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

[User]
ELI5: How do biohazard suits protect you from radiation?

I recently went down a virtual rabbit hole on the Demon Core incidents in the late 1940s and it got me thinking about protective equipment in regards to dealing with radiation. How does it work? Are there certain materials or designs that are more effective than others?

Apologies in advance if this has already been answered.

[Assistant]
They don't, if we're talking about gamma radiation.

An NBC suit would not have helped Slotkin in the slightest.

In short, there are 3 main types of ionizing nuclear radiation. Ionizing means that when it hits something, it has enough power to knock off an electron or break a molecular bond - this is a problem for living things because it tends to damage and destroy cells, particularly by damaging the DNA that gives instructions to the molecular machinery inside.

* Gamma rays are very high energy and pass through matter readily. It is the most dangerous, because it penetrates the body deeply and does a lot of damage, and because the only thing that shields against it is a LOT of mass between you and the emitter.
* Beta radiation can only penetrate a half inch or so at most. Thick clothing or a regular wall will protect against most beta rays.
* Alpha radiation can only penetrate a couple of mm. You can stop alpha radiation with as little as a piece of paper.

So. When Slotkin fumbled the screwdriver and caused a criticality incident with the demon core, everybody in the room was bathed in a high dose of gamma rays. They were dead men walking, even if they'd been wearing full NBC suits. It's a big part of the reason why after this and a couple other incidents, future criticality experiments were conducted remotely - with the scientists behind adequate shielding.

Shielding against gamma radiation (such as you'd use for a fallout shelter) is typically rated in "halving-thicknesses," or the amount of a given material that will deflect or absorb roughly half of incoming gamma rays. Roughly 2.4 in of concrete, 3.6 inches of packed earth, .4 in of lead, etc = 1 halving-thickness. "Adequate" radiation shielding (at least for a fallout shelter) is roughly 10 halving-thicknesses - 24 inches of solid concrete or 3 feet of packed earth overhead. It reduces incoming gamma rays by a factor of about 1000 - generally enough to keep you safe from even something emitting a LOT of gamma radiation.

You can see how wearing 4 inches of lead shielding is... not practical, yes? It's why there IS no wearable "radiation suit" like in video games. ETA: Some kind of futuristic gamma suit would have to have a personal magnetic field strong enough to redirect the radiation away from you or something.

So, why do we even have NBC suits in real life? It's to keep Nuclear-Biological-Chemical substances off our skin.

* In the event of a radiological incident, particles that release gamma rays decay relatively quickly (higher energy release = the "battery" runs down quicker), but alpha and beta emitters last longer.
* Alpha- and beta-emitting particles can't do much more than give you a "nuclear sunburn" *unless* you ingest/inhale them (alpha emitters don't even really do that unless you get them directly on your skin). If they get inside you, they can damage internal organs and increase your risk of cancer. You see where we're going here?
* The suit and mask keeps radioactive dust off your skin and out of your hair, eyes, mouth, and lungs.
* When you leave the hazard area, you remove the suit carefully and go through a decontamination shower (ideally) to make sure you don't bring those particles with you where they can float around and contaminate food and water or be inhaled.

The same principle works for areas contaminated with dangerous pathogens or chemical agents (assuming it's not something that will damage the suit directly). You want to keep them off your skin and out of your lungs until you can decontaminate the outside of the suit and take it off in a safe area.

Bonus: Potassium Iodide (KI) is often touted as a remedy in a radiological disaster, but it **only protects against one specific isotope**. Iodine-131, a radioactive version of Iodine, is produced by nuclear weapons or certain kinds of nuclear disasters. Your thyroid gland likes to store iodine for use in producing certain hormones. It can't tell the difference between regular Iodine and radioactive Iodine in your diet. The reason you take KI is to saturate your thyroid with normal Iodine so it won't absorb any of the radioactive kind that you might ingest in contaminated food and water. If you did get I-131 in your thyroid, it could irradiate and kill your thyroid, damage thyroid function, or just increase your risk of getting thyroid cancer in a couple of decades (depending on the dose you got). KI won't do jack to protect you from gamma rays, or from any other kind of alpha or beta emitter (like Radium, or Cesium-137 or Strontium-90) that you might ingest.


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

[User]
Having to google every problem on Hackerrank.

Hi all,

I've found I'm having to google a lot of the issues I'm facing while completing hackerrank EASY challenges, and as a last resort try and learn something from solutions others have submitted. It's frustrating me because I keep forgetting things I've used and researched before and end up taking just as long on repeated challenges after 2 weeks.

I guess my question is, is this normal and has anyone here started off in a similar fashion and have any tips for me? Right now I'm questioning whether I have the intelligence for software development or not, and at 30 years old I guess I'm worried companies would rather go for younger juniors.

[Assistant]
This is normal. After some time of practice with these types of problems, youll start to learn and recognize patterns that they share.

Honestly probably very few professional programmers can solve those problems without practice. Theyre mostly bullshit that you have to know some clever trick to finish.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do some wholesale businesses only sell to other businesses?

I recently tried to buy a large quantity of dill pickles for a BBQ, but was told by the supplier that unless I was a restaurant he was not able to sell to me.

Why would this be? I understand not wanting the overhead of a storefront operation, but if a customer contacts the business one would think they would seize an opportunity for an easy sale with 0 logistics.

[Assistant] Wholesale food distributor here. Your sale of one case of pickles is not something we are really all that interested in. Since food is a commodity in most instances, the margins are generally razor thin (especially on something as cheap as pickles). In addition to that, the effort of having an employee punch the order (as it will have to be picked) and having an employee go and pick your one case from the warehouse almost makes it a loss. The only way we even turn a profit is because of larger sales which is why volume is king in this business. However, if a normal customer comes in for a single case because they happen to run out, we will accommodate them as a courtesy.


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

[User]
ELI5 What are the practical applications of calculus?

So this isn't a "learning calculus is pointless" post. I'm sure it's not pointless, but what is an example of how calculus is used to solve problems in the real world? I remember studying parabolas and such in high school but I didn't learn why, just memorized whatever I was supposed to. I took regular grade 12 math but didn't take calculus and have always been confused by what it actually is...

[Assistant]
There are effectively no real-world engineering problems that don't involve calculus. Everything involving structures (houses, bridges, car bodies, boats), moving fluids (plumbing, sewers, airplanes, boats, car shapes), or control systems (thermostats, cruise control, power steering, autopilot, your oven) are resting on calculus because the governing equations are differential equations (a type of calculus-based equation).

Everything is subject to force = mass times acceleration, and acceleration is the second derivative (in the calculus sense) of position. So \*anything\* that involves solving for where or how fast or how hard something moves is calculus. Even the non-calculus-looking equations like "distance = 1/2 times acceleration times time squared", for distance under constant acceleration, is the solution to a specific differential equation. We just use it so often we often skip the calculus and go straight to the result.


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

[User]
[MCU] Did the Avengers just decide to reverse the Snap without telling anyone?

And could the post-Unsnap panic and logistical issues have been avoided if governments were prepared?

[Assistant]
They did, as to why: Every second they have the stones is a serious risk. Theyre the ultimate tool/weapon in the universe, as soon as word gets out people will be coming for them. They have the stones, theyre going to try to undo the Snap no matter what anyone else says, and letting that info get out is going to go badly.

Plus: They didnt actually know if it would work. Imagine if they announced it but they failed. Giving everyone that hope then dashing it. Thatll be bad.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens when a person gets liposuction in every area of their body? Would they remain thin forever (regardless of how much food they eat?) Or would fat still redistribute?

[Assistant]
A problem that they've discovered with liposuction is that it is *substantially* more unhealthy to get it done than to just be fat.

Fat is acidic and causes damage to cells.  Ordinarily this isn't a problem because your body stores fat in special cells that are equipped to neutralize the fat's acidity.  When you get liposuction what you're doing is removing most of those cells without removing the underlying cause of the problem (the fact that you're overeating).

Your body doesn't just stop making fat but when there are no specialized fat cells to soak it up then your body's normal cells begin soaking it up.  They're not equipped to handle the acidity of fat and eventually die from it.  This is actually what causes obesity related diabetes.

Under normal conditions your pancreas will not store fat.  But when you're morbidly obese it begins to do so.  The acidity of that fat eventually kills the insulin producing cells in your pancreas and then you get type 2 diabetes.  When you get liposuction all you're really doing is speeding that process up because now your pancreas is storing fat under normal conditions since the fat has nowhere else to go.

After your pancreas dies off that fat begins getting shunted into your liver.  You then develop fatty liver disease which eventually leads to liver failure, at which point you die.

In short, what happens if you liposuction all of the fat out of your body is that your pancreas and liver swell up with fat and that causes some fairly horrible medical problems with an associated reduction in your life expectancy.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does our brain make time seem slower/faster.

I may have worded it awkwardly but I'm talking about how our brains change the perception of how fast time passes.

[Assistant] Think of the brain as a small child. When it is occupied, it doesn't pay attention to the passing of time, and therefore time seems to fly. When the brain is not occupied, it gets frustrated and tries to curb its boredom by watching time pass which in turn makes time feel like it's going by slower.


