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

[User] [Dragonball Z] why does Goku's hair turn blonde when he powers up and goes Super Saiyan?

[Assistant]
Gold is the color of the third chakra (Manipura/solar plexus).  Vegeta specifically calls out focusing on this particular one when explaining how to do it to a universe 6 saiyan.  As for why that particular Chakra is important:

>Through meditating on Manipura, one is said to attain the power to save, change or destroy the world.

Most other super saiyan forms have an aura and/or hair color of some other Chakra, and the Kaio-ken is the color of the root chakra.

Edit: Oh hey, it just occurs to me that Ultra Instinct can be read as an indigo aura, and the 6th chakra is associated with clairvoyance/intuition.


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

[User]
Are different brands and types of shampoo and conditioner really chemically calibrated to do what they promise?

I've always been curious whether there are really chemical compounds that "promote bounciness" or "reduce frizz." Or is it basically the same soap dressed up in different packaging?

[Assistant]
The active ingredient in all shampoos is some type of detergent, usually sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), which uses its amphipathic properties to dissolve both polar and non-polar residues in your hair. Conditioners basically contain the same thing, but contain much less SLS and much more additional oils and proteins that help your hair retain moisture and body after shampooing. The main difference between shampoos is the concentration of SLS in the product. SLS's main function is to remove the naturally excreted oils (sebum) your hair produces, and since this varies greatly from person to person, some people respond better to products with different concentrations of SLS. For example, if you use a shampoo that's for "oily hair" it probably contains a higher concentration of SLS to help dissolve the oils. If you were to use this product on your "dry and frizzy hair," it would exacerbate the problem. Basically, this is the BASIC idea behind using different formulations of shampoo, but other compounds can be added to the product to "promote bounciness." One is the protein albumin (the egg white protein), which denatures in the product and acts like a sticky glue that firms up your hair. Additionally, products can also control for hair pH, smell nice, and moisturize your scalp to reduce oil secretion or flakes.

All in all, it's a balance between cleaning the hair and over-cleaning the hair, which dries it out and leads to "frizziness." The shampooing and conditioning cycle is summarized as: remove all natural oils without overdrying (shampoo), readd those oils in the right amount to reestablish the moisture and pH (conditioning).


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

[User]
[General] If I were stuck in a loop where I perpetually leave one door only to enter a door I didn't expect to come in: at what point does the change happen?

How slowly would I have to walk to notice the change?

[Assistant] From your standpoint it's a perspective thing, an optical illusion. Best course of action is to continue at a mad pace; this effect usually only lasts for a few seconds, and it's better to get it over with.


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

[User] [Hunger Games] whats going on across the pond? Does every country have the Hunger Games or is it predominantly U.S.?

[Assistant] There's no real way to know.  Every piece of in-universe information we have is confined to the situation in Panem.  Could be that Panem is the only nation left, or could be the rest of the world is a post-scarcity utopia, or anywhere in between.  We just don't have the information to work with to do anything but wild guessing.


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

[User] [Revenge of the Sith] Why hit a Jedi fighter with buzz droids? If they just blew up, Obi-Wan would be dead.

[Assistant]
Well the missiles that were fired were explosive. You can see that when Anakin did his fancy spin maneuver and blew two of them up. The reason Obi-Wan got buzz droided was that the missiles ran out of fuel and released the droids as a last ditch "if we can't blow him up we'll fuck him up" effort.

So in short they do blow up but they also carry the buzz droids and release them when they either hit the target or run out of fuel. Obi-Wan found that fuel thing out the hard way.


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

[User] ELI5: Our bodies can create an embryo that assembles into a young body full of new cells and repeat the process. Why can't our bodies skip the embryo step and just renew itself?

[Assistant] Your body renews itself every day. In fact you are a completely new set of cells every 7 years. The issue that we have are small errors as cells divide and renew over time eventually lead to the numerous problems of aging.


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

[User] [Star Trek] The Vulcans were hundreds of years ahead of humanity so why did the Vulcan Science Academy refuse to believe in time travel?

[Assistant] Because they hadn't seen any evidence of time travel and nothing in their research picked up any inconsistencies that warranted further investigation. Kind of like how Maxwell's equations had something weird that led to the discovery that speed of light in vacuum being the same in every reference frame and led people to discover relativity. An example of a wrong theory that might not have any measurable contradicting evidence is the conservation of mass. Two protons in helium nuclei have slightly less mass than that of two free  protons but the difference is so small, most measurements can't detect it unless you are specifically looking for it.


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

[User] What is actually happening when someone's voice "cracks"?

[Assistant]
Voice cracks occur because your vocal cords suddenly change the frequency they are vibrating at for a range of reasons:

1. A quick change in pitch or volume will cause your vocal cords to suddenly tighten or strecth, producing the noise.

2. Over use and illness can cause your vocal cords to inflame and swell, making them difficult to vibrate in a predictable, controllable way.

3. Dehydration can cause your vocal cords to tighten and resist being stretched to vibrate correctly.

4. Anxiety causes muscles to tense up, including those around your larynx.

5. Puberty physically changes the build of your larynx, moving it further down your throat, splitting your mucus membranes into more layers, and quickly growing the muscles in and around your voice box.

6. Throat injury of course interferes with normal vibration.

All of these reasons lead to one thing, your vocal cords not controlling in the way that you believe that they should. The sudden loss of control leads to over or under exertion creating the sudden squeaks or croaks respectively.


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

[User]
Are there any justifications for the commonly held concept of karma?

Karma, as people ordinarily conceive of it, refers to individuals 'reaping what they sow'. Apparently the concept originated from Indian religions and I think it was just commonly accepted that it is true. Is there however any justification for it.If God's existence is tried to be justified by theological arguments (Ontological, Cosmological, Moral) is there an equivalent for karma?

I think another way to put it is, is there a proof that karma exists?

[Assistant]
The commonly held justification of karma is very different from the traditional conception of karma. The commonly held conception is ridiculous, has no philosophical justification, and is subscribed to by no one who understands karma.

Karma means action. Karma-vipaka is things that happen to you as a result of your actions. This only refers to things that are literal results of your actions. There are other types of vipaka that are results of non-volitional conditions: physical, biological, mental (non-volitional), and spiritual.

The principle of karma, only means that volitional acts contribute to producing your conditions.


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

[User] What is the best way to keep ice cream as solid as possible as long as possible, while outside? Can you improve on my idea?

[Assistant] Your best bet is circulation; get an aquarium water pump and use it to circulate chilled brine between the ice cream double-walled trough and a large cooler that you continually replenish with ice and salt. This allows you to use a much larger volume of ice than would be possible with your above plan and makes the maintenance of the ice separate from the ice cream - less mess, easier work.


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

[User]
Now that they've found the Higgs Boson, what will they be using the LHC for?

I am under the impression that, while the LHC is used to pry into other matters, it's primary focus has been the search for the Higgs. Now that **something that looks a lot like it** has been found, I've read many articles where physicists state that this is likely the last big discovery to be had in particle physics. I doubt that means exactly that nothing is left to be found, but what lies between "nothing" and "big discovery" that they can use the LHC for?

Edited to address the most common comment.

[Assistant]
First off, the Higgs boson hasn't been discovered yet.  A particle that is consistent with a Standard Model Higgs boson has been observed, but the first order of business for the CMS and ATLAS collaborations at the LHC is to study the properties of this particle in more depth to see if it fully matches up with the Standard Model Higgs boson.  Does it have the expected spin and parity?   Does it decay into the expected particles at the expected rates?

If these things deviate from expectations, we have a puzzle on our hands.  In fact, if the decay rates and branching ratios (how often it decays into various decay products) differ from Standard Model expectations, that will give us an indication that what other physics is at play that modifies or extends the Standard Model.  One simple possibility, for example, might be that there is more than one Higgs boson.

The LHC is also poised to discover directly new particles not contained in the Standard Model.  It is operating to study physics at the characteristic energy scale of the weak force, and so one reasonable hope is that whatever physics drives the weak force to have this energy scale can be revealed by the LHC.

Those who worry that this might be the last thing to be found are referring to the following.  The Higgs boson was the only piece of the Standard Model yet to be observed.  There is no guarantee that there is new physics at scales accessible to the LHC or a successor accelerator.  If that's the case, we can continue to use the LHC to map out in more detail the properties of the Standard Model, but we would not get to see something new.  (Note that this wouldn't mean the end of particle physics; regardless, there are still important physics questions to resolve in the Standard Model, such as why we have the symmetries we have, why we have the particles and fields we have, and why the particle interactions have the strengths they have.)


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

[User] (2^(n-1)-1) mod n = 0 seems only to work for prime numbers. Can somebody explain?

[Assistant]
Unfortunately, it's not true.

2^(340) - 1 = 0 (mod 341) but 341 = 31 * 11 is not prime.

However, it is true that if n is prime then  2^(n-1) - 1 = 0 (mod n).

Indeed, a^(n-1) - 1 = 0 (mod n) for any a which is not divisible by n. This result is known as Fermat's Little Theorem.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do poor/third world countries support such high populations?

How do poor/third world countries support such high populations? Is the standard of living so low that everybody can just barely get by? How come so many countries in Africa are considered 3rd world but can maintain a growing population despite disease, famine, and civil war?

