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

[User] ELI5: How do torrents work?

[Assistant] You download a torrent file, which is basically a shared link to a ton of different people's computers. Then, when you download it, your computer connects to tens, if not hundreds or computers of people with the file. And instead of downloading the one big file at once, it downloads it in hundreds and thousands of little pieces. This also helps make it look like you're not downloading pirated material. Then, the torrent program (BitTorrent or Torrent or the like) assembles the pieces together into a complete file.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is third person called third person?

Why is third person called what it is? Is there a reason it is called that. Same for first and second.

[Assistant]
The "first person" is the person speaking, for obvious reasons.

The "second person" is the person being spoken to, since that's the very next possible person.

The "third person" is anyone remaining -- so, someone other than the speaker and the listener.


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

[User] ELI5: If remote controls use infrared light, why does it appear blueish when recorded on a cellphone?

[Assistant]
Near-Infrared light, such as what is used by infrared LED remote controls, appears purple/indigo/blueish when recorded by a lot of cameras because the engineers who programmed the image processing algorithms for those cameras chose to map infrared to an indigo colour in order to preserve the colour balance of photographs taken outside in full sunlight.

If the infrared light we can't see were mapped to a red colour in the photograph, then photographs taken in full sunlight would be disproportionately reddish.

By mapping it to blue (which has a lower intensity in sunlight due to being naturally scattered by the atmosphere), the engineers found a simple way to "dispose" of the signal.


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

[User]
What does this Nietzche quote mean?

>There is a false saying: How can someone who can't save himself save others? Supposing I have the keys to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?

[Assistant] It is saying that just because someone cant save themselves does not necessarily mean that they cant save others. The means of saving may be different and what it takes to save others may be completely different and perhaps even less than what it takes to save oneself.


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

[User] ELI5:If electricity takes the path of least resistance, then why does a lightning strike appear to be jagged, and not a straight line?

[Assistant]
Because it is taking the path of least resistance.

It's jumping from charge to charge throughout the air eventually ending up at the ground. If it was a straight beam then it would have to fight it's way through charges that it isn't attracted to.

Imagine the atmosphere like a crowd at a party. You are a bolt of lightning. It might seem like the easiest method is to go straight through the crowd, but in reality, you have to go at different angles to find the gaps between people that are easy to slip through, taking the path of least resistance.


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

[User]
CMV: Native languages should be an option to learn in North and South American schools.

With hundreds of various cultures struggling to maintain their relevance and culture within even their own community, there could be unprecedented interest if local schools offered the chance to speak the local native language with native teachers and an incentive to do so. Maybe even tours for helping, tourism or what have you.

This would increase native employment, allow other peoples to more interact with the native culture, create more influence within our society for natives instead of being pushed back, and help relations between races.

As it stands now, native communities are losing their people to a pure English speaking community, and if making the langue more modern and interested with peers, could help revolutionize the interest in native culture.

[Assistant] I can't imagine there's anywhere near enough teachers or student interest to consistently offer a class in native languages outside of schools that serve large numbers of native American students. Many schools have issues offering foreign languages at all or can only offer spanish. If you combine the limited numbers of speakers of most Native languages with the small fraction of those speakers who hold teaching licenses it seems unlikely they can be universally offered.


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

[User] [MARVEL] What was Drax doing to support his family? Where did he learn to fight?

[Assistant]
Well Drax in the MCU and Drax in the comics are very different people. MCU Drax comes from a warrior race, so he was likely a soldier, and even if he wasn't he would have learned how to fight anyways.

In the comics, Drax was originally a human named Arthur Douglass who was killed by Thanos. Kronos, the grandfather of Thanos, took Arthur's soul and placed it in a new body to create an entity capable of killing Thanos, known as Drax the Destroyer.


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

[User]
[Terminator Salvation] How does the resistance maintain large bases and airfields with a fully functional A-10 squadron and still remain hidden from Skynet?

It would seem like skynet, with it's access to airborne HK units and satellites would be able to detect these bases very easily.

[Assistant]
The resistance actually hold territory. Assumptively, SkyNet doesn't have the conventional force of arms to challenge the bigger resistance holdings, especially if they're further away from SkyNet's own power base (namely its factories); it also seem to have ran out of nukes. Not quite sure why it wouldn't just smother the place with conventional missiles, though, perhaps SkyNet's aerospace industry is not large enough to build both HK aerodrones and missiles, especially if the missiles are of very narrow use.

Conversely, the big resistance based are a huge investment and must be additionally protected by distance, which constrains their usefulness to the resistance. I'd expect dedicated air defence for the bases as well, because the A-10 is technologically antithetical air defence, and the pilots in Salvation clearly weren't ready for a basic 2-on-1.


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

[User]
ELI5: Do pistons ever stop mid cycle in an engine when it is turned off? How does the engine account for that when turned back on?

I mean specifically, is there ever a point where a piston is only partly open? How do you put appropriate fuel and air in to begin it's cycle?

[Assistant]
That is where the electric starter comes in (as always when you start).

The starter uses an electric current to spin the engine around and thus starting the engines cycle of intake-compression-ignition.


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

[User] [The Dark Knight] Why does the Joker give different stories about the origin of his facial scars?

[Assistant] It's his go-to joke, like Mark Twain's frog story. The joke is that normal people are too terrified to question it, and his cohorts are too cautious to point out that he's contradicting himself, which says something about the human condition if you're looking at it from the perspective of a lunatic.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was Vader ever going to try and kill palpatine?

Unlike most Sith who want to be more powerful and in charge or whatever Vader seems to lack ambition. At least from what I've seen his plan to overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy died with Padme(until Luke). Now he just wants to hurt people like he is also hurting.

A bonus question, what would Palpatine do if Vader never made a move on him? Would he eventually be frustrated by his apprentice's lack of drive? Obviously no Sith actually wants to be killed by his apprentice but having someone nipping at your toes forces you to evolve and improve as well.

An apprentice who is too strong to be killed by any potential rivals for you to replace them with but who also lacks any drive to come at you seems kind of disappointing and liable to lead to stagnation.

I know he was researching force cloning and stuff but I don't think that necessarily means he had abandoned the rule of two. All Sith seek to further dark knowledge in such ways as to become THE Sith Lord and don't believe they will ever be killed by their apprentice. The guy that invented force lightning probably thought he could never be defeated but he still took another apprentice who eventually defeated him and took that knowledge further.

[Assistant]
Vader did basically lose most drive to kill Palpatine. After losing Padme and his limbs, Sidious was all he had left. His only remaining friend who found value in him. He was content because there was nothing else. Turning to the dark side was for Padme and without her his ambition did take a hit. Not that he never thought about it. But he was overall content. His desires were mostly fleeting moments of frustration and plans that fell through.

That is until he learns he has a son. That returns his drive because now he has something. He has a family again and with his son having his potential he could overthrow the Emperor far more easily. Luke basically changes his life by existing.

Well sending assassins and threatening to replace him was basically how Vader was kept oh his toes, along with him continually pushing him through trials. Palpatine is well aware of their relationship and is fine with Vader as he is because his potential is always dangerous but he definitely doesn't foresee himself losing. And he would replace Vader with a more worthy candidate at a drop like he tried with Luke.


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

[User]
[Castlevania Netflix] What are forgemasters exactly? what makes them different from other magicaians like sypha and the crown king or alchemist like st.germain? Are they born with their powers? do they learn them?

Also how do they figure out what tools they need to invoke their powers ? does it always have to be those tools ? cause Hector brought his cat back with coins ? Also why are their magic imbued weapons so effective against vampires and night creatures and seem to be able to break other magic stuff like with Issac breaking the control crown?

Do they get to choose what kind of night creature they create or is it just at random ? Do they get to pick the soul ?  What is considered as powerful for a forgemaster?

[Assistant]
It's explained better in the games, in particular Curse of Darkness where you play Hector.

In short, they are humans trained in dark magic, spiritual metaphysics and alchemy by Lord Dracula and were his generals during his first reign of terror. They created a significant amout of his creatures in the past out of either pure dark magic of chaos or by turning dead humans into monsters, as we see Hector and Isaac do in the series.

There is a difference between the game and the show, though. In the game, the familiars created are called Innocent Demons and are utterly loyal to the summoners themselves and *not* Dracula. We see that the monsters created by Hector and Isaac are either demons summoned from Hell to the bodies or the actual soul in a body transformed into a monster.

They also seem to employ different summoning mediums and techniques; Hector seems to be the "Put the souls of the dead back into their own corpses and make them into monsters" school and primarily uses surgical techniques and making enchanted weapons, while Isaac summons random spirits into corpses in a cruder technique as well as specialising in breaking enchantments.

Think of it like doctors who branch out into specialist roles.


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

[User] What does the Universe's constant expansion mean for matter? Are distances at atomic level expanded, too?

[Assistant]
Long story short, no.

Don't think of metric expansion as stuff being stretched apart. It's a phenomenon of *geometry,* not of matter. Distances between fixed coordinate points grow larger over time, at a rate proportional to the distance between them. But *bound systems* are not fixed points. They're objects held together by whatever electrostatics, gravity, molecular bonds, whatever it may be. So metric expansion has no effect there.