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

[User]
How Bit Torrent sites work?

In the interest of brevity- I am an attorney; more precisely, I am a public criminal defense attorney. I'm here to solicit your expertise to aid in the defense of one of my clients. That is as much background as I can give you.
My question is this: If a person is using a bit torrent site to download files, are those files automatically available for other bit torrent users to download themselves? To go one step further; if the person I am referring to deletes the file from their torrent program but saves the file to their hard drive after downloading it, have they then prevented all other users from downloading that file from them?
Thank you for your kind attention in advance. Any links that I may reference back to that substantiate or provide additional information are further appreciated.

[Assistant]
Most torrent sites are basically glorified search engines that search for a certain type of file called a torrent file (although usually have plenty of metadata about what the torrent is for). Anyway, the torrent file is a plain text file that does not contain the actual thing that you want (eg, a pirated movie), but rather it contains information about how to find peers (other people with torrent clients) who will send them parts of the files that we want.

Deleting the torrent file is not sufficient to keep others from downloading the file from you because it's the torrent client that does all the work. You can remove the particular downloaded file from the torrent client. That will prevent the file from being uploaded to other peers. Or you can simply delete the file in question (can't upload a file you don't have anymore). Alternatively, you could simply close the torrent client (it has to be actually closed -- many will actually just close the window but keep running in the background).

Yes, by default, you will be uploading (called "seeding") the file to other peers. This behavior can be disabled in the configuration of most torrent clients, but is frowned upon because torrents would not work as a whole if everyone did that.


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

[User] A lot of economists argue that a minimum wage is not good for low level employees. What is a ground level empirical example of how a low skilled worker would benefit from there being no minimum wage?

[Assistant]
As a basic rule of thumb you use a minimum wage to guarantee a certain minimum standard, the downside of this is that sometimes an employer might want to hire someone to do something, but doesn't think it's quite worth that minimum wage and would rather have his current employees work a bit of overtime, or have whatever he is lag a bit instead.

So practically speaking, you can have a minimum wage at the cost of having higher unemployment, this is generally agreed. What people don't agree over is exactly the ratio between the two, or what value to place on the two, so not many people agree on exactly where the line should be drawn.


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

[User] [Jurrasic Park] According to the book, Jurrasic Park was being constructed around the same time as Disney's Animal Kingdom, and even employed former Disney employees. How did Disney feel about the parks construction?

[Assistant] They saw it as an investment in a potential competitor for high end luxury vacations. It was marketed far beyond middle class affordability so Disney and it's parks weren't in competition with it. It panned out they had a stake in it's success and if it failed it wasn't in their name.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why wasn't Star-Lord excited when meeting other humans?

When Peter Quill confronted Iron Man, Dr. Strange and Spider-Man, that was possibly the first time since he left Earth at 10 where he actually encountered fellow human beings. Yet, he doesn't act elated or excited about this, despite having missed two whole decades of human history and progress and having spent most of his life with brutish non-human species. I know, he was fixated on Gamora's abduction, but this guy is no stranger to cracking jokes left and right in the heat of danger and typically has a VERY strong nostalgia for the world he left behind. So what was his deal?

[Assistant]
He owns a spaceship.  He's not exiled from Earth, he could have gone back any time he wanted to.  He doesn't want to go back because that's the planet where his mom died.  He doesn't care about the last 20 years of human history because it's history of the planet that couldn't save her.

He only cares about the music because it's the focal point of his most positive interactions with her and it keeps her alive.


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

[User]
[Warcraft] How was Illidan defeated by Arthas at Icecrown?

In Warcraft 3, there's a scene where Illidan and Arthas duel shortly before Arthas informs Illidan of the Skull of Gul'Dan. In this fight, Illidan and Arthas are perfectly matched, Illidan himself admits this. In this fight, Illidan just has the regular powers of a Demon Hunter, and Arthas is just a regular Death Knight (though the Lich King's favorite and chosen successor).

Much later, at the final battle between the Scourge and the Blood Elf and Naga army, Arthas and Illidan do battle again. At this point, however, Illidan has consumed the power contained within the Skull of Gul'Dan, and Arthas has significantly less power coming from the Lich King. But Arthas still manages to defeat Illidan. And from the cinematic, it looks like Arthas did so without much effort, with Illidan constantly on the defensive before taking a massive gash across the chest.

How was Arthas able to defeat Illidan after the balance had been tipped significantly in Illidan's favor?

[Assistant] Arthas isn't growing weaker during the battles leading up to Northrend, The Lich King is withdrawing his power from the Death Knight to sustain himself. In the final battle, right before Arthas and Illidan confront each other, Ner'zhul gives Arthas basically all of his power. It's basically a Hail Mary; if Arthas doesn't defeat Illidan, The Frozen throne is shattered and the Lich King dies. So the Lich King had no reason to hold back anything.


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

[User]
Why is patriarchy dominant?

I've gained an interest in feminism recently, and have been doing lots of reading on the subject. One of the questions I've thought of that hasn't been answered is this: For what reason is patriarchy the dominant mode of societies around the world? I was wondering if you guys knew any answers or material on this question.

[Assistant]
Nobody really knows, but here is at least one hypothesis:

In their book 'Sex at Dawn', Ryan and Jeth argue that patriarchy is a consequence of humans moving from hunter-gatherer social structures to agriculture. In short, the argument is that needing to defend patches of land (a foreign idea to nomadic hunter-gatherers) drove demand for a warrior class, which men excelled at. Men thereby gained social power, which then had further structural effects on society.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a chronon and what evidence is there that it actually exists?

[Assistant]
> What is a chronon

It is a proposed unit of time that represents the smallest individual unit of time.  There is another proposed unit of time, called the Plank Time, which is another possible theoretically smallest individual unit of time.  (Much like the Plank Distance, which is possible theoretically smallest individual unit of distance.)

Both units of time are proposed the smallest quantum, they assume time is not continuous but has tiny steps between each instant.

It is also used in fiction as a particle or blob of time, mostly as a plot device for people moving through time in the story.

> what evidence is there that it actually exists?

For the unit of time version, that's like asking what evidence there is that a second exists, or that a minute exists.  It is an extremely short period of time, possibly the shortest discrete unit of time, much like the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.  If the theories are correct then fractional time between them like 1.02 or 2.412 don't actually exist, they're bumped to the nearest time increment.

For the fictional particle, they're something writers like to use for plot twists, and they don't actually exist except in the book, movie, or game.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why did contact with the Vikings not have the same effect on Native American population that contact with Europeans at a later date did?

After contact with Columbus and Europeans in the 14-1600's Native Americans lost massive amounts of people due to exposure to diseases they had no natural resistance to. Why wasn't there a similar effect when the European Vikings came to love settle in in North America. Wouldn't they have brought similar diseases with them? Wouldn't they have caused a similar effect?

EDIT. It seems like it comes to the point that Viking society wasn't dense enough to produce the plagues that the later settlers brought. I never would have thought about that. Thank you guys so much!!

[Assistant]
That assumes they had any significant contact with a group that then had significant contact (before dying) with more natives. Knowing the vikings it's also possible they were terrifying enough that the natives stayed the hell away. Remember the Europeans also brought horses, lots of people, and they intended to bring people and gold home. The Vikings were not thinking on that scale, but on a much more personal kind of scale.

Plus, the vikings could have met some brutally stiff resistance, while the Europeans had firearms plate armor, and horses.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why aren't all instruments in Concert C?

It makes no sense to me that an Eb on some instruments is a C on a piano. Why would have we chosen not to standardize what tone a particular note is? Transposition is tough, is what I'm trying to say. So, please, somebody justify it for me (like I'm five).

[Assistant]
Historically, it was common to have families of very closely related instruments with identical fingering systems but different sizes (for example, clarinets in A and Bb).
Players of one instrument would often play the other, but if all music were in concert pitch, then the player would have to learn an entirely new set of fingerings for an identical-feeling instrument.
It's not necessary to constantly transpose to concert pitch when you play a transposing instrument. However, if fingering systems were shifted around between identical instruments, it would be necessary to keep in mind which of many sets of fingerings to follow.
Hope that helps you. Please let me know if you need additional clarification.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it important to do a pushup "correctly"? What is the health benefit and how did a specific form become correct?

[Assistant]
If you do them without proper form(mostly a bent back) you are using the wrong muscles, first of all. You are using your back to support you. A pushup should only require the strength of the arm and chest muscles.

A straight back and squared shoulders ensure that these muscles bear most of the weight.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do mosquito bites itch?

[Assistant] There is a substance in there saliva that works as an anti-clotting agent. Almost all humans are allergic to this substance. A bite won't itch strait away because the saliva also contains a local anesthetic that dulls the pain and irritation of the bite so the mosquito can stay undetected. But when this anaesthetic stops working the bite becomes itchy.


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

[User] ELI5: how did jazz go from being considered the "devil's music" to becoming very high brow, often considered nearly equally as high brow as classical?

[Assistant]
Changing cultural perceptions of black people and their cultural music.

