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

[User] ELI5:What is supergravity / supersymmetry?

[Assistant]
Quantum mechanics divides particles into two types that obey different rules, fermions and bosons. Supersymmetry claims that, for every particle species, there is a partner species such that, of the two, one is a boson and the other's a fermion. If this is true, electrons (which are fermions) are partnered with selectrons (which would be bosons), and photons (which are bosons) are partnered with photinos (which would be fermions). In physics, "symmetries" are things that don't change the laws of physics, the idea being that, if you swap all particles with their partner species, the interactions are unchanged. (Well, not quite unchanged; the details depend on particle masses, and these undiscovered partners must have a lot more mass or we'd have found them by now.) But supersymmetry is the only unconfirmed symmetry nature can have, given the constraints of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Particles and their supersymmetric partners have similar interactions with the Higgs field. There's a technical problem with the theory of Higgs bosons that can be easily solved if high-mass supersymmetric partners exist. And some attempts to explain gravity in the same terms as other forces in nature require supersymmetry to work. Supergravity is one such approach; another is string theory.


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

[User]
CMV: non-profit institutions should have their transactions done in view of the public.

Churches are included in this.

My line of thought is that too many incidents have occurred, especially in churches, where people have put money into these institutions expecting it to be spent for noble purposes only for it to be embezzled into the preachers pocket.

Having every cent you put in tracked by the public eye makes it so this is no longer possible, and would probably expose a lot of corruption. Not only that, but if you can see where your money is going in a charity organization, it builds trust AND makes you feel like you are making a real difference in the world.

That said, I do understand there may be some institutions such as abuse help services which require a certain level of anonymity, and I am open to that level of anonymity being provided.

But for an institution whose job, ostensibly, is to hand out clothes or help feed the poor? No. Open your books. The people deserve to see.

[Assistant] It is. Any church that is a registered non-profit published all of their books. Call them and ask them to provide a copy of their financial documents and they will be happy to provide them to you. If they dont, contact the government because theyre required to. Even better yet, go find the closest church to your house and ask when their finance meeting is. Go sit in on it, its a public meeting by law. Ask questions. You wouldnt believe the mind numbing detail church treasurers and accountants can go into.


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

[User]
Why did Homo sapiens become the dominant species on Earth rather than other ancient hominids?

Do we know what developed in our brain that allowed *Homo sapiens* to become dominant rather than other ancient hominids such as the Neanderthals who were either absorbed into the gene pool of *Homo sapiens*  or simply died off?

[Assistant]
You're making a very large assumption by concluding that difference in brain size/physiology/whatever was responsible for a competitive advantage in homo sapiens vs other hominids.

There are a variety of factors *not* related to the brain that resulted in a competitive advantage for homo sapiens.  One of the most ignored is that homo sapiens were capable of speech.  Neanderthal anatomy, for example, lacked a descended larynx.  This prevented neanderthals from being able to produce the variety and complexity of sounds that homo sapiens are capable of and use in speech.  In other words, neanderthals were much more limited in their ability to verbally communicate than homo sapiens.  This could easily impact the ability to transfer new skills, resulting in homo sapiens being able to much more rapidly disseminate information as they could talk about instead of having to show someone.  This type of adaptation could *definitely* create a competitive advantage for the species and has *nothing* to do with the brain.


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

[User]
ELI5: How exactly does cancer kill you?

Obviously it will kill you if it overruns a vital organ, but is it just as simple as obstructing normal bodily functions?

[Assistant] Cancerous cells will do a few things that are dangerous. First, they divert resources to themselves. They take up sugar and oxygen from your bloodstream and give nothing in return, which weakens your body and leaves it vulnerable to infection. Sometimes tumors even cause blood vessels to divert to them in a process callef angiogenesis. One of the warning signs for cancers are sores that don't heal, because your body is so weak it can't do simple repairs anymore. Second, cancerous cells will invade and attack surrounding tissues, damaging them and impairing function. Thirdly, tumors gunk up your system and physically impair normal function. A tumor in the brain can put pressure on the brain, restricting blood flow and causing brain damage. Leukemia can be so bad the blood becomes watery and pus-like because healthy cells are getting crowded out by cancerous cells. Finally, some cancers are malignant, meaning the start in one place and then colonize other parts of the body. For example, breast cancer might be bad, but if it stayed in the breast it probably wouldn't kill you. However, if cancerous cells migrate out of the breast to vital organs, the risks shoot up.


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

[User]
Why am I (with an AB+) blood type a universal blood recipient, but a universal plasma donor?

I do understand antigens and why I am a universal recipient, but I just came across something on the red cross website that indicates I'm a universal plasma donor.

[Assistant] Antibodies in blood plasma are the opposite of the blood type, so if you have type A blood your plasma has type B antibodies and vice versa. If you have type AB blood, though, your plasma has *no* antibodies and can be safely given to anybody.


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

[User]
[The Defenders] Why don't Daredevil and Iron Fist train Jessica Jones and Luke Cage?

In The Defenders we have four superheros.  Two are incredibly skills martial artists with near human abilities (Iron Fist, maybe more than human.)  Two are incredibly powerful and durable but don't seem to know how to use their limbs.

Why don't Daredevil and Iron Fist train Luke and Jessica?  In the Netflix series, Luke and Jessica look like overpowered toddlers with no bodily control.  If they knew what they were doing, they'd be unstoppable.

[Assistant]
Mostly, they don't have enough time.
Outside of that though, Jessica wouldn't do it and Luke doesn't need it.  Martial arts make a lot of assumptions about the fighter, and one of them is that they can be hurt.  Luke really can't, and he knows how to exploit that better than anything DD or IF could teach him in any reasonable amount of time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do older vehicles have a blue stripe across the top of the front windshield, but newer vehicles don't?

[Assistant] I work with windshields daily, to repair them. It's a coating against sunrays and heat. Modern cars have this coating integrated into the wind shield giving the entire glass a slight greenish or purple tint. It's less noticable but its still there.


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

[User]
What happens to the photons that are 'blocked' by a polarizer?

When light passes through a polarizer, some proportion of it passes through (taking on the polarization of the polarizer) and some proportion is blocked.

What happens to the blocked photons? Are they absorbed and scattered? Converted into heat? Into kinetic energy (pushing the polarizer)?

[Assistant]
Absorbed, usually. That'll have two effects: pushing the polarizer and heating it slightly. Conservation of momentum requires the former, conservation of energy the latter.

It is possible to polarize light using reflection or refraction techniques, but that often depends on angles and/or wavelengths, so that is usually only used in specialized cases. In those cases, (almost) none of the light is absorbed or blocked but is either reflected or bent differently to create two polarized beams of light.


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

[User]
ELI5: If water can be filtered from waste water and turned into potable water, why should we be worried about companies buying freshwater sources?

Like the title says, if we can just keep filtering waste water, why should we be so worried about companies buying sources of freshwater?

[Assistant] Because water treatment and water desalination is very energy and effort-intensive, so much so that the planet (or even specific freshwater-starved regions) cannot (yet) support a model where freshwater sources are used up haphazardly.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between a power chord and a regular chord in guitars?

I am trying to differentiate the two but do not understand the music theory jargon explaining the two.

[Assistant]
C Major chord has the notes C - E - G.

C minor chord has the notes C - E flat - G

As you can see, the note that distinguishes the two chords is that differing middle note.

And a  power chord is missing that middle note, so it is neither Major nor minor.

For example, the C power chord is C-G.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when a "chill" runs up my spine?

[Assistant] It is a movement of the arrector pili muscle along the spine which causes the hair to stand up and the skin to contract, making you feel that chill. Usually occurs when someone is walking over your grave.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] A Dixie cup full of Ork spores vs the Star Trek galaxy.

A Dixie cup full of Ork spores gets seeded on some random backwater Federation colony planet in the Gamma quadrant. Would the prime directive be to not interfere with the Feral Orks until they overrun the planet and build Roks?

And for the sake of argument, lets say the Q can't get involved. Because reasons. They had to go to the DMV and they're filling out forms, oops they went into the wrong line, now they have to go all the way to the back. Damn it. The game is starting in 45 minutes. This is ridiculous.

[Assistant]
The official stance of the *Federation* is to not get involved.  However, if the planet is way out in the Gamme Quadrant, the Federation is largely irrelevant.  That's Dominion territory.

The Dominion is much less... forgiving than the Federation.  As soon as there's signs of a new civilization popping up, the Dominion would be checking it out.  If they deem it a threat, like the likely would in this case after some observation, they would try to either subjugate the inhabitants as a sort of second Jem'Hadar, or destroy them.  More likely the latter.


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

[User] Without an alarm or other external source for waking us up, what prevents our brains from being asleep forever?

[Assistant] You have a really complicated internal clock called your circadian rythym that helps you know when to sleep and wake up. In short you have neurons that run in a loop, activating and deactivating themselves (a bit like a Redstone clock actually if you play minecraft), and similar proteins too that inhibit their own production so they come in waves. Essentially, using these complicated systems and synchronizing them frequently with light and other stimuli, your body can determine when to sleep, when to wake up, how to regulate temperature, and so on. This system would wake us up after about eight hours of sleep by stopping melatonin, and increasing seratonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine production. Without the external cues though our body has a tendency to drift from 24 sleep cycles to slightly longer cycles (anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours longer, depending on the study.)