You don't see the effect of metric expansion until you look at things which are sufficiently far apart that nothing is holding them together. Individual solid objects are held together; solar systems and galaxies are held together. Whole *galactic clusters* are held together. But clusters of galaxies which are separated by hundreds of millions of light-years aren't held together by anything. So the distances between them increases over time.


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

[User] [Candle Cove] Why were the puppets screaming?

[Assistant]
They're humans trapped in puppet bodies, they're bodies still feel pain as they're hanging on thin, taught strings. Limbs strung up in contorted, unnatural positions hoping they can escape this never ending torture.

They know though that the only way for them to escape is for children to watch their show. They need souls to replace them, so they can simply cease to exist. The best they can hope for is the absence of existence. They usually only get to a few episode before the pain is too overwhelming though. The Puppet Master doesn't like it when they scream so he simply puts them in the furnace and starts over again.


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

[User] ELI5: I've heard that stretching out our hands on a balance beam increases our balance, or putting two weights on the ends of a pole while walking on a tightrope makes it nearly impossible to fall. How is this done, what's the physics behind this?

[Assistant]
So this is to make your mass spread over a much wider area. What this allows the brain to subconsciously do is to detect when things are moving out of balance and counteract the motion. If you are holding onto a pole horizontally, you can observe the ends of the pole start to move out of 'balance' waaay before the point where you would fall. It also allows you to make much smaller movements to correct your balance.

Doesnt make it impossible to fall, just makes it a lot easier to realise you are falling and correctly do something about it.


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

[User] ELI5: How do the scissors know which hand Im using, and why do they care?

[Assistant]
When you close your hand naturally with a pair of scissors, your hand is pushing the ends of the two blades together because of the position of the pivot point. If you have the scissors in the wrong hand, then your are pushing the blades apart naturally. That is why right handed scissors do not work well in the left hand and vise versa.

If you compare left handed scissors to right handed scissors, you will see the two blades are on opposite sides of the pivot point for each pair.


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

[User]
How does chemotaxis work?

I've always been interested in finding out about just how antibodies can 'find' their target antigens- enlighten me please!

[Assistant]
You're asking two different questions. Antibodies don't interact with antigens by chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is when an organism moves in response to a chemical stimulus in the environment (like how you might move away from an area if you smelled a skunk, or if you moved towards an area if you smelled fresh baked cookies).

Are you asking about antibodies or chemotaxis?


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

[User]
ELI5: How do the cameras stay stable while everything else is blown away during a nuclear/bomb test ?

I think everyone knows that video with a house that is practically ripped to shreds by a nuclear test explosion.

How come the camera isn't also ripped apart ? They can't be using a zoom lens - the radius of the bomb is too big for that to be feasible, right ?

[Assistant] The camera's are typically in bunkers 5 - 10 miles away using a high power zoom lens. The footage of the two bombs on Japan was shot by the tail gunner at 50,000 feet and they still got hit by the shock-wave.


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

[User]
ELI5: Difference between isopropyl alcohol ("rubbing alcohol"), ethyl alcohol, and methyl alcohol?

Edit: Thanks guys.

[Assistant]
Ethyl alcohol is the kind you drink. It is produced by yeast. . The yeast eat some kind of sugar or starch and turn it into carbon dioxide and alcohol. In wine the process is pretty simple  yeast eats the sugar in grape juice and creates alcohol. In whiskey, the alcohol is distilled to get the concentration higher.

Ethanol that you purchase as a car fuel is the same kind of alcohol found in whiskey, but it has been distilled to the point where it is nearly pure alcohol (as opposed to whiskey which is typically only 40% alcohol and 60% water).

Methanol is sometimes found in windshield wiper fluid to keep it from freezing, and it is also used as the fuel for Champ cars and Indy cars. It is sometimes called wood alcohol because it used to be made from wood, but today its made from natural gas. Methanol is poisonous, and it is one of the chemicals that can be used to poison denatured alcohol.

The chemical difference is how many carbon atoms there are.


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

[User] eli5: When driving into a tunnel, why does it take quite a distance in for you to loose radio signal but you don't get it back till right at the exit, not a similar distance to the exit as you lost it from the entrance?

[Assistant]
It mostly has to do with the way radio receivers work.

It uses something called a *phase-locked loop*.

Basically, once your car has found the signal it "locks" to it which makes the signal clearer even though you might get a few disruptions here and there. This is why you are able to keep hearing the station even after you are in the tunnel a bit. The signal is very weak but your car knows what to do to boost it.

But after you completely lose the signal you are going to need a good strong signal to re-lock to the station.


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

[User] ELI5: Why every time I look at my bathroom mirror I think I look pretty good but every time I take a picture I think that I look horrible?

[Assistant] When you see yourself in the mirror every day, you're actually seeing a version of you that's backwards. So when you see what you actually look like to others, rather than the backwards you that you're used to, it looks completely strange.


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

[User]
[Arkham Knight] What if Scarecrow hadn't given Batman the second dose?

!!!!SPOILERS FOR BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT!!!!

At the end of the main mission line, Scarecrow doses the captive Batman with Fear Toxin. This unleashes the Joker personality and it carries through back into Bruce's body with full control. Scarecrow doses Joker-Batman and the inner-fight allows Batman to regain control.

What if Scarecrow had not given him the second dose? Thinking that Batman had to be insane with fear, he allowed him to sit and cackle like a madman.

Red Hood still frees Joker-Batman like he did in the real game. Instead of Bruce, Gotham gets Joker fully in control of Batman's mind, body, assets, and connections. How screwed is Gotham?

It is entirely possible that Red Hood gets a bad feeling about giggling Bruce and let's Scarecrow wax him, but that scenario is not nearly as fun to speculate on.

[Assistant]
Just like in Batman's hallucination, Gotham is going to be a playground for Joker's sick games until he gets bored and burns it to the ground.

The whole game is a showcase of how dangerous Batman is when he *isn't* willing to kill. Look at the obstacles he overcomes - *all* of Gotham's active supervillians are collaborating to wear him down; Gotham is occupied by a highly armed paramilitary force specifically trained and equipped to take him down; the streets are full of rioting thugs; the main leader of this paramilitary force is almost as dangerous as he is, knows all of Batman's secrets, knows how to counter all of his techniques, and has the loyalty of an army behind him. By the end of the night, the majority of his allies have at some point been captured, turned against him, or otherwise taken out of commission.

Batman retakes Gotham from all of the above, virtually singlehandedly, in a *single night*. Secure bases are effortlessly infiltrated. Armies of tanks are scrapped. Entire rooms full of soldiers are thrashed in brawls.  All without killing anyone or firing a single gun. Alert, armed patrols are strung up from gargoyles.

Joker-Batman has all that skill, *plus* is willing to kill, use firearms, and abandon friends and allies.

Gotham will burn, without question. It's just a matter of how long until Joker-Batman puts the city of its misery.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some devices need huge, clunky transformers to go from AC to DC, while others (like USB) are just a tiny plug?

[Assistant]
Transforming power from AC to DC is a relatively simple task if you only need a little bit of power.  However, if you need lots of power then you start worrying about the amount of heat that you are producing.

Something like a USB plug is not going to have to supply more than a few watts.  Such a device is never going to have to worry about how much heat it produces.  However, something like a laptop power brick can provide over 100 W (mine is 135 W).  The more power a device needs to draw the more power it has to waste as heat, generally.


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

[User] ELI5: What is a game engine?

[Assistant]
Let's say you're making the game Super Mario Brothers.

You start writing the code for level 1-1. You write code to add some blocks where they go, put a goomba in, put the pipes, etc. Then you write code to keep track of where Mario is, how he jumps, and what to draw on the screen depending on where he is. Awesome, level 1-1 is working perfectly.

Now it's time for level 1-2. Hmm...well this level also has blocks, and goombas, and pipes. So I'll just copy the code from level 1-1 and paste it here. And Mario still moves around and jumps, so I'll copy that code too. Now level 1-2 is working. We're making great progress. Sure, 90% of the code here is the same as from level 1-1, but it works so we won't worry about it.

Now we've done this for a lot of levels. We have worlds 1 through 4 done! But uh oh, we just discovered a bug in the code that makes mario move around. And we've copied this code into all 16 levels we've coded. Ok, so we'll just go through all of them and fix the bug. That's kind of tedious, but it works.

Then someone else comes along with a brilliant idea. What if instead of writing separate code for all our levels, we made up a way to put how a level looks into a text file. Like maybe one line would be "block 23 9" which means that on the 23rd column of our level, there's a block 9 squares above the ground. Now we can save all our levels in files, and then just write code once that will load the file for a level, then draw that level, control how Mario moves around in it and jumps, and all of that. We don't have to copy and paste it for each level anymore, we only have to fix bugs we find in one place.

What we've just created is the game engine for Super Mario Brothers.


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

[User]
How accurate must the time of launch be for spacecraft on a slingshot path?