Jazz was heavily spread through some segments of African Americans in it's formative years and it became associated with them. Many of the best Jazz musicians were AAs. And during these years most (white, christian) Americans looked down on blacks and so denigrated their music as well.

In our current era highbrow liberals are now embracing black culture, and it's a sign of sophistication to love black culture, and the easiest way to do that (at least without being accused of cultural appropriation) is to love Jazz.


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

[User] So Earth has layers and layers of dirt and rock that we are able to check and see from different periods in the history of Earth. How? Like how does layers of Earth keep getting added, wouldnt it stay the same? Clearly not but why not?

[Assistant]
Rock gets eroded by wind and water into smaller rocks and sand and gravel. This tends to settle wherever it is to the bottom. These layers are called strata, by the way.

For example, fill a jar with rocks and sand and water and shake it up. You'll find the particles will settle smallest to biggest.

Then, over time, this gets compacted into rocks. Rinse and repeat. Erosion is a constant process -- it can be very slow (eg, a light breeze) or very fast (a river running).

It's a very long process. It can easily take hundreds of thousands to millions of years, and this doesn't even consider other things like igneous and metamorphic rocks.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] How strong is Superman when deprived of his powers?

Say, in Red sunlight. He's still got all that muscle mass. If in a place with the same gravity as the Earth's, would he be fairly strong for a human his size? Is he piss weak despite being built like a brick shithouse?

[Assistant]
So, it's slightly complicated. On paper, as you say, he's built like a brick shit house, and all his training and experience as a life long superhero doesn't go away. He'll be far from a pushover. The issue is the change itself.

Like, imagine how you'd react if suddenly everything in the world became a thousand times heavier. This would pretty seriously hamper you- even with things you could still lift, you're not used to having to exert yourself this much, or moving in this situation. You'd be pretty useless for quite a while.

Same here. When superman has an opportunity to get used to losing his powers, yes, he is very physically impressive as humans go and has done legitimate heroism. But when it's a brief or sudden change, he usually collapses. Not so much because he's suddenly weaker, but because he's suddenly so much weaker then he was used to.


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

[User]
[The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion] Are we ever going to do anything about the fact that the capital province of the Empire is, like, half in ruins?

This seems a little sloppy for the dominant force on the continent.

[Assistant] Steady on, these things take time. The population of the entire province, excluding bandits, necromancers and vampires, is about two hundred people, and they mostly have busy schedules of standing around in one place for sixteen hours a day.


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

[User] [DC Comics] could kryptonite be used as a treatment for Superman if he had cancer?

[Assistant]
Something similar happened to him in the New 52, pre-Rebirth Continuity, although his health problem wasn't cancer.

Superman lost most of his powers after abusing his "solar flare" power and was reduced to a street level hero.

When he found out his solar cells were damaged, he exposed himself to a ton of kryptonite to kill the damaged cells, allowing his body grow new healthy ones.

The idea kinda worked, as he recovered his powers... but a few numbers later he died from delayed radioactive poisoning.


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

[User] [The Matrix] Did the doctors and engineers in Zion have the know-how to surgically implant those "plugs" into regular Zion-born people? That way they wouldn't have to risk going into the Matrix to recruit new people.

[Assistant] It's more complicated than that. The plugs are attached to the human body as it develops in an artificial womb. They're connected to the nervous system because the two systems have grown together during gestation. You can't remove them without crippling or killing the host and you can't implant them after they're born.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does anywhere that serves breakfast stop serving breakfast after a certain time?

I don't get it.

[Assistant]
Take your pick, the answer is any combination of this.

* kitchen space, need to keep prepped items for both breakfast and lunch/dinner at the same time.
* swap out equipment for breakfast and lunch/dinner
* kitchen staff levels
* customer demand

For example McDonalds uses a grill for their breakfast, when switching to lunch/dinner, they use the same grill for hamburgers. There is usually only 1 cook, sometimes 2. So breakfast all day is difficult for them, but they are looking at a solution that would work at all McDonald's locations.


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

[User] ELI5: Ted Cruz is staunchly anti-Obamacare. Why is he signing up for Obamacare then?

[Assistant]
Practically speaking, it is because he was previously getting health benefits through his wife's job. His wife is going on an unpaid leave of absence for the duration of the presidential campaign, so he (and his wife) won't be covered.

Politically, he's still against it, but said something to the effect of that its still technically the law, and he'll follow the law, even if it's one he fundamentally disagrees with.


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

[User]
[Bioshock 1&2] are there no sane humans left?

Aside from the couple of allies and enemies you talk with on the radio, you never meet an npc you can talk with, only completely deranged splicers and brainwashed big daddies and little sisters.
Where did those who didn't splice and those who only spliced a little go? Why doesn't the protagonist lose his mind too? Did the sane people escape in time if they had money? Did everyone get killed, despite the fact that splicers are so insane that they have very little mental faculties and have no plans? How did rich people die if security bots and armed camera turrets exist?

[Assistant]
No, nobody sane is left in Rapture.  The thing of it is this wasn't a single event that caused everything to go to hell, it was a slow gradual decline into dystopia.

This means that the sane people who had the vision to know what was coming bugged out fairly early.  Those who stayed got gradually more and more used to the kind of horrors happening in Rapture.  By the time it got really bad, there is no such thing as a Rapture citizen who only splices a little.


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

[User] [ELI5] Are the original owners legally responsible for space garbage? Or are they allowed to just abandon it up there?

[Assistant] there is noone to make laws in space, as space is outside any countries jurisdiction. That means that countries cant force people to take responsibility for their space garbage. This of course leads to more and more space garbage, which makes space travel more difficult and dangerous.


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

[User] Eli5 What exactly is libido and what happens that causes it raise or lower?

[Assistant] It is a term made up by Sigmund Freud which is synonymous with sex drive. He developed a lot of theories around the term which have been later debunked as just pure fantasy. However the term have still remained. It is often used in places where the word "sex" might not be appropriate. For example when you have commercials showing happy couples telling you about their rising libido hoping that kids to not understand that they are talking about their sex life.


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

[User]
[Power Rangers/Voltron/Any combining-mecha series] How do five+ people with identical control panels manage to control their robot without constantly countermanding each others' orders or generally making a mess of things?

Seriously, I can't imagine sharing control even with five of my closest friends/relatives and not ending up having committed (or being the victim of) murder, let alone defeating an enemy roughly equal to our combined strengths.

The only thing I can think of is that the leader type controls the main body and the others control part-specific weapons.  Of course that raises the question of what happens with those robots that don't have part specific weapons active in combined-robot mode, or just the one (do the left and right arms of Voltron only have the one big red button they need to hit when Voltron slams its fists together to form the Blazing sword, and maybe one other button for their mouth... elemental blasts?  Voltron has those, right?  It's been a while).

[Assistant]
They can control different systems, but it's not Black Ranger -> Right Arm, Yellow Ranger -> Left arm.  The Leader is often the actual pilot, with other crew members manning other sub-systems.  One might be on power control, another one on weapons systems, or damage control, or system integration, or whatever.

The control panels all look the same because the panels are identical across all the different mechas, and it'd be easier to reformat the controls rather than fit extra panels in the control room.


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

[User] [Resident Evil 8] Did years pass before the epilogue or did Rose grow up accelerated?

[Assistant] Unclear at the moment, we know Chris is looking after her but we don't see him in that scene so we can't judge how much time has passed for him. We'll probably have to wait for either DLC or Resident Evil 9 for a proper explanation.


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

[User] Why cant non-ferrous metals be carburized?

[Assistant]
You can carburize non-ferrous metals but it does not give similar results as you would expect in ferrous applications.

By increasing carbon content at the surface of a part, you can increase the likelihood of phases that are of higher strength (martensites in particular). Because many other metallic elements do not have a similar effect from carbon alloying carburizing would not be benificial.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why, when someone dies from something that does not permanently damage anything vital, they can not be "restarted" or brought back to life?

Just wondering why, for example, if someone is cut and loses enough blood and dies, they can't simply "replace" the blood and get everything working again? I get that if someone's brain or heart is damaged and can't be repaired then they can't be resuscitated... but what makes every form of death completely permanent? Like if someone drowns, I imagine everything is undamaged; why can't they be brought back to life?

[Assistant]
Blood is the method that the body uses to distribute oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Without blood, your brain isn't going to get oxygen, which is actually what kills you, not the blood loss itself.

Same goes for drowning: You're not getting O2 to your brain, so your brain dies.


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

[User]
[Kingsmen: The Secret Service] Who bears the codename of "Mordred"?

Only familiar with the film through wikipedia summary, but if the agents are named after the Arthurian Knights of the Round Table, which one has the codename of "Mordred"? What would the duties of "Mordred" entail? Would they even have a position named after the knight who betrayed King Arthur and caused the collapse of Camelot?

[Assistant] The Kingsman Mordred would probably occupy the most demanding job of them all, internal affairs and counter-espionage. To ensure that the Kingsman stay par on course for Queen and Country and not sell their services to the highest bidder.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why Internet Explorer is bad to use?

