatable rubber ball, and imagine yourself as a two dimensional creature living on the surface of the ball. If you went in any direction far enough, you would eventually arrive back at your starting point. Now imagine that the ball starts getting inflated more. There is no perimeter to expand, but everything in your "universe" gets further away from each other as the ball expands.

Now imagine that two dimensional surface as a three dimensional space, and everything else is the same.


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

[User] For "breakthrough" Covid cases in fully vaccinated people that are deemed to be "mild" (presumably in terms of symptoms), is there still danger of other hidden internal damage (i.e. heart, lungs, etc)?

[Assistant]
It isn't completely understood yet, but most likely no.

The damage is caused by a positive feedback loop leading to either immune cells killing infected cells or the cells killing themselves.

Antibody responses actually inhibit this process, greatly reducing the overall inflammatory response. The antibody response is quicker and stronger in vaccinated individuals, so the cytokine storm response should be minimal.


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

[User] If the sun shines where I am for 14 hours, does that mean it will only shine for 10 hours on the other side of the planet?

[Assistant]
If it shines for 14 hours where you are, it shines for 14 hours everywhere else at the same latitude, in the same hemisphere. I.e., if you go exactly East, or exactly West, you'll encounter places where it shines the same amount of hours.

However, in the other hemisphere (Southern, if you're in the Northern one), anywhere at the same latitude like you (just Southern instead of Northern), it will only shine 10 hours.

These things depend on the latitude.

Of course, the amount of hours changes from day to day, on a yearly cycle.


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

[User] [DCEU] Why did Bruce have to buy the entire bank to save the Clark farm? Why not just pay off the debt?

[Assistant]
Because if he pays off the debt, Bruce has to explain why. He has a public relationship with Clark Kent, but it'd still raise some eyebrows.

However, buying the small local bank is something Wayne Corp does from time to time and wouldn't require any explanations.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why did nobody fill in the power vacuum for the 14 years Voldemort was dead?

Not only did they not resurrect him right away, nobody even tried to step up. There's an entire faction of evil wizards and witches and not a single one tried to replace Voldemort.  Why not?

[Assistant]
Someone did. It was a group called "The Ministry of Magic".

After the war, all sides were hurting, having taken heavy losses. The populace was confused, weary. The Death Eaters mostly followed through fear. Many others were imperiused into obedience.

A small group of people actually loyal to Voldemort were then captured, tried, and sentenced to Azkaban.

Neither side wanted to fight, and the Ministry grew off that - making deals with former Death Eaters, in exchange for leniency and political capital. Everyone looked to the Ministry to restore order, and they did.

This eventually, of course, led to the corrupt and bloated Ministry we see in the series, before its inevitable fall.


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

[User] Would a child from 10,000 years ago fit in if raised from birth in today's society, 100,000 years? How far back could we go before we have a significant degradation of cognitive ability?

[Assistant] I think probably from about 200,000 - 100,000 years ago cognitvely, as this lines up with migrations out of Africa. However in terms of a decent immune system you are probably looking at about 10,000 - 7,000 years ago as this lines us with the first instances of livestock rearing by humans and therefore the development of some immunity to alot of modern day pathogens.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Is there a consumable additive that could prevent fermenting blood from coagulating?

Klingon blood wine is made from fermenting blood and sugar, and is 80% alcohol. At least, according to the Star Trek Cook Book. This means that 20% of the drink would have to be some mix of blood and sugar.

You can prevent it from coagulating with sodium fluoride, but in the doses needed to create an alcoholic beverage like this, I don't think sodium fluoride would be a safe option, would it? Are there any alternatives that would work for this?

[Assistant]
IIRC it does not actually contain any blood, it is just called that because it is dark red and sounds cool.

Even if it were though, it probably uses the blood of a very specific animal which may have been selectively bred for the purpose, like how we do with most things now.


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

[User]
ELI5: Whats going on between Tumblr and 4Chan?

I don't use tumblr or 4Chan but people on Imgur are flipping out over something between the two having a "war".

[Assistant]
Tumblr is filled with SJWs (Social justice warriors). 4chan is filled with trolls.

I dunno who fired the first shot, but the basic gist of it is that there are two communities of similar hateful personalities with polar opposite political and social beliefs going at it.


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

[User]
How small can a radioactive material get from decay?

OK. So you have a half life, which is the time it takes for half of a radioactive material to decay. For example: you have 100 grams of uranium. After one half life, it goes to 50 grams. Then after another, 25, and so on. Eventually, you get to an amount very small. Let's say 16 atoms of uranium. After another half life, you get to 8 atoms. Then 4. Then 2. Then 1. What now? This one atom can't just split, because it will become two new elements or nothing at all. So, I'm confused! I keep getting told the same thing, that the element just keeps getting smaller and never stops. But how can one atom get smaller? Does the atom "shrink"? Does the space between the subatomic particles become smaller?