I'd like to be enlightened to the truth behind all this and have my potential misconceptions destroyed.

[Assistant]
> Is the standard of living so low that everybody can just barely get by?

This. Not only that, but in many places, people DON'T actually get by. People starve to death every day on this earth.

The fact is, many of these countries CAN'T sustain the population growth that they have.


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

[User]
[MCU] How does Tony Stark's Iron Man suit make him so impervious to injury?

The man can survive enormous falls (several thousand feet), tank rounds, extreme G forces, limb hyperextension (getting caught in the SHIELD airship rotors) extreme heat and cold, 50 caliber rounds and tons of other stuff. How does a layer of metal protect the man within from extreme bodily trauma, or internal damage at the very least?

[Assistant]
It doesn't make him impervious to injury, It makes him resistant to damage.

If the damage makes it through the suit, he gets hurt just like any other human being.

It just so happens he's made a very good suit, of tough materials and all kinds of systems designed to reduce and transfer forces that would harm him.

In order fr presentation, here are some of the systems that assist with your examples:

- Enormous falls/extreme G forces: Inertial dampening systems, gyroscopic stabilization systems and impact absorbing gel panels;

- Tank rounds/.50 cal rounds: Gold-Titanium alloy, thermal management system, gel panels;

- Limb Hyperextension: Max-angled rotary locks on joints;

- Extreme Heat and Cold: Thermal management system;

- Tons of other stuff: Tons of other stuff.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is calling Obama a socialist considered an insult? What's so wrong about that type of government anyways?

[Assistant]
During the Cold War, the "enemy" of the United States (as well as most of the wealthy world) were all self-proclaimed socialist nations (The USSR and China being the largest). The word "socialism" has come to represent all the things US Americans prefer about their way of life to that of those countries: freedom, democracy and capitalism. So to call someone a socialist is often to associate them with the brutish Communist societies of the Cold War.

Objectively, Obama is not a socialist. Socialism is any social system where the means of production (ie, all the things presently owned by employers like machines and tools as well as land) are "socially" rather than privately owned and controlled. Obama is more accurately described as a Social Democrat, someone whose ideal society is quite capitalist but with a government who often intervenes to improve efficiency and fairness.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are most dogs/cats completely uninterested by television?

They don't seem to respond to anything they see or hear on television, even if it's something they would respond to in real life, like another dog. Do their brains process television differently than humans or something?

[Assistant]
An old CRT tv (the big ones with the tubes) only refreshed the screen 30 times a second.  (Interlaced video so at 60 Hz every other line is drawn on each pass through).  This is slow enough for a dog to notice.  Also colour screens are use RGB colour.  Humans have cones in our eyes for red, green and blue.  Dogs have cones for blue and yellow.  So the colour is completely wrong for the dogs.  Plasma and LCD/LED TVs refresh differently.  If you get a newer TV the refresh is fast enough and dogs are smart enough to figure out what is wrong with the colour on a TV so they can now watch TV.

Cats have far fewer cones so they see colour more blotchy.  They can see modern TVs probably as well as they can see things out a window.  Cats probably just don't care.


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

[User]
[Witcher] Why didn't Witcher Fortresses, such as Kaer Morhen, have a back-up trove for things like mutagen/alchemy recipes?

Surely, as much as Witchers plan for every scenario, and as hated as they are by 90%+ of the population, they'd have considered they might eventually be attacked on their own ground and prepared for such eventualities? Is this a simple case of Plot-Induced Stupidity (PIS)?

As I understand it, peasants and some mages attacked Kaer Morhen. To attack a castle like Kaer Morhen, especially considering the inhabitants, you'd need serious numbers and preparation even if you did have sorcerers/sorceresses on side. How did they avoid any sort of detection via sight/sound/smell on the journey to the castle itself?

And if it is PIS then... well... *sigh*.

[Assistant] The mob of peasants outnumbered the Witchers by a huge margin and quantity has quality of its own. Doesn't matter how much stronger the average Witcher is over the strongest peasant, if you don't have the numbers to man the walls, a castle is pretty much a death trap. And the mob had mages supporting them. It's not a stretch to assume that the mages simply opened a portal for the mob to pass the Witchers' sentries.


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

[User] How do marine mammals survive without fresh water to drink?

[Assistant]
Marine mammals get their fresh water from the food they eat (ex: fish).

Many dolphins in captivity are "watered", which is basically tubing water into their stomachs (painless and trainable), to make sure they get water that may have been lost in frozen fish during processing. Other methods of ensuring hydration are ice cubes and gelatin.

Gelatin has widespread uses for marine mammals who require lots of hydration.

But marine mammals do have kidneys that are much better than most animals' at filtering out excess salt.

Source: worked with dolphins.


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

[User] If cold air can absorb less moisture than warm air why does our skin get dry in the winter time?

[Assistant]
In the winter time, we spend most of our time indoors.  Although the relative humidity of the cold air outside is high, when it comes into our houses and is warmed, it still contains the same amount of moisture, but because it is warmer, it could hold a more.  As a result, the relative humidity goes down, and the air is effectively drier.  This drier air makes our skin dry
.


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

[User]
What is IBM doing now with the engineering behind Watson?

What's the next step in the near distant future?

[Assistant] IBM Employee here.  It's a big deal within the company; the next enterprise is Health.  Basically, how do we make medicine more accurate/more efficient by introducing a flexible question-answering machine into the process?


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

[User]
ELI5: How come if you're starving to death you can actually die from eating?

I've heard if you're starving and then you start eating too quickly it can actually kill you.  What's going on here?

[Assistant]
Think of how, when you are in the dark for a long time, you start to be able to see your surroundings well enough to move around, although clumsily. Then, just as you've gotten used to the dark, someone turns on ten fluorescent floodlights and aims them right at your face. You feel like your retinas are burning, and you can't block out the light well enough to ease your pain.

When a person is starved, their bodily functions, specifically the levels and types of chemicals released, change. If that person then eats a typical amount of food for a healthy person, their body is not currently equipped to handle the influx of nutrients. It doesn't have the tools it needs, and it can't switch them out quickly enough because it used them all up earlier. The systems essentially shut down because they can't handle the overload, causing the heart to go out of whack. Once the heart starts to go, the entire body stops.

Tl;dr - The body was forced to switch into "dark" mode, then the sudden "light" overwhelmed it and it shut down.


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

[User] When charged particles spin, they exhibit magnetic or polar properties. If I spin a large body of a highly charged element on its axis fast enough(saying the material can withstand this) will it also exhibit these properties?

[Assistant]
The spin of elementary particles doesn't come from a rotation.

Yes, if you rotate a charged object it will have a magnetic field. While this is difficult to do with solid objects (can't get much charge on them) you can consider a ring current in an accelerator for example.


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

[User] ELI5: Why Do a Lot of Small Files Take Longer to Copy Then One Big One?

[Assistant]
It's like the difference between sending one envelope containing a 100-page manuscript vs. sending a hundred envelopes containing a page of the manuscript each.

The resulting manuscript is the same size in each option, but with the second option the receiver has to spend time opening a hundred envelopes.


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

[User] ELI5 - What is it that makes people contract every muscle and scream really loud when they get scared.

[Assistant] Instincts. Some, if not most, animals make loud noises to intimidate/scare their enemies away. Muscles contracting would store up potential energy for fight or flight. Contraction of some muscles act to make animals look bigger (eg cat arching their back or birds fluffing their feathers), this acts to intimidate the enemy as well.


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

[User]
[Wheel of Time] How are assassins in Seanchan even possible?

Everything about Seanchan politics is all about the strongest surviving. Assassinations are not only expected, they're played for. Everyone up to and including the Empress expects to have to deal with them. People intentionally send easy-to-kill assassins as a token of respect. There's even accounts of hiring assassins, and then killing them right away to show your loyalty.

So how in the light is being an assassin a sustainable job, if they're all being systematically killed?

[Assistant] It's not an easy job, to be sure. But, for the skilled (and lucky) few that survive long enough to become truly elite, it's incredibly lucrative. You don't throw away their lives. Them you keep secret and safe, until there's someone you *really* want to die.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly is Stem Cells treatment and why is is so beneficial and so frowned upon.

[Assistant] Stem cells are cell that can be turned into just about any other cell, which makes them nice to help repair damaged cells. The problem people have with them is the way they were collected. They can collect them from a variety of sources now, and mostly through non-invasive, non controversial means. They used to be only from aborted fetuses.


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

[User]
ELI5: Please explain The Internet of Things

Could someone please explain in simple terms what the Internet of Things or IoT is? The Wikipedia page is a bit vague.

[Assistant]
Its a blanket term for devices that are embedded with hardware to connect over the internet that do not conform to existing device categories like laptops, desktops, cell phones, etc.

Examples of IoT devices: thermostats, outlets/power strips, home appliances, raspberry pi projects, etc. The key is that these are all devices that previously did not connect to the internet and now have embedded hardware enabling them to do so.

Embedded in this case means someone took a device like a microwave, added a bit of hardware like a raspberry pi, added some sensors with an operating system and then connected the whole thing to the internet.

These devices often are subject to cybersecurity issues. Manufacturers have little to no standardized operating systems, most lack the ability to update automatically and many never receive updates at all.