I don't really understand what is so bad about it? I used it for about 5 years and didn't have any problems that I could see. I recently switched over to Safari because I bought a Mac, but I still don't see why it is so bad. So please Reddit, enlighten me!

[Assistant]
The most common complaints:

1. Historically, IE has been lacking in features compared to other browsers (most notably Opera and Firefox) such as tabbed browsing, extension support, and benchmark performance. IE9 has really improved on this front, thought chrome and Firefox both have features and extensions that make them attractive for many people.

1. Historically, IE was not standards compliant. In the world of computer software, in order to make it easier for everything to be compatible, computer professionals all get together and create "standards", which are a way of saying "this is how such and such should be done." For example, there is an HTML standard that says how web browsers should interpret web pages. If everyone follows the standards, then coding web pages is very easy. However, since IE was the dominant browser for such a long time, Microsoft stopped following standards and creating new IE-only features (ActiveX) while ignoring bugs in their implementation of the standards. Web developers hated this, since if they coded according to the standards, their web pages wouldn't work. So they had to add in all sorts of workarounds for their IE version. This means that there had to be two versions of a webpage, one for IE and one for other browsers. Since a developer's time is valuable and expensive, many companies just make an IE version, so people who tried to use other, better browsers were often denied access to sites or had to make do with buggy versions. IE8 and IE9 went a long way to fixing this situation.

1. A lot of companies made internal software and webpages that only worked with IE6 and ActiveX. When the updates to IE that made it better rolled out, the companies didn't upgrade because the changes were incompatible with their software, and they didn't want to pay the developers to update their internal software. So a lot of people in the business world are stuck with IE6. This is slowly changing, since Windows 7 does not support IE6 and Windows XP is gradually being deprecated.

1. Security. Historically, IE was full of security flaws, and since it was tied so closely to Windows, viruses could also easily infect the system. Changes made to both IE and Windows have improved this situation.

**TL;DR IE6 was horrible for users and developers; IE9 isn't that bad, but IE6 left a lot of bad taste and a lot of people just prefer other browsers.**


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

[User] If you could use super slomotion camera that could see light move, what would you see, sitting in a room when you flipped the light switch off? A washing over of darkness, emanating from the light source- or just sudden darkness?

[Assistant]
The photons from the light source that were pointed straight at your camera would end first, so you'd see that go dark. But there's a lot of photons still at play.

The ones bouncing from highly reflective surfaces to the camera would go next.

The rest of the light would be bouncing between less or non reflective surfaces, some of it being absorbed, some bouncing to other places before some of them eventually make their way to the camera.

So you would see the light source go dark, then any mirrors/windows/polished furniture, with the rest of the room steadily dimming with speed proportional to their reflectivity and color.


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

[User]
What is the probability of the number 3 being the middle square of a sudoku puzzle?

I've been debating with my SO's father as I thought it would just be 1/9. However, he is adamant that this is not the case and claims his maths teacher friend agreed with him but couldn't give an exact figure. He claims that because the numbers in the surrounding squares influence it it's not simply one in nine, but I'm having trouble seeing it.

[Assistant]
Take any (solved) Sudoku puzzle, check which number is in the center square. If it isn't a 3, proceed to swap all the 3's in the puzzle for whatever number is in the center square and vice versa. Voila, now a 3 is in the center square, but the actual puzzle remains unchanged.

The number 3 has no special meaning in a Sudoku puzzle, nor do any of the other numbers. You can swap numbers in the way described above or even replace all numbers by letters or symbols and nothing changes.

So the only valid answer is that the chance of the center square of a Sudoku puzzle being 3 is exactly 1/9.


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

[User] ELI5: How do spam callers mask their phone numbers to ones registered to someone else?

[Assistant]
When you get a phone call and a number shows up on your caller ID, that's not always because your phone knows which number is calling it. The phone that's calling you can send the call *and* tell your phone what number to show, plus maybe a name as well. Scammers use a VoIP phone and can just alter the data that their phone sends to your phone, your phone doesn't know any better and just shows what ever the other phone tells it to show.

Edited for clarity.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the biological advantage to urination occurring in or near the sex organs?

[Assistant]
You don't poop from there.
Go further back in the evolutionary timeline, and you see where we branched off from fish. Some of the early cartilaginous fishes have a cloaca, a single hole they use to pee, poop, and make babby.
So, it's a step up. Waste gets sorted based on sterility, so you don't risk your gonads to infection by coliform bacteria. Anything more clean would require a much more intensive shuffle of holes and tubes, and that's not how evolution works.


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

[User]
Is there any good answer to "why be moral?"?

Edit: I guess another way of putting the question would be to phrase it the way Macintyre phrased it (paraphrasing Macintyre paraphrasing Kierkegaard): For what reasons do we have to even think, act and lead a life in terms of "good, bad, excellent, virtuous, evil,..." at all?

I've considered many views regarding this issue but a lot of them don't seem to connect to the actual theory itself aside from some naturalist virtue ethicists like Foot (or Aristotelians in general for that matter) which connects the moral theory with reasons for action but all of them have  the problem of "real interest" (a discussion of this by Williams in his Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy). Kant doesn't really give you a reason to be moral at all, just says that it is immoral to violate the famous formulations but we CAN violate them. I'm not saying that means we "should", I'm questioning whether the "should" actually gives you a reason to follow what you should do at all. Utilitarianism of the Benthamite-Millian type answers the motivation question by linking the higher pleasure of being a utilitarian with the act of utilitarianism (maximizing welfare and minimizing pain) but this feels like a delusion, the claim that it is in the interest of the moral agent to be a utilitarian because being a utilitarian is itself a higher pleasure that is pursued.
I'm also not talking about "moral" in the concrete such as "donating to charity" or "saving a drowning person", I'm talking about the reasons to do any of these, whatever it os that they have in common to be called "moral".
Sure, maybe I'm speciesist to favor humans to animals (Singer's claim) but there's really no reason to care about it if you haven't already adopted the moral rules and virtues of Singer's consequentialism.
I'm currently in favor of Williams's "internal reasons" hypothesis which states that whatever it is that you do, it must be of a personal sets of reasons for actions that you already have from your biologically constituted (the sensation of empathy for example) and culturally developed sense of value. There is no reason apart from this (possibly changing) set of values. No "transcendental reason" (Kant) or "real interests" (naturalist virtue ethics).

[Assistant] Kant actually says that we have an innate desire or intuition towards treating others with dignity in our inherent worth as humans. From an evolutionary biological perspective as well, this would be supported as our species could only survive tens of thousands of years ago through cooperation. There's nothing about humans as individuals that is competent in the realm of predators. Our strength was in our numbers.


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

[User]
CMV: The best thing that someone can do to fight Trumpism is register to vote as a Republican and vote in the primaries.

I think there is an awful divide in the country right now, and most people can agree on it.  The Republican party is heading in a very bad direction.  Trump is a cancerous growth that has gone out of control, and the GOP falls in line with him because he has some similar policy goals and they thought they could harness the populism.  But they failed and now are holding onto it for dear life.

Big donors have continued to pull the Republican party to the right during primaries, where the most radical rightwing voters show up to vote in much greater numbers than moderates.  Gerrymandering then allows these crazy people to get elected because the choice is so now so tribal that many people fear an evil Democrat in office more than a legitimately crazy Republican.

The only way for an average citizen to fix this is register as a Republican in any district that has any possibility of a Republican win, and to vote for the most anti-trump candidate.

This is whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, so long as you oppose Trump your primary vote will count for much more when it comes to shaping the political landscape if you can de-radicalize the Republican party.  It doesn't matter if you agree with their other views or not tbh.  Your real vote will be in the actual election.

Tldr: The best thing you can do as an American voter is to register for the majority party and vote in their primary for the least bad candidate.  This has become vastly more important during the current political era.  CMV

Edit: I would like to clarify, since most of the comments are missing my point.  If you want to change my view, I need an alternative option for what action an individual can take, at this point in the nations history, which will have a larger impact than voting in Republican primaries to bring the party back toward the center.

[Assistant]
It really depends on where you live.

A moderate Democrat may have a better chance of beating a radical Republican in the general election than the moderate Republican has of beating the radical Republican in the primary.

If that is the case and the moderate Democrat is in a primary fight with a radical Democrat (someone who will assuredly lose to the Radical Republican), you should vote for the moderate Democrat in the primary.

Did all of that make sense?


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

[User]
ELI5 Why does trapped gas sometimes cause actual pain? What part of the body is actually hurting and why?

Gas is always uncomfortable but occasionally it causes severe pain, enough to make you double over. Why?

[Assistant]
Might have to do with the trapped gases being close to a nerve compared to another spot. The internal part if our bodies dont have as robust a sensory network like our skin does but there are some nerves running through our insides.  This is what is usually known as referred pain, where the pain one feels is not actually in the spot they feel it, but  another part of the body that doesnt have direct nerves to relay the pain.

A good example is a heart attack creating pain in the left arm, which is a common symptom and warning sign.  Same could be said for gas, albeit considering how long the intestines is there is enough squished in there that it tends to be better and more accurate at signalling nerves close to the pain.