Edit: sorry, poorly worded title :(

[Assistant]
>This one atom can't just split

Yes it can! A uranium atoms can decay into an alpha particle and a thorium atom. Thorium is also unstable; there's a long chain of decays that eventually leads to a stable lead nucleus.


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

[User]
[Marvel] I'm a mutant with lie-detector powers. What are the legal implications if I become a police officer?

So I'm a teenager and I just figured out I'm a mutant.  Basically I have a really narrow set of mind-control psychic powers that make people tell me the truth.  Even when I'm not trying, being near me makes people less likely to lie and more likely to blurt out things they feel guilty about.  (My mom blames me for the divorce.)  When I focus on someone, they pretty much have to answer anything they're asked as honestly as they can.  They literally can't stop themselves from telling the truth.  And whenever anyone does tell a lie near me, about anything, I know they're lying.  (Every night before bed my mom says "I love you."  Yeah.  Can't wait until I'm 18.)

The problem is I want to be a cop.  And first I was like "oh, cool, nobody can lie to me, this power makes me the perfect detective."  And then I'm like "oh shit rules of evidence I'm basically forcing people to confess and that's not cool".  And it's not like I can go to a judge and say "hey, this guy said he didn't have any drugs at home and I know he's lying, can I have a search warrant for his house".

So lawyers here (Jen Walters, maybe?  I'd love to meet her), what's my situation?  Is there any point in me trying for a career in law enforcement?  And how can I best use my powers to put the bad guys away with evidence that's admissible in court?

[Assistant] Shouldn't be a problem. You say people do lie to you, so you're not forcing them to reveal information, just making them more inclined to. Which is the whole point of an interrogation. And yeah, you "knowing" they are lying would not hold up in court, but it would still be a tremendous help to you in your investigation. Much easier to get proof of what happened if you already know all about it.


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

[User]
Why do Geometridae caterpillars (a.k.a inchworms, measuringworms etc.) hang from silk threads?

This seems like dangerous behavior. I've seen them captured by wasps when doing this. If I had to guess I would say it's a way to catch a ride on another animal, but that too seems rather risky vs. the possible benefit.

[Assistant]
Oddly enough, it's a defensive behavior^1,2. When the caterpillar is on a branch or a leaf, it will sense the substrate vibrations of potential predators (such as stink bugs or wasps) and throw themselves off. Once the threat has moved on, it will climb back up. However, this of course puts them in a potentially dangerous position, as you pointed out. It's certainly a risk.

1. Castellanos & Barbosa (2006). "Evaluation of predation risk by a caterpillar using substrate-borne vibrations." Animal Behavior 72:2, 461469.

2. Soares *et al.*(2009) "Does Thyrinteina arnobia (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) use different defense behaviours against predators?" Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection 116:1, 3033.


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

[User]
Why is there no Tornado Alley in China?

I dont know much about Tornados, but as I understand it, Cold Dry air mixing with Warm Wet air is how you get tornados. So in the US, theres warm wet air from the gulf colliding with cold dry air from Canada and we get Tornado Alley where most tornadoes happen.

I know there are tornados in China, but no Tornado Alley phenomenon. It looks like there should be the same happening somewhere- warm, wet air from the South China Sea colliding with cold, dry air from Mongolia/Russia. What is this system missing that it needs to produce more tornados?

[Assistant]
It's the topographical differences between the USA and China: the USA has the huge, large flat area of the Great Plains, stretching almost the whole continent from north to south. There are no mountain ranges in east-west direction which could hinder the flow of the air masses. It's exactly in this area, into which the air masses are funneled, where Tornado Alley lies.

China has no such topographical feature. Quite contrary, it's a fairly mountaineous country with lots of mountain ranges, many of them in east-west orientation. The air masses cannot flow as unhindered as they can in the USA and thus produce tornadoes consistently.


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

[User]
ELI5 what's a gravity wave

I understand that gravity is the curvature of space time. If that's true, doesn't it fully explain gravity? Why do we need gravity waves and/or gravitons?

[Assistant]
Scientists have a theory called "general relativity" that explains how gravity works. According to this theory, gravity is caused by the way that objects bend something called "spacetime." Spacetime is like a fabric that everything in the universe is made of. When an object with a lot of mass or energy is nearby, it can bend spacetime. This is kind of like what happens when you put a bowling ball on a trampoline. The bowling ball makes a dent in the trampoline, and if you roll a smaller ball towards the bowling ball, it will follow the curve of the trampoline and roll towards the bowling ball.