The term IoT is essentially how we classify all of these devices and the collective issues they all face. Such as the aforementioned security issues.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] If Gandalf decided to take the Ring for himself and use it, what could he achieve? Just how powerful would he be?

[Assistant]
In his letters Tolkien quite clearly described what someone like Gandalf would do if he were to take the Ring. He'd start building an empire to rival Sauron's and force a confrontation with the forces of Sauron. The Rings main power is in the domination of wills so that'd be the natural application.

The Ring doesn't instantly transform its wearer into some super-powerful warrior. Sauron himself was beaten conventionally while in possession of the Ring. The confrontation would be very close because Sauron is stronger than Gandalf (he said as much even after returning as the White) but since Sauron has already poured much of his strength in his various failed plots and machinations Gandalf would probably have the upper hand.

In that case Gandalf would then conquer all of Middle-Earth with his legions just as Sauron intended to do. It'd be the end of the free peoples of Middle-Earth but this time by the hands of knights in shining armor instead of orcs.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is everything so much more interesting when youre procrastinating?

When Im trying to focus on something else, everything else I could be doing instead is fascinating and exciting. But if I make a list of them so I can do them after Ive done whatever it is I actually should be doing, suddenly its not much fun. Curious about the neuroscience behind this.

[Assistant] Dopamine is the main reason, we usually like scrolling on social media over studying, because dopamine works when there is expectation of something satisfiying's about to happen. For example, dopamine is secreted when you are looking for a funny post, not when you actually find it.


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

[User] [Lord of the Rings] Okay, who ultimately had the better weaponsmiths: The Elves or the Dwarves?

[Assistant]
The Dwarves.

The Elves went to the Dwarves when they want weapons.

>"Therefore Thingol took thought for arms, which before his people had not needed, and these at first the Naugrim smithied for him; for they were greatly skilled in such work..."
>
>"...in the tempering of steel alone of all crafts the Dwarves were never outmatched even by the Noldor, and in the making of mail of linked rings, which was first contrived by the smiths of Belegost, their work had no rival." - *The Silmarillion* "Of the Sindar"

The weapons Thingol received from the Dwarves are said to never rust unlike the other Elves'. This is during "that ancient time iron and copper they loved to work, rather than silver or gold" so they're probably at their best with weapons.

Telchar in particular was one of the greatest of the Dwarven smiths. He made Angrist, the knife that cut Morgoth's Iron Crown. It is said that "iron it would cleave as if it were green wood" (*The Silmarillion - Of Beren and Lthien)*. He made Narsil, though there isn't anything special about it except Isildur used it to cut the Ring. Then again, if it's wielded by the king it's probably pretty good. He also made the Dragon-Helm of Dor-lmin. It is said that *"A power was in it that guarded any who wore it from wound or death, for the sword that hewed it was broken, and the dart that smote it sprang aside." - The Children of Hrin*.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do touch-me-not plant seeds "explode"?

Seed pods*

[Assistant] The cells of the plant on on side of the seed pod fill themselves up with water, using osmosis to transport the water within the cells. This causes pressures of up to 1 Megapascal pressing against the seed. (Atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 100 kilopascals) The plant forms a brittle structure, so that the seed pod will break before it ever bends. Then, the seed pods shatter, the seeds are launched, and water is sprayed everywhere.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the US government have a AAA credit rating despite being $17 trillion in debt?

[Assistant] Because it doesn't matter how much you owe. As long as you pay your premiums and don't miss any payments then your rating remains unaffected. To date, the US has never defaulted, though it has come close.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why didn't Voldemort send any horcruxes somewhere physically inaccessible?

It wouldn't have been that hard for him to have dropped one into the bottom of the ocean, or to launch one into orbit, or to sneak one into the voyager probe, or at least move one of them out of Europe.
Edit: Or as they're indestructible by none magical means toss one into a nuclear reactor core making it literally impossible to go near, or the middle of an active volcano.

[Assistant]
I think it's similar to why he didn't use random objects. He used important objects that mean something to him/Hogwarts, and so he left his horcruxes in places that meant something to him. He thought he was the only one who knew the secrets Hogwarts held (Room of Requirement), the Gaunt house were his relatives, Gringotts was a status symbol of the Wizarding World (left in a rich family's care).

He has an obsession with status and meaningful places.


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

[User]
[Loki] Why doesn't the TVA just...

The TVA exists to prune timelines that will eventually lead to a version of Kang being born. This is because different versions of Kang will always start a devastating time war.

 Why doesn't the TVA just assassinate the different Kangs from those timelines and leave everybody else alone? They could even assassinate Kang's ancestors to ensure there was no chance of him being born in that timeline. Anything would be better than wiping out an entire timeline.

Is it the same reason Thanos didn't just use the infinity stones to double the amount of resources in the universe? Because he's just insane? If so, couldn't Sylvie and Loki have taken over the TVA and then just changed it so they only pruned Kang instead of the whole timeline?

[Assistant]
>Why doesn't the TVA just assassinate the different Kangs from those timelines and leave everybody else alone?

Because that would require them to let those timelines progress and expand until the moment when Kangsassination becomes even remotely possible, which for many divergences could be *millennia* of waiting. And then, they take the risk of missing the target, and *bang*, you've got a Kang.

Plus, the nature of time as the TVA deals with it means that once a divergence has expanded beyond the red-line (meaning pruning it won't correct the divergence; it's off and rolling then), then the potential-Kang in even the distant future might be capable of traveling backwards, and even crosswards, across time and doing all sorts of really bad things. Consider how "quickly" (relatively speaking, from Loki's perspective) things went off the rails at the end, when Sylvie got to do the thing she really, really wanted to do.

So, in your scenario, they're stuck in this untenable position of having to wait for Kangsassination to be a possibility, but hoping that Kangtastrophe doesn't occur in the meantime.

Much, much, much, much, **much** easier to simply prune the divergence. Way lower risk, way fewer potential casualties, way lower chance of catastrophic (Kangastrophic?) failure.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do non-American democracies deal with Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering  seems like an American problem.  Is it?  How does one draw district maps without political influence?   How do Canada, or Europe, deal with this issue?

[Assistant]
One way to prevent it is to use a voting system that can't be gerrymandered, or is at least less prone to it. For example many countries use a Proportional Representation system where there are no districts. You just vote for a party and then that party is allocated seats in the Parliament based on what percentage of votes they got.

Or a system with multi-member districts. It's harder to gerrymander districts when they are larger and elect 5 or so representatives (usually using a rank based voting system).

Another way is to have an independent commission which draws the districts. That's how it works in the UK. Members of the commission are not affiliated with any political party and they have to remain neutral when making their decisions. The government can only give them broad criteria for drawing districts like how many there should be, about how many people should be in each, and so on.


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

[User] [Nightmare Before Christmas] What did the Boogieman do that was so bad he had to be exiled?

[Assistant] He's a persistent trickster, and he takes things too far. He has no regard for the line between a "fun" scare and terrorizing children, and also takes a special - indeed, almost perverse - pleasure in trying to ruin the plans of Jack Skellington. He is selfish, putting his own pleasure above anyone else's.


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

[User]
[Foundation] These stories are set thousands of years in the future. Why are fossile fuels and nuclear power still a thing?

I mean, they have interstellar spaceships, why aren't coal, oil or nuclear fission long forgotten? Don't they have fusion or something even more advanced?

[Assistant] They did. The whole point is that the advanced tech collapsed with the empire, so planets suddenly had to reinvent from the ground up. Also, when they are talking about the foundations nuclear power they are talking less about just a fission generator, but more tech controlling nuclear forces in general. Much more advanced.


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

[User]
Why is it that the smaller and less intelligent something is the less we value its life? For example people would spare a wolf before they spare 50 beetles.

Ik the basic answer to this question but if someone could give a good in depth answer that would be great!!

[Assistant] Some utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill, make qualitative distinctions in the ability to suffer that affect the ethics of an action. Since wolves can suffer to a greater extent than beetles, aggregate suffering would be greatest if an equal number of wolves were harmed as if the same number of beetles were harmed.


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

[User]
[Pokemon Indigo League] How can the Celadon City gym keep its certification in the indigo league if they kick people out for disliking perfume?

At first I thought it was just a disagreement from Ash being an asshole that they would brush under the rug, but later in the episode they ask if you like perfume in the door.

Trainers need to get all the badges to compete in the indigo league, how can this gym be allowed to prevent people from fighting based on an arbitrary question?

[Assistant] Trainers need to get *eight* badges to compete in the Indigo League. We can see in "The Battle of the Badge" that five of Gary's eight badges do not correspond to the known eight varieties, but Gary is eligible all the same. As such, we can assume that there are fifteen gyms in the Indigo League *at least*, and that Celadon Gym is just filled with jerks.


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

[User]
If European diseases killed off US and Canadian Indians, how come South American countries have such large indian populations?

I recognize the history of colonizations was different. In South America, the spanish did not settle in large numbers as was the case in North America and there were more intermarriages.

Does this mean the low number of American Indians in the US and Canada was planned?