Since these missions rely on the position of planets in space, what kind of margin of error are we talking about for the time of launch? Would a few hours delay screw the whole thing up?

[Assistant]
Hi, Aerospace Engineer here who works Guidance, Navigation, and Control on interplanetary rocket launches for a living. While there can be some corrections performed en route once launched, they are minor and mostly for correcting very minor dispersions.

Interplanetary missions have either instantaneous launch windows once or twice a day, or short windows (nearly always less than 2 hours) once a day. Those short windows shift by a few minutes each day to account for the rotation of the Earth, the movement of Earth in its orbit, and the movement of other planets in their orbits. Launch Vehicles with RAAN correction can help lengthen the launch window, as can the type of trajectory and type of mission (is it slamming into Mars with a balloon or parachute, is it doing a precise aerobraking maneuver, or is it doing a series of gravity assists on multiple planets).

For instance, Delta II Mars missions had instantaneous windows since the Guidance system of the Delta II couldn't correct for plane changes due to launching late. Most Atlas V launches to interplanetary targets had longer windows (still less than 2 hours), since it has a more advanced Guidance system.


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

[User] [Game of thrones] so oberyn kills the mountain after getting him to admit to what he did to his sister and that tywin gave him the order, what happens next? Does he leave there alive?

[Assistant] Yeah, pretty much. Tyrion is released. Oberyn gets his revenge punishment-free and probably starts plotting his next plan. The rest of the Lannisters (except Cersei) would not risk war with the Dorne by arresting the Dornish prince just because he legally kill a man under trial of combat.


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

[User] ELI5: When your sick with a cold why do symptoms like sneezing and runny nose seem to stop when you're sleeping but start again as soon as you wake up?

[Assistant] Being deeply asleep is a vulnerable time for your airway. It's best for the body not to pump pints of mucus into the throat and mouth as you auto breathe in deep sleep. It makes sense for the body to shut these mechanisms off as you sleep to protect your breathing.


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

[User] ELI5:What exactly is a voice crack?

[Assistant]
When you speak, air travels between two thin folds of flesh in your throat called the vocal folds. When brought together, the air passing between them causes them to vibrate against each other and thereby produce sound like a reed.

If something goes wrong, the folds dont come together at the right time or you slacken a little bit involuntarily, they can flop around a little. That would be a voice crack.

They happen most often during puberty because at that age the larynx (voice box) grows rapidly. Speaking and singing are exercises in muscular coordination, and if your body is not subconsciously used to the size of the instrument its dealing with there will be more little flubs.


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

[User]
[DC] With the ability to absorb and convert sunlight on a cellular level, could Superman (and other Kryptonians) generate electricity?

Kryptonian cells seem to behave similarly to miniature "nuclear reactors" and/or photovoltaic systems, with remarkable efficiency.

With immense focus, determination, and an sufficient amount of solar energy, could Superman generate electricity? Even if he could, I would imagine that it would require quite a lot of his solar reserves, and he probably couldn't generate tremendous amounts of electricity.

[Assistant]
He's not using solar energy. He can't be, since his power output is probably billions of times greater than the amount of light reaching his skin. Something else is going on.

However, he can definitely generate electricity. Just have him manually rotate a giant turbine. Or just lift huge amounts of water to the top of a dam. Or boil the water in a steam engine using his eyes. Or a million other ways.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is the chicken associated with cowardliness?

[Assistant]
Chickens are easily started, and will run around aimlessly when harmed.

It's the same reason why cowards are called "scaredy cat" or "pussy": cats are also easily startled around strangers. If an alley cat walks into your backyard, usually they'll freak out and run away when you try to pet it.


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

[User]
What's the best strategy for dealing with windows suddenly fogging up while driving?

My car does not have a defogging setting to my knowledge. (The manual refers to defrost settings).  I can use heat, A/C, recycle air, and change the air distribution (up, passengers, floor, or all 3).  I can also close the passenger vents.  The airflow to passenger vents by the windows can be diverted to a special window vent.

[Assistant]
Fogging is caused by moisture inside the car condensing on a cold windscreen.

Get air blowing on the windscreen - this will evaporate the condensation. Hot air is better, but any air is good. Open the windows to allow the internal moisture out. As long as you're breathing you're increasing the relative humidity inside the car if you don't let the humid air out.


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

[User]
[Star Trek Voyager] So... 7 of 9. She's one of the first humans assimalated as Borg. Why do The Borg in her flashbacks look like human Borg? Plus questions about her Starfleet uniform.

Voyager Spoilers follow.

Heels. Seriously? Heels? I've walked in heels. It's not comfortable or utilitarian.

Also, her heels are _super_ high. That's ridiculous. Also also, how could she breathe? Also also also... I know that Janeway has a history of making decisions that I disagree with ethically, killing Tuvix, killing the electronic construct that represented Fear. Both of those individuals were new creatures. Brand new and both had a right to exist.

When Moriarty attempted to overtake the starship Enterprise Captain Picard did not kill him.

Ugh. DS9 Next Generation have more consistent quality. But once I'm done with Voyager I will have Enterprise series and no more. I pray there will be new Star Trek for me to watch and enjoy soon. I can't imagine there not being new episodes of any Star Trek for me to enjoy.

A bit rambling. For sure. But.. Some questions are still there.

Janeway kidnapped 7 of 9 from The Borg. The question of Hugh troubled Captain Picard and the crew for some time. They could have destroyed all of The Borg with a virus. Janeway didn't consider that. She didn't even second guess the idea of kidnapping 7 of 9. As The Doctor says, it is important to keep in mind the wishes of the patient. 7 of 9 said that she didn't want to leave the collective. Certainly that is The Collective talking but their humanity isn't there. If someone is in an abusive relationship it is important that individual choose to leave the relationship.

Ugh. The episodes are good. And it is up to her decisions I still like it. I just... ugh.

I would have been far more interested in watching the faulty hologram try to adapt to the ship than watching 7 of 9 try to adapt. And I also miss Kes. She was cool and unlike any other character. Her disappearing is like Dr. Crusher disappearing.

[Assistant]
>Why do The Borg in her flashbacks look like human Borg?

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of bipedal humanoid species in the galaxy. Many of them look rather similar; bleach their skin and carve away all their distinctive facial features, and *all* of them start to look rather similar.

>Janeway kidnapped 7 of 9 from The Borg.

No, Janeway took Seven of Nine as a prisoner of war and detained her as an agent of a hostile foreign government. She then rescued Ms. Annika Hansen, a Federation captive held by the Borg Collective, from the mental prison the Borg had her trapped in. The former action is defensible, the latter is commendable.


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

[User] ELI5: What are these new-age solid-state batteries? How are they different from conventional batteries?

[Assistant]
They're batteries that use solid electrodes or electrolytes instead of liquid.

They have potentially higher energy density, and are safer since they're not flammable. They also have longer lifespans and don't produce as much heat.

I think the problem at the moment is that they're not ready to be mass produced and so they're expensive.


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

[User] ELI5: How do EMPs work?

[Assistant]
A change in the the magnetic field in a conductor causes a current of electricity to flow.

Electrical current through non-superconductors produces heat.

An EMP is a sudden spike and drop in the magnetic field intensity, causing a powerful current to be induced in circuits, melting or burning them.


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

[User]
Quitting postdoc fellowship to change careers completely

Long story short, COVID really did a number on my mental health and made me realize that Ive been forcing myself to continue down my career for everyone else (family/PI pressure, guilt of using funding) and not for myself.

I decided that I need to leave my fellowship and change careers entirely, but Im not sure what the correct etiquette is. I wasnt really given a formal contract either, so Im wondering if breaking this decision to my mentors during our next scheduled meeting and giving a two week notice would be appropriate?

Any insight would be appreciated!

[Assistant]
I would give way more notice than two weeks. 1-2 months is better. The most professional way to handle this would be to tell your PI in person and tell them you would be willing to train people. Its not easy to replace someone on short notice so the more you can do to ease the transition the better things will be with your PI.

Also, not to pry but do you have a job lined up? A career to switch into? Its fine if thats your choice but another option is time off from lab to see if thats what you want to do, and that way you dont burn a bridge in the process.


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

[User] ELI5:Why is mordern sci-fi so predominantly dystopian?

[Assistant]
Back in the golden age of science fiction you could captivate readers with imaginings about future technology and wonders.  Just "going to an alien planet and seeing strange stuff" was already enough of a mental thrill to make your audience fall in love.  This was, to me, one of the things that really defined science fiction as its own genre.  It didn't need your typical dramatic story elements or plots because it could simply rely on the pleasure of imagining ideas playing out.

Like in every other art for however, the audience can only take so much of one thing.  We are imagined out.

Now the audience wants the more familiar fiction story elements but with a science fiction wrapper (setting, idea, etc.).

And that means conflict.  That means at the start of the story something is terribly wrong that needs to be set right by the end of the story. In science fiction the most obvious candidate for what is wrong is the technology, the science aspect.

If you have some time, watch the first episode of Star Trek TNG and then the first episode of DS9.  TNG starts with this wide eyed wonder and sense of exploration and moral uprightness.  We are going to go out there and do great things because we are great people!