Gravity waves and gravitons are ideas that scientists have come up with to try to understand how gravity works on a very small scale. Gravity waves are like ripples in spacetime that are created when two massive objects collide or when a massive object changes shape or orientation very quickly. Gravitons are tiny particles that are thought to be responsible for carrying the force of gravity from one object to another. Scientists are still trying to figure out if these things really exist and how they might fit into our understanding of gravity.


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

[User]
[DC] Why didn't most Kryptonians leave Krypton before it blew up?

They were an extremely advanced alien race, surely they had the technology to go to other planets. Also, lets say they dont, they also have flight and they can breathe in space. Superman can go faster than light and he is an average Kryptonian.

[Assistant]
Also in most every version of the origin, people didn't believe Jor-El's warnings about what was going to happen. They thought he was the Kryptonian Harold Camping, and just laughed at him or told him to STFU.

More varied are explanations as to whether Krypton had colonies or settlements outside of Krypton at all. Some have said that Kryptonians settled on other planets or moons near Krypton, but they were destroyed, either near instantly or gradually in the wake of Krypton's explosion (Kara-El Supergirl is a survivor of one of Krypton's moon colonies). In the Man of Steel movie they explained that the colonies simply collapsed and died out without Krypton.


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

[User] [Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone] Why does Voldemort still trust Snape after he repeatedly tried to stop Professor Quirrell/Voldemort?

[Assistant] Snape was working against Quirrel. They never said "hey it's me ur master Voldemort", so he thought there was just dark-wizard wannabe Quirrel trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone. And he had to keep working for Dumbledore just as if he was loyal, until commanded by Voldemort not to.


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

[User] [Star Trek] If a ship goes on yellow alert, do you have to go back on duty even if it's your time off?

[Assistant] If this was on a bigger ship like the Enterprise D, then there should be another team on rotation doing your job when you are off duty. If this was like a skeleton Crew like Voyageur, you might be the only one who can man that station, so perhaps, yes.


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

[User]
ELI5: What would happen if we detonated an atomic bomb in the eye of a hurricane

Would it have an effect on the strength or path of the storm?

[Assistant]
A hurricane gets its energy from warm ocean water, and in the process of water vapor condensing into rain droplets. The heat released during condensation serves to continue to warm the surrounding air, which causes more seawater to evaporate, condense, and continue the cycle.
A fully developed hurricane releases 50 or more terawatts of heat energy at any given moment, only about 1 percent of which is converted into wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.
The entire human race in 2011 used about a third of the energy present in an average hurricane.

So bombing a hurricane might be about as effective as trying to stop a speeding Buick with a feather.

It will make the hurricane worse because:
1. There's the possibility that bombing the hurricane, if it had any effect at all, would just add to the storm's heat supply, making it even stronger.
2. You're creating a radioactive hurricane.


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

[User] ELI5: If beer is typically 95% water, why does it dehydrate us?

[Assistant] Your body uses a hormone called anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) to maintain sodium balance in your body. Increase ADH urinate less, decrease ADH urinate more. Alcohol suppresses the production of ADH which results in your kidneys creating more urine than the beer youd consume in a night of binging.


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

[User]
ELIF: What is a credit union and why would I want an account with one?

I'm confused when people talk about banks and credit unions. I know a bank stores your money, but how is that related to a credit union? What are credit unions good for?

[Assistant]
A bank has to make money since it has a responsibility to share holders to try and earn them money.

A credit union is not for profit, so it can usually charge lower rates because they do not need to maintain as high of a margin. It uses the money it could have earned and basically returns it to the customer by charging a lower rate for loans and possibly provide a higher rate for depositors

Banks and credit unions exist because individuals have a hard time raising money by themselves for big purchases such as houses or cars.


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

[User]
[WH40K] When you get right down to it, couldn't Khrone just slice all of humanity, including the Emperor, which his fuckhuge sword?

I mean, the Emperor is apparently a pretty big threat. Why not just chop Terra with the sword? I know the Emperor's psyker powers are immense, and destruction of his physical body wouldn't stop him forever, but surely annihilating the base of humanity would be a wise decision.

[Assistant]
The Gods of Chaos does not want the emperor to quite die.

Yes, they hate his gut and call him the anathema but they don't know what happens when the Emperor dies. He COULD accend to become a warp god and beat the ever corrupted filth out of them or he could just go pop and die.

beside, the Imperium is the best thing happen to Chaos sense the War of the Heavens. Huge amounts of strong emotion to feed them, Khorne loves all this war the Imperium does every second of every day. Chaos is stronger then ever and it's all thanks to the Emperors little Imperium, let's keep that thing around for a couple of more thousand years.

Beside, the Emperor will fall, the Golden Throne is failing, no need to rush it.