[Assistant]
Well, here's one explanation with fairly unspecific explanation: ALL amerindian populations were practically wiped out during the columbian exchange. Some contributing factors for regional disparity in the damage done by the Europeans include, but are not limited to:
* The environment to which the native populations could move to (the Cherokee and Iroquois, for example, were repeatedly relocated and destroyed time and again whereas some populations could more successfully melt into their environment for large periods of time, like the Inca at their second "capital" or the Maya in the Peten jungle)
* The ability of some of the native population to assimilate more successfully than others (Like the Aztec remnants, who shared Tenochtitlan with the Castilians as the capital of either empire in successive periods)

There's a kind of contemporary resurgence in really readable work in this area if you're really interested, I'd recommend the two books Charles Mann wrote on the exchange, or 'Stolen Continents' by Ronald Wright.


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

[User] ELI5: Why/How did the early primates progress to become humans? Will there ever be any new beings as intelligent as humans originating from different species?

[Assistant]
Early primates had problems, and solved them with their brains.  There's a few other animals that are also doing that, but they don't have all the same advantages humans did.  There's also different kinds of intelligence.

* Octopi are very intelligent and can hold onto complex objects very well, but they live underwater (no good tool materials), don't form large groups (minimal sharing of information), and have very short lifespans (smaller chance to learn complicated tricks in one lifetime).

* Dolphins are intelligent, social, and have no hands, and tool materials are limited by being aquatic.  Similar problem to the Octopi.

* Crows/Ravens can use and make tools, and use teamwork or environmental quirks to their advantage, but they are small, fragile, and have to use their mouths or feet to hold things.  This means they can't hold more than one thing at a time very easily, which means they can't make specialized tools in advance and carry them everywhere.

* Elephants are social, strong, and have one thing that can hold tools, but they don't live in a lot of places, and they're better at cultural knowledge (death rituals, long complicated relationships, remembering people and places they haven't seen in years, etc) than technological/tool knowledge.  They also have very very long gestation times, so generations come very slowly, and are very huge, so it takes a lot of food to feed even a small group of elephants.  They won't form giant cities very easily.

* Dogs and Cats are good at human social interaction, and some of them manipulate their owners, or understand using things like doors.  Sometimes dogs form large, feral social groups, which can feed themselves by hunting or living off of human trash.  They don't have enough fine dexterity ("hand"-eye coordination) to manipulate complicated tools, and some are much, much, much less smart than others.

I think there's nothing specific stopping other animals from getting humanlike intelligence -- but there's a lot of things that make it hard for any given one of them to pass down tools and information, learn agriculture, build towns, and gradually start gaining technology.

Some advantages humans had and used to get where we are:

* We hunt in groups, meaning that humans who communicate better are more likely to eat, survive, and multiply.  We also got very, very, very good at communication -- a lot more than the neanderthals, which didn't have throat anatomy that lets modern humans speak.

* We are bipedal with hands, which lets us carry two things while walking, easily.  Our hands can apply enough force to break something in a very well controlled manner, which makes weapons and general tool-creation a lot easier.

* We have both strong nomadic tendencies (making it easy for us to spread), and strong territorial tendencies (making it easy for us to settle down somewhere, and defend a location from outsiders, encouraging those outsiders to be more nomadic).

* Since the thing we hold stuff with isn't attached to our feet or our face, we can hold dangerous or awkward things like flaming torches, or containers of molten metal.

...there's probably other things, but this is what comes to mind right now.


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

[User]
CMV: The work-from-home push by white-collar workers will eventually lead to massive outsourcing that will hurt future generations of wealthy western nations.

For some generations older than mine, when they were in the workforce there was an abundance of factory jobs that provided millions of people the opportunity to earn a solid middle-class income and provide for their families. As a result of both automation and the outsourcing of labor to countries with cheaper labor, these jobs are all but gone and the middle class is a shell of what it once was. An argument that I've heard in defense of this, is that it allows for these wealthy western nations to focus more of their workforce on higher-paying professional services or white-collar jobs. Even if you assume that that statement is true, I don't see any reason why the same thing that happened to manufacturing jobs won't eventually happen to white-collar jobs that can be completed 100% virtually from home.

With COVID, many jobs were forced to adapt and at least temporarily adopt a work-from-home setup. Once employees began work-from-home, many realized that there really isn't any reason to come into the office, and now won't consider any jobs that require them to come into the office 5 days a week. I think this will be a good deal for workers in the short term as it potentially gives them a little more flexibility, cuts down on their commute time, and potentially allows them to move further away from the office to a lower cost of living area. But if a job can be completed 100% from home, what's to stop employers from doing to professional services what they did to manufacturing jobs and outsourcing the work to individuals who don't expect as great a salary in return? I don't imagine this will be an instantaneous or overnight transition but it's not like people from places where the labor is cheaper are incapable of learning any job that people in wealthy western nations can. That's not to say there won't be any challenges for the outsourced white-collar jobs but the cost savings would likely make the challenges worth it in a lot of cases.

So Reddit, CMV - future generations of wealthy western nations will see a similar reduction in white-collar jobs that can be completed virtually, that millennials experienced with manufacturing jobs.

[Assistant] There was a big wave of international outsourcing in the early 2000s. For some companies it worked, for many it didnt. Having workers in different jurisdictions, cultures, time zones is very different than having local people who work from home.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are wavelengths and how does it relate to color?

What exactly are wavelengths, and how do colors have wavelengths? What exactly is a color?

[Assistant]
>What exactly are wavelength?

The distance between two crest of a wave. Imagine an ocean with waves. There are high points and low points. The wave moves forward, but the distance between the high points stays the same. This is the wavelength.

>how do colors have wavelength?

Color is just light, and light behaves like a wave. Sort of. As light moves through space it has high energy areas and low energy areas which can be measured just like the area of high water and low water with an ocean wave.

>What exactly is a color?

Color is just how our minds perceive different wavelength of light. The same way our hears perceive the difference between high frequency and low frequency sounds, our eyes perceive the difference large wavelength and low wavelength light. Our brain then interprets that as color.


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

[User] Is wanting a child really a basic human instinct? If so, how are there people who don't want kids?

[Assistant]
What does life do? It perpetuates itself in whatever form it has managed to take. Genes, whatever organism they belong to, increase in the population if they manage to make more copies of themselves. How this gets done doesn't really matter.

There hasn't been a conscious mind for much of evolutionary history for "child desiring" to come about. Certainly there are some psychological tendencies for liking the little ones such as cooing over infants (or really anything small and cute that resembles "infantness").

What mechanism would work well for getting two individuals of the same species to mate if they don't have complex brains? How about providing intense pleasure and reward in the brain for copulation?

If there is any "basic instinct" to want children, it's just the basic instinct to procreate coupled with an automatic affection for small humans.

Paraphrasing Richard Dawkins, our minds have learned to short circuit our inborn evolutionary tendencies. This happens every time we masturbate or use birth control. The main driving mechanism for perpetuating a species relied on a pleasure-reward system which we can easily circumvent.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does all the water in a manmade lake get there?

Summer is upon us, and I've been at a lake near my house everyday this week. Last night I couldn't help but think about where all that damn water came from?

[Assistant] A man made lake is not a stock pond. They do not dig a hole and put water in it. A man made lake is created by building a dam on a river and that river no longer being able to flow builds up behind the dam making a lake that grows in size until it either reaches the power intake ports if it is a hydroelectric dam, or it reaches the overflow channels if it is a retaining dam.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Regarding post-apocalyptic planets

Does Starfleet have any specific policy regarding how or when to contact worlds that have undergone somekind of catastrophic war or other devastating event that knocked their technological progress back a few hundred years?

Say for example a group of scientists came across a planet that showed evidence of being warp capable sometime ago, but is currently going through a nuclear winter and doesn't have any infrastructure in place to support interstellar travel. Would Starfleet try to render aid, or would they just observe the natives and only make contact after they'd managed to rebuild?

[Assistant]
We've seen a few, and it seems to be a matter of living memory.

In "The Apple" we see a society that may very well have been warp capable at some point. a computer has turned everyone into a bunch of childlike primitives, but it was more advanced. The Prime directive applies, although back then captains had a lot more leeway to break it especially if you could assert there was something wrong with the system.

In "Return to Tomorrow" we see the crew encounter a bunch of semi-corporeal aliens who had lost their access to warp tech, but could rememebr it. they were picked up and carried off right quick.

as for post season 3 TOS when the PD became much more serious, I'd say its pretty unclear.


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

[User] [Marvel] If I were standing next to Quicksilver and he suddenly took off at full speed, wouldn't I be killed by the sonic boom he would generate? Is this something he takes into consideration before he uses his ability?

[Assistant] He usually takes that into consideration, but keep this in mind: Quicksilver tops out at just over the speed of sound and he doesn't have the Flash's speedhax. It would take him a good few seconds to get up to that speed, by which time he'd already be far enough away from you that the boom wouldn't cause any real damage.


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

[User]
ELI5: Where does the saying "state of the art" come from?

After years of almost never using the saying, it hit me that, that combination of words makes no damned sense. So why do these four words put together mean up to date, or modern?

[Assistant]
"State" in this usage just means current status.
"Art" in this usage just means field or specific area.

"State of the art" is just a way to identify the most recent development in fields which are constantly evolving.

"What is the state of the union?" "The union is strong."
"Get a degree so you can master the art of video game design."