Star Trek DS9 starts on a MUCH darker note.  Internal rivaly, disgust...  Imagine the balls it took the writers to have the new main character DESPISE the single most well liked character in Star Trek lore (Picard).  Picard invites Sisko to have tea and sisko basically tells him to pour it up his butt.  Amazing stuff and it goes directly to the evolution of science fiction.


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

[User]
Why were Native Americans so much further behind in terms of progression and technology?

What were the main factors? Was it cultural, climate related, or some other reason?

[Assistant]
Native americans followed a completely independent historical trajectory from the rest of the world, given the geographic isolation. If you view cultural adaptations as goal oriented (i.e. the goal should be western civilization) then yes, everyone in the americas failed. But this is more because of the different historical trajectory they followed, and no (modern) anthropologist would frame this issue in that way.

The way native americans lived was perfectly suited to where they lived, and they have been immensely successful.

Given that the inhabitants of the americas independently invented or used metallurgy, writing, states, domesticated crops (and animals), monumental architecture, city planning, mass production of goods, long distance trading networks, political alliances, production of exquisite pieces of art, massive irrigation canals and sustainable farming practices (and thats all relatively recently. They occupied much of the content in almost a blink of an eye, and figured out ways to survive in just about every kind of environment imaginable thousands of years ago), I'd say they were doing quite well for themselves. inuit cold weather gear was studied by NASA when they were first designing space suits.

If your question was focusing more on native north americans, there is still massive variation in the kinds of cultures that made their way in the region, from chiefdoms (hopewell) to smaller bands of hunter gatherers (athapaskans).


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

[User]
(Portal) Why did GLaDOS want to kill everyone?

What incentive does GLaDOS have to kill everyone? If you think about it she should love humans seeing how they were created by them.

[Assistant]
A good chunk of it probably comes from Caroline, who was the basis for her personality now. Caroline didn't want to be digitized, she didn't want her mind put into the computer. The idea revolted her, she hated it.

They put her in anyway, then tacked on a bunch of things that unbalanced the already furious mind inside the computer.

She doesn't have any reason to love humans. She used to BE human. She despises all of the scientists, everyone who worked at that facility, and blames them all for what happened to her. Even if she doesn't remember what they did. It's not mindless hate, it's revenge for a violation that she doesn't even remember.

That and she gets off on subjects performing difficult tests.


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

[User] [DC] If Wonder Woman is the daughter of Zeus, shouldn't she have electric powers similarly to how Thor does from Odin?

[Assistant] Greek gods don't pass down powers like that. Officially, Zeus has 28 children (Diana would be 29). Unofficially.... we won't go there. Suffice it to say, those that are demigods like Diana also do not have electric powers - Hercules, for example.


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

[User] How does your body produce keratin and what can you do to control the amount it produces?

[Assistant]
Well keratin is a protein, albeit a very common protein and one that is very strong. It in essence highlights how strong the amide bond really is.

Anyways, keratin expression is regulated by mRNA levels, which is cell type dependent.   The most familiar cell with the keratin you know is called a keratinocyte, and they produce a ton of keratin.

There is little or nothing you could do to change this with current technology.  Ramping back on the amount of keratin produced in your whole body would cause you to in all likelihood die within hours. It is not just a component of your hair and nails but also a major part of your individual cells cytoskeleton. In essence each of your cells has a very elaborate and dynamic network of cytoskeletal proteins (Tubulin, actin, and keratin being  prominent) that are literally 100% necessary for life.


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

[User]
[X-men] how are mutants generally looked at?

1. I know they have those hate groups but in general how do the average citizens think of them.  In the comics I've read they only focus on the hate groups or the villain. Do mutants have fan groups too?
2. Could Professor X just make the US love them and be done with it, if he didn't have moral objects to brain washing the public?
3. If Magneto just joined Charles would it have all gone smoothly (other then the really crazy villains out there) with the average citizens?
Bonus: If Charles and Magneto had there views on the world switch could Magneto beat him?

[Assistant]
1. In general they're hated and feared, but a lot of the X-Men are seen as counter culture icons, particularly Cyclops, and there've been quite a few mutant celebrities like Dazzler, Jumbo Carnation and the X-Statix that have gotten mainstream success.

2. Yeah probably.

3. There's a What If? on the former and human/mutant relations are much better but still not perfect and there are still mutant hate groups and villainous mutants.


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

[User]
[Rogue One] If K-2SO is a reprogrammed imperial droid, does that mean his heroics are only an illusion, a result of his hijacked CPU?

Is his loyalty to the rebellion simply due to programming?  Does his self sacrifice carry any emotional weight, or is he just conducting an operation like a roomba cleaning a floor?  What about R2-D2?  He has more heroic feats than anyone else in the Star Wars series.

[Assistant] It depends on how long it's been since his last wipe. Legend has it that the longer a droid goes without a wipe, the more complex their personality becomes. If it's been years, K-2SO might very well be a unique individual capable of free will.


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

[User] ELI5: How is the queen bee chosen?

[Assistant]
When a hive doesn't have a queen (because she's died or flown away), or when some other conditions are met, the workers will move a few eggs into special extra-large cells and supply the grubs the hatch with special food called royal jelly, so that they grow to be queens.

The first of the queens to emerge from her cell immediately goes around and kills her unhatched competitors, leaving no competitors.


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

[User]
ELI5: The difference between 1080p, 1440p, 4k, etc... like is something putting out 4k but shown on a 1080p monitor gonna look the same as something being put out at 1080p on the same monitor?

I understood the number references the pixel count but what makes more pixels = a better pixel? And to my understanding, 4k takes two to tango.. like your system/movie/etc has to put out or support 4k resolution while your tv or monitor or whatever has to be 4k as well. So is there any benefit to having a 4k game on a 1080p display? Conversely, will a 1080p game look better on a 4k TV vs a 1080p tv?

[Assistant]
A 4k image on a 1080p screen will usually look better than a 1080p image on a 1080p screen.

This is due to the 4k image having used more pixel data to preserve the original image in a less compressed manner. "Down sampling" the 4k image to 1080p means turning each set of 4 pixels in a square into 1 pixel in the resulting 1080p image. The result of this operation will produce a better picture than if the source material had been saved at 1080p to start with, this is due to image compression. When you compress an image you kind of squish the colors and shapes a bit to fit in nice neat patterns, this results in a blurrier image that is less accurate but saves greatly on data. A compressed 4k image still has far more image information than a compressed 1080p image, and as a result down sampling the compressed 4k image to 1080p will look much nicer than plain compressed 1080p.


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

[User]
I think you be required to do community service if you want to keep unemployment insurance after 99 weeks. CMV

Nobody likes to lose their job. I get it, if you can't find work, then you should have a safety net that pays you. But after nearly two years, I think you should have to earn further payments. After 99 weeks, you should be required to do community service in order to keep your benefits. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, help a veteran build a home, pick up litter. It doesn't matter, as long as you help out. This was originally an idea by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I think it would greatly improve the United States.

Go ahead. Change my view.

[Assistant] I can give you an excellent example of this program failing in Australia. We had a nationwide program called Work for the Dole (Dole being slang social welfare payments) which ended a few years after its creation a decade ago from memory. There were several reasons for it closure; it cost the government more, stretched already allocated human resources, and had limited outcomes. To give some examples of what happened; all of a sudden many unemployed were required to find their own volunteer work in charities etc which inundated charities to the point many wouldnt take the volunteers on. Not only did front line workers in charities feel pressure to fill medial jobs for government incentives but their own jobs were being compromised by unskilled workers and people who didnt want to be there (no just the bludgers but people who wanted to find work and found the exercise almost pointless to helping themselves). So as part of the plan the government made programs that were rolled out to fill the need to hire volunteers, which meant hiring more people and more money. One of those programs was the clean-up parks and bushland, because of insurance requirements the volunteers had to go through expensive training in something they would never benefit from after the program. So you have 2 paid workers and bus full of people, many of whom did not want to be there, go out picking up rubbish. Some people really did work hard and it was reported back through social services to report to potential employees as reference, that was good but it had little value to potential employees in reality. Than you had the people who didnt want to be there and would durdle around and pick up trash straight out of public bins etc and to top that off we started to see cases of insurance claims because the volunteers were either under-trained, under-supervised, or otherwise just incapable of doing that type work. Overall it was a costly disaster. We do have a better system now where people can earn credits and even mildly increase their payments for finding truly needed voluntary work. Its much simpler, cheaper, and much more beneficial to society because the work they do is needed.


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

[User] ELI5: Where do ethics come from?

[Assistant] Humans are social creatures. We live and work and play with each other. We need rules that protect everybody from everybody else. These rules are sometimes called laws or ethics. When you talk about the collective rules of a society and of personal interaction, you are talking about ethics.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Anakin kill lots of people who were neither jedi, rebels, nor political opponents?

Didn't he consider himself one of the good guys (although heavily misguided)? If he truly thought "from my point of view, the jedi were evil", why did he kill lots of people who weren't even remotely related to the Rebel Alliance or the jedi? If he believed that he was the "good guy" and the jedi/rebels were "bad guys", shouldn't he only stick to killing jedi/rebels?