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

[User]
[General] What do characters see when they break the 4th wall?

What do they see when they look at the fourth wall and talk to the audience?

[Assistant] I still picture it like live theater. Modern film and comics are more dynamic, but originally the character "breaking the fourth wall" could just see through the wall between them and the audience (which is also invisible to the audience) and see the people there. You could also have it more "talking to the camera guy".


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

[User] [Chemistry] Are frozen vegetables any less healthy than fresh ones? Does anything happen at a molecular level when you freeze vegetables that makes them process differently in our bodies?

[Assistant]
Well, much like cooking, freezing weakens and ruptures cell walls. Making the vegetable softer and easier to chew and to digest. Also most commercially sold frozen vegetables are briefly cooked before freezing, this improves the thawed texture. So that will also affect the  nutrition and digestibility of vegetables.

On the other hand, most frozen vegetables were  processed *very* quickly after harvest, and most 'fresh' vegetables in the store  have been sitting in storage and shipping for a while. Lettuce make take a month to reach a store shelf, depending on the time of year and how far it had to be shipped.  So all in all the most healthy choice  between fresh and frozen, would depend on the time of year and  how far that kind of vegetable had to be shipped. If the only fresh corn has to be grown over 1000 miles away and took weeks to get to you, frozen corn would probably be more nutritious.  If the fresh corn came from a field ten miles down the road,and was picked yesterday then fresh corn will be the most nutritious.


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

[User] ELI5: How do they program traffic lights? How do they coordinate a grid of traffic lights so traffic flows properly?

[Assistant]
It used to take a *lot* of exhaustive studying of traffic patterns to keep traffic lights programmed properly to keep jams to a minimum; lights in this system have intervals that are set ahead of time.

These days lights are increasingly controlled by computers. For this, there are induction sensors buried under the road surface that can sense the presence of cars and then a controlling computer that changes the lights based upon road usage rather than at set times.

This method allows dynamic adjustment to traffic conditions, which reduces jams.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Other than fixing that pesky hole that if it gets shot everything explodes issue, were there any other significant changes of the second Death Star over the first?

[Assistant]
The most obvious change is that the second death star was larger than the original. This wasn't just to make it more intimidating, but it allowed room for a larger, more powerful, and more advanced reactor.

This allowed the superlaser to have a much faster charging speed, which turned it from simply a planet-killer into a viable weapon against starships. It also had more advanced computers, allowing its primary weapon to be more accurate.

Aside from that, and the changes to both the reactor and the thermal exhaust system which negated Galen Erso's sabotage of the design, the second death star had thousands more conventional weapon emplacements.


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

[User]
Is it possible my ISP is lying about my data usage to force me into paying more?

My family and I are stuck in Alaska with GCI as our ISP, and we are paying $150 a month for 500 GB of bandwidth. We rarely went over out bandwidth until 5 or 6 months ago, and now we are going over constantly, and it is just getting worse. We can buy 70 more gigs for $10 a piece, but even that doesn't last for very long. This month we are already on our 4th "data bucket". That's over 700 gigs in a month. I don't know what is causing it. My parents are old and only use tablets, they occasionally watch netflix or hulu. I have an xbox that used 87 gigs over the last 30 days, and my computer bandwidth monitor is showing significantly less data than  was used.

As far as I can tell, the only things left that could cause this are my smart home devices (4 google home devices), a bad router or modem, or my ISP is screwing us over. Could this be caused by poor wifi signal in a house causing repeated data requests when a packet can't get through or something? I'm really not sure what I should or even can do at this point. It's incredibly frustrating.

[Assistant]
Log into your router to see whether there is a bandwidth monitor in there.  It might show you usage per device.  While you're in there, change your wifi password.

If it doesn't show usage per device, but does show total usage, then use a process of elimination by unplugging devices for a day or two at a time.


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

[User]
ELI5: Does light occupy space?

My son wants to know how we can perceive light and it not take up any space at the same time.

[Assistant]
No. In fact, most things don't actually occupy space.

Electrons refuse to share space with other electrons, but a photon or neutrino can pass right by.

The idea that a thing may be solid and occupy space makes sense to us because it seems true in the world of big things, but in the world of very small things it isn't true anymore.


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

[User] How do insects survive winter? How do northenly climates have any insects?

[Assistant]
First there are billions of insects and billions of individuals will not survive winter.

Different species adopt different strategies to get through. Some rely on their eggs to carry the species on; they lay them in sheltered places: under tree bark, leaf litter, underground. Some attempt to find sheltered places to hibernate. Some allow their entire population to die off leaving only the fertile queen to make it to Spring.


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

[User] [halo] If the covenant viewed spartans as demons, how did they see the more conventional elite units like the ODST units?

[Assistant] Originally they thought humans were insects with an exoskeleton that only covered part of their bodies. Later they recognized them as wearing armor and considered them worthy warriors. The sangheli even petitioned to have humanity offered a place within the covenant when they realized how tenacious and industrious humans were. Their religion considered humans as less than filth for unknown political reasons but many in the covenant military considered them honorable combatants in secret. Only Spartans were called demons because of how many they had killed on the covenant side and no spartan had been confirmed killed by the covenant.


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

[User]
How much reading background is usually necessary to read academic philosophy papers (e.g. from a Journal)?

Let's suppose I was interested in a particular field of knowledge in Philosophy (e.g. 19th century post-Kantian philosophy). How much reading background would I need to fully get a modern understanding of the field? Would it be possible to "update" oneself to modern arguments starting from a layman's background through self-learning?

[Assistant]
I know people who do it exceptionally well with an MA in a humanities field and very little field-specific background. The key is to be able and willing to use good reference sources (the SEP and IEP are an excellent start), and be simultaneously both patient with yourself and willing to accept that you may be wrong about some things.

Top-tier credentialed academic philosophers *frequently* misread their colleagues work; thats one of the most entertaining things about reviews. If youve seen the PhilPapers survey, you may notice other is often well-represented in survey answers that are obviously binary. Sometimes this is because academic philosophers stumbled across a novel answer but personal experience suggests to me that its more often that they dont fully understand the question.

In other words, philosophy is like most other academic fields: folks tend to specialize in their research to the point where they lose interest in much of the field, and often they stay up to date more so theyll be effective in the classroom than because they want to read outside of their research areas.

Youre not going to screw this upand theres a lot to be said for being an independent scholar. Just recognize youre just one person and be willing to accept correction.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is testifying under oath still a thing when we all know that being under oath doesn't prevent people from lying to save themselves from being implicated in a crime?

[Assistant]
It is called perjury (lying under oath), and is a crime. It is to prevent people from lying so someone they dislike goes to jail.

It is also why you have the 5th Amendment in the US Constitution, which gives you the right to not self incriminate.


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

[User]
[GTA V] Why do the FIB and IAA shoot each other?

During "The Wrap Up", Sanchez rats out Haines, Norton and Michael to the FIB. The IAA also appears to arrest them. FIB shoots Haines, who kills Sanchez. This then devolves into the IAA and FIB opening fire on each other, but why? They both want custody of the same guy, a conflict that can be resolved without shooting at each other. And if Agent Norton's claim that the FIB are corrupt and on the IAA payroll is true, there's even less sense in this.

[Assistant]
The FIB and IAA are rival agencies that are fighting for the same limited budget, financial and authority-wise. Sanchez and his superiors in the FIB wants Haines to be kept in-house so that they can cover up Haines' messes and not publicize that the FIB are actively bankrolling and protecting criminals to undermine National Security. The IAA wants Haines to prove otherwise. Go do the math.

Merryweather being there after being lured by Trevor just adds to the mayhem.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is stopping naughty people creating a virus to hack Apple stuff?

So, I know about the whole thing that Macs don't get viruses, or at least ones for PCs don't affect them. But given that most Mac users are completely tied to Apple, a virus would cause vast amounts of damage and, after all, that's what most viruses do.

Is the reason no one has really done this on a large scale because they are too hard to crack?

Edit: Thanks for the explanation folks, I had never really thought about the market share thing, I had just thought about the fact that Apple users tend to be more affluent and therefore would be better hacking victims.

Edit 2: thanks for all the answers, I thought I had already marked it as explained, but I hadn't saved it. Sorry!

[Assistant]
Nope. And in fact I'd wager that *many* viruses written for Apple based OS's was done entirely because they tried to make, "we don't get viruses!" an advertising pitch.

There's no such thing as a completely impenetrable OS. Period. The reason why Apple computers, as a whole, get fewer is because they occupy a comparatively small portion of the market. Back when Vista hit and everyone *hated* it, that *bad* Microsoft OS still held a market share *larger* than Apple's entirety.

Furthermore, most *valuable* systems run on non-Apple OS's. Bank software, government software, corporate servers, you name it. If it isn't running Windows, its running a distribution of Linux. Not only are Windows based OS's more common, I'd wager that the staggering majority of high-value targets someone would kill to get access to run Windows. Or at least *not* an Apple OS.