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

[User]
[Batman] Why did the murder of his parents haunt Bruce for so long?

This applies to all continuities, but the Gotham premier got me thinking about it. Senseless crimes happen all the time, people watch others get murdered, children watch their parents die, but they eventually move on. Why didn't Bruce? He dedicates his whole life to fight I g crime, which in itself is rather noble, but it is only because his
murder has stayed with him his entire life, dictating most things he does? Why does this one event, however traumatic, shape his entire crazy life?

[Assistant]
His parents we murdered violently in front of him. They left that show early because Bruce was too scared. It was because of him that they were alone in that alley.
He did nothing to stop the man who killed his parents. He just stood there. Why did he just stand there?...

Little Bruce was weak, and because he was weak, he's now alone. If only he'd been braver...if only he'd stayed at the show.....if only he'd reached for the gun. He could've saved them.....

These thoughts haunt him, keep him up at night, even before he began his nocturnal...activities.

He lost all he loved because of inaction, fear.

It ignited something in him. Something relentless, white hot,  all consuming.

He would be ready next time.

Never again would Good people die while there was something he could do. Never again would the greedy and depraved feed upon the innocent so openly, basking in the shadow of apathy that hangs over Gotham like clouds of poison gas.

He would inhabit that world. Dominate it. He would become the force that could've, should've saved Thomas and Martha Wayne that night. He would eradicate any internal weakness at first sign, hone his body, churn through his fortune, in order to be the thing that could have, should have saved them that night. He won't ever stop, not until they stop. Not until they all stop.

He would be the darkness.

He would be the knight.

He would be the Batman.


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

[User]
How are cancer rates going up when we've made regulations on regulations to control carcinogen use?

as the title says, it just seems like cancer rates are going up, but we've made tons of regulations, warnings and other things to show, limit or stop use of carcinogens. to me this means cancer rates should trend down. but they're not?? what would cause this in modern society???  are genes less healthy?? is our food worse?? are products really not that clean??

[Assistant]
A few things
1) less people dying of other things before they can get cancer - the longer you live, the more time you have to accumulate mutations that can lead to cancer and the less good your cells are at repairing them
2) we're better at spotting it.  Lots of small, easily treated tumours get found early that contribute to the number of cancer cases reported but would have never been found before the technology got good.  They might not ever have developed into something dangerous  but we spot them and count them anyway.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40K] What is the purpose of a space marine dreadnaught? Why not purposely build mechs for their normal marines as well?

[Assistant]
1. they're expensive to build and maintain.

2. Space marines can survive MASSIVE damage, due to the process that transforms them from mortal to massive demi-human warrior. More damage than a normal human would survive. They go into protective comas, bodies shut down for a while instead of just dying, allowing Apothecaries to recover the body and salvage what would have been dogfood if they'd been human. that extra time for body recovery means that Space Marines survive long enough without medical support to get them back to a facility where triage can be safely performed.

3. The problem with being able to survive massive damage is that, over time, there's less and less marine to rebuild. After a certain point, it's easier to build a Dreadnought around the marine's remains than it is to build a mechanicum level cyborg out of them. (even more expensive, requiring years of painful, slow augmentation and the surrender of more and more flesh).

4. Not even every space marine is able to survive the process.

5. Not even every space marine is WORTHY of the honor of being held between life and death in a combat-rated cryogenic suspension chamber, basically a goo-filled armored fishbowl. The only SM worthy of the cost, effort, and "honor" are those the Chapter/Legion cannot do without - Those whose knowledge, experience, and/or sheer lethality are both legendary, and irreplaceable.  For Example, IF Brother Schmendrick, Sub-Doosh of the crimson Mustachio chapter, known for his last-in, first out combat strategy, champion complainer, master of the humido stragulum technique, and earner of no honors in his time serving the Emperor of Man, manages to step on a land mine, his chaptermates will not hesitate to harvest his gene seed. He might still be alive, having survived losing everything below the ribcage, both arms, and his left nostril, and about 20% of his colon, but his brothers will not waste time with him when Seargeant Gorram GulfWighter, Master at arms and Hero of the Imperium, has just lost his fifth set of augmetic legs to the same blast, and must be saved so that his knowledge can live on.


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

[User]
ELI5: In the wake of A-Rod's suspension, why is drug abuse such a problem in Baseball?

There seems to be a big drugs scandal in baseball every few years. Why is it such an issue?

[Assistant]
Risk-Reward

The league minimum for major league baseball players is around $500,000 with an averge salary around the $3,000,000 mark.

A player can make a very large sum of money over the course of their career even while using PEDs.

The current CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) does not allow for the modification of contracts, so even if a player is caught using PEDs, they will be suspended, not get paid while suspended, but come right back and start getting paid once the suspension is served.  A perfect example is Ryan Braun.  His contract with the Brewers was extended through 2020 and is worth $105 million dollars.  He will serve a 61 game suspension (through the end of 2013) and will be back on the field in 2014.

Braun was able, through the use of PEDs, to inflate his value to get a high value, long term contract.

The monetary reward of using PEDs is currently so great, the players are willing to take the risk of getting caught and accepting the suspension.


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

[User]
Medicine: What actually kills someone with cancer?

You often hear that someone "died of cancer", be it breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma or something else but what is it that actually kills them?

Is it the immune system going havoc and killing all living cells it can find? Do you starve to death as the tumour grows and all nutrients you manage to ingest are seized by the cancerous cells? Infections, like pneumonia?

[Assistant]
The easiest way to think of cancer is to think of the effect of weeds in a garden.

Weeds grow quickly and wherever they like, and they will choke out the plants you've intentionally put in your garden and either impede their function or kill them entirely.

In some cases, the weeds suck all the nutrients out of the soli and consume all the soil's water.  Plant dehydrates and starves and dies.

In other cases, especially with vines, the weed simply grows on top of the existing plants, preventing them from growing properly by simply occupying the spaces they would grow into - and in some cases, physically kills leaves and branches by squeezing them.

Metastatic cancer is when tumor cells from one area migrate to another area of the body - the bad ones are typically liver, brain, and lungs.  Metastatic breast cancer, for example, can cause malignant breast tissue to start growing in your lungs.  This means that normal lung tissue gets essentially choked out by the fast-reproducing cancer cells, and your lungs stop functioning as they should.

This is why chemotherapy has the side effects that it does.  Chemo targets fast-growing cells, like tumor cells and kills them.  But you have many other fast-growing cells in your body like hair folicles, stomach lining, etc.  Those tend to die too, so you lose your hair and have trouble eating.  It's also why cancer treatment follows the general course that it does.  You try to excise the tumor before it goes metastatic and migrates around the body.  Once it metastisizes, you can't surgically remove all those tiny tumor cells so you have to poison them, either chemically or by applying radiation in the areas that the tumors are detected.  If the poison doesn't effectively kill them all, you will eventually die.


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

[User] ELI5: if ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) creates a mirrored sound wave, wouldnt it contribute to hearing loss if you are receiving more sound waves ?

[Assistant]
You're not receiving more soundwaves; that's the "cancellation" part of "Active Noise Cancellation."

When the chips inside the headphones flip the sound wave and play it, they cancel each other out and leave you with next to nothing.


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

[User]
What do you think of journals that require "highlights"?

In my last two papers I've been asked to add "highligths" after the abstract. A collection of 3-5 bullet points that should summarize my work. On top of the abstract. On top of the cover letter. On top of the "strongly suggested" "graphical abstract".

Seriously... Why?

[Assistant] An indicator of the general decline of discourse in our society. It is a carryover from business models, e.g executive summary, action-points, etc. It is commodification and decontextualization of knowledge.


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

[User] ELI5: Who are the "Rothschilds" why does this family have so much controversy, and considered the most powerful family ever?

[Assistant] They're rich, and they're Jewish. The rich part explains why they're considered powerful- money= power after all. Being Jewish and one of the richest families in the world means they're a lightning rod for every conspiracy theory involving rich people or jewish people (which means nearly all of them).


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

[User] Why does inhaling osmium kill you, and how does it do it?

[Assistant]
Finely powdered or shaved Osmium metal is pyrophoric and burns in the presence of oxygen to form osmium(VIII) tetroxide. Osmium tetroxide is non-polar, highly volatile, and a very strong oxidizer; oxidizers wreak all sorts of havoc on biological systems, but most of the time they're hard to introduce into the body. This compound, however, can penetrate skin (as well as most plastics) easily and is readily absorbed into the tissues of the lungs, eyes, and upper respiratory tract. From there it can spread to the rest of the body's tissues, causing general tissue necrosis.

Although not definitively proven to be the case, the most likely cause of death due to osmium tetroxide poisoning is pulmonary edema: lethal collection of fluid in the lungs. Chronic effects, if you survive inhaling it, include permanent staining of the corneas leading to blindness, organ damage, and organ failure.

What even makes it more dangerous is that by the time you smell it in the air, it's already too late. Its lethal threshold is somewhat under the concentration detectable by human smell.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does water ruin machinery and circuits?

i listen to music from my phones in my shower, and today a bit of water got into my phone speakers, which I then tried to dry quickly. I then thought, how does water getting inside my phone ruin my phone?