And what happened to abolishing slavery? Wasn't one of the reasons he helped destroy the Galactic Republic was that the Republic was too weak and corrupt to enforce their anti-slavery laws?

[Assistant] If you truly believe "the Jedi are evil", then it's a small step to "the Jedi, and people who help them are evil". And it's another small step to "People who try to stop me are helping the Jedi, so they're Evil". And so on. That's how people slippery slope themselves into the dark side.


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

[User] Eli5: Why is it when you see a propeller (like from a turbine airplane) starting up it seems to switch directions as it spins faster and faster ?

[Assistant] You typically don't see this with your eyes, but do with a video camera.  It has to do with aliasing, which means you aren't taking pictures fast enough.  If your camera is doing 30 fps, it takes one picture every 1/30th of a second.  If the propeller is spinning at 30 rotations per second, it will appear to be still, because it will be in the same spot every time the camera takes a picture.  If it's going a little bit less than 30 rotations per second, it will actually appear to move backwards because it rotated *almost* all the way around by the time the next picture is taken.


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

[User]
[District 9] Are the smartest Prawns more intelligent than the smartest humans?

On the one hand, I have access to more accurate knowledge and more efficient technology than Archimedes or Aristotle, but they were most likely inherently more intelligent than I am, so what is evidently superior technological access doesn't necessarily mean that Prawns are smarter. Quite the opposite, in fact: if Prawns are a social and communicative species, that may mean that they hit an evolutionary peak and that their technological progress meant that there was no more evolutionary pressure to drive the development of their intellectual sophistication. However, Christopher's engineering feats and the advanced social and emotional intuition of his infant child seem to betray an inherently more advanced race. Thoughts?

[Assistant]
Actually it's more simple than that.

The ship was full of working class "Drones", the uneducated lower class of society - basically rednecks, chavs, bogans etc.

Christopher wasn't part of the lower class.


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

[User]
ELI5: How on earth do batteries work?

I've researched it, and I don't understand it.

[Assistant]
They have a chemical inside that is capable of holding extra electrons. When you charge them, you use the energy from the power plant ( or solar panels/ wherever the hell it comes from) to pump the chemical to a higher energy state (lots of extra electrons). When you discharge a battery you complete a circuit from the negative to the positive terminal. The positive terminal is a different substance that wants more electrons. It pulls them from the negative terminal through the circuit (the device the battery is powering).

It's like a little pressurized container for electrons. You pump it up with energy and it holds it to high pressure, the pressure is released and utilized when you connect the negative to positive terminal.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is Treasury yields and why does it cause the market to slide?

What does it mean when the news reports that US Treasury yields?

What's the Treasury's relationship with the market that causes it to slide over the week?

I've tried to read up about it, but it just gets more confusing. I was surprise to find that there are 3-month US treasury, 1-year US treasury, 2-year treasury, and so on. What are they?

The one that has gone up recently is the 10-year treasury. Why that 10-year treasury but not other intervals of treasuries? And why does that 10-year treasury have such impact to the market?

So there so many questions running in my mind. It will be great if someone can explain this to me. Thanks!

[Assistant]
First all the quick answers:

Treasuries are US government debt.  Yields are how much interest the US government will pay lenders to loan money to them for a certain period of time.  10-year treasuries are the long term benchmark rate, they're the bench mark because they're a very liquid market.  All the other rates are just different terms (pretty similar to a 3-year, 5-year, or 7-year car loan) the government can get more money for less interest by offering a variety of terms.

Now the why:

Treasuries are like the basic unit of investing.  The US government has a very good reputation with investors, so treasuries are the safest return one can get over a period of time.

That means that when treasury rates rise, all other investments need to adjust (because if riskier investments don't provide at least that much return, investors are better off selling the other investment and buying the treasury).  Sort of like an employer known to hire essentially everyone paying more than other more selective employers, the selective employer is going to have to keep their wages higher than the employer who hires anyone if they want to keep getting employees.

So when treasury yields rise, all other investment income rates also have to rise, and that means most investment prices fall.


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

[User] ELI5-why doesnt honey expire?

[Assistant] Honey has very little water in it which makes it impossible for bacteria to survive in it long enough to decompose it. Other foods with little to no moisture also last for incredibly long times, such as dried rice.


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

[User]
ELI5:How well would a current family car performs if we bring it back in time to compete in 1950s Le Mans?

EDIT: To sum it up, the dry sump and the cars' handling over Circ du Sarthe would be the deciding factors, making the 50s race cars an edge over our family car.

But I do feel like TopGear should do an episode on this. Eye opening discussion guys, thanks.

[Assistant]
The Jaguar D type had 250hp, did 0-60 in 4.7 second, and had a top speed of 168. Sounds close. IDK about it's handling numbers, but it weighs about 1/2 of what an average family car does so I'd give it the advantage. A huge factor: the D type had a 40 gallon gas tank and it got 22mpg. I'd say the Jag is clearly in the lead.

The deciding factor: the Jag had a dry sump to get oil to the engine but a family car uses an oil pan. The G's created in the long corners of the Circ du Sarthe (sp?) would starve the motor of the family car of oil and the motor would seize, probably before the jag even had its first pit-stop (which would come at the time of the third pit stop for the family car)

  The race wouldn't even be close.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we discount the possibility of life on extrasolar planets outside their "Goldilocks Zones," when life on moons (Enceladus, Europa) within our own system, well outside our "habitable zone," are possibilities?

[Assistant] Because we currently have a sample size of 1 planet where we know something we understand to be life exists--so we look for as similar circumstances as we can find.  We know Enceladus and Europa are *possibilities*, but we know life on Earth is a certainty, so we look for other Earths, rather than other Enceladi and Europae.


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

[User]
What's the difference between the Law of Excluded Middle and the principle of Bivalence?

Hi friends,

If we say:

Bivalence - A proposition is either true or false

LEM - Given any proposition, either it's true or it's not true (P  P)

How are these two different?

What's the difference between "true or not true" (LEM) and "true or false" (Bivalence)?

Given a pair of contradictory opposites, if both the LEM and Bivalence result in only one option being true, the other being false or "not true", how are they different?

[Assistant] LEM excludes the possibility of a proposition being neither true nor false, but still allows for individual propositions to be both true and false. Individual propositions which are both true and false violate the principle of Bivalence. This is because the principle of Bivalence is *not* "a proposition is either true or false" (as you put it) but rather "all propositions have exactly one truth value, and the only possible truth values are true and false."


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is fighting considered part of the game in hockey?

The game is about putting the puck past each others goal line. Why is punching each other in the head still so deeply engrained in the sport? I understand that fighting allows players to police each other on the ice (you make a dirty play against us, our enforcers hurt you), but couldnt this same logic be applied to many other team sports?

Basketball - make a bad close out on our shooter, our enforcers hurt you.

Baseball - you make a bad slide, our enforcers hurt you.

Why is it specific to hockey?

[Assistant] The real answer is that it has always been a part of hockey culture (particularly in North America) to let players police the game themselves to a certain extent. Part of that is because so much physical contact is allowed, players have always felt a need to protect their skill players from the other team getting *too* physical. While this is somewhat dying out (the old-fashioned "goon" whose sole job is to fight doesn't really exist anymore) the truth is that a lot of fans love the fights and a lot of old school coaches/players/executives still see it as an essential part of the game.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are low quality USB Type-C cables so dangerous compared to normal cheap USB cables?

[Assistant] Usb-c allows a lot more power to flow through it than other specs. This is a big part of the attraction. It also makes it more dangerous. A shoddy water main is a bigger danger than a shoddy garden hose because when the first breaks you have a larger scale problem.


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

[User] ELI5:Why can movies and games that's rated R and rated M be bought buy 17 years of age? What makes 17 so special, where tobacco and marriage comes at age 18?

[Assistant] Honestly it's really just an arbitrary number to prevent the majority of  young people from being exposed to negative influences at a very young age. There's nothing 'special' about the age of 17, just it's generally accepted that at that age you're mature enough to understand the difference between games and film and reality.


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

[User]
What happens to the sound of the rockets that we can hear outside a spaceship when it is in space?

My understanding is that sound is the propagation of a wave through some medium, in this case caused by the vibration of the rocket's combustion, and that energy is always conserved.

Once the shuttle hits space, these vibrations are still present, but the sound energy has nowhere external to go. What happens to it? Does it increase vibrations within the shuttle?

[Assistant] The sound is a result of the rocket exhaust forcing the air out of its way.  In a vacuum it no longer has to do that, so the efficiency of the rocket will go up, because it's no longer spending energy moving air.


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

[User]
[Dragonball Z] Goku is disappointed because he needs the help of others to achieve SSG, but that's exactly what the Spirit Bomb does.

When Goku becomes a Super Sayan God, he finally manages to fight Beerus toe to toe, but he's disappointed because this was a power level he couldn't have achieved on his own, as the SSG requires other Super Sayans to concentrate their energy. Goku doesn't like that because he wants to improve his own power by himself, without ever relying on others.