"Hey, what is the current state of video game design?" "Oh, just check out VIDEOGAMEEXTREMMEEMEMMME 7.4, shit is state of the art. Every other video game wishes it was as well designed."


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

[User] [Generic fantasy/urban-fantasy] Which "loophole wishes" are most likely to work when you try to cheat a djinn and why?

[Assistant]
Hahahahaha...oh wait you're serious?

I think you don't understand the Djinn, in that you don't fuck with them. They are giving you a wish out of thanks, kindness, or being forced to. None of these situations is a good time to try and mess with one. Either they will kill you outright or simply "misinterpret" the wish regardless of what you ask for. You're messing with a being who has been at this far longer than you have.


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

[User]
[Zombieland] How does Columbus know what the zombie kill of the week was?

Also, who decides "zombie kill of the week?"

[Assistant]
Columbus is telling us the story of Zombieland from a past tense, meaning that he's already survived the events.

He hooked up with other survivors, traded stories with them, and they decided on who had the best kill.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are there no "perfect drugs" that work well without side effects?

It seems like the more potent a drug/medication is, the more risks are involved with it, where as drugs with very little risk don't help nearly as much.

[Assistant] I think the answer is there's not really such a thing as "side effects."  There's just "effects."  A decongestant "may cause drowsiness" as a side effect and the very same drug as a sleep aid "may cause dry mouth" as a side effect.  The drug is the same, it's just whether the effects of the drug are advertised on the front of the box or not.


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

[User] How are waves different in the deep ocean than what we see near the beach?

[Assistant] A wave is really a pulse of energy.  In shallow water that energy has no where to go and so the wave builds and breaks.  In deep water the energy can be distributed down, so you have swells, but no breaking waves.   Source : surfer.


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

[User] [Zelda] How is Link's bug-catching net able to deflect Ganon's magic?

[Assistant] I assume Link's bug catching net as well as his bottles have special magical properties that can store or reflect magic. Fairies which normally can travel through walls when freed can't escape from the net nor his bottles so something about them prevents magic from passing through completely.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Wait... so are there entire universes inside every photo ever taken? Could OUR world be background to a wizard photo

We see photos and paintings in the HP universe that are entirely alive and sentient. Paintings can be interrogated regarding criminal matters, and even open doors in the real world. They have thoughts, desires, and interests.

What's more, when Harry gets a Dumbledore trading card, Dumbledore disappears from the hologram and Ron says, "You don't expect him to stay there all day, do you?" Implying that the sentient holographic Dumbledore in the card has better things to do than just hang out all day in a card.

So basically all photographs and paintings have a teeny universe? Does that mean every photographer... Creates a brand new universe contained in their art? And they... Tunnel into each other, as shown by painted figures who journey to other paintings? Does that mean our world could be a holograph of the real world? Just some procedurally generated background to Ron's family's vacation photo?

[Assistant]
The paintings always confused me a bit. They don't seem to contain fully fledged worlds. More like set pieces that connect to each other. We see figures from paintings go into other paintings all the time.

To me, the confusing part is the nature of the characters in the paintings. Many of them seem fully conscious, self aware, and even intelligent. Dumbledore's portrait gives advice to Snape just like when he was Alice. Can anyone have this type of painting made of themselves? It seems like a perfect way to preserve yourself after death.


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

[User] What physically happens to your ears during and after going to a loud concert?

[Assistant] We have a small muscle attached to the eardrum when it pulls tight it makes the eardrum vibrate less. That gives us its latin name the tensor tympani. It makes the tympanic membrane tense. It has a reflex to tighten with loud sound. It protects your ears from a sharp noise.  However if the loud noise continues it will stay tense long after.  Paralysis of that muscle makes people sensitive to loud noises (hyperacousis)


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

[User]
ELI5: How we can create near sun temperatures here on earth, without causing major destruction.

I don't understand how we can create these temperatures without causing major destruction. Please explain as simple as possible. And if you're wondering, I created this account to ask this question, that's why it's so new.

[Assistant]
Heat != temperature

Heat takes into account the temperature AND mass of something along with the properties of said mass (how its temperature reacts to absorbed heat). You feel heat, not temperature.

Temperature is just the measure of particle's vibration.

You can have a huge temperature, but very low mass, and you will never feel it.


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

[User]
Would it technically be possible, through an absurdly strict diet, be able to eliminate urination and defecation?

Basically, my question is as follows. If you were able to know the nutritive needs of your body to absurd detail, and consume a diet that could be absorbed with near 100% efficiency, would be it possible to very nearly eliminate the need to, uh, eliminate? What happens when people end up on long term cleanses that have no insoluble fiber?

I'm guessing that urination would be far more difficult to manage than defecation, if you had a very strict fluid diet.

[Assistant]
You need to urinate to excrete (amongst other things) salts and urea, which is the byproduct of amino acid metabolism. Together, this translates to (on average) about 600milli-osmoles of solute per day, which at maximum concentration (~1200milli-osmolar) would still yield about 500mL of urine per day.  Fluid restriction can cut down on this number, but then you'd be causing acute kidney injury from dehydration.

Similarly, your stool is made up of more than just the food that you don't digest - gut bacteria is a large part of it, as well as bile, which contains the degraded components of red blood cells. The internal lining of your gut is also constantly being shed and passed with the stool.


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

[User] ELI5: why does metal fire up in the microwave?

[Assistant] Microwave radiation is a form of radio waves. The microwaves radiation induces electric currents and voltages in the metal, just like a radio signal induces an electric current in an antenna. This electricity causes arcing.


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

[User]
ELI5: Manual settings on a DSLR camera

I have no idea what any of it does.

[Assistant]
There are 4 basic settings, if you put everything (camera and lens) into manual mode, assuming no flash:

 * ISO: How sensitive the sensor will be to light.  Low ISO (like 100 or even lower) is not very sensitive (you need a lot of light to take the picture), but is the best quality.  High ISO (like 1600 or even higher) is very sensitive (you can take pictures even if it is kind of dark) but is usually pretty noisy.
 * Aperture:  How much light is the lens going to let in all at once?  Lower numbers (like 4.0 or lower) let in more light, but things that are not exactly in focus will be blurry.  Higher numbers (like 16 or higher) let in ~~more~~ less light, but more things will be in focus.
 * Shutter speed:  How long is the shutter going to be open for?  If the shutter is only open for 1/100th of a second or less, then less light will be let into the camera, but you will be able to "stop motion" more easily.  If the shutter is open for a long time (1/30th of a second or more), then more light will be let into the camera, but moving objects will be blurry, and you may even need a tripod to keep the camera steady enough to take a good picture.
 * Focus:  If your lens is set to manual focus, then you will have to turn the focus ring to determine what depth the camera is focusing on.  On some higher quality lenses there will be a depth chart on the lens itself giving you a rough idea of the focus distance.

If you want to take pictures in manual mode, you will have to balance the first three items depending on what kind of picture you want to take.

EDIT: Silly typo.  Thanks thebluehawk.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come you can be at a point where you have to poop SO BAD it is almost completely unbearable, but after a few excruciating minutes that feeling just 'goes away'? Does the poop literally go back up the intestine? What happens?

Sorry to be vile - legit question, just not sure how to phrase!

[Assistant]
When poop initially moves into the rectum, it triggers a reflex where the internal muscles of the anus and rectum relax, allowing pooping to proceed.  When this happens, the anus becomes the last barrier between your poop and the great outdoors, and you feel that pressure.

If you hold back for a while, the relaxation reflex fades and the internal muscles re-engage.  This takes some of the pressure off the anus and the poop does move back up into the sigmoid colon a little bit.  If you try to poop after holding it for a while, you may notice that it takes a bit longer to get things started, since you have to force all those muscles to relax again.

WARNING: As poop sits in your colon while you're holding it in, your body will continue to compress and extract water from it, resulting in much harder and potentially painful bowel movements.  Over time, this can contribute to hemorrhoids, anal fissures, and other unpleasant medical problems.

TL;DR - Don't get in the habit of holding your poop more than necessary.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Say Vader doesn't strike Obi-Wan down or make him more powerful than Vader can possibly imagine. Then what?

Say Vader heeds Obi-Wan's warning, and instead of killing him, roundhouse kicks Obi-Wan out of the corridor and let's him go, where he is free to escape with the others. Is he now less powerful than he would have been if he had been struck down? Would the rebellion have been worse off? What happens next?

[Assistant]
The Falcon is still allowed to escape to lead the Death Star to Yavin, and Obi-Wan joins the X-Wing squadron flying to attack it.

He uses the Force to guide his own torpedo down the vent shaft, while Luke only watches as his wingman.

Over the next few months, Luke continues to be trained as a Jedi, but always wonders why Obi-Wan won't talk about his history with Vader and his father Anakin. Also why he keeps shutting him down about this crush he has on that princess.

Again Vader finds out Luke is his son, and manages to communicate with him privately, away from Obi-Wan. Luke, having seen Vader show mercy when he spared Obi-Wan on the Death Star, talks with him.

The Emperor soon has a new apprentice.


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

[User] ELI5: Is there any particular reason popular radio stations seem to only play the same 10 songs over and over again?