[Assistant]
It is the impurities in the water that connect to contact points within a device. If the device is on, the electric current can be sent to places that it shouldnt go and that causes damage. If those impurities dont make contact with the connections in your device and create a short then your device may be completely fine. The water does not automatically destroy devices, but it can trigger problems.

Even if your electronic device survives a water incident there is a chance of problems in the future. Water can cause corrosion, a chemical reaction, with metal and the circuit board. Electronics can often function with some corrosion, but you may notice issues or complete failure over time.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does trimming plants make them grow stronger?

[Assistant] The plant gives equal energy and nutrients to all of it's leaves, flowers, and stems. When a  part of the plant is dead or dying it is still giving nutrients to that part - when that part is trimmed off the energy can't go there any more and can feed the rest of the plant. For a plant that has multiple stalks/trunks like a bush or tree, the energy has to be split amongst each part, but if you trim the plant down to only one stalk/branch/trunk then all the energy goes to the one that's left.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do freshwater fish naturally occur in small isolated ponds and streams?

How do Fish like bass, trout, bluegills or any non migratory fish like salmon get to small ponds and streams that have no outside access?

I hope I explained my question well and don't sound stupid.

[Assistant]
Ducks and herons feed in shallow water. As they are feeding, fertilized eggs cling to their feathers and feet. As they go about their day they stop at various water spots, transferring the fertilized eggs into a pond or stream that previously had no fish.

It would only take a few eggs to start a new population.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is modern day camouflage pixelated?

[Assistant]
The pixelation softens the edges of the large scale pattern and makes the outlines, and thus the underlying objects, harder to discern. It is also a lot easier to fabricate clothing with pixelated designs which lowers the costs of the clothing.

So basically the Marines believe it to work better than traditional camo designs and it is also cheaper to produce, so that satisfies them on the two most important facets of uniform design.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do athletes spank each other?

Edit: I see alot have fallen onto the camaraderie explanation. Unfortunately, I feel unsatisfied. Why not just pats on the back?  Why not aggressively shake and rub another's head?

I played multiple sports but I never found the need to slap anyone's ass or felt that my morale or my teams went down as a result of a lack of ass slapping.

What are the origins?  Who first smacked their teammates ass? What have been the results of teams smacking and not smacking but instead showing another form of team chemistry?

[Assistant]
It's a comradery thing.

Being part of a team, there's a physicality that comes with it. You get changed in the dressing room together, you are all chummy and playful with each other. it's about keeping morale high and a tight knit group plays better together.

By maintaining that connection via fist bumps, hi 5's (stuff people do normally) hugs & pats on the back/butt (stuff team mates do) you keep the connection going and play better as a team.


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

[User]
What is the significance of "returning the power to the states"?

You hear this a million times in every debate. A candidate is asked about his position on a topic, and ultimately the answer boils down to, "I don't believe the federal government should be making those decisions. I think those choices should be left up to the state." Well, why? Why is it OK if a single state passes x law, but unacceptable if made federal policy? Why should what is "right" not apply to the entire country?

[Assistant]
It allows each state to pass legislation that is more tailor-fit to their population. Federal government passes a law that gay marriage is illegal, EVERYONE has to abide by it. Whereas places like Utah that may not be a big issue to the majority of people, places like California where the gay population is larger would be more upset. Similiarly, If the federal government required all personal automobiles meet a 30mpg fuel efficiency. That would go over well in New York, but smaller rural areas like Alabama where people drive trucks for functional purposes alot would be negatively effected.

Basically, Federal government should be making as few decisions and laws as humanely possible, and leave the states to do their own thing. The only time they should be stepping in is when one state is functionally denying its citizens their constitutionally guaranteed rights. (for example, overruling Chicago Illinois' restriction on people owning firearms, which is protected by the 2nd amendment)


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

[User]
[SW] Why did Obi-Wan not do anything concerning Anakins mother?

I understand that freeing slaves doesnt seem to be on the Jedi agenda, but surely Obi-wan could have at least taken Anakin to visit his mother, even if she couldnt be freed.

[Assistant] No attachments. You think Anakin was the only youngling with a bad back story? It wasn't the Jedi Order's goal to make Anakin feel better. It was their goal to sever his ties to anything outside the order.


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

[User]
Why don't the humans hacking into the matrix use color graphics, charts or maps?

When humans are hacking into the matrix they only use green symbols falling down. It seems that adding color graphics could add a lot of information to help them quickly distinguish things. Even if color displays aren't available, some simple things like charts, maps and 3D objects seem easy enough.

Is falling green text really the best way?

[Assistant]
I guess it's all about delay and security.

They have to quickly grab the data in order to react accordingly. If they had to program a computer to transcribe the data in more readable form it would take some time.

Let's say they still make a program to interpret the data because it only takes a handful of milliseconds to process it. A compture software means something the Matrix could hack one way or another, luring the resistance in deathly traps.

Learning to 'read' the green symbols is safer and once you master it, it seems pretty convenient to watch.


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

[User] [eli5] Humans and most animals breathe in O2(dioxide) and breathe out CO2(carbon dioxide) , where does the carbon come from?

[Assistant]
The food you eat.

The carbohydrate you eat is long chains of sugar. They are broken down to simple sugars like Glucose that is C6H12O6

You can sum up your metabolism of it  as

C6H12O6 + 6O2 = 6 H20 + 6  CO2 + usable energy.

So sugar + oxyger = water + carbon dioxide + usable energy.


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

[User]
[DC] Is it possible to kill Darkseid permanently?

I know that he's using avatars all the time, and he's merely losing that temporal form when he's defeated.
So is it even possible to get rid of his original "body" (and mind, obviously), the one on Apokolips, that supposed to be divine / new-god, for good?
Has this ever happened?

[Assistant]
It is possible to kill an avatar of Darkseid permanently. The Avatar, unless it is specifically resurrected, will not return on their own.

It is not possible to stop Darkseid from existing, because Darkseid isn't alive. Darkseid Is. Even if he doesn't exist in the same way as mortals or other gods at all times, he *Is*. He's somewhere out there, somehow. And he can always make new avatars.


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

[User] What is really up with all the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys? Are the clones? Are they Androids? Are they really all relatives that look identical and have the same name?

[Assistant]
They're not actually identical, they just seem identical to Ash and co.

All the Joys and Jennys are from an ethnic group not native to the part of the world in which the Pokemon series takes place. Being young children in a part of the world that doesn't seem to get too many foreigners, they have trouble telling them apart.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Hillary Clinton using her personal email a big deal?

[Assistant] By law, these are considered government related business documents and must be stored and maintained on government servers for future access in case of investigation, etc.  Anything that she sent from her personal account would not be stored on a government server.  Additionally, sending from a personal account is just simply not as secure as sending from a White House account and is more susceptible to hackers.


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

[User]
CMV. Some lives are worth more than others.

Truth be told, I don't necessarily believe this myself, but it's hard to make what I would consider to be a compelling argument against this.

The only halfway decent argument is that life in general are an unknown quantity; you never know what someone is going to be in the future. Still, this argument fails in that it inherently recognizes that the concept of a life's worth exists, and that there exists such a thing as a highly valued life and a lowly valued one.

I suppose another argument against this is the idea that worth is a highly subjective concept; still, that's more a philosophical argument than anything.

The concept that all lives are equal in worth is a pleasant one, but in reality, it doesn't hold up.

[Assistant]
By what objective measure can you make this statement? What is it about Life A that makes it worth more than Life B?

We have trouble evaluating worth when we can put something like money next to it (like is a blanket made from your dead grandmother worth more than a blanket that cost $100?). i kind of question your ability to evaluate lives without some kind of measurement.


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

[User]
ELI5:How does evolution work?

For example if a horse wanted to eat the leaves off branches it couldn't reach, how did it have the biological ability to grow a neck high enough so that it eventually could over millions of years? Does the brain pass slightly different genetical information when mating over a long period of time until it eventually becomes a giraffe?

[Assistant]
Eh no. Imagine a creature. And let's call it a horse. Imagine bigger horses are more likely to survive. They are stronger, faster, and more likely to survive to pass their genes. So majoirty of horses that survives during the milions of years are bigger. Now imagine horses with certain pigmentation of skin are more likely to survive (let's say their main predator doesn't like the collor). Soo majority of horses that survives will have that color.

Now imagine that horses that in famine ridden parts of the world are more likely to survive if they start to eat a certain herb that creates a specific substance in their stomach together with meat. Over the generations horses that are able to consume more herbs, together with the little meat they find are more likely to survive. Soooo only horses that are able to do those things survive. Now let's say that horses that are big enough, so they can reach higher on tree's get the best herbs. Sooo horses that can reach that far, are more likely to survive than .....

And if you do this again and again and again. For milions and milions of years. You will find that the organisms best suited for that particular enviroment evolve to be best suited (more or less) for that particular enviroment. Evolution is guided through natural selection.


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

[User]
When does wind chill become heat index?