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

[User]
[FTL: Faster Than Light] How long does a warp jump take?

It seems like if I'm waiting on some big event to happen, like the days to change, a rebel fleet to advance, or a delivery to arrive, the best way for it to happen quickly is to do a warp jump. I can sit around watching a solar flare from a distance for hours, bored out of my mind, while nothing happens, or I can just warp jump somewhere and it seems like I've missed a lot of time. It seems like warp jumps make time go a lot slower for the ship, but by how much?

[Assistant]
Impossible to tell really. Time is relative and is dependant on the gravitational forces at work. While warping, you may experience a state of zero gravitational force or a state of extreme gravitational force.

The way you perceive the universe from great distances is also dependant on when you see it. A quick scan in a certain direction will tell you where the fleet is, but not how fast it would be travelling. So when you come out of warp and do a second scan, you will get the update on their location, but that doesn't mean that they waited for you to warp to warp themselves, just that their warp happened sometime in between your first and second scan.


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

[User] ELI5: What was bad about Muammar Gaddafi?

[Assistant] He was a murderous tyrant, dictator, and terrorist that tortured people.  The catch is he may have been the best ruler Libya and the West could have hoped for because of how he brought stability and dismantled Libya's chemical weapon's program.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is a physical standard still needed for the kilogram?

I understand that it allowed everyone back in the day to figure out how much mass something had and generally find agreeing numbers. However,  do we not know the masses of enough things in kilograms where you could just cross-check to determine mass rather than have a standard?

Also, have we figured out why the standard kilogram has been losing mass?

[Assistant]
we can't cross check. it doesn't work that way. we need to have one standard, or one equation describing what kilogram is. we need to find a way, maybe by ideal sphere of atoms and then counting them, or by something different.

and AFAIK it's not losing mass.


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

[User] ELI5: Why when you drink water when you're really thirsty you feel better/hydrated instantly but in that moment hydration hasn't even started?

[Assistant] The brain rewards you for behaviors that keep you alive. When the brain notices that you need water, it triggers the "thirsty" signal. As soon as you drink something, the brain rewards you for what you did and gives you that "ahh, hydration" feeling. What matters to the brain is that you actually did the life-preserving action, no need to wait and see whether the drink actually hydrated you.


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

[User]
What killed the prehistoric sea monsters?

The asteroid killed the dinosaurs, but did that also kill off those massive sea creatures? If not, why are they mostly not around anymore?

[Assistant]
The asteroid impact would have killed more than just the large animals. It would have killed off a lot of the megaflora (large plantlife) present at the time that helped fuel the large growth of animals.

That would have meant a temporary decrease in aquatic life as well, as the atmosphere's carbon dioxide and oxygen levels got thrown out of whack, which would have rippled from the plankton to the small fish to the large predators.

The ones that survived did so by either subsisting on land animals (crocodiles), diving into the depths (fangtooth), or through luck and determination (sharks).

But the largest animals, like the plesiosaurs, would have not been able to sustain themselves as easily, and would have been hunted to extinction by the mid-sized predators.


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

[User] ELI5: Why and how is Microsoft Excel so versatile and powerful? How is it that spreadsheet software can be used as a crude game engine?

[Assistant]
It does a lot of the basic things you'd want from a regular programming language. Basically, take data from one or more locations (cells), apply math or logic to them, and output a result elsewhere. It handles a lot of details that programmers would otherwise need to worry about, like where values are stored in the computer's memory. It can provide graphical output functions like coloring cells based on what's stored there without the programmer seeing much more complexity than using it for regular math. And Excel can do fairly complex math and logic functions without the programmer needing to worry about *exactly* how many steps are involved, or setting memory or variables for use during the process.

So... it's versatile. People may argue about how "powerful" it is, it's not hugely efficient with computer resources or fast when doing complex tasks.


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

[User]
What are trees made of? Do they remove mass from the ground they are planted in at all (besides water)?

I don't understand how trees work. You plant a seed, water them, and they grow using nutrients from the ground. But they can turn into huge redwood trees with massive weight. Do they remove mass from the ground while growing? If not, what about when they die, do they add mass after they decompose?

[Assistant]
>What are trees made of?

The same as the rest of life - primarily Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen (plus Phosphorus, sulphur, and lesser amounts of many other elements). This is mostly in the form of hydrocarbons like cellulose; also water, and then smaller amounts of amino acids and sugar, dissolved minerals and other materials. When you burn wood you are mainly burning cellulose.

>Do they remove mass from the ground while growing?

Yes, a little in the form of elements like Nitrogen and Phosphorus which they cannot easily get from the atmosphere. But *in the main* they get their mass from the air. The air is full of CO2. Trees photosynthesise by converting CO2 and H20 into glucose and oxygen. So they *create hydrocarbons* from the air. A large chunk of the physical hard wood of the tree comes directly from the gases in the atmosphere.

>what about when they die, do they add mass after they decompose?

Yes. Coal in the ground comes from the mass of decayed plant matter that took its mass from the atmosphere. Earth's early atmosphere was much higher in CO2.


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

[User]
ELI5: why did birds evolve with wings if they did not instantly work?

before wings allowed creatures to fly, were they just oddly shaped legs that didn't work as well? how did these help these creatures survive and pass on their genes?

[Assistant]
There is two theories

1) ground up, where the reptiles with feathers would flap their arms to generate just enough lift to catch flying insects, therefor survived better and passed on genes.

2) tree down, where the reptiles would use there wings to glide along with there mouth open and catch flying insects, therefor increasing survival and passing on genes.

at this point in time no animal was real tapping into the food source that was flying insects. all animals were land/sea roaming, so these species were excelling and passing on genes. over time they evolved to get better and better at flight and evolved to the point of birds with continuos flight.


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

[User]
ELI5: Sharia courts in the UK

They apparently they only deal with small disputes and family disputes at the moment.

But why are they allowed?

All I have heard is that they simply act to remove the rights of women in the court room. Even if it is optional surely women from Muslim communities will be forced to go even if they don't agree?

Why are we allowing such things in a so called equal society, surely everyone should be equal in they eyes of the law regardless of religion?

[Assistant]
They are allowed because all the Sharia court does is alllow discussion leading to a contract between the parties in question.  The contract's terms are based in sharia law, but the contract is legally binding under UK law in the offer/acceptance/consideration manner that covers all contracts.  They are used to settle disputes, rather than criminal cases, and anyone is free to settle disputes in whatever manner they see fit as long as they don't do anything illegal.

Example: Dave lent Steve 5 a few weeks ago, but Steve has yet to pay him back.  Dave wants Steve to pay 1 in interest on the debt, but financial interest is not allowed under Sharia law.  A Sharia court is convened, the judgement is that Dave cannot charge interest and it is decided that Steve should pay back the 5.  Dave and Steve agree to this and have entered into a contract to this effect, if Steve doesn't pay Dave back then Dave could take it to the small claims court as with any other minor, financial dispute.

The court cannot force payment, cannot impose fines and cannot imprison either of them.  Both parties are free to refuse the judgement of the court or refuse to attend in the first place.

If they do coerce parties into attending, contravene anyone's rights or impose punishments then that is a matter for UK criminal law and there is already legal process in place to deal with this.

The good news is you can do exactly the same thing with your mates down the pub (accepting that inebriation can render a party unfit to agree to a contract), or you can set up a court of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.


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

[User] [The Dukes of Hazard]If the sheriff can't catch up with the Duke boys because of their fast car, why doesn't he just go to their house and arrest them when they get home? Or you know. Just shoot them because he is corrupt and they are I'm the backwards and there are plenty of places to hide a body?

[Assistant] In the original tv show it was said that Uncle Jesse and Boss Hogg were very good friends in the past. They used to run moonshine together in their younger days. And since Boss Hogg essentially owns Rosco P Coltrane and the rest of the sheriffs department, it can be assumed that the deputys goals are more about slowing down and harassing the Duke Boys. Boss Hogg doesnt want them dead, its bad for business and he still respects Uncle Jesse too much to hurt him.


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

[User]
[Star Wars/Lovecraft] How would the galaxy far far away react to Cthulhu and all of the other abominations?

If all of the monsters and deities from H.P Lovecraft's stories existed in the Star Wars galaxy, how would the local residents react to them? I imagine that humans in SW wouldn't have the same reaction of going instantly insane upon gazing on them since they are used to dealing with all sorts of bizarre aliens already. Would they even be that threatened by Cthulhu or his star spawn when they just blow up the planet he is inhabiting with the Death Star or Starkiller Base? How would the Jedi and Sith react? Wouldn't the nature of The Force change with Azathoth technically being the  source of it since he created the universe?

[Assistant]
>I imagine that humans in SW wouldn't have the same reaction of going instantly insane upon gazing on them since they are used to dealing with all sorts of bizarre aliens already

It's not about being bizarre, it's about existing on an entirely different level and your brain not comprehending what's in front of you. Cuthulhu and his ilk represent existence beyond conventional physics, where thought and perspective and reality function in ways that we, as physical, 3 dimensional entities, simply can't comprehend. The madness is born of the understanding that there IS something there, but the biological incapability of perceiving anything beyond the smallest fraction.