[Assistant]
Top 40 stations--the sort of station that plays the big hits--do just that. Assuming about ten songs an hour, you're looking at repeating songs every four hours; realistically, they're also playing the top 10 more frequently.

Corporate radio has it down to a science; extensive marketing research goes inti exactly how frequent songs get played.


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

[User] ELI5: do average vaginas correlate with the ethnically average penis size?

[Assistant]
Vaginas do not have a set size. They all have an ability to change shape, and like the way men get erections, they expand, lengthen, and lubricate when the woman is aroused.

So to estimate the female capacity to accommodate a penis, just look at their body size. The average Asian woman is also smaller. narrower hips, often shorter. Meaning a correlating shorter length between her vaginal entrance and cervix.

At the same time, A tall, wider hipped woman doesn't have a gaping hole, but she can probably comfortable stretch further than a smaller woman, because her body has the room to stretch.

When not aroused a vagina gets pretty small, and tight. and even when aroused and engaging in intercourse, it usually hugs the penis snugly.

Its made to adapt. But of course with evolution they haven't really caught up with the size of babies heads. The damage that can be done during childbirth can affect the vaginas ability to shrink back.


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

[User] [Garfield]Why does Garfield hate Monday, hes a pet cat, he doesnt have a job, gets to do whatever no matter what day of the week it is?

[Assistant]
Garfield hates Mondays because Jon leaves for work that day after hanging out with him all weekend.

He doesn't always act like it, but Garfield loves Jon and wants to be around him.  He just acts really standoffish.  Cause he's a cat.


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

[User] ELI5: If mitochondria are small even through microscopes, how do we know how they work?? How do we "know" how body cells function??

[Assistant]
Much of what we know about cells comes from a) direct observation under electron microscopy and b) knock-out mutations/disease in people and animal subjects. Some structures we can see under electron microscopes, and we have a saying in physiology of form follows function. Basically, the way something looks can inform what it does. So we look at mitochondria and see the double membranes, and then we make hypotheses. Whats the double membrane for? Is it for energy production? (It isits for the electron transport chain)

Then we look at what happens if there are no mitochondria at all. What happens to the cells? If they dont have mitochondria, they dont seem to make any energy, and they die. Some people have mitochondrial disorders, too, and what happens in their bodies can inform us of what the purpose of the structure is. Finally, animal experiments where genes are artificially silenced or enhanced can prove or disprove our hypotheses.

Biochemistry can be frustrating because we dont normally see exactly what is going on. We have to use surrogates sometimes to make a theory about what is happening, andwhen it comes to physiologysometimes when something goes wrong, we can try to find what is missing and determine the function from there.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does money grow by 10% in the stock market every year? Where does that 10% come from?

I tried asking on eli5 but the post was removed because of "similar posts." I had also been looking at other posters when it was removed and didn't feel satisfied by any of the questions or answers I saw because they didn't talk about the time value of money assuming 10% year over year returns on investment.

Ok so I heard the S&P500 has grown by around 10% every year since its inception. Ignoring market massive bull runs and crashes, let's just assume it's always steady. That means that in 7 years your money doubles. There's also inflation and taxes but we can account for that and still get (i dunno) 7% returns. The cost of goods or inflation isn't keeping up with that 7%. So where does that money come from?

Like imagine a small island called worldsville with a population of 100 people. There are only 5 big companies on the island: Arnold's Apples, Wes's windows, Fecilia's books, Ema's delivery service, and Giggle's joke emporium. Everyone on the island starts with $100 or islandbux. But after 30 years money invested into stocks of the island's companies would balloon to $1600 dollars. But the price of goods has only gone up 2x due to inflation. So is everyone who invested just over 8x richer (not accounting for taxes)?

(They can buy 8 apples in 30 years whereas they could only by 1 today).

I've heard this difference can be explained by improvements in productivity meaning that Wes's apples can only increase 2x because he planted more trees and can produce more of them. But this can't continue forever, there's a limit to how many apples people can eat. And it's hard to believe his company has become 8x more productive. Try as much as you want to improve the rate you run, you can't run 8x faster than your maximium speed today.

Except for things like island housing and island college tuition and healthcare which have risen with the increase in stock valuations, does the cost of goods just become smaller relative to wealth? And if so how is that sustainable?

Ok so here's a more concrete example. A yacht is worth 8.4 million dollars today. Let's say you have 1 million in your portfolio today. You can't buy a yacht today. In 30 years let's say that a future yacht is worth 16 million, and your portfolio is also worth 16 million. You can buy a yacht then. All you did was click one button "buy VTI" on your robinhood account. How is this sustainable? Is everyone just going to be able to own Yachts?

[Assistant]
The returns come from capital growth and from profits. The shareholders are owners of the business. Each share is a share of the whole firm, a slice of it. So, when the firm makes a profit they own that profit too. Similarly, when the firm grows the share of the firms that each share represents grows too.

A firm can pay profits to it's shareholders in various ways. It can issue dividends, it can buyback stock. It can also reinvest the profits in growth. If that reinvestment creates growth then it increases the price of the shares for that reason, as discussed above.

As you mention yourself, inflation also increases the price of shares. But to get the real growth we have to subtract inflation. As you say that gives, ~7% in real terms per year. That percentage is a fairly consensus estimate for long-run returns to the US stock market.


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

[User]
[Fallout] What is the difference between Nightkin and the Super Mutants?

Are the Nightkin just stronger? Is it just the fact that they like to use Stealth Boys? What was the main purpose of the Nightkin?

[Assistant]
The stealth boys changes them, over time maybe even on atomic level.
The circle of steel was a Brotherhood project that tested stealth boys and learned it lead to hallucinations and paranoia overtime. Nightkin may suffer this all the time. The night kin were part of the master army, elites infact who were given stealth boys for tactical operations.


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

[User]
CMV: Unironically using "folx" is either the result of virtue signaling or ignorance.

I say "ignorance" to cover people who are perhaps so sheltered they haven't encountered the actual spelling of "folks" or who have been genuinely led to believe that "folks" isn't already a gender neutral term. Things like that. Didn't mean it in an insulting way, just a very literal interpretation of the word.

But for all the rest I fail to see how publicly using "folx" isn't just pure virtue signaling. "Folks" is *already* gender neutral. Due to its gender neutrality it was *already* considered one of the more PC ways to refer to people in a gender neutral way, such as saying "trans folks." *Nobody* was complaining about its use or saying it was regressive or, if they were, I can't possibly imagine what leg they had to stand on. It seems some individuals just took it upon themselves to change the spelling of "folks" and tack an "x" on the back of it (a la the already unnecessary, unpopular, and virtue signal-y "Latinx") to demonstrate to everyone else how woke and progressive and LGBTQ-friendly they are.

[Assistant]
I kinda feel like this is one of those situations where complaining or critiquing about X (Where in X is such an infinitesimally small and niche issue that even if one actually encounters it (highly unlikely) in real life it could not possibly have less of an effect on you) and claiming that people who give a crap about X are really just doing Y sorta means that you, *yourself*, are just as obsessed and preoccupied with X despite it being a complete non-issue and equally culpable in just doing Y.

To put it more specifically: Your unironic complaining about people using "folx" is ever bit as "virtue signaling" as anyone unironically using "folx".

Sometimes it's better to just not give a shit about things that could not possibly have less of an effect on you?


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

[User]
[Fallout] How was the monetary value of a bottle cap decided?

How was it decided that a Fatman would cost x number of caps, and a pipe pistol x number of caps?

[Assistant] The bottle cap was first used as a unit of currency by the water merchants of the Hub. Its initial value was set, IIRC, at an equal volume of water to either the capacity of the cap itself or the capacity of a Nuka Cola bottle.


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

[User]
ELI5: What's the difference between Vector Graphics and Pixel Graphics?

What I've read online says that Vector art uses math to make the image scale better but isn't 'math' used in Pixel art in, say, Photoshop as well? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how the math might be different when creating a line in Photoshop vs Illustrator for example.

[Assistant] Raster art (pixel-based graphics) stores image information as information about pixels. 'This pixel in this place is this colour', basically, over and over again to build up the whole file. Vector art stores image information as vectors - basically lines with thicknesses and curves and so on. That means it can be scaled without becoming fuzzy - the computer just redraws the line. A raster image has no information about 'lines'; it's our human brains that figure out where the lines in it are - so when it's zoomed in, the computer program has to either make each pixel bigger or try to guess at what the pixels 'would be' if there were more of them.


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

[User]
[Meta] Scientists of AskScience(Fiction), what cutting edge research are you guys working on?

Scientists of AskScience(Fiction), what cutting edge research are you working on?

Also, is there any information about your work that you feel has been sensationalized?

[Assistant]
A generous benefactor is funding our work in genetic splicing -specifically combining damaged DNA of extinct species extracted from mosquitos preserved in amber with their closest modern equivalents.

Can you imagine? We could bring dinosaurs back! Obviously we'd keep them isolated from the rest of the world. Probably on a remote island or something. And whilst we're messing around with their genes, we should be able to remove the Y chromosome entirely - don't want them breeding up a sustainable population, after all.

Once we've got the process sorted, we could open the place up to the public like a safari park. We'll make millions!


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

[User]
[Next] Why play blackjack?