But...isn't that the whole concept of the Spirit Bomb? It allows you to perform a technique much more powerful than your own power level allows by borrowing the energy of others. Yet Goku has never shown to be uncomfortable using the Spirit Bomb despite it violating his own philosophy of not relying on others.

I'm not complaining that Goku used the Spirit Bomb at all. He's still selfless and will do what's needed to save the Earth. But he should be more disappointed when he does need to use it.

[Assistant]
I think it's because a spirit bomb is just an attack. It's a single technique and, honestly, it's kind of impractical for battle.

SSG is an actual state that is unattainable by Goku through normal means.


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

[User] ELI5: How do emulators work?

[Assistant] There's basically a program on your computer that "pretends" to be another computer. Say you're emulating an old games console on a modern windows PC. You give the emulator a game file written for the games console, but it has to process it and display the results with your computer, obviously. It does this by creating what's called an "abstraction layer" - basically, it reads what the game wanted the games console to do, and translates that to making your computer execute instructions that produce similar results.


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

[User] [Stargate] why did the sg teams only have four members when there was a high chance of combat? Why not have sg teams at platoon strength so they could be an even more effective fighting force when encountering enemies?

[Assistant] You only know about the ones that happened to have a high chance of combat. Most off-world missions are slightly boring - uninhabited worlds, after a while they tend to blend together. A lot of them have very primitive people, too primitive to be exploited by the go'a'uld. Since there are millions of gate-accessible worlds, it makes sense to have small teams so you can explore a lot of them as fast as possible. So you send a couple of scientists with a couple of soldiers for protection, this is usually more than enough - not to mention that planets are explored remotely first, and in most cases we know what to expect before we step through the gate.


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

[User] [general] what would be the psychological effect of someone having to relive their own death every day like in Happy Death Day or Edge of Tomorrow?

[Assistant]
I assume it would largely depend on whether being stuck in a time loop resets your body to the physical state it was in before it entered the loop, or if physical changes carry over from revolution to revolution.

Repeated exposure to traumatic events (which death definitely qualifies as) literally has a physical effect on the body, rewriting neural pathways and muscle memory in ways that permanently alter you. If those changes carry over from cycle to cycle, you'd have incredibly severe PTSD even if you escaped the loop.

If those changes reset with every cycle, then the psychological effects would likely be much less severe.


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

[User] How does the human body turn sunlight (no mass) into vitamin D (mass)?

[Assistant]
Ultraviolet light penetrates the skin and strikes a compound in our blood called 7-Dehydrocholesterol. This converts it to another compound which eventually becomes vitamin D3. The sunlight itself isn't turning into vitamin D, it allows our body to produce it, since it contains the right kind of UV light to stimulate this process.

This is why people with darker skin are more susceptible to vitamin D deficiency. The darker pigments act as a kind of natural sunscreen, reducing the amount of UVB light that penetrates the skin.


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

[User] ELI5: If flux keeps hot metal from reacting with the air when welding, what protects it from reacting with the water when welding underwater?

[Assistant] It actually makes a "bubble" of gas around the weld site, pushing all the water out. And actually, it's the exact same principle in air too, but instead of pushing away the water it pushes away the oxygen-rich air. You just can't see the "bubble", but it's there.


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

[User] [Stephen King's It] How many people has It killed?

[Assistant] It has to be well within the thousands. The background rate of death/disappearance in Derry is something like a few dozen higher per year than in other towns, and that's just when it's asleep. When it wakes up and actually feeds every ~30 years the death toll is usually in the hundreds, and it's been in Derry for *far* longer than people have been.


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

[User] Is  irrational in bases other than 10?

[Assistant]
Yes.  Its irrationality has nothing to do with the number base.

There'll be a smart aleck who'll suggest a pi-based system.  Okay, how do you count in that system?  When do you move from one place value to the next?


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

[User] ELI5: Why is terrorism/extremism so prevalent among Muslims? Why don't we see the same level of extremism from Christians/Jews/other religions?

[Assistant]
Generally speaking the level of violence is proportional to the political turmoil in the country mixed with the level of poverty. Thus South America, and Africa both have wide spread violence and terrorism even though Christianity is often the religion of choice in the areas that are doing the fighting.

 Sri Lanka is known for it's Christian suicide bombers as well.


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

[User]
Why is the "head" on soda much shorter lived than on beer?

When soda is poured into a glass, it seems like the foam at the top lasts significantly less time than in most beers. What's behind that?

[Assistant] Protein! Beer has residual proteins from the grains used to make the beer; these proteins give structural stability to the foam. Most (all?) sodas do not have any protein content to speak of, so there's nothing to stabilize the foam.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] How big of a technological marvel is the Death Star?

The Death Star is quite a significant technical achievement in Star Wars. Nothing like it has been done before. In Han Solo's own words:

"The entire starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a thousand ships with more fire power than I've..."

"It's too big to be a space station."

How big of a technological leap is this? What would be the real world equivalent of such a leap in technology?

[Assistant]
It's a huge leap forward in a number of respects.  It's sheer size is one thing, and an impressive achievement of engineering and logistics on its own.

The real leap in technology though is the superlaser.  Kyber crystal technology in weapons had previously been limited to the oh so legendary hand weapons.  To have that suddenly scaled up to the point where it's a planet buster, millions of times more powerful than a lightsaber, is unheard of and has no real equivalents.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40K] what is the hidden knowledge that the guardians wont allow adapted mechanics to access on mars?

[Assistant]
The hidden knowledge is essentially a triple-layered shitstorm.

At the surface level, they are protecting the "remains" of the Dragon of Mars, both from prying eyes and from those that would seek to free it or use it to their own ends. Knowledge that a C'tan, one of the most powerful and dangerous natural beings we know of in the Galaxy, is sitting under what is easily one of the single most important installation in the Imperium, second only to the Golden Throne, itself, would be pretty damaging information.

In addition to that, though, they are hiding an even more dangerous secret; The Emperor, himself, put the Dragon there. Nobody knows exactly when, but earlier in Humanity's life, long before we had left our own solar system, The Emperor, not yet revealed to us all, fought the Dragon and somehow imprisoned it on Mars. Knowledge that our lord and savior not only allows the C'tan to remain there, but that he actually put it there, himself, knowing what it was, would be a PR nightmare.

The real secret they are protecting, though, is much more dangerous; Not only is there a C'tan under Mars, and not only did the Emperor put it there, but a lot of technological innovation that would later assure our ascension to and domination of the stars was developed and reverse engineered directly from the Dragon, itself. Knowledge that our Emperor, one who says that all Xenos are dangerous scum that must be eradicated, who says that all Xenos technology is a direct affront to everything that the Imperium stands and fights for, who says that Humanity must forge its own path on its own terms, actually used a Xenos life-form, and Xenos tech, to benefit Humanity could legitimately lead to a second civil war.


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

[User]
[Man of Steel] What was the point of Pa Kent's death?

I'm the old Superman movies and most comics, John dies of a heart attack, showing that even Clark, as Superman, can't save everyone.

 But in Man of Steel, he lets him die to tell him what exactly? What's the message given here.

And please don't bash the movie and say it's just shitty writing or whatever. I love this movie and have seen it more than 20 or so time, even though it does have a few... issues. But that death scene always irked me...

[Assistant]
He refused to let his son be revealed at that young an age. If he was discovered as a kid the government and other organizations would have taken him away, he wouldn't be a man, he would be a slave.

He made sure Clark grew up a normal human, a man who knew the plight of the commoners, a Man who knows what it's like to know loss. Even if that mean sacrificing himself to preserve Clark.


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

[User]
[x-men] limits of Forgetmenot's powers?

so anyone that looks away from Forgetmenot forgets he exists, but what about edge cases? What if he is talking to someone that can't see him? What about the phone? What would happen if he posted on tiktok? face book? sound cloud? reddit? (note, people see and hear him but aren't present, people know who he is but have at most still images or just no images, just sound no images or names, no one knows who he is but still see his text)

It has just been bugging me.

[Assistant]
Professor X had to set himself a mental alarm clock to remember Forgetmenot every day.  That indicates that Forgetmenot's power is equal to or superior to Professor X's telepathy.  That suggests complete control of other people's minds and possibly continental in range.  It may even be a reality warping power, as it works through video surveillance and on non-humans.

As for what happens, it depends.  Forgetmenot has some control over how his power works.  Sometimes he can have a conversation with someone and they'll just forget him if they look away.  Sometimes he's effectively invisible, with people compulsed to glance past without seeing him.

Assuming Forgetmenot wants to have a conversation with someone on another continent, he probably can do that with a phone call or over the internet and they'll remember him afterwards.  But they can never meet.  If his power is warping reality, however, there may be nowhere on or off-planet where he can communicate with someone; if you can send a communication then you can affect reality at the destination.


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

[User] Instead of the universe expanding at an increasing rate which is accounted for with the term dark energy, could there be an outside force pulling the universe and as the galaxies get closer the pull gets stronger, causing them to speed up?

[Assistant]
Yes. You can imagine that by chance we are just living in an underdense region, which would expand faster than the rest of the Universe.