It's less like seeing a weird alien, and more like a 2d image trying to figure out what Depth is. The Galaxy far, far away is just as screwed, regardless of how many planets they blow up.


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

[User] ELI5: why is scalp skin so different from other skin?

[Assistant] The skin structure of scalp is basically the same as other parts of the body. However, since it has more lipid glands and sweat glands compared with other parts of the body, it becomes dirty very easily from sweat and sebum. Scalp has a lower barrier function and therefore it has a lower ability to maintain and replenish moisture compared to skin on other parts of the body. Therefore, it is more likely for skin problems to occur on the scalp than on other areas of skin.


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

[User] What is the upper limit of a Lantern power ring?

[Assistant] Well, there was that time John Stewart (Green Lantern, not Political Pundint) recreated an entire solar system, and his ring told him his willpower was overloading the ring. Probably a good starting point.


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

[User] Why do I get 'car sick' when reading a book in a moving car?

[Assistant]
Whenever there's a disconnect between what your eyes see and what your sense of balance detects, your body is hardwired to interpret that as poisoning, hence the nausea.

 The trick to reading in any vehicle is to look out a window when you turn, speed up or slow down so your eyes and balance stay calibrated. When the car is moving at a constant speed, you can read without nausea.


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

[User] ELI5: What's the difference between a recession and a depression?

[Assistant] Length and intensity. The generally-agreed-upon definition for a recession (the one that is used by the National Bureau of Economic Research) is two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. There isn't really an agreed-upon definition for depressions, but if the recession lasts a long time (more than two years or so) or is particularly deep (real GDP declines by more than 10 percent or so), people will call it a depression.


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

[User]
[Batman] A Gotham City with no more crime...

So essentially, Batman wins. Criminals are too afraid to commit a crime in Gotham and the regular crime rate in GC drops drastically. On top of that, major criminals like the Joker and others have been in Arkham for years with no ability to escape (either due to positive psychiatric response, drugs or an insanely good security system)

The GCPD has been on top of properly vetting their recruits and people in general now see Gotham City as a good place to live...

Now what?

Does Batman retire? Does he stay on call for the JLA? Does he sink into some sort of depression because he doesn't know who he is if Batman isn't needed anymore?

[Assistant]
Bruce would probably just do the Batman Inc. thing fulltime.

Sort of like what happened shortly after he 'came back to life' after Final Crisis- while crime in Gotham wasn't solved, Dick and the other Bat-family seemed to have had a solid handle on Gotham already, so Bruce decided to travel the world to train/backup other similarly minded superheroes.


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

[User]
ELI5: When you try to load a page, and it loads right as you press refresh, what happens there?

This may seem like a dumb question, as it could be purely out of coincidence, but could it have something to do with it cancelling the loading process to reload or something.

[Assistant]
It's not always coincidence!

Sometimes when you see a part of the website flash just as you reload it's because the browser momentarily displays whatever it had already loaded, up until the point you hit refresh it was waiting for some data the website was supposed to provide but never did, so when you hit refresh this is aborted and the browser displays whatever it already has loaded, many times this is actually enough to make the website appear complete but maybe some functionality wasn't loaded yet.


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

[User] ELi5: Did white people evolve from black people (actual question from a seven year old)?

[Assistant]
Yep!

Humans evolved from our ancestors (the ones we share with apes) in Africa, and the first humans almost certainly had darker skin, like that of sub-Saharan Africans today.

Those early humans migrated... eventually all over the world.  And the ones that ended up farther north (like in Europe) evolved paler skin over thousands of years.  It was advantageous for them - there's less sunlight farther from the tropics, and paler skin is more efficient at using UV rays from the sun to produce Vitamin D.  Darker skin is more useful in tropical climates for this purpose - it's not as good at Vitamin D production, but safer from sun damage and skin cancer.

So white people evolved from black people, because the areas that they moved to favored paler skin.  The black people who stayed black were in an area where darker skin was favored, and so they didn't end up changing.  Each group was well-suited to their environment.


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

[User]
[Avatar the Last Airbender] Could a fire bender theoretically bend plasma?

Since so many fire benders can generate and redirect lightning, and lightning is a form of plasma, would it be at all possible for an extremely skilled fire bender to manipulate plasma in some way? For instance, if I fired a plasma projectile at a fire bender could they redirect the projectile assuming they can react in time? Or if I tried cutting a fire bender with a plasma blade could they manipulate the plasma in some way to keep it from burning them?

[Assistant] Lightning bendering is a special skill which is possible only those few who have the motivation and ability to learned it. So in theory it is possible. But how it works and whether it is possible to cut fire is more difficult if not impossible for the average person.


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

[User]
ELI5: How exactly does someone die from drinking too much water?

I want to know this because when me and my sister were kids we had a bet on who could drink the most cups of water, we pretty much drunk water till we felt sick and could piss water like a fire hydrant so im wondering if at any point either me or my sister could have dropped dead at the time.

[Assistant] Too much water causes sodium to leave the cells and enter the blood. This gradual dilution isn't a problem except the sodium is lost in small amounts as you urinate. Eventually enough sodium is lost to where muscle cells cannot function and your heart does not reliably generate an electrical impulse to beat. There are also problems with the brain that would lead to death, but the heart is the easiest to explain.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do doctors get to be called Dr. instead of Mr./Ms./Mrs. while other professions don't?

[Assistant] Plenty of highly-skilled professions with extensive educational requirements have something like this. Anyone with a PhD also gets the title of doctor. Lawyers have "esquire", but it's attached to the end. Usually it's to denote that someone has graduated from a specific type of school or attained a specific level of degree.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do almost all animals seem to like scratches?

[Assistant] For social animals like humans and apes, grooming is a social adaptation that was used to bond with the tribe and was beneficial for removing parasites. For less social animals, its still a way of staying clean. Animals that dont groom each other will still rub against trees or whatever to get things off their fur. Because removing dirt and parasites was an evolutionary advantage that promotes survival, the brain evolved to reward this type of behavior, making it feel good even to animals that dont necessarily scratch each other in the wild. This is especially obvious when you consider where we like to be scratched (for humans, our backs, or for cats its often right by their tail). Theyre the areas we cant reach on our own.


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

[User] Why is it that in every video/picture taken on the Moon we can't see vast amounts of stars? Its always just black and I would expect that since there is no atmosphere to obstruct vision, we should see tons?

[Assistant]
The surface of the moon is actually very bright in comparison to most stars, there's a lot of surface area with light being reflected. When you take a photo, you set the exposure time (how long light can fall on the detector apparatus) so that you can see everything nicely - too much time, and the moon's surface would be all washed out with no details because the detector is saturated. Since the stars are dimmer, they'd need a longer exposure time for the detector receive significant light from them, but longer times aren't used since the moon itself is the object of the photograph.

If you set out to photograph stars from the moon, you could do so easily enough and could indeed see plenty as long as you set your camera up for the task.


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

[User]
[Misc] Do teleportation devices "murder" their occupants everytime? Is there any examples of long distance teleportation that doesn't?

The horrific ramifications of the Star Trek style teleporter is that essentially the machine xerox's an exact copy of your, murders you by dematerializing you, then another machine takes the "you" stored in data form and essentially reconstructs another you.

The metaphysical ramifications of this is that, yes technically Spock Kirk and McCoy are all alive and well down to the surface and back, but that every time you're teleported, your consciousness does not follow. For all intents and purposes, your stream of consciousness you've had since birth is completely dissipated, and the thread is not picked back up somehow later, you're gone. A new entity is created who thinks its you, behaves as you would, and goes about its life as though nothing has changed, but that in a cosmological sense, it is version You Mk IV or something similar. It's the same effect for clones like in 6th day, you don't wake up suddenly in a clone bay pod, a new you wakes up and resumes your life.

Are there any sci-fi means to accomplish long distance instantaneous transportation that don't use this same mechanism? Apart from say comic-book style *bzzzt* teleportation where the entirety of a person is moved unchanged, is there a more science based work around?

[Assistant]
In Stephen Kings Jaunt, teleportation is achieved by entering a separate dimension where time moves differently.

A conscious person that jaunts basically experiences an extremely long time floating through nothingness even though the body is transferred instantaneously.


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

[User]
If there is a considerable amount of blood loss, is there now empty space in your veins?

Hopefully I can make this question more clear.

If someone loses an amount of blood, would your veins be 'half-empty' as less blood is pumping through them? Or would your blood vessels constrict and become smaller to deal with the lesser volume?

[Assistant]
They would constrict. Veins have soft walls and would easily collapse under pressure simply due to lost volume. Furthermore part of the body's response to blood loss is to constrict small blood vessels such as arterioles to maintain adequate pressure. This is how the body can maintain a healthy blood pressure after considerable blood loss, until the "decompensated" stage of shock.

[Edit] Interesting side fact: Arteries have more rigid walls and appear empty after death. As a result the ancient Greeks thought that veins carried blood and arteries carried air.


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

[User] Why is it colder at higher elevations? If heat rises, shouldn't it be warmer the higher up a mountain you go and colder at lower elevations?