In the Nicholas Cage movie next, he can see the future up to 3 minutes right. He uses this to win money at blackjack which eventually gets him caught even though he plays pretty conservatively right.

But why blackjack, the one they monitor like crazy. Like you could sit and play roulette for an hour and win a little then lose it, you could even do some monster bets throughout the night and intentionally lose if you know what's coming.
 All you would have to do is make sure you hit one huge number and then walk and it would appear to any one watching as a lucky hit at the end of a bad streak.

You could do this with any game in the casino and attract no attention at all. You would know if a slot would payout and just catch a good one.

But really you could make enough playing roulette to not have to go back all year with ease.

[Assistant]
Because they monitor the entire casino. And it is actually possible to be "good" at Blackjack. As long as he isn't being aggressive or flamboyant he can probably come back to the same casino once every couple weeks and walk out with a modest take.

If he tried that at a Roulette table, it would be less noticeable for one go but the pattern would be easier to detect.

And (speculatively) it's possible that Roulette wheels invite just enough chaos that they're unreliable with his powers. The lady standing next to him leans on the table slightly differently, and suddenly he's lost it all.


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

[User]
[DC] How much does the public know of Lex Luthor's crimes and what are they?

Is him being a supervillain common knowledge.

[Assistant]
Depends.

Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Lex Luthor was pretty much always a famous evil scientist/engineer, and proudly proclaimed himself a 'criminal mastermind'.

When he was reinvented into a billionaire industrialist post-Crisis on Infinite Earth, he became a Machiavellian schemer on top of all that, with an a fairly ironclad public persona that effectively obscured all of the underhanded things he constantly did to enrich himself and attack Superman, endangering or killing many many others in the processes.

There were various stories where he was 'exposed' and temporarily went to jail or was brought to trial, but managed to weasel out of the charges somehow, and rebuild his reputation. Most notably, he managed to run for President and win during a story arc from almost a couple decades ago, despite being a suspected criminal/ mass murderer/ accessory to mass murder several times over by that point.

In the current Post-New 52 Continuity, Lex started as a respected industrialist like in Post-COIE continuity, but was exposed as a criminal fairly quickly, and is now basically trying to rehabilitate his legacy by acting a defender of Earth on his own terms.


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

[User]
When the heart beats faster, the contractions are closer together in time. But is each contraction itself also faster?

One of my students asked this the other week, and it triggered an intense debate in the classroom. Either answer feels fairly credible! I promised I'd try to look it up, but Google hasn't been very helpful, and a family member who's a medical doctor also wasn't completely sure.

It seems to me that since each contraction is coordinated by an impulse traveling down the heart from the SA node, those impulses would need to travel at variable speeds through the cardiac tissue if the contractions were to vary in speed, which feels unlikely?

[Assistant]
Generally, there are 4 tropies of cardiac function that are discussed.

Chronotropy - heart rate
Inotropy - contractility
Dromotropy - conduction velocity through AV node
Lusitropy - ventricular relaxation

If youre running from a bear, the sympathetic surge (fight or flight) increases all 4 tropies.  So the conduction velocity does increase, and contractility increases as well.  As HR increases, the intercellular calcium levels will gradually increase (treppe phenomenon), as the reuptake into the sarcoplasmic reticulum is incomplete.

That said, while the contractility is indeed faster, the primary change is a decrease in your diastolic time, IE relaxation of the heart is much shorter between beats.  The increased lusitropy helps with this, but stiff LVs struggle, which can lead to some big issues with supply/demand.


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

[User]
Are there major genetic differences in the way different people gain and lose weight (fat or muscle)?

We've all heard about the fat guy who tries so hard to lose weight, but can't, as well as the skinny girl who stuffs her face but never gains a pound.

Is there any truth to the genetics argument, or is it all in the appetite and general unreported habits in these people? In other words, if you took several sample populations (each of a different body type: Obese, skinny, muscular, etc.) and fed them EXACTLY the same diet and made them do the EXACT same workout (in terms of calories burned) a day, would there be a difference within the populations of how they gained/lost weight, assuming no diseases?

[Assistant]
Yes, one of the most significant factors is *how* your body stores fat. People who have a predisposition to storing more subcutaneous fat, which is the 'soft' fat that is directly under the skin, will gain weight easier and will also find it harder to drop. The other type of fat, visceral fat, is stored more closely to your organs, and the body type that is predisposed to gaining this type of fat will generally find it easier to lose it because visceral fat is more responsive to diet and exercise.

I can't give you a more detailed explanation that involves insulin, metabolism, etc so i'll let an expert take over from here.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that when you watch something at 60+fps, it looks smoother than real-life?

[Assistant] Im no scientist, but a big thing people forget when watching movies, tv, etc. Is that the entire screen is confined into a little box that is smaller than your field of view. So when you want to see everything happening, you keep your eyes relativly stagnant and let the action appear infront of you with ease. In real life, however, theres no camera to focus on what you want to look at. Thats your head's job. The constant movement your head and eyes have to make to keep track of "real life" take away from the smoothness that is actually happening.


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

[User]
[MCU] If Dormammu lives in a reality where time doesn't exist then how is he talking and communicating?

A sentence requires some concept of linear time. You start with the first world that is followed by the next word and so on. Also the fact that Dr. Strange was there at all implies linear time. One moment he wasn't there the next he was there.

If Dormammu really did exist in a reality without time then wouldn't everything he thought, said, or did for that matter even to the smallest thing like blinking all happen simultaneously at a single moment, ie if he blinked then his eyes would be both open and closed simultaneously because there is no time flowing?

I would think that a being that resides in a reality where time does not exist would be so far alien to us that we couldn't even comprehend its existence. It would be like trying to explain to a 2 dimensional being what the concept of up was.

[Assistant]
MCU's Dormammu doesn't live in a dimension where time doesn't exist. It's that time doesn't exist in the same way it does on our dimension.

The Dark Dimension is an amalgamation of all the dimensions and realities that Dormammu has successfully taken over. So the laws of physics and quantum mechanics are completely under his utter control and also an amalgamation of all the other dimensions he's absorbed.

To illustrate this, let's assume time moves linearly for us in some measurable way of the time it takes a electron swarm is some hydrogen atom to complete 1,000,000 orbits or something somewhat constant. In another dimension that same second of time takes 10,000,000 orbits or in another it takes 5.

All of these dimensions smash into each other with competing fundamental laws of physics and Dormammu basically asserts his will over them when he wants. He doesn't want time to move, then it doesn't. Or it does in one area and not at all in another.

The physics of the Dark Dimension are basically whatever Dormammu wants. Only when Strange comes to negotiate he brings along an immutable time loop which Dormammu cannot control.

Dormammu is also a primordial force. He's basically a force of nature on a cosmic scale with a will, an ego, and not much else. Being a promordial force comes with a lot of power, but also not a lot of intellect. You can't reason with a hurricane or a tornado. This is Dormammu, you cannot reason with him, until he runs full force into something that basically stops the hurricane. Dr. Strange's immutable time loop.

Strange gets through to Dormammu by stopping the hurricane and forcing him to change direction.


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

[User] ELIF: Why are deep fried foods so appealing? From savory foods to sweet foods.. ice cream, pickles, fries, egg rolls, doughnuts...

[Assistant] Sugar, salt, and fat. Your body loves 'em. LOVES 'EM! In our hunter-gatherer days these wonderful god-foods full of calories and carbohydrates were rare, all we ate was lean meat and vegetation. Which is a good diet nowadays, when food is plentiful and being obese is a bigger concern for most people than starving is. But back in those days, famine was around every corner (so to speak), and you literally never knew where your next meal was coming from. So a nice big helping of fat, sugar, and salt would help build up some fat, which is good when food is scarce, you'll live longer without a meal.


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

[User] Does it hurt to think that the world is perfect? I used to think it is but I have become negative towards that statement. What is an ideal worldview one should have that balances the amount of positivity and truth?

[Assistant]
>Does it hurt to think that the world is perfect?

It's certainly catastrophically wrong, which Philosophers aren't going to like very much. What are meant to be the advantages to thinking the world is perfect?


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

[User]
I Believe saving highly-premature babies is a waste of money CMV

It's inefficient use of health care dollars that could spent A LOT more efficiently on other health measures. I believe if you're not biologically fit to survive when you're born then you shouldn't survive at all, just like nature intended.

Also, not only are they a burden on the health system when they're born, but they're a constant burden on the health system their whole life.

also something i've noticed on CMV lately... "I hold an obvious opinion, change my view to something less obvious"

[Assistant]
Nature isn't a person. Nature cannot have intents. It makes no sense to say that nature didn't "intend" for that baby to live.

Additionally, why is it that the fact that a baby cannot survive without elaborate health measures imply that the baby doesn't deserve to live?

So basically, nature doesn't intend anything, it's not a conscious being. Even if it could, why is it true that what nature "intends" is a moral imperative?


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

[User] ELI5: When a person's spine is severed at the neck - paralyzing them - how does their brain continue to send signals to their heart and lungs to continue operating?

[Assistant]
*Severing* your spinal cord will kill you dead.

*Damaging* your spinal cord in a certain way can cause tetrapeligia--the loss of use of your arms, legs, and torso. The damage isn't complete enough to kill you (your heart will still beat, for instance) but everything else becomes very difficult if not impossible. Commonly, assisted breathing is necessary.