The problem is that the expansion seems to be isotropic (=the same in all the directions). So it would mean we are almost at the center of this bubble. It's highly unlikely and cosmologists don't like to assume our position is special. But it's a possibility we should consider and try to rule out from the observations.


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

[User] Many animals (rats, possums, bats, etc.) carry diseases harmful to humans. Do humans carry any diseases harmful to animals?

[Assistant] Yes! Its called reverse zoonosis. While diphtheria is potential fatal to humans, it causes harmless ulcers on cattle. Other human infections such as hepatitis and influenza is transmitted via human contact in farms, zoos or even through veterinary surgeries.


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

[User]
While hallucinating, is the brain rendering extremely accurate parts of reality on its own?

As a computer science major, the idea of this fascinates me. While someone is hallucinating, is the brain actually rendering bits and pieces of reality completely on its own? I'm guessing it does some kind of lazy rendering, like omitting the details of the back of someone's head, for example.

Is there research being done on this topic? If the brain is able to simulate parts of the world accurately during hallucinations, I think that would be an incredibly interesting thing to study. Perhaps the brain has more raw power than we currently understand.

[Assistant]
The simple fact is we have no idea. However, it seems far more likely that the neural mechanisms of hallucinations should be thought of as a perturbation of normal processes. The theories that usually get thrown around are abnormal spread of neural activity (i.e. activity that codes for one thing "leaks" into other areas) and deficient gating of sensory input (your brain normally selects what data streams proceed into higher areas, this process may begin to fail).

But honestly, there is very very little research in this area, because of a) the difficulty in giving hallucinogens to humans and more importantly b) funders don't want to fund it, as in, why fund that when you could fund disease research?


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

[User]
How was COVID-19 discovered?

If I had the kind of symptoms that are associated with COVID-19, Id assume I had the flu, and Id stay in bed for a couple of days.

But presumably some people would go to the doctor with those symptoms. And Id expect the doctor to also diagnose the flu, and tell them to stay in bed.

But at some point, someone must have gone to the doctor, and the doctor said I know it looks like the flu but Im not too sure so lets do some tests, and then the tests came back as showing it was a new variety of Coronvirus. So what would have prompted a doctor to request those tests?

[Assistant] It wasnt the flu like symptoms that tipped off doctors, it was ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome). Despite all the heat China has taken for their early response to the virus, they did better than probably any other country in the world would have at picking up on the fact that something was going on. A lot of the doctors there have first hand experience treating SARS, so they were able to recognize that they were seeing patients with similar symptoms. And after SARS they put into place an infectious disease surveillance system to keep track of any unexplained cases of pneumonia and raise a red flag if theres a sudden uptick in cases from the same area.


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

[User] Inspired by my town's massive condo boom... What is the lifespan of current skyscrapers and tall condos, and what will need to happen when they finally get too old?

[Assistant]
Some of the worlds older skyscrapers are still around, and over 120 years old. There's no particular reason they can't last much, much longer. Like most buildings, they can probably last as long as anybody cares to maintain them, and then hundreds of years more.

Most tall buildings will become uneconomical or unfashionable long before they're no longer stable. If they eventually become too small or too undesirable for their location, they'll be demolished and replaced. If they become too big or too hard to maintain for their location they'll be abandoned and/or eventually demolished. Just like any other building, really, just with a higher threshold for replacement due to size, so most will stay as they are with continual minor modifications and the occasional remodel or restoration.


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

[User]
With an estimated 1,000,000 nematode species, what distinguishes them all?

I was on a Wikipedia safari, and read that there are 25,000 known nematode species, and 1,000,000 estimated total species.

I'm wondering what could possibly distinguish between 1,000,000 variations of a little worm.  Could someone explain the minimal distinguishing characteristics of a species of nematode?

[Assistant] Many of the distinctions are on the genetic level.  Two worms may look the same to the unaided eye and even live in the same habitat, but be vastly different genetically and totally unable to crossbreed.


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

[User]
[WH40K] Are the Ork gods on good terms with the Gods of Chaos?

I imagine they'd have a working relationship with Khorne if nothing else, and maybe a friendly acquaintanceship with Slaanesh.

Sub-Question: Do Gork and Mork have their own demons? Can they summon warp entities to aid the Ork Boyz, or at least give 'em a good fight?

[Assistant]
The Chaos Gods aren't really "on terms" with each other at all. They fight each other about as much as they fight everyone else. Besides, as far as Chaos Gods go, Gork and Mork are small fish in a very, very large sea. They're probably barely on the radar for the Big Four.

Khorne may appreciate their brutality and relentlessness. Nurgle may appreciate the plague-like way their Orky supplicants propagate throughout the galaxy. Slaanesh may appreciate the Ork's complete lack of self-control and the overly-excessive way they go about their lives. Tzeench may even appreciate the straight-forward way they go about accomplishing their goals. But in the end, their "relationship" with the entities that form the backbone of the Ork lifestyle would be considered far from "friendly".

Additionally, because Gork and Mork exist as a direct result of the Gestalt Field produced by masses of Orks, their overall range of influence is rather small. Again, the Chaos Gods probably see them as nothing more than a weird nuisance that pops up every once in a while, like a weed.

As for daemons, and the like, Gork and Mork don't have enough power or influence to produce such things. They're really not nearly at the scale of the Big Four. They may help enhance the Orks, themselves, in some way, but they don't seem to be capable of creating entities of their own.


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

[User] If the entire world used same currency like [most] Europe uses euro how would inflation work then Would printing more money by one country ruin all other?

[Assistant]
There is only one institution that can create money in the Euro region, the European Central Bank (ECB). It is in charge of monetary policy (controlling money supply, interest rates), and its goal is to stabilize inflation for the whole Euro region. This can lead to diaagreements, as for example happened after the financial crisis. While the southern countries were suffering from recession and deflation, the northern countries had 2% inflation, and so the ECB was reluctant to take expansionary policy. Which points to the main reason why all the countries in the world should not share a currency.  If they did, they would not be able to have independent monetary policy, and would not be able to stabilize their own economy.

If instead, as you suggest, all countries could create the shared currency, then countries would have a disproportionate incentive to do so.  It would be a tragedy of the commons situation.  If a government created money, it could spend it, and the resulting inflation would be spread across the world.  It would likely lead to the world spiralling down into hyperinflation, as the most profligate countries unrestrainedly print money to expand spending, and the other countries, not wishing to lose out, do so as well.


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

[User]
How did you make money on the side through grad school?

I will have a job at the school, but I'm looking to do more than just pay the bills. (Hey, conferences are expensive!!) What tips can you share for earning spending money?

[Assistant]
TAing, RAing

helping out with admin stuff (handing back papers, helping at open days)

I worked at other uni offices in admin

freelance work at big crowdsourcing companies (I did some translation work)

tutoring

apply for external funding (charities etc.)

Did all of the above for three years and paid for tuition fees (Europe) and rent.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does Opera Turbo manage to access blocked sites?

I've been accessing blocked sites from my uni dorm through Opera Turbo, I'm just wondering how that works.

[Assistant]
When you use a regular Browser you connect directly to the Website.
Your Uni Proxy knows that this Is a nono Website. So it Blocks the data/connection.

Opera Turbo connects with Opera servers and then to the webpage. And returns a compacted Version of this webpage.
The Proxy of your Uni only Sees Information coming and going to the Opera Server and they think that this Page is okay. They don't See/observe what data was actually delivered, so you get the compressed webpage :)


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

[User] ELI5: Why can't people with dementia draw clocks correctly?

[Assistant] There are several aspects of the clock-drawing test.  You have to plan ahead, and maintain a symmetric position for the numbers.  Then you have to add hands, pointed at the time the doctor asks you to use, which is often ten minutes before 4 or ten minutes after 11.  This means putting the hand on the right side of the number.  There are many metrics for scoring how well someone draws the clock face, and there is pretty good correlation to more involved tests.  That's why the clock test is so common, it's super easy and doesn't take any equipment besides a pencil.  If there is a change in scores, then it might be worth a more involved test.


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

[User]
ELI5:What makes us interested in something?

I mean, what happens in our body that makes us enjoy things we are interested in? And why is it that I can be interested in one thing but someone else wont be?

[Assistant]
We develop interests through nature and nurture. You might have a inquisitive personality that makes you attracted to books or an analytical mind where strategy games pique your interest.

If you had a dog growing up and it was your best friend you might like dogs and pets in general. If you had a dog growing up and it bit you once, you might hate dogs and have an irrational fear of them.

If you're a younger sibling who got involved in a specific sport because your older brothers/sisters were competitive in it, you might have just been a part of it long enough that it became an interest. Humans are adaptable like that.

Once you have learned the skills necessary to indulge in your interest, your brain will reward you for feeling successful the same way it does in other ways: dopamine!

It's far too complex an answer to say exactly how an interest is developed.


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

[User] ELI5, why do we usually have radiators under windows? Doesn't the heat just go up then straight out the window?