[Assistant] "Hot air rises" is a bit of a misnomer, because it demands the assumption of constant pressure.  The real physical mechanism at work is that "less dense air rises", which is a function of both temperature and pressure.  As air rises, it expands to meet environmental pressure, doing work and cooling.  At a constant pressure level, hotter air is less dense, and rises and cools until it reaches a level where it matches the density of its environment.


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

[User] ELI5: If You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great parents, so if you go back 40 generations youd have a supposed 1 Trillion ancestors, But only 100B humans have ever existed. Explain.

[Assistant] Simple: a lot of those 1 trillion people happen to be the same people. There is unavoidably a lot of n-th degree cousin fucking all through history, the important thing is to not to fuck too close relatives too often or you get interesting congenital defects. A couple villages with a population above a thousand or two can get by fine marrying among themselves.


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

[User]
[DC] Why doesn't superman regularly hang out in the sun?

We have seen how powerful supes is when he is there for a few thousand years, but why doesnt he just go to the sun when no huge threat like darkseid or something the league cant handle is about?

[Assistant]
It takes Superman roughly two and a half minutes to get from the sun to Earth. That's a LOT of time when a Superman-level threat like Darkseid attacks. He needs to be on call immediately.

Besides that, Superman does value human contact, and you don't get much of that in the Sun.


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

[User] [Crusader Kings II] Jesus keeps trying to give me military advice. Should I even listen to this pacifist carpenter?

[Assistant]
Milord, Jesus was not a pacifist.  True he preached primarily non-violence, but remember that he also drove the evil men out of the Temple for their crimes.  Jesus believed in doing what was right and Christian.  Sometimes that means turning the cheek... other times it means drawing the sword.

Regardless of his own nature, Jesus is the *son of God*.  Is any man able to question the knowing of our heavenly Lord?  Perhaps as your council advises you on matters of state, Jesus too has loyal and trustworthy advisers.  Perhaps his advice comes not solely from his lips... but from the Archangel Michael's lips as well!

Our people are truly blessed that one so divinely touched as you is our lord.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some countries outside of the US use the US Dollar?

Some countries have replaced their official currency with the US dollar. What's even more confusing, though, is the countries that have their own currency,  but still use US dollars frequently. Costa Rica, for example, has their own currency, but they often use USD to pay for things. It's not even limited to the tourist attractions. What's the point of using a foreign currency when you have your own? Is 1 US Dollar really that much better than 550 Costa Rican Colones?

[Assistant]
There are two specific reasons:

First - oil is bought and sold on the open market in US dollars.  So when Saudi Arabia sells oil to France - France has to use US Dollars to buy the oil from Saudi Arabia.

Russia, Iran, and China are trying to move away from the petro-dollar for this reason - so they don't have to have US dollars on hand.

Second - certain countries experience hyper-inflation - to the point that Zimbabwe issued 100 trillion zimbabwe dollar notes.  Because of this - the people would lose faith that they would not be able to purchase goods in the international market with their domestic currencies.  So if a baker wanted to import wheat from Egypt - the Egyptian merchant might say, "I won't take Zimbabwe money - I'll sell it to you in dollars."


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Soo we get mentions and hints of not but MULTIPLE Wars... What do said conflicts entail?

OK soo people like AZ, Sir Aaron and Lt Surge hint at what at least THREE different very possible world spanning wars in a setting where the dragons breath FIRE, the birds fly at MACH 2+, some pokemon can what spawn BLACK HOLES, while others can shatter MOUNTAINS in a single punch...

Soo what are Knights or whathaveyou supported to do against those odds? Or like Revolutionary War Era with what muskets and cannons? Would it do anything but tickle the Mons? Or or well take Lt Surge what would a 'modern' war look like with Pokmon?

Is it something Fighter Jets are capable of matching? How would missiles be classified Fire type? Normal (like Hyper Beam?) Would Nukes have even been developed in a setting with reality warping house pets??

[Assistant]
To answer your question with another question: have you ever seen a weapon in pokemon? Even people like hardened criminals and police officers don't have guns. They have pokemon.

The military technology of the pokemon world *is* the pokemon. The WMDs aren't nukes, they're things like Mewtwo and Genesect. The pokemon are more then deadly enough if they stop holding back, and thus wars revolve around them.


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

[User]
Have Dutch land reclamation projects had negative ecological effects?

In 1932, the Dutch government completed the damming of the Zuiderzee, a shallow salt water bay after devastating floods. Since then, the former sea has been turned into a freshwater lake, and is the subject of ongoing land reclamation projects

Did the damming of the Zuiderzee and changing of the water from a salt water sea to a freshwater lake have negative ecological effects? For example, did any species of fish, bird, etc go extinct or become threatened from the change? Has the diversion of river water into the new lake changed the ecology of the North Sea at all?

[Assistant]
Massively. The zuiderzee used to be one of the biggest nurseries for herring. Sea grass dissappeared from the waddensea as well. Since the completion of the delatawerken and the afsluitdike the european eel declined to near-extinction worldwide. Other migratory fish like salmon became locally extinct, but could be reintroduced from other rivers.

Currently, the Grevenmeer and the Markermeer are oxygen starved and pretty much dead.

The Bieschbosch used to be one of the biggest saltwater swamps in europe. Not anymore.

As these examples show, there was a big trade-off for safety.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Do the robes and capes that everyone seems to wear have secondary purposes other than fashion, such as reducing infrared signatures or obstructing recognition systems?

[Assistant] It's not something you think about, but a lot of the ships are and starbases are quite cool by normal human standards, and various sections have to be kept at different temperatures to accommodate the needs of other races. In such an environment, it's practical to wear clothing that allows easy adjustment of layers to maintain a comfortable core body temperature.


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

[User]
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius said he learned to abstain from rhetoric and poetry..

 I get rhetoric, but why would it be seen as beneficial to refrain from poetry? The direct quote is "[from Rusticus] to abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing;"

[Assistant]
From looking at a couple of different translations, it seems that the point is simply to favor plain speech, rather than give way to the temptation to make his arguments too complicated or honorific.

In other words, Rusticus may not have advised Marcus to altogether avoid poetry (or, for that matter, rhetoric and fine writing) so much as to avoid using their techniques to embellish his own speech when some simpler, clearer constructions would do.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] What is the purpose of hospital ships?

Surely, with the amount of crew needed to maintain and run a normal starship, there can be no massive additions of staff and facilities on a medical ship, over your standard multi-role exploration ship, that could actually make much of a difference. I mean, by the 24th/25th centuries, cuts and burns are healed in seconds, bones can be mended in minutes,  organ transplants take only a couple of hours with maybe a day of recovery, even exotic plagues or infections seems to be cared for within 45 minutes. So why devote a large portion of the spaceframe of a starship to specific medical facilities, when cargo and shuttle bays make excellent triage space on a normal ship?

Would it be to ferry medical staff to places where they're needed? Even at high warp, it would still normally take anywhere from an hour or two to a few weeks for a hospital ship to race across the galaxy, to a location, for assistance, and the assistance they could provide - I'm hard-pressed to see what that could be outside of what planet-side medical facilities could already provide. The same could be said of medical supplies.

Maybe it's purpose is near-front line support, in the event of war or other calamity - like a 20th century naval hospital ship or a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit of WWII or the Korean War. It still seems like a normal starship would be a better use, being able to ferry injured from a damaged ship, that is unable to move and has taken heavy losses, or a planet under attack, or what-have-you, providing triage care until they could get to a station, or planet-side base, already better equipped for medical purposes, and with more facilities, like engineering staff to repair damaged ships.

[Assistant]
Generally, a hospital ship is used as a rapid reaction for massive catastrophes. Much in the same way that the U.S. will deploy a carrier group to a disaster zone to provide medical and logistics support, a Federation member planet that suffers some large scale incident that overwhelms their local emergency response capacity could get backup from a Starfleet hospital ship.

For a lesser emergency, yes, you could just use a normal starship, either using it's own medical facilities or acting as transport for medicine and specialists being brought in or patients being evacuated; this is in line with Next Generation-era Starfleet doctrine that calls for versatile, multi-purpose ships able to respond to a broad range of incidents. But once an incident reaches a certain level (a plague that is affecting continents instead of just cities, or a meteor strike), you're better off using specialist equipment.


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

[User]
[X-Men Days of Future Past, etc] Why does Erik Lensherr (Magneto), a young German Jew, speak English with an American accent, and then later speak English with an English accent?

Please give in-universe answers.  I need a useful headcanon because I strangely love this series of movies.

**Edit - For those of you asking when he speaks with an American accent, and those of you who heard an "irish" accent, I'm going to copy and paste my Doylist comment about that.**

In *First Class* his accent is not Irish.  It fluctuates between a posh English accent, and a weak American accent.  I say "weak" because it's pretty clear that it's an Englishman(Fassbender) trying to emulate an American accent, but without much success.  He hardens his "R" sounds.  There are a couple of scenes where his accent is just purely English, but goes back to that wonky American later.