I know that wind chill is used when it is cold and heat index when it is hot, but what determines when weather forecasters switch from one to the other?  Is it temperature, humidity, etc.?

[Assistant] Heat index is only used if the actual temperature is above 27 C (80 F), dew point temperatures greater than 12 C (54 F), and relative humidities higher than 40%. Wind chill is defined only for temperatures at or below 10 C (50 F) and wind speeds above 4.8 kilometres per hour (3.0 mph).


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

[User]
How "deep" does Mystique's powers go?

Does she change to the genetic level or only an outer shell?

[Assistant]
Beauty is only skin deep- and sadly so is Mystique.

The skin remains the largest change, but her power has enormous range

Whether large or small or fat or thin, it doesn't matter whose skin she is in.

Her veins run red though her skin looks blue, but her blood is still hers no matter what she shifts into.


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

[User]
EPLI5: Why is the shape called a trapezoid in the US and Trapezium in the UK?

I never quite understood why it needed two different names.

[Assistant]
back in the day american english deliberately tried to make itself more standardized and recognized (or standardised and recognised, heh) to distinguish themselves from the english. a big part of this was releasing new 'standard american' dictionaries.

trapezium and trapezoid were already two different definitions for a similar (nearly interchangeable) thing. but then when an american mathematical dictionary was released, and it quickly became a standard work, it wasn't realized that there was a mistake in there. they'd been reversed. the reverse definition stuck in america, while the british empire stuck to the other definition.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do higher end cars really NEED premium gas over regular unleaded?

Just bought a BMW and never thought much of the difference. Read numerous articles - some make a case for each side, but most don't really definitely state if Premium really makes a difference. Thoughts?

[Assistant] Yes they do. Higher-end cars compress the gas more. If you use a lower-octane gas, the gas will explode on its own, before the engine is ready for it. This may damage your engine, although most newer cars have systems in place that try to detect this and prevent damage.


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

[User] Are there crazy caves with no entrance to the surface pocketed all throughout the earth or is the earth pretty solid except for cave systems near the top?

[Assistant] Cave systems can be present deep underground in sedimentary rocks under the right conditions.  One way is to have a layer of limestone at the surface long enough to form a karst (cave) topography, then subsequently subside and be buried by thousands of feet of sediment.  The caves will still exist, but have no connection to the surface.  One place this occurs is some parts of Texas, where those deep caves can be a significant drilling hazard in oil and gas exploration.


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

[User]
[Halo] Mac canons have some insane energy payloads for the Haloverse. How do ships dampen the recoil from that energy, especially without crumpling like a can?

A 600 tonne slug for ships, 3000 for orbital defense platforms or maybe the Infinity, and traveling at 0.04C...That energy payload is about 1000 times more than the Tsar bomb in real life, which itself was 1.4% the suns energy output on *the entire earth*.

Speaking of which, if Halo Mac rounds can't one shot covanant ships, there is no way nukes should be able to even scratch them unless the weakest of them are a few hundred times more powerful than our most powerful bombs.

[Assistant] They don't.  They just go ahead and let the gun accelerate the ship.  A 600 ton slug, even fired at that speed, is only going to move a 100,000 ton ship so fast.  The engines can compensate after the slug is away.


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

[User] ELI5: How do animals teeth not rot away if they can not "brush" them like humans?

[Assistant]
They can, to an extent. But the diets that animals live on don't contain the kind of refined sugars we're used to.

If you compare the teeth of people before sugar plantations and refinery became a thing, to those after, you'll notice a huge difference.

Refined sugars are a superfood for bacteria, and that means they produce more of the plaque and other chemicals that lead to decay.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do many spray cans get cold when you shake them?

I always thought exciting a gas warms it up.

[Assistant]
Think of it like this - it takes heat to evaporate water, right? So you have to *put energy into the system* to turn a liquid into a gas. The gas is higher energy, which has to come from somewhere.

This is true for any evaporation, not just water. Any time a liquid changes into a gas, it will take energy out of that system (phase changes from liquid to gas require energy). When the liquid in the can changes into a gas, it pulls energy in the form of heat out of the system, and the temperature drops.


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

[User]
[Deadpool] Lifting weights.

Deadpool has some godly healing factor. If one day he decides he wants to get bigger and started lifting weights? Will his enhanced healing factor stop him from increasing any muscle mass since lifting weights involve tearing muscle fibres and letting it recover for muscle growth? Or his healing factor makes it even easier for him to grow his muscles since he can make more gains in a day than a regular human do in months.

[Assistant]
The latter, it makes it easier for him to gain muscle mass. Same with Wolverine. He heals new muscle mass faster than any human so he can bulk fast, and bulks regardless of caloric intake, as his regeneration isn't bound to diet, the mass generates spontaneously.

I can't remember if it's still canon to 616 but IIRC there's a brief explanation from as early as the late 1960s that *Homo Superior* in general tend to have at least a low-level healing factor which in part explains why even non-athletic heroes tend to be built. They're just very naturally prone to maintaining a good physique, so long as that physique doesn't contradict their powers. The same explanation also claims that *Home Superior* tend to naturally skew more attractive than humans (powers allowing), which is why so many mutants are good looking.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we call some foreign cities by their native names (Berlin, Salerno, etc.) whereas others get an Anglicized name (Rome/Roma, Munich/Munchen)?

[Assistant]
There's no real rule for this, but basically the more well-known the city is, the more likely it is to have a different name in other languages, especially if the native name is difficult to pronounce.

"Mnchen", for example, contains two sounds that don't exist in English. But that wasn't always the name of the city: about 1,000 years ago, its name (in Old High German) was "Munichen". All languages evolve and change over time, and this is true of names of cities as well. In English, "Munichen" gradually changed into "Munich", while in German it changed, through slightly different processes, into "Mnchen". We end up with different names.

If, on the other hand, you take a place like Tauberbischofsheim -- have you ever heard of it? Probably not, and it hasn't featured a lot in English literature. If it ever had a different name in English, we've lost track of it, so we just do our best to pronounce it the German way (and it's actually a bit easier than you might think -- certainly easier for a native English speaker than "Mnchen").

Berlin, on the other hand, is not as old as Munich. Not only that, but its name hasn't changed much over the centuries -- it's pretty much always been "Berlin" in German -- and it's pretty easy to pronounce. Why bother inventing a new name for it when "Berlin" is so easy to say?

Rome is an interesting one. In this case, the "E" on the end was originally pronounced -- 500 or so years ago, the "E" was never silent as it is today. "Rome", when it was first written in English, was pronounced "Ro-muh", very close to its Italian pronunciation. Back in those days, people were much less strict about spelling than they are now. They heard the Italian "Roma" and spelled out what they heard: "Rome", a good English spelling like "home" or "dome". In German, when they stopped pronouncing the second syllable, they also stopped writing it, so the German for "Rome" is simply "Rom". In English, we just kept the old spelling.

More distantly related languages cause additional problems. The city that used to be called "Peking" is now often called "Beijing". As you may know, Chinese is actually spoken in different dialects that are so different from each other, they might as well be different languages. The name of the city was originally composed of two Chinese characters, "north" and "capital", and means, very logically, "northern capital". How those characters are pronounced varies from place to place: when Europeans first arrived in China, they stayed in the ports in the south of the country, where the locals, speaking variants like Cantonese, pronounced the characters one way. It sounded to Europeans like "Peking", so that's what they called it. But the dialect spoken in the city itself is Mandarin, and in that variant the same characters are pronounced more like "Beijing". Many westerners have now taken the conscious decision to use the pronunciation the people who actually live there use, as opposed to the one used by the people who live in Hong Kong.

So, there isn't a simple answer to your question. But it's usually got something to do with history.


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

[User]
How does the concept of potential energy apply once you've escaped Earth's gravity?

The idea of potential energy seems pretty simple in a "high school physics" sense: if you lift a rock 1000 meters, then drop it, it will accelerate with the same amount of energy you put into lifting it against gravity in the first place (minus energy lost to friction, air resistance, etc., of course.) I assume this works the same way when you put something into orbit around Earth, that it has the same potential to fall back to Earth, minus the same factors. That's all well and good.

Now say that we send a probe to Jupiter. Eventually, the probe reaches a point very close to Jupiter, where Jupiter's gravity is influencing it far more than the Earth's gravity is. The probe accelerates towards Jupiter, converting potential energy into kinetic energy, and due to the greater mass/gravitational force, speeds up far more energy. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the "potential energy built up with respect to Earth," that is, the energy used to overcome the Earth's gravity. Our theoretical probe could also be attracted to a billion different stars depending on it's position, each of them accelerating it according to both of their masses and the gravitational force between them, but completely independent of whatever energy it used to escape Earth's gravity, or Jupiter's gravity, or whatever.

So, taking this to the extreme, does it mean that every bit of matter has potential energy due to its potential to be attracted to, and therefore accelerate towards, every other piece of matter in the universe? Sitting at my computer on Earth, do I have a massive amount of potential energy because, if I were launched out into space, I could accelerate towards whichever of the billions of stars exerted the greatest gravitational force on me, depending on my location at that moment? And to extrapolate even further, would most of this potential energy have been imparted to mass at the moment of the Big Bang, when everything moved away from each other and therefore developed the potential to accelerate due to gravity back towards itself?