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

[User]
[The Martian] Why didn't Watney asphyxiate from breathing pure nitrogen when the suit flooded with nitrogen to maintain pressure?

Just finished the book but if I remember correctly during the explanation of how the hole in his suit got plugged, it mentioned the suit flooded itself with nitrogen before doing anything else breathing air wise. I've heard that along with going unconscious after just a few breaths of mostly nitrogen, this interferes with your body's trigger to continue breathing (related to no longer exhaling CO2). What are your guys' thoughts? Should I just assume the pure oxygen came in fast enough afterwards to make this not a concern?

[Assistant]
Breathing pure nitrogen won't make you unconscious after just a few breaths. It will take about a minute. It *starts* to have this effect after just a few breaths, but actually having your oxygen sats go low enough to be unconscious takes a while longer.

Death takes about 7 minutes.

And oxygen will fix that pretty much immediately, though you will start having brain damage after about 3-4 minutes.


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

[User] If vaccines work by introducing a small amount of a foreign substance to your body to trigger an immune response to develop resistance, why dont allergies work the same when they also trigger an immune response when exposed to something foreign to the body?

[Assistant]
Allergies are harmless irritants that the body IS triggering an immune response against. All of the negative effects are due to the release of histamines, which is an attempt to defeat the foreign invading substance. It isnt the bees venom, for example, that kills you - its your own bodys defense mechanism trying to defeat the venom that kills you.

The way to treat allergies is to shut down the bodys immune response. Anti-histamines are used, but theres also exposure therapy which is meant to get the body used to the foreign (or perceived foreign) bodies.


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

[User]
[Halo/Marvel] Is the Master Chief worthy of wielding Thor's hammer, Mjolnir?

If not, what are some of the qualities that he may be missing that prevents him from being worthy? Are there any other characters in the Halo universe that may attain that level of worthiness?

[Assistant] The problem with asking who is and is not worthy of lifting the hammer comes down to one thing: we have no solid idea of what the requirements are. As the guy above me said, he has a lot of things going for him that may enable him to lift it, but only Odin would know for sure (as he's the one who put the enchantment on Mjolnir to begin with).


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

[User]
ELI5: How does charcoal burn if its already burnt?

I was watching a chef use charcoal in his restaurant and I realized I dont know how charcoal works. To my understanding, charcoal is pre-burnt pieces of wood. So why does it burn so well?

Edit: Thank you everyone! Much appreciated

[Assistant]
Wood isn't just a single thing. It's lots of things. There are oils and water and other things than just carbon. And those other things don't burn very well.\*

Charcoal is made by heating wood in a low or no oxygen environment. The lack of oxygen prevents it from burning, while the heat causes things like water to evaporate and leave.

What you are left with is basically pure carbon which will burn much more efficiently with all those other impurities removed.

\*- as noted in some of the comments, some of the impurities *do* burn well and can be captured and used for other purposes.


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

[User]
Is it theoretically possible for someone or something to inadvertently launch themselves off of the moons surface and into space, or does the moon have enough of a gravitational pull to make this functional impossible?

It's kind of something I've wondered for a long time, I've always had this small fear of the idea of just falling upwards into the sky, and the moons low gravity sure does make it *seem* like something that would be possible, but is it actually?

EDIT:

Thank you for all the answers, to sum up, no it's far outside of reality for anyone to leave the moon without intent to do so, so there's no real fear of some reckless astronaut flying off into the moon-sky because he jumped too high or went to fast in his moon buggy.

[Assistant]
The lift-off speed for the world record high jump comes out to about 7 m/s, so a planet or moon would need an escape velocity of under 7 m/s if an Olympian would have even a chance of leaping off if they put all their effort into it.

The Earth's escape velocity is about 11,000 m/s, and the Moon's is 2,400 m/s, so it's not even close. On Ceres, it's still about 500 m/s. So it's really gotta be a rock that's less than a few kilometres in radius to have any chance of leaping off it.

If you're using a vehicle like a car, or even just a bike, you might get up to escape from something up to 50 or so km in radius.

The Moon is actually quite big - it's like the 14th biggest object in the Solar System, including the Sun - and you really need to be on something very very small if you want a chance of falling off it.


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

[User]
What to expect when quitting a T32-funded postdoc position?

I'm 6 months into a postdoc position and I hate it. I won't go into a lot of detail but this is such a bad fit for me. My PI exhibits really controlling/condescending behavior that contributes to a toxic lab environment. The job description for the position doesn't match what I'm doing at all, and I'm not having an enjoyable or productive time here. I've already made up my mind to leave and started applying for jobs recently. I'm funded on a T32 with a payback obligation, so if I leave before 1 year is up then I'll have to payback the salary I've already made. Does anyone have experience quitting their postdoc in a situation like this? Is it a longer exit process than quitting a regular job that doesn't have a payback obligation? Did you get to pay in installments or was it just one sum?

[Assistant] Is your postdoc advisor also the PI of the T32 program? If not, talk to the PI(s) of the T32. On a training grant like that there should be a pool of advisors. A T32 is meant to support your training, so you are not beholden to a specific lab - that lab is not paying your salary, the NIH is. You could do something else and make the case that it better contributes to your training/career development as a scientist.


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

[User] [Star Wars RoTS] While order 66 was issues to all clone commanders simultaneously, why did Commander Cody receive a personalised order from Emperor Palpatine?

[Assistant]
Commander Cody was quite highly ranked within the Clone Army hierarchy - it is possible that all the higher up clones got a personalised order and then they passed it on to subordinate troopers.

We only see Cody receiving it as he was the only higher up chilling next to a Jedi at that time, the other Jedi possibly were surrounded by lower ranked troopers.


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

[User] ELI5: What goes on in the brain during a headache?

[Assistant]
Generally, a headache isn't directly in the brain, and there are different kinds of headaches.

  One organ that does hurt during some kinds of headaches is the dura mater which is a tough membrane around the brain that contains the cerebral spinal fluid.  It is well-innervated with pain receptors.

Other headaches may just be pain in the eye sockets or sinuses.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do they recover deleted data from a HDD?

Does it remain on the disk? If so, how does it free up space on the disk?

[Assistant]
Usually when you delete a file on a HDD the data isn't actually deleted. Instead, the drive is just told that the area where the data is stored isn't important anymore and it can be written over. If you keep using the HDD, it will eventually overwrite the old data, but the data will remain on the drive until then. Your operating system tells you that the space on the disk is free because it's available to use for storage whenever you need it, but the computer isn't going to go changing the data until you have something else to store there. You can use a file shredder to clear the data out, but most people don't do that.

Additionally, HDDs use a magnetic field to store information. A strong field indicates a 1 and a weak field indicates a 0. However, magnetic fields aren't binary and with a lot of work you can sometimes figure out what deleted data was based on the strength of the magnetic fields that remain. Edit: You can't actually recover any meaningful data this way. On older, less dense magnetic storage media it may have been a possibility, but that's not the case with any relatively modern HDD. The idea comes from a guy named Gutmann who wrote a paper on it in 1996. It would have been hard to do then and Gutmann himself has said it would be next to impossible these days.

It works differently with internal SSDs. Those usually clear the data out after it's deleted because and SSD can only store data in an empty spot. Consequently, your computer goes ahead and clears out the data after it's deleted to speed up the process of writing new data to that area in the future.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does my charger take less current input and give higher output?

My phone charger says the input is 0.2A and output is 1.2A. How?

[Assistant]
Because current isn't power.

Current can be slid up and down provided you slide the voltage the other way at the same time. Were you to calculate the *power* taken in by the charger - the current x voltage, you'd find it is somewhat more (to account for lost heat) than the output *power*.

Inside the charger is a clever bit of electronics which does the job that used to be done by a transformer. It slices the incoming high-voltage power into bits, letting a slice through as and when needed to keep the output voltage at the required level.


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

[User]
ELI5:How is the mathematical principle PEMDAS found in nature?

Multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction are readily apparent in nature, but when do we see parentheticals and exponents in nature?

Perhaps "mathematical principle" is the wrong phrase for the order of operations, but hopefully you know my gist.

Edit: There's been many interesting and though provoking answers. I didn't anticipate any of this. Actually, I didn't really know what to think (hence the question). I'm gonna go ahead and mark this one explained because I don't know enough about mathematics to believe any of these responses are insufficient.  Thanks!

[Assistant]
It isn't. What we call PEMDAS is purely a convention, a sort of "grammar rule" for the language we know of as Mathematical Notation. While natural phenomena do follow scientific rules that have things like addition-behavior or multiplication-behavior, they don't require using a '+' sign or an '' sign.

P.S. there's actually a *ton* of exponent-behavior in the laws of nature. One example is Newton's law of gravity: F = Gmm / r


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

[User]
[DC] If every Superhero that operated on Earth decided to monitor Gotham like Batman, would Gotham finally become a decent place to live?

Or is it just too far gone?

[Assistant]
Gotham is already a decent place to live, it's just an extremely *weird* place to live.

As Grant Morrison pointed out, if Gotham was as bad as popular reputation makes out, no one would live there. But millions do, because it has many good traits that outweigh the risk of encountering its supervillains (a problem hardly unique to Gotham.)