"A big piece of evidence that he's speaking with an American accent, is that he turns *so many* of his T sounds into D sounds.  This is an *incredibly* American thing to do.  "Better" becomes "Bedder" and so forth.  While you can sometimes hear this in certain accents of the British Isles, it's not nearly as prevalent as it is in American English."

I think that because so much of the British leaks into his fake American accent, it can be confused with Irish.

**EDIT 2** - Turns out Michael Fassbender is, in fact, Irish.  Something I didn't know.  I would like to add that at no point did his accent *sound* Irish from my perspective, but that could be a mistake on my own part.

[Assistant] He learned English in the UK but spoke American English in order to hide his German accent from the Nazis he was hunting. Later, after all the Nazis were dead, he went back to speaking more naturally.


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

[User]
CMV: A person should be entitled to end their life, free of judgement. For some, ending it is the only option and we have no right to interfere or be judgemental towards it.

 Okay, sensitive post ahead but please read my point-of-view and explanation entirely before shit-talking me out. I am open to discussion and I have carefully thought about this before posting---

Few months back my close school friend from committed suicide at his Air force commando training camp, which was his dream job and everything was seemingly going well for him. After that, I informed my class group and I felt quite shocked and guilty. Guilty because even though I say he was a close friend, I somehow felt that I failed to maintain good contact and it had been 3 months since our last short conversation, so maybe he needed someone to talk to. Like most cases there was a lot of uncertainty involved and I kind of cursed myself thinking that there are many instances when we take things lightly and not understand the other person even if they're quite close. This went on for 3 days and I couldn't avoid thinking about it even if I tried to.
But amidst all this there was another thing at the back of my head that said, *it's his life and he gets to choose what to do with it. Of course it doesn't mean that if you feel someone needs a friend to talk to, you don't help but if things happen unknowingly and out of your control then why do we say stuff like, they didn't deserve to die or could've been saved ?* etc. etc.

My opinion towards suicides keep changing and there was also a point where I used to consider it a cowardly act but lately it has changed. I also don't have any fixed opinion yet, these are just some thoughts. I feel it becomes somehow a bit selfish when we lose someone close to us and how the situation turns more towards the side of thinking that "they meant so much to me and their family, why would they do this?".
At times, we tell our close friend or even a total stranger that the decision of ending their life is not a good one, but who are we to decide that? Their life is the one thing they truly own and have control over.

**Tl;dr- Sometimes simply existing itself is a big challenge for daily life. A person can choose to end their life if they wish to do so, and we must not try to overanalyse or be judgemental towards it. At times we end up being selfish and feel the remorse because "we" think it was wrong to leave "us" in a state of sorrow.**

[Assistant]
To start, if a person commits suicide, than it doesn't matter what everyone else chooses to  think about them. They are dead.

The reason why you don't want to normalize or make suicide more socially acceptable, is to keep the people who are still on the fence about it from going through it. If someone truly has their mind set on ending their life, they will do it. Instead, even if its the shame of people being upset with them, we would prefer for people to seek help instead of killing themselves.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to a battery when it reaches 100% charge and stays charging?

[Assistant]
Dumb old batteries like lead acid and nickel cadmium can handle trickle charging indefinitely; excess charge will just turn into heat.  Trickle charging generally means a rate that will take at least ten hours to fully recharge the battery.  Anything charging faster than that has to have an automated system to work out when to stop.  Or else overheating and battery destruction with the potential for fire or even explosions.

Modern lithium based batteries are more finicky and over charging them, even at slow rates can cause fires.  Battery packs and/or the devices they go in contain intelligence to monitor the charging and have it stop at the appropriate time based on things like voltage, time spent charging, rates of charge and temperature.  Devices were long battery life is required, e.g., electric cars, might not ever fully charge or fully discharge the batteries.


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

[User]
[Avatar the Last Airbender] Does the Avatar benefit from environmental effects like the other benders?

As we know, water and fire benders' bending is tied to the celestial bodies they are associated with. Water benders are more powerful during a full moon, allowing some water benders to bloodbend while fire benders are more powerful at midday when the sun is high. Conversely both lose their bending when their celestial body is gone, the water benders lost their bending when the moon spirit was killed and fire benders can't bend during an eclipse.

Fire benders also get massively buffed by other celestial bodies like Sozin's Comet.

But the Avatar isn't limited to just one element, they aren't an air, earth, water or fire bender, they're the Avatar. But are their abilities still subject to the same forces that the other benders are, or does the Avatar get a pass because they're the Avatar?

[Assistant] The Avatar would be affected, but only so much as they would have a single element in their arsenal effected. They would gain their fire-bending boost during the mid-day sun and Sozin's comet and lose it during the solar eclipse, but their other bending abilities would be unaffected.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do your muscles get so sore when you have the flu??

[Assistant]
One task of white blood cells is to repair and rebuild muscle fibres which are damaged from day to day. However, when you have the flu, your immune system diverts the white blood cells from this function to fight off the flu virus, thus leaving your muscles and joints feeling sore and achy.

In addition, white blood cells produce a chemical called cytokines when fighting the infection. This causes inflammation in muscles and joints, resulting in pain.


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

[User]
Is the rate of acceleration of the expansion of the universe changing? i.e., does the universe expansion have a non-zero "jerk"?

This question occurred to me because I often think about how science tells us that based on the most recent evidence, we think the expansion of the universe is accelerating. I just find it fascinating to imagine the heat death of the universe and such. But if the acceleration was constant or changing would have a significant impact on if we think a big "Crunch" is ever possible, or if the fate of the universe might be more complicated then a long slow heat death.

[Assistant] Within the measurement accuracy the dark energy density is constant, this contribution leads to a constant acceleration.  The density of matter decreases as the universe expands, however, so the (negative) acceleration component from matter decreases. This means the time derivative of the acceleration is positive. Experimentally we know it was positive for most of the age of the universe at least.


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

[User]
[DC] Can there be forgiveness for evil superheroes?

I was just watching a clip on youtube from a movie I think is supposed to be set in the Injustice universe, in this universe Joker makes Superman murder Lois and it drives him to become a dictator who rules by fear and kills everyone who threatens his rule or breaks his rules. Batman summons in an alternate universe good Superman to fight him, and then an alternate universe Lois to come talk him down at which point he falls to pieces and says he just wants to die in penance for what he's done. Batman instead says he'll put him in a Red Sun prison. Hypothetically though would there be any precedent for rehabilitating Superman? At the end of the clip he's fully talked down, realizes the error of his ways, and feels insanely guilty about everything he's done. Realistically they're only imprisoning him out of a sense of revenge and anger; could they actually let him out of there at some point and just be okay because normal Superman is back again?

[Assistant]
In a fairly recent Rebirth run, Clayface was reformed and recruited into the bat family, so even a prominent villain can be reformed to be a hero.

Penance and redemption are not that unusual in DC, even if it's hard to imagine the specifics in a case as severe as Injustice.


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

[User]
How did we first measure the speed of light?

Title kind of says it all.

I wonder how we first discovered and measured the speed of light in a greater historical context.

Were there proceeding discoveries that light even had a speed at all and wasn't instantaneous?  How did we realize the speed of light could be measured?  Who was the first person to invent the method to measure the speed of light? How did we know it was accurate?

Thanks science peeps!

[Assistant]
The first attempt was by Galilleo, who had his assistant stand on an opposite  hilltop at night with a lantern, and they tried opening and closing their lanterns really fast. This did not work.

The first indirect measurement was by Roemer, who realized that the time at which Jupiter's moons appeared to be eclipsed was delayed depending on whether Jupiter and Earth were closer together in their orbits or not.

The first direct measurement was by Fizeau and Foucault, who shone light through a rapidly rotating cog, off a distant mirror, and back towards the cog. The speed of the cog required for light to bounce back through an adjacent gap is related to the speed of light.


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

[User]
What's the most time-efficient way to learn a new language?

Hey guys. I ask this question because over quarantine I want to begin learning a new language (probably C# so I can get into game development on Unity), but each time I start with a new language I seem to waste so much time doing nothing in the beginning.

For example, before getting into Python a while back I had experience with Lua and Quickbasic. These both gave me the fundamental ideas of programming. But when I started learning through the tutorials, they all retaught basic things like nested loops, the difference between variables, if statements, and several other core concepts I already knew. I never wanted to skip over these parts since occasionally there was a new useful piece of information scattered in these simple tutorials regarding the new language, but it still felt overall like I was wasting my time in the beginning. Not to mention it was *very* boring having concepts I understood be re-explained to me in a different yet very similar language.

So my question is, is there a way to learn new languages other than the standard "watch a tutorial, program with the tutorial, then start making your own projects"? Is there a project you do when learning a new language to get a feel for it and begin understanding the differences? Or maybe a specific tutorial you watch that is targeted towards beginners at the language but not beginner programmers?

Sorry that I'm complaining over something that's not that big of a deal. It would just help a lot if I felt challenged at the beginning rather than just being bored, counting the hours until I knew enough to actually go do a project on my own with the language. Any help is appreciated! Cheers!

[Assistant]
Well, do hello world to make sure you can get it to run. Then start with small projects. If you know what you want to do with the language, just start doing it.