So, what part of the concept am I missing?

[Assistant]
Potential energy is written a bit differently when you're talking about outer space rather than small displacements within Earth's gravity well (which is what your question is based on). The first thing is that **the sign of gravitational potential energy is negative**. Right now you have negative gravitational potential energy because it would require a lot of energy to get you off of Earth and into space.

The GPE equation is:

**E*_grav_* = - G M m / r**

G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass you're being attracted to, m is your mass, and r is your distance from the center of that mass.

An object in very deep space, outside galaxies and such, has a gravitational potential energy which is small in magnitude. Of course, the whole universe is subject to gravitational fields, so nothing has *zero* gravitational potential energy. But the GPE of a particle on the surface of a neutron star is far more negative (larger in magnitude) than that of a particle on Earth's surface, which in turn is more negative than that of a particle in transit between Earth and Jupiter.


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

[User] If, due to electromagnetic repulsion, I'm unable to actually come into contact with another object, why do I experience different sensations when touching different objects?

[Assistant]
Because "actually coming into contact" the way you are imagining it, is not a thing that exists in reality (as far as we know), and it's certainly not needed to explain any of our observations or experiences with touching things.

You probably have an idea in your head that in order to touch something, there has to be some "stuff" that takes up space and the "stuff" of two touching objects has to be next to each other in such a way that there's no empty space in between. In fact, this is not what is necessary for two things to touch. All that is necessary for things to touch is that they are close enough to be able to interact with each other through the various fundamental forces, mostly the electromagnetic force for the purposes of everyday experience. Things don't have to be physically next to each other with no space in between in order to interact electromagnetically, as the electromagnetic force can be transferred over otherwise empty space.

Furthermore, according to our current best model of fundamental particle physics, there is no such thing as "stuff" that takes up space in the world. We can describe all our observations and experiences by assuming that all particles are exactly point-like with no physical extent or volume whatsoever. Things appear solid and to "take up space" simply because of the nature of the fundamental interactions that occur between point-like particles. Now, it's quite possible that some kind of fundamental "stuff" exists at smaller scales than any of our experiments can detect, and that the truly fundamental constituents of matter do have volume and take up space; it would be incorrect to state that we know for sure that such things do not exit. However, what is important is that even if some kind of "stuff" exists on very small scales, it is not necessary, nor does it play a meaningful role, in explaining or facilitating any of the observations or experiences we have of touching in the everyday world. After all, in order to be consistent with existing observations this "stuff" would never have a chance to come into physically adjacent contact with other stuff in any situations or experiments we're currently able to perform.


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

[User]
[MCU] Is there a hierarchy to the Infinity Stones?

Like can one Stone trump another in a clash?

Like we see the Time Stone recreate the Mind Stone but we see really special conditions for the Soul Stone being acquired but could Thanos have gone back to Vormir and bring back Gamora using the Time Stone and still keep the Soul Stone?

Or is it a product of how The Infinity Gauntlet works? like Index finger is stronger than Ring finger or something like that?

[Assistant] This is kind of like asking what's better, a hammer or a bowl of chicken soup. The Stones serve wildly different purposes and without a specified goal there's no way to say which is better. The time stone could repair the mind stone because it has complete control over the flow of time, whereas it couldn't bend minds to your will or create new life as the mind stone could. Which stone is better depends entirely on what you intend to use it for.


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

[User] [MCU] Did Captain America only budge Mjlnir slightly because that's all he could manage, or because he was holding back to spare Thor's feelings?

[Assistant] That's all he could manage. Remember, the only measure of whether or not one can lift Mjolnir is *worthiness,* as defined by Odin. This is a rather hazy concept, but you can get a general sense of it; imagine what Odin would define as the qualities that should be held by a worthy champion and ruler of Asgard. Bravery, certainly. Honor. Humility, to a certain extent. Steve Rogers has all of these, but he lacks a certain purity of purpose and self-possession. Thor knows that he must someday ascend the throne of Asgard and become All-Father himself, and he willingly accepts this responsibility and the power over others that it entails. Steve Rogers, on the other hand, sees himself as a loyal soldier, one to be commanded, preferably by superior officers, but failing that, by the higher ideals of the concept of America. These are not the qualities of an Asgardian warrior, who rather than subject himself to command should instead revel in the honorable battle that will bring glory to Asgard and the All-Father. Steve has many of the properties that would classify him as worthy, and as such he is able to *budge* Mjolnir, but he does not yet have the full sense of worthiness. Someday, under the right circumstances, perhaps he may wield Mjolnir, but at that time, he did not yet possess all the required qualities.


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

[User]
[The Fairly Oddparents] Why did Cosmo and Wanda's previous child want to kill Archduke Ferdinand?

One of the previous children that Cosmo and Wanda were assigned to lost them because she used their magic to ensure the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

What motive would a little kid have to assassinate him?

[Assistant] In that timeline, the kid's family suffered greatly under the rule of Austria during World War 1 (yes it still happened, the whole continent was a powder keg surrounded by burning matches, the archduke was merely the first one to light the gunpowder.) The kid assumed by assassinating the Archduke they would secure the safety of their family during the war, but unknowingly sparked the war even earlier and made Serbian life even harsher in the interim.


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

[User]
[Looper] Wouldn't the whole movie have been erased?

Spoilers** after he shoots himself at the end, wouldn't everything go a completely different way?

[Assistant]
Nope, it's a loop.

Take a string, loop it back on itself a couple times.  It doesn't disappear.

HIS First loop, he closes his loop lives a rough life, doesn't meet his soul mate, and gets sent back to close his loop.  He doesn't fight because he's got nothing to live for in this loop.

HIS Second loop, he closes his first loop, lives a rough life, but **does** meet his soul mate, when it's time to get sent back to have his loop closed (the second time), he fights back and gets free.

There are some other loops going on that allow for the variance between his loops.

**Time** itself is not affected by individual loops, only those timelines influenced by each individual person's loop.  Everyone has their own string.  Like a carpet getting tugged on from above/below, with loose strings being woven back into the carpet in other spots.  It looks messy but the carpet isn't ruined.

Edit:  His FIRST loop was actually the life where he was a petty criminal that wasn't saved by the boss of the loopers.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are fizzy canned drinks in thin cans, while non fizzy canned drinks in thick cans? Wouldn't fizzy canned drinks need to be in thick cans to prevent then from exploding?

[Assistant]
The carbon dioxide is able to keep the cans solid enough for transport, as it is able to press against the walls.

Uncarbonated drinks however, do not have this pressure, and with thin walls would be very squishy and crushable (Cans would get squished and possibly burst or something). To counter this, they need thicker walls.


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

[User]
Is there any truth behind the idea that it's common to get sick soon after easing up after a long spell of strenuous work?

Let me explain more clearly. In the teaching profession a lot of people seem to think that teachers tend to get sick as soon as vacation rolls around. I think the idea that some people hold is that as soon as we let up it affects our immune system in some way - as if the immune system lets up as well (or something along those lines). Might there be some truth in this belief?

[Assistant]
Stress, in the very short term, causes a release of adrenaline; in the longer term, it's cortisol. Cortisol suppresses the immune system; in fact, the reason that steroids like prednisolone work is that they're like cortisol. It in suppressing your immune system, it makes you susceptible to infection, but will mask a lot of the symptoms or allow you to push through it. As you de-stress, cortisol drops, the infections are still there but your immune system suddenly takes notice of them (most symptoms are caused by your immune response, not the infection itself). So you get sick.

Fun fact: there's a marsupial mouse, the males of which only see one mating season. For that period of 2 weeks, they're so hopped up on cortisol that they don't eat and barely sleep; they just have astonishing amounts of sex until they're basically disease-ridden sacks of bones and patchy fur (because of the immunosuppressant action and the fact that it helps mobilise fat stores). Then they keep going for a bit longer and drop dead.


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

[User]
What does "collision" mean with respect to uncharged particles?

Consider two neutrons unlucky enough to enter the same space at the same time--perhaps they are called "free neutrons". Can they literally bounce off one another in the billiard-ball sense? Do they touch at one single point (as two ideal spheres would)? Does the surface flatten a bit and spring back? Is the Strong Force "at" their surfaces interacting between them so as to repel them from each other without touching?

Or, as a matter of fact, does physical contact even apply to entities in the nano realm, where quantum effects dominate?

[Assistant] Touching is not a well-defined thing in QM. But anyway, scattering works the same way for uncharged particles, its just some other force causing them to scatter. For neutrons, it would mainly be the strong force.


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

[User] My friend brought over some glass bottled beer that was room temperature and said that if we wrapped them in wet paper towels and put them in the freezer, they would get cold faster. Is this true?

[Assistant]
Yes. The water in the paper towels will chill and freeze quickly,  and since it's both denser than air and held directly against the bottle,  it will help draw heat out of the bottle.

Its not going to give you an icy beer in minutes,  but it will speed the process along.