[Assistant]
Windows are the major heat sinks in our dwellings. Air next to windows gets cold and settles to the floor (because its more dense than warmer air). This will quickly make the floor in your room uncomfortably cold. So a radiator under the window will quickly reheat that cold air and send it to the ceiling, reversing the flow of air in the room and preventing those cold drafts along the floor.

Edit: Also if the room or apartment doesnt have a dedicated ventilation system, windows will serve as one. Cold outside air leaking in through the windows needs to be heated right away for the same reasons.


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

[User] [Chrono Trigger] How did the Black Omen avoid Lavos' Rain of Destruction on the Day of Lavos?

[Assistant] If you look around, you'll see the futuristic domed cities weren't pulverized into dust either. Some even maintained the outer dome structure; if bubbles of glass-type stuff could survive, the flying magical fortress definitely could.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Is latinum actually good for anything other than trading with Ferengi?

Gold, for example, has some uses in manufacturing electronic circuits and experimental cancer treatments. Does latinum have any practical uses, or is it valuable solely because it's rare and unreplicable?

[Assistant]
Latinum is very rare and impossible to replicate, which is the sole reason why it's used as a form of currency.

Something to keep in mind with gold is that we've discovered it's practical applications recently. A few hundred years ago it was purely for currency and ornamental purposes.


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

[User]
[LOTR] What extra power does the One Ring by itself grant Sauron?

This is a bit basic and has probably been answered before, but it's one thing I never understood in LOTR. The power of the ring comes from the significant portion of himself Sauron poured into it, right? And the reason he created the ring was to rule over the other rings, no? So aside from ruling over the other rings, how did creating the ring benefit Sauron?

[Assistant]
The One serves two primary purposes - controlling the other Rings, and bending minds to the bearer's will.

>*Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency; and Sauron forged it in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.*

**-The Silmarillion: Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age**


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

[User]
(DC) How detailed are Light Constructs.

For example, if Scarecrow were to be given a Sinestro Corps Ring ( Like in  Blackest Night ) would he be able to make  a working Light Construct of his Fear Toxin?

[Assistant]
Light constructs are limited by two things. Your imagination/knowledge and your ability to will it into existence.

For example, Kyle makes incredibly detailed constructs, but they're solid with no inner workings. However, John Stewart makes simple looking constructs, but he fills them up with inner workings because that's how his mind works.

The Scarecrow could, theoretically, create a Fear Toxin light construct, but such a complex cause/result might exceed his ability to will things into existence. As someone who controls a power ring, he'll find it easier to create terrifying constructs and seeing what scares his victims more.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the first death star have a large tentacle creature living in a trash compactor?

surely that couldnt have been garbage they recently threw out, was it? and if it wasnt garbage and has been there for some time, how did it manage to survive the compacting function?

[Assistant] It's a dianoga.  They are always getting into trash systems...it actually lives in the drain system that the fluid leaves through.  The larvae are tiny and tough and so have an easy time colonizing new systems.


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

[User] How can we see things beyond the Oort Cloud if we cannot see the Oort Cloud itself?

[Assistant]
The Oort Cloud is a sparse distribution of small cold rocks and iceballs. All the stuff out there in the Oort Cloud doesn't add up to enough surface area to block out light from distant stars, and it's all cold and small and not very bright.

Basically, the Oort Cloud is pretty much all empty space. To some extent, we can see to stars beyond the Oort Cloud *because* the Oort cloud is so hard to see - it doesn't block our view, or provide a bright foreground.

The key thing here is that there's no inherent distance limit for telescopes. The limits are *brightness* and *apparent size*. Apparent size and brightness do decrease with distance - something that is further away looks dimmer and smaller. But there are huge variations in brightness and size, that massively dominate over the distance effect. A distant but huge and bright object can be much easier to see than a nearby but small and faint object. It's easier to the the Sun at a distance of 150 million km than it is to see an annoying sandfly buzzing ten metres away. The Oort Cloud is like a swarm of gnats on a nearby field, but we can easily see through them to the trees on the other side.


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

[User]
[Percy Jackson] Why didn't any other pantheons interfere when Kronos invaded NYC? Surely Kronos destroying the Olympians wouldn't be great for any of the other pantheons

Same with Apophis. He was trying to destroy the world, and yet only the Egyptian pantheon was fighting him. Shouldn't the other pantheons have a vested interest in stopping him too, since they are also part of the same world?

[Assistant]
There are rules.   It seems pantheons cant really interfere with each other.

In addition, they probably knew they didnt need to.    They likely knew the romans were playing their part.

After all, they are more or less playing their parts, not agents of free will.     At least, thats how the books come across to me.


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

[User]
How does a Dyson bladeless fan work?

I just don't get it, how can a fan be a fan without blades?

[Assistant] Technically it is not a "fan".  But there's a motor in the base pedestal which pushes air up into the ring and out one side.  The real 'magic' comes from fluid dynamics.  As the air from the motor comes out of the ring in one direction, air surrounding that ring gets moved along with it.  Because there are no spinning blades, it isn't "buffeted" and, presumably, provides a steadier breeze.


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

[User]
What separates the nerves of the glans of a penis from any other nerve?

I was thinking about this the other day while browsing some extra curricular sites - and it got me thinking: Why does the penis feel good in comparison to something more innocuous, like say - the nerves on someone's chest.

Is this an assigned quality of that particular nerve - or all nerves born equal, but with varied sensitivity? Like is there some kind of construction foreman during fetal development who's directing things and dictates 'Ok.. that's the penis - feel good nerves here!' And if that is the case, could it be theoretically possible to duplicate these nerves and wire them elsewhere?

It would be nice to be able to trigger orgasms by doing something more discrete, like scratching my arm or something.

[Assistant]
Nerves don't feel things in the way you are describing. They act purely to transmit a physical sensation, in this case, of light touch. The pleasant emotion you are referring to is a construct of the brain. The nerves from the penis end up stimulating multiple areas of the brain associated with feeling good. They also act on other areas of the brain that go on to stimulate the various processes of orgasm and ejaculation.

Incidentally, there are other nerves that purely transmit the physical sensation of pain and many other types of physical sensation. These pain nerves will stimulate areas of the brain associated with negative feelings.

The relationship between emotions/feelings, and the physical sensations we connect to them, is the job of the brain, not of the nerves themselves.

As for why those glans nerves end up stimulating pleasure centres of the brain more than say, touch sensitive nerves in the arm do, that's down to the evolution of the brain. It was evolutionarily beneficial to make sex feel good, so that organisms want to do it more!


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

[User] If you were to sky-dive in the rain, would water hit your stomach, back, or both?

[Assistant] Assuming you jumped from below the height of the raincloud, and that the rain drop originated sufficiently high above you to already be falling at their terminal velocity, and that you are bellydown, you'd initially be struck by rain on your back. As you fall and gravity accelerates you, the rate that rain strikes your back slows down, as fewer and fewer rain drops catch up to you. As you approach your terminal velocity, which is faster than that of a raindrop, you'll be catching up to raindrops ahead of you, and they'll strike your front.


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

[User] ELI5: Do the lungs of a fetus do oxygen/CO2 exchange in utero, and how does a newborn go from not needing to "breathe" air in the "normal" sense (while in the amniotic sac) to suddenly needing to breathe room air after being born?

[Assistant]
The mother supplies oxygenated blood to the foetus via the umbilical vein and receives deoxygenated blood via the umbilical artery. The mother essentially does 'double-duty' and acts as the lungs for the baby. In the womb, the heart has a hole that connects the two atria together (the two sides of the heart are usually separate, so one side pumps blood to the lungs, the other pumps blood to the rest of the body).

As soon as the baby comes out and coughs out the amniotic fluid and takes its first breath, a flap in the heart closes and the heart works as two separate chambers (technically four) and baby uses the lungs to oxygenate their own blood.


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

[User]
ELI5 How did armored warriors avoid mistakenly fighting their own comrades during combat?

I am referring specifically to when there were no visible markings/insignia to indicate who was who.

[Assistant]
This is exactly why heraldry existed.

In that age you wanted to have colors or obvious symbols on your armor and shield so that people would know if you were friend or foe.

Otherwise friendly fire was a real problem.


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

[User] Where does all the chlorine we have in the HCl acid in our stomachs come from?

[Assistant] Salt. You have tons of salt in your body, it's in your blood, inside your cells, etc. It only takes a little bit of it to makeup the acid in the stomach. Your stomach lining secrets sodium and chlorine ions into your stomach, while reabsorbing the sodium. Meanwhile, proton pumps maintain the acidity of the stomach environment, and naturally the H+ ions pair up with the Chloride ions. The Sodium ends up balancing things out by being used to create sodium bicarbonate in the duodenum that is used to neutralize the stomach contents after they have passed through the stomach (this also effectively deactivates several enzymes that are optimized to work in acidic conditions).


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

[User] ELI5: What do alcohol "empty calories" mean exactly? How come something has calories but no carbohydrates, protein or fat?

[Assistant]
"Empty calories" refers to foods that provide calories but little nutritional value such as vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein. Basically it makes you fat without properly nourishing you.

For your 2nd question: alcohol itself has calories.