Take unity for example. Figure out what game you want to make. Side scrolling or Cartesian for example. Then figure out how to add a character and make movement controls. Then figure out how to add an enemy with dumb movement ai. Then figure out a win condition etc. Youll find that is the easiest way to learn a language, because you skip the I dont know how to use the language step and just start using it.


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

[User]
[Marvel Comics] Why is Chaos Magic so much more powerful than other forms of magic?

As far as I can tell, Chaos Magic is simply magic derived from the elder god Chthon, yet it is seemingly more powerful than any other form of magic. Those who use it are able to bend and warp reality, which is something not even Doctor Strange seems capable of, despite drawing his power from another elder god (Oshtur of The Vishanti).

What makes Chaos Magic so powerful? Is it simply that Chthon is more powerful? Or do more benevolent entities such as The Vishanti not offer up such power freely?

[Assistant]
Chaos doesn't come from Chthon; Chthon's power comes from chaos magic.

Essentially, most magic is a means of exploiting the rules of reality. Sigils, incantations, and artifacts are a means of manipulating universal energies in a reliable, predictable manner, but these manipulations have limits. The limits might be so high that even a god might not reach them, but they are there.

Chaos magic doesn't manipulate reality, it *is* reality. Reality is a "hardening" of chaos. It's peeking inside the box to see if Schrdinger's cat is still alive.

When someone employs chaos magic, they aren't pushing on the universal laws, they're *replacing* universal laws with rules of their own. They aren't exploiting a loophole, they're creating a new one.

Most magic is like Neo manipulating the Matrix. Chaos magic is like the Architect rewriting the operating system.


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

[User]
ELI5: How the american road naming system works

I'm an Arab hopefully going to study in the US soon. For the life of me, I can't understand naming roads like 12th and Springsteen. Is that the name of 1 street. Is it the name of a block?

[Assistant]
12th and Springsteen would refer to where two roads cross (12th Street, and Springsteen St).

Every city has different ways of naming streets. In some cities, streets have haphazard names to do with history or other reasons, but a name is just that. Some cities use numbers, so if you know you're on 1st Street to get to 5th Street you'll need to walk by 2nd, 3rd and 4th first.

Some cities use xxx-Street for roads that go north-south and xxx-Avenue for roads that go east-west.

Street, road, avenue, boulevard and others are generally interchangeable words.

Buildings are numbered sequentially along streets. All the even numbers are on one side and the odd ones are on the opposite. If you're walking along and you see that you're at 100 John St but have a meeting at 265 John St, you know that your destination is on the other side of the road, and you need to walk in the direction in which the numbers are increasing.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why do they let Luke lead the last run in episode 4?

Why do they let Luke lead that last run against the Death Star? I get that he has shown up with the princess, and appears to be vouched for by Kenobi, and mayyyybe the name Skywalker is recognized by someone... but he just shows up and has 0 combat training. Why is Wedge, who is a vet by this point, his wingman and calling him "boss"? It works out nicely, but how was this decision made?

[Assistant]
They lost most of the Y-wings of Gold Squadron in the first initial run when the fighters came at them from behind including Gold Leader. Next up was Red Squadron which split into two groups. Red Leader lead the second run and was taken out along with his wing mates on another unsuccessful run.

All we have left are Luke, Wedge, and Biggs. No flight leaders and just one last shot. Luke did the hero thing and took charge of the situation rallying the remaining forces. Wedge was the most experienced rebel pilot so he was running cover. Wedge was banking on the computer doing the actual targeting work. All Luke had to do was fly in a straight line. Biggs seemed a little more panicky of the situation and went along with Luke's confidence.

Wedge took an early hit and had to pull out. Then Biggs went down.

We can see right before the Death Star blows that there is only the Millennium Falcon, Luke, Wedge, and a straggler from Gold squad. Not a whole lot of people left to choose from.


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

[User] ELI5: If transistors in computers act to switch off or on the flow of electricity, what mechanism acts to "decide" whether it should be switched?

[Assistant]
Other transistors.

Yes, this sounds circular, and it sort of is. At the very "start" of the system (I.e. startup) there are some circuits which are not controlled by transistors and are hard coded to do specific startup actions; but from there it's all controlled by some transistors signalling others to switch, which signal others etc. and coming back round to the original ones at some point.


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

[User]
Seriously, what happened to the hippie demographic we hear of in the late 1960's?

It seems like there was a large social movement in the 1960's of liberalism and counter culture.

I feel that the baby-boomer generation as a whole ended up being out of touch with the politics of their country and having centrist-conservative leanings. This suggests that the counter-culture and liberal values from the hippie social movement did not really permeate too deeply within our collective society?

I think this is a complex topic, but can someone give me some insight on what happened to the "hippie" demographic and how widespread it was?

[Assistant]
It simply wasn't as big, or as far-reaching, as was reported. It was different, and as such made good fodder for journalism navel-gazing, but in the final measure it was the dubstep of its time.

Here's a tip: When your social movement becomes a fad, you're going to have a bad time.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does running the AC in your car use gas/lower your MPG?

I get that it needs energy to run the system, but can't that come from the battery or another source? Does it cause the engine to work extra hard? Is it better to keep it off most of the time to reduce wear?

[Assistant]
There are two parts to the AC system in your car: the compressor and the fan.  The fan uses electricity from the battery which is constantly recharged (if the car is running) by the alternator.  This does not significantly affect your MPG, although it will kill your battery if you run the fan while the engine is off.
The compressor is what actually makes the air cold by driving a refrigeration cycle.  It is powered by a belt that connects it directly to the engine and it turns on and off as it is needed.  If you are ever standing near a car that has its engine running and AC on, you will can hear the compressor cycling.  When it turns on the engine will sound lower due to the added load which is fairly significant.  This load causes the engine to do extra work which uses more gasoline and reduces MPG.
Also on many cars if you pay attention, you may notice that under heavy acceleration the AC will not be as cold.  This is because many cars can shut off the compressor to free up more power for the engine when you are flooring it, sacrificing AC performance for a brief period.


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

[User] Is updating your BIOS worth it ?

[Assistant] The phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a clich for a reason.  Look through the release notes for the new version.  If you don't see anything really important or anything that fixes an issue that you're actually experiencing, don't fuck with it.


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

[User]
Is it possible to get close enough to a galaxy so that it's bright for the human eye, yet far enough that you can see it's full shape?

Since telescopes compress the focal range astronomically, wouldn't it be impossible to see galaxies as they appear in images? I guess another way to put this is, I'm thinking that at any given planet in the universe, discounting any close objects, the night sky will always be dark with tiny twinkles. I can't imagine being close enough for it to be visible without being "in" the galaxy. Is this right?

[Assistant]
Galaxies are actually pretty big in the sky - the reason they're difficult to see is mostly because of how dim they are. A telescope gets around this by being a larger light bucket than your eyeball, and by collecting light over a longer time.

There are three galaxies other than the Milky Way that are visible to the naked eye - Andromeda, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They are dim cloudy patches that can only be seen under reasonably dark and clear conditions. But the Large Magellanic Cloud is several times bigger than a full Moon on the sky - so resolution is not at all the problem.

However, getting closer doesn't make galaxies brighter. For *resolved* objects, like a galaxy, or the wall of the room you're in, brightness does not depend on distance. You do get more *total* light from an object when it's closer, but the about of light *per square degree of your field of view* doesn't change. This is why, for instance, if you move your eye from 30 cm away from the wall to 1 cm away from the wall, it doesn't become 900 times brighter - it looks the same.

Galaxies get a little bit dimmer with distance because space is a bit dusty, but galaxies are just pretty dim to start with, just because the stars are really that spaced out.

That said, if we were in the middle of a dense galaxy cluster, you likely would see a *lot* more cloudy patches in the night sky. We live in a galaxy "group", which basically consists of two big galaxies (the Milky Way and Andromeda), one medium galaxy (Triangulum), and a bunch of little satellite galaxies. But in a galaxy *cluster*, there might be dozens (or even hundreds!) of galaxies the size of the Milky Way or bigger, and many would be visible in the night sky.


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

[User] [MCU] Among all of the characters from the MCU's "Avengers," which are Dudes, and which are Men, according to Drax's system of measurement?

[Assistant]
Dudes: Tony Stark, Peter Quill, Steven Strange, Rhodey, Loki, Pietro Maximoff, Scott Lang

Men: Thor, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, T'Challa, N'Jadaka/Erik, probably M'Baku, Drax (obviously)

Children, who are neither dudes nor men: Peter Parker, Harley Keener

Banner is a dude, Hulk is a man.

Unknown: Clint Barton, Sam Wilson.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it mean to be lobotomized.

Saw something on the front page about this.

Thanks.

[Assistant]
They stick a small pick up your eye socket, as your skull is thinnest there, the pick enters the prefrontal cortex of your your brain (it's that part of your brain responsible for memory, decision-making and logical thought) from the bottom, the surgeon swishes the pick around and destroys a bit of the brain lobe. Generally, the patient is made to count from ten backwards repeatedly, when the patient can no longer count coherently, the surgeon deems that enough damage has been done and withdraws the pick.

This is generally done to make "uncontrollable" mental patients more docile. The end result was a patient with severely retarded mental capacities and almost completely no sense of initiative.

The above method (Transorbital Lobotomy) was popularized by the American doctor Walter Freeman (who learned it from the Portuguese neurologist Antnio Egas Moniz, who would go on to win a Nobel for this "invention"). Freeman drove around America in a mobile lab he called the "lobotomobile" shilling his "technique" like some demented Kirby salesman. He preformed 3500 operations in the late 40s and boasted that the lobotomy would be as common as pulling teeth by the time he's done with it (the US would eventually lobotomize about 50 000 people, including children as young as 4).

The procedure was banned in every country by the 1970s.


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

[User]
[Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Pink] "It's not chance, Mr. Holmes, it's chess." - but what were the moves?

The villain in the Sherlock Holmes BBC episode *A Study in Pink* claims that his murders aren't due to luck, that he's presenting his victims with a puzzle that each fail to solve. Could someone explain the puzzle involved? Was it just some form of psychological manipulation, or was the murderer not as smart as he thought he was and just lucky that many times in a row?

[Assistant]
Let's go over it.

Psycho with a gun sits you down, presents two identical vials- one with poison, one without. You take one, he takes the other, and you get to choose.

He slides one across the table and says to pick.

A certain kind of person is numb with shock and almost paralyzed- it's well known that once somebody believes they are about to die they become very passive. Such a person will automatically take the vial in front of them.

But you- you are active, and you figure that he shoved the poison to you in the expectation you'd take it. You grab the poison in front of him instead and then lock eyes, watching him like a hawk.

He's calm. Smiling a little, even. Just a happy, silly little man with no real cares.

Shit. Um. Either he knows you just grabbed the poison, which means that smile is because he's about to win, or he knows it isn't poison and is bluffing you.

But if you just grabbed the poison, why would he telegraph it by smiling? He should have put on a poker face. So it must be the good pill you have.

You test the theory, you shove the pill back in front of him and choose the pill closest to you instead. Now the smile is gone and the stone face is back.

You cracked the code. When he's smiling, he hates your choice and is trying to bluff you. When he has a poker face, he likes your choice.

You grab the pill in front of him.

One, two, three, and you both take your medicine. And you die.

He knew how you would think, whether you were passive or active, how many layers you'd unpeel before being satisfied you'd found them all. It's not chance, it's chess. Only there's only one move before checkmate. His move is to suss out what kind of person you are before deciding which pill to place in front of you. Your move is to suss out his decision making process before choosing.

The only possible solution is to make it truly random- seize both vials, mix the pills, then grab one without thinking. Coin toss beats playing chess with Kasparov.


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

[User]
[Avatar:2009] Were the weapons/tech shown in the film the best we've got?

I asked this question because I remembered that the military force in the movie was a company employed security force, so is that the most advanced tech we've got on earth, or is that just the tip of the iceberg if so tell me what kind of tech the (main) earth military/spaceforce might have?

[Assistant] I suspect not and we will see more advanced stuff in the sequels. As you say it was a private security force on a planet with no technologically advanced alien life so their role would be primarily suppressing indigenous wildlife.


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

[User] ELI5: Why don't nerves regenerate like nearly everything else in our bodies, especially if they're so important?

[Assistant]
If they regenerated, they would lose their connections with each other, which is arguable what makes you, you. If you could somehow regenerate nerve tissue in your brain, you would forget pretty much everything in that region and it would be like dealing with a newborn for those functions.

For non-cognitive functions, it might not reconnect properly and not work anyway; it would receive/send signals, but perhaps not in the way that your brain expects them to.

Peripheral nerves can actually regenerate function to some degree, but CNS nerves are static for a reason.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is radioactiveness always associated with the color green?

Everytime someone mentions radioactiveness, plutonium, radioactive waste or anything radiocative it is always associated with the color green or neon green, why is that?

[Assistant]
It is mostly the green phosphor that was added to radioactive luminescent paint.

They made a paint that included a radioactive element and with a green phosphor. This was applied to things like clock faces. The radioactive stuff gives off radiation, which excites the phosphor so that it glows green.


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

[User] [Looney Tunes] How can a thrown rock or a bullet change direction and go after its target? Are they sentient?

[Assistant]
Toonforce - The universal law that states whatever is funniest will happen.

Its the same reason a plane falling out of the sky will stop inches before it hits the ground simply because its "outta gas".


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

[User] If all galaxies are moving away from each other how is it that the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our own galaxy?

[Assistant] The average trend is that galaxies are moving away from each other. On small scales (e.g. nearby galaxies), your normal motion through space (from gravity etc) is in some sense "stronger" than the expansion of the universe, and so on a small scale you can get galaxies moving in all sorts of directions relative to each other. We even have galaxy clusters where a hundred galaxies orbit around a common centre.


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

[User]
Why is there not a 3% Milk?

Serious question.

[Assistant]
From Wikipedia:

In the USA, milk is marketed primarily by fat content and available in these varieties:

Whole Milk is 3.25% fat

2% Reduced-Fat Milk

1% Lowfat Milk (also called Light Milk)

0% Fat-Free Milk (also called Skim Milk or Nonfat Milk)


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

[User] If atoms are made of almost entire empty space, why isn't everything we see translucent to a certain extent?

[Assistant]
It is. Ever had a dental X-ray?

Most of the matter in the universe is transparent to *some* electromagnetic radiation, to a greater or lesser extent. As to why most of the stuff we interact with day-to-day is opaque, it's because photons in the visible-light part of the spectrum are about the same "size" as most molecules. So visible light can be absorbed and reflected by matter, which makes most everyday matter partially or completely opaque.

One might naturally ask why it is that this is true of *visible* light and not gamma rays or radio. That question actually kind of answers itself, if you turn it on its head. In order for light to be *visible* we have to be able to *see* it, which means it needs to interact promiscuously with the molecules in our retinas. We see "visible light" because "visible light" is the part of the spectrum that can interact with matter.


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

[User]
[Men in black] (and other movies in general)

Why do most movies depict the Apollo lunar Lander on the moon (fully intact) for example I'm watching Men In Black 3 as I write this and they have the Lander outside lunar max, but I've seen this in other movies, do they think we won't know what the lunar Lander is if it doesn't have the top half or did someone from the mib put another Lander out there for the sake of it?

[Assistant] The site of the lunar landings are a Heritage site, and usually they put facsimiles of the full lander at the location to represent the event as it happened. Even in cases where humans won't visit, aliens will.


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

[User] ELI5 why is ice slippery?

[Assistant]
First of, when ice freezes, it's usually the flat surface you walk on. It's just really, really flat. Like, a road has tiny bumps and irregularities that cause friction, but a still water surface is completely flat, and so is the water when it freezes.

Secondly, ice is a grid of water atoms. If you squeeze it by walking on it, some of it "collapses" into water, creating a thin layer of water that has even less friction. We use that for ice skating, for example, but that also makes walking on ice even worse.


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

[User]
ELI5 How Snakes Move

I know they slither, but how exactly does slithering actually move them?

[Assistant]
Snakes have four ways of moving around. Since they dont have legs they use their muscles and their scales to do the walking.

Concertina method: this is when snakes bunch themselves up and then throw themselves forward.

Serpentine method: This motion is what most people think of when they think of snakes. Snakes will push off of any bump or other surface, rocks, trees, etc., to get going. They move in a wavey motion. They wouldnt be able to move over slick surfaces like glass at all.

Sidewinding: This method is similar to an inchworms movement. The snake will lift the middle of its body up and then push it down forcing its head to move forward.

Rectilinear Method: This is a slow, creeping, straight movement. The snake uses some of the wide scales on its belly to grip the ground while pushing forward with the others.


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

[User] [Marvel] What is the maximum ground speed Spider-Man could achieve while swinging?

[Assistant]
Well, since he gets his speed by falling, and then changing direction from vertical to horizontal, I'd say about 300MPH if he made himself as aerodynamic as possible. 120MPH if he isn't worrying about aerodynamics.

Source: Terminal velocity while skydiving is typically 120MPH, but you can get up to 300MPH if you make your body vertical.


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

[User] ELI5: How will Iceland simply adopting a different currency improve its economy?

[Assistant]
I'll try and explain it simply but first you have to understand a bit of what having your own currency means.

Having your own currency means that your country has a central bank that tries to manage your economy, mainly by changing the interest rate. Changes in the interest affect the economy internally and externally. Internally, a lower interest rate means its cheaper for businesses to ask for loans so it helps the economy grow, a higher interest rate means its more difficult for costumers to ask for loans so they don't buy as many things which means low prices. Externally, a high interest rate means that foreigners want to own your countries financial assets as they can earn alot of money by doing so, a low interest rate means precisely the opposite.

This causes a big problem, a central bank has to try and manage the economy both internally and externally, a crisis occurs if it fails in any way. Many big countries don't have this problem, the US and the EU simply control the economy internally and as they are huge economies this doesn't really cause many problems. This isn't the case in Iceland, with a really small economy that is extremely dependant on the rest of the world it has a really tough time managing its own currency as it has to balance many different economic aspects. Iceland hopes that replacing its currency would help prevent this issues from